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More than 13 months after the invasion of Ukraine, Canadians with no ties to President Vladimir Putin or his regime remain frustrated and worried that salaries earned abroad, pension investments and even funeral savings remain frozen among assets caught in Canada’s sanctions net.
Ingrid Morton and her husband Graham were among them. Over the years, he has traveled the world on several contracts teaching English at international schools. The last contract was in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
But when political unrest erupted in street protests and local authorities declared a state of emergency in early 2022 – followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – they decided to leave the region before the contract was up. He had a bad experience trying to get out of China during COVID. Ingrid is ready to retire.
“I just thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t take this anymore. This is crazy,'” she said.
The Mortons now live in Toronto. But not all of the salary he earns teaching in Kazakhstan comes back to Canada with him.
The school records the foreign teacher’s salary in the account of Sberbank Kazakhstan, a subsidiary of Sberbank of Russia, which is listed among Canada’s approved financial institutions.
Last year, Sberbank Kazakhstan restructured to escape international sanctions. But the company’s change had not yet happened when Ingrid made a routine transaction for her as a teacher abroad – transferring money from the school’s local Sberbank branch to the CIBC branch in Canada.
Ingrid transferred the couple’s money on March 1, 2022 – a week after Canada imposed sanctions on several Russian banks.
“I asked the financial person at our school, ‘Can I still send money to Canada?’ And she said yes,” Ingrid said. “I went to the bank and it was total mayhem… I said, ‘Can I send money out?’ And they said yes.”
Previous transfers to Canada have appeared in Canadian accounts within a few days. This is not.
“I’m sending it as good as it’s coming,” he said. “Sberbank said, ‘Well, we’ve sent it. We’re not responsible. It’s gone.'”
Global Affairs did not respond
Ingrid says she believes this transfer, worth about $10,000, was frozen by the Canadian government because it came from the bank — the bank her employer chose, not her.
“It’s not fair,” Ingrid said. “Don’t they know that Kazakhstan is a separate country? I don’t send huge amounts like the Russian oligarchs will send… It seems really stupid on the part that just collects me.”
Ingrid is seeking permission to release the couple’s money — joining a long queue that she believes will strain Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) capacity to do due diligence and grant exemptions. Couldn’t reach anyone at GAC by phone, he said.
“Why has it been a year and I haven’t had any e-mails from people?” she said, adding that all she and her husband receive back automatic messages.
“How long is the war going to take? I mean, it could be years and my money is going to be tied up because I can’t be bothered to look at individual cases.”
While the dollar value of the frozen assets didn’t cause significant hardship for the Mortons, Ingrid said she felt like they were missing out on a much larger amount.
“There are a lot of innocent people who are suffering,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect something like that to happen in Canada. I would expect fair treatment.”
International investors caught on
Derek Nickerson says he doesn’t consider himself rich, but the Nova Scotian retiree is savvy enough about international investments to shop in other jurisdictions for better rates on his retirement savings.
She and her husband opened a US dollar account at ArmSwissBank, based in Armenia, in 2015. Last March, due to interest rate fluctuations, she decided to transfer US$35,000 to an RBC account. He said he saw the money appear in his account records on March 17 – and then disappear on March 22.
He contacted RBC and learned that the money was sent through a correspondent bank in Russia – Alfa Bank, which is on Canada’s sanctions list.
“When I asked for a SWIFT transfer, I didn’t know how it would arrive,” Nickerson said. He said he did not know that his transfer had been routed through the sanctioned bank until it was too late.
That year, he struggled to get information from RBC and US and Canadian officials. They have also requested an exemption from the GAC but never responded.
“I wonder if they won’t do anything until the war is over,” he said.
When his money is frozen, he earns no interest. They fear that they will lose their value at a higher rate due to the recent high inflation.
“That’s our retirement money,” he said.
‘This is not blood money’
Angelina Ermakov’s mother has been a Canadian citizen since 2015, after moving to Ottawa to live with her daughter’s family during her retirement.
Following Russian tradition, his mother saved enough money for the funeral – about a million roubles, or $17,000 in Canadian funds – at a Russian bank branch next to where she lived in Moscow.
Ermakov finally convinced his mother to transfer her “funeral money” to a Canadian bank account last February. But the wire transfer from Alfa Bank was not carried out before the sanction rules started.
“It’s all her savings. That’s peace of mind,” said Ermakov. “He asks me every day where he is.”
No one in his family was connected to the Putin regime, he said, and he wondered if the transfer was targeted because of his mother’s Russian surname.
“[This is] not blood money, or money that supports war,” said Ermakov, who has lived in Canada since 1990. “We do not support war because we have made that decision to leave Russia and come and live in another country.”
Ermakov said he could confirm with RBC that the money was being held until and unless the GAC allowed its release. He said he heard nothing but “radio silence” from the government.
“It’s like talking to a wall because no one is responding or dealing or even reading emails at this point. I mean, it’s been a year,” she said.
Ermakov works in the federal public service. She said she found it hard to believe the department was overwhelmed to process her mother’s application so quickly.
“It’s clear that this is a policy,” he said, “It’s intentional because when there’s a volume of work, you hire… this problem… I’ve seen it done before.”
The three cases are believed to be among several hundred sitting on Melanie Joly’s desk – swimming among more than $122 million in funds frozen by Canadian authorities since the invasion of Ukraine.
One man who spoke to CBC News earlier this winter finally got access to his family’s savings last month.
The RCMP, which tracks the total number of assets frozen and transactions blocked under Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act, told CBC News on Monday that the tally hasn’t changed much since December.
“Canada is prudent in its approach to imposing sanctions and we are committed to using them effectively and in a coordinated manner,” Grantly Franklin, a media spokesperson for the department, wrote in response to a special CBC question about the department’s backlog in the exemption request process.
In October, the federal government provided an additional $76 million for the administration of sanctions. “Global Affairs Canada will use part of this investment to expand the capacity of its sanctions policy and coordination team,” Franklin said.
“Our sanctions are aimed at putting pressure on foreign actors, not Canadians.”
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