Embracing Cuba

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 10, 2012 A10


Not too many Canadians will complain too loudly about Minister for Latin America Diane Ablonczy's official visit to Cuba. Since the time of Pierre Trudeau, a succession of federal governments has been sympathetic and unusually tolerant, by western standards, of the repression by Cuba's Communist government of human rights and economic freedoms. The most remarkable exception to that was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative governments, which briefly set a foreign policy based on human rights and freedom rather than trade and business as usual.
Ms. Ablonczy's visit to Cuba reaffirms the Tories' new policy of business as usual. She goes to Cuba not to talk about human rights but to talk about trade and economic development. The Cuban government, she acknowledges, is not interested in political change, but "Canada, as an investor in Cuba... wants to play as positive and constructive a role as possible."
At $1 billion a year, the Cuban trade is the most valuable relationship Canada has in the Caribbean or Central America. The Conservatives hope it can be more valuable still, and making it so is the goal of Ms. Ablonczy's visit.
Cuba is still a totalitarian state, but under President Raul Castro, the government has been taking baby steps to liberalize the economy. Cubans, for example, are now permitted to sell their used cars and work in a few selected private-sector jobs.
There is still no political freedom. Free speech is not permitted, political dissidents are still jailed. Given Canada's good relationship with Cuba over the years, this visit might prove useful not just to trade but to the Cuban people if the minister makes a modest argument for human rights that can be heard over the ringing of the cash registers.