Harper embraces warmer relations with Cuba at Americas summit
The Globe and Mail – Apr 12
By Barrie Mckenna
OTTAWA
With a handshake and a few conciliatory words, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is opening the door to vastly improved relations with communist Cuba, and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mr. Harper abruptly ended his controversial policy of shunning Cuba, sitting down with the country’s President, Raul Castro, for the first time over the weekend, just hours after U.S. President Barack Obama did the same.
“I have become convinced that a different approach is appropriate at this point in time,” Mr. Harper said Saturday after a private meeting with Mr. Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City. “We’re at the point where an engagement is more likely to lead us to where we want to go than continued isolation.”
But this isn’t just about Cuba, experts say. Mr. Harper’s sudden about-face could end years of strained relations that have affected Canada’s dealings with countries throughout the hemisphere on everything from trade to drug smuggling, organized crime and immigration.
“He has realized grudgingly, slowly that his position was untenable,” said Professor John Kirk, chairman of Spanish and Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and an expert on Canada-Cuba relations. “I suspect he is reading the writing on the wall and realizes that the Americans are going to move in very quickly into Cuba.”
The Harper-Castro meeting could prove to be a “turning point” in Canada’s relations with Cuba, as the latter moves to normalize relations with the U.S., according to Mark Entwistle, a former top federal official and Canadian ambassador to Cuba from 1993 to 1997
