Saskatchewan enlists help from Argentinian philanthropist to transport Ukrainian refugees

Premier Scott Moe said that the province looked for another way to bring Ukrainian refugees to Saskatchewan after a federal government flight was diverted.

“At the last minute the federal government diverted it to Montreal,” Moe said. “We don’t know why they did that.”

This incident led the province to partner with Enrique Pineyro, a pilot and philanthropist from Argentina.

Pineyro's flight arrived in Saskatchewan on Monday and carried the first planeload of Ukrainians refugees into the province.

This latest flight was Pineyro’s tenth trip carrying Ukrainians to worldwide destinations and his first to Canada.

Pineyro said he was dazzled by the way Saskatchewan had things organized.

“Maybe for you people it’s normal,” he said, regarding Saskatchewan's organizing. “But you know, I flew refugees all over the place, [I’ve] never, ever seen something like this.”

The flights are on Pineyro’s personal aircraft and he covers all the expenses. He credits capitalism for allowing him to accumulate more than he needs.

“[When] you have a lot more money than you need and then it’s when you say, ‘Well I should do something disruptive with this unfairness of this system,’ and you say, ‘I’ll buy the luxury toys,’ because that’s what they are in the end, but I’ll put them to work to try to mitigate all this inequality,” Pineyro explained, referring to his aircraft and his ventures into humanitarian flights.

The aircraft took 19,000 kilograms of humanitarian supplies on the return flight to Poland.

Sherard Soparkar is a Canadian pilot and helped arrange Pineyro’s flight to Saskatchewan.

“We stand with Ukraine now or we’re going to fail our future generations later,” Soparkar said, regarding the urgency of the crisis in Ukraine.

According to the premier, Saskatchewan is currently working with the Ukrainian embassy on another humanitarian flight.

“So yes, we’re actively working on not only one more planeload coming with Ukrainian refugees, coming to Saskatchewan,” he explained. “We hope to have some more information on it in the next number of days or [in a] week for sure.”

Pineyro, who brought the first group of refugees to Saskatchewan, said he would gladly return to Canada.