Sarah Teich & Michael Lima: Canada's Cuba policy is a moral and strategic failure

As the United States tightens its blockade to cut off oil from Cuba’s communist regime, some are calling for Canada to step in with aid. These events come at a moment of rapidly shifting geopolitics around the world. Yet Canada’s approach to Cuba remains strikingly unchanged. For decades, Ottawa has treated Cuba with kid gloves, applying a softer touch than it does with other authoritarian regimes. Yet Cuba is a strategic actor embedded in an emerging authoritarian alignment that includes Russia, China, and Venezuela. So the question is: in a world increasingly defined by strategic competition and authoritarian coordination, can Canada continue to treat Cuba as an exception? And if not – what are the implications for Canada’s foreign policy, global credibility, and national security? To share their deep understanding of the conditions in Cuba – and how the communist regime factors into the global security context – Sarah Teich and Michael Lima join Inside Policy Talks. Teich is an international human rights lawyer, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and co-founder and president of Human Rights Action Group. Lima is a researcher and director of Democratic Spaces, an NGO advocating for Canadian solidarity with Cuban civil society. He’s a leading voice on Cuba’s role in authoritarian coordination across Latin America. Together, they are co-authors (along with Isabelle Terranova) of a newly published MLI commentary: Canada’s Cuba Blind Spot. On the podcast, they tell Christopher Coates, director of foreign policy, national defence, and national security at MLI, that Canada’s current approach to Cuba serves neither Canadians nor Cubans. Teich describes the “collaboration” that takes place between Cuba and other authoritarian regimes like the Chinese and Russian governments, and how Canada leaves itself vulnerable to this bloc by not levying sanctions across the board. “It creates very clear gaps for the entire authoritarian block to exploit … and they do so very effectively,” says Teich. “Canada’s failure to address Cuba's human rights abuses and authoritarian links is not only a moral failing, but a strategic one.” Lima adds that the humanitarian crisis in Cuba is “manufactured” by its government, and any strategy to aid the Cuban people must account for this reality. “We have to see that the Cuban people are like those that are kidnapped,” he says. “The ultimate goal is that those kidnapped are free.”