SGI makes changes to help Ukrainian newcomers

Ukrainians continue to flee the war in their home country and land in Saskatchewan — more than 1,000 Ukrainians have arrived in the province at last count and hundreds more are expected to arrive on a plane from Poland next week.

As people touch down, many want to start working right away and there are people looking to help them do that, including SGI.

SGI had said Ukrainians with at least five years of experience driving commercially could skip the schooling required for a commercial licence here, and would just have to pass the written and road tests.

However, the written test was only being offered in English or French — a problem for some newcomers who had experience but could speak little or none of either language.

Roman Onufreichuk is Ukrainian but has been in Canada for years now and has been helping newcomers.

“People who don’t know English, it’s not a matter of they don’t know English in a week or a month,” said Onufreichuk.

He said it could take a couple of years for them to learn it well enough to take the test but they need to work now.

Onufreichuk said there were quite a few people who were running into this roadblock and it was a big frustration for them.

“They went to pass their test every day, almost every day,” he said.

So he started to make some calls and in just a couple of weeks, SGI has reversed its policy and will now allow Ukrainians to bring in an approved translator or translation dictionary.

In a statement, SGI said it decided to re-examine its policy and couldn’t find any reason to not allow the drivers access to translation help.

It said it considered the fact several other jurisdictions allow translators for such tests, there are more tools available now to allow communication between drivers and law enforcement on the road, there are more and more newcomers in Saskatchewan, and the fact SGI exams are meant to test driving knowledge, not proficiency in English.

Onufreichuk is very happy with the change and how quickly it happened, particularly with the new planeload of Ukrainians expected soon.

“A lot of guys, they have a friend, they know people, some of them want to be drivers too. So that solved the problem for them right away,” said Onufreichuk.

Now the newcomers just have to figure out where to find an approved translator.