Canada Ends Moratorium With $1 Million in Aid to Cuba

Ending a 16-year moratorium on aid to Cuba, Canadian officials said Monday the Caribbean nation would receive about $1 million in government-supported development funds and direct humanitarian assistance this year.

“The Cold War is long over. The people of Cuba are suffering from food shortages brought on by economic crisis and Canadians want to help them,” Foreign Minister Andre Ouellet told reporters in Ottawa, while Christine Stewart, Canada’s secretary of state for Latin America and Africa, announced details of the program at an economic conference in Havana.

Stewart said private groups receiving Canadian government grants would be permitted to fund development programs in Cuba through agencies outside the Cuban government. She said this would bring about $730,000 in Canadian development assistance to Cuba. Stewart also said Canada would donate about $365,000 to the World Food Program for humanitarian aid to Cuba.

Canada suspended direct aid to Fidel Castro’s government in 1978 because of Cuban military involvement in the Angolan civil war. Canada has made only occasional exceptions for disaster relief. But Canada, like Mexico, has maintained diplomatic relations and trade with Cuba throughout the U.S.-led embargo of Cuba.

Canadian trade with Cuba totaled nearly $225 million last year, mainly importing sugar and nickel and exporting agricultural products. Canada also is the single largest source of visitors every year to Cuba, heavily promoted as a winter destination for Canadian tourists.

The U.S. State Department reacted mildly to the announcement. “We have a slight difference of opinion (with Canada) on tactics, but we don’t have any difference on the ultimate goal,” a U.S. official said. Both Canada and the United States, the official said, favor peaceful democratic reform in Cuba.

In her speech Monday, Stewart described Canadian-Cuban relations as “active and positive” but called on the Castro government to improve civil and political rights. She said Canada is prepared to expand government exchanges with Cuba and will continue to promote business investment in the island nation. Stewart added that Canada “intends to examine, with other countries, what would be required for Cuba to re-establish its full membership” in the Organization of American States.

Sam Lanfranco, an associate professor of economics at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at York University in Toronto, said several factors played a role in Canada’s change in policy toward Cuba: the deteriorating economic situation in Cuba; the change in Canadian governments from the Progressive Conservative Party to the Liberals, and a growing recognition by Canada of the need to strengthen its trade and influence in the Western Hemisphere.

The Canadian shift comes as Mexico is encouraging more investment in Cuba. In a visit to Cuba earlier this month, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari announced a $1.5-billion investment by the Monterrey-based Domos Group in the aging Cuban telephone system. The Mexican company agreed to pay $740 million for an unspecified interest in the government-owned phone company and to invest an equal amount over the next seven years to improve Cuban phone service.

Times staff writer Juanita Darling in Mexico City contributed to this report.