Canada’s Friendly Dictatorship Problem
How Ottawa’s inconsistent approach to Cuba—an operational hub for Chinese, Russian, and Venezuelan intel and influence in the West—undermines democracy in the Americas.
Editor’s Note
This report is published in conjunction with Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Democratic Spaces, and Human Rights Action Group.
By Michael Lima, Isabelle Terranova, and Sarah Teich
OTTAWA — On January 3, 2026, US special forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in a military operation that seized him and his wife and transported them to the United States. In the operation, 32 members of Cuba’s elite “Black Wasps” counter-insurgency unit were killed protecting him; Havana subsequently declared two days of national mourning (14ymedio 2026; Prensa Latina 2026). The Cuban regime’s response lays bare a reality that Canada has long preferred to ignore: Cuba is not simply a poor Caribbean nation struggling under US sanctions. It is an active participant in an authoritarian network that spans continents, exports repression, and works systematically to undermine democratic governance across the Western Hemisphere.
Yet while Canada has imposed targeted sanctions on Venezuelan officials (Global Affairs Canada 2025), publicly condemned the Maduro regime (Blanchfield 2019), and taken leadership roles in defending democracy in Latin America, it has treated Cuba with remarkable deference. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referred to the Cuban regime as an “ally” (Dyer 2019). Not a single Cuban official has faced Canadian sanctions despite decades of documented human rights abuses (Lima and Teich 2025). Cuban state propaganda broadcasts freely into Canadian homes while Russian channels have been banned (Teich and Lima 2024). This double standard has not gone unnoticed – and it is increasingly untenable.
As Cuba reshapes its partnerships with Russia, China, and Venezuela, the consequences extend far beyond the island. Cuban nationals are being trafficked to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine (Diaz-Balart National Security Briefing 2025). Cuban intelligence personnel train security forces across Latin America in surveillance and crowd control (Berwick 2019; Rendon and Fernandez 2020; Castañeda 2024). Experts increasingly warn of Russian and Chinese spy facilities on the island (Kanev 2023; Funaiole et al. 2024). And through it all, Canada maintains the pretense that engagement without accountability will somehow encourage reform.
It will not. After more than 65 years, the evidence is overwhelming: Cuba’s authoritarian alliances are not driven by economic desperation but by ideological commitment and strategic calculation. As democracies worldwide confront an emboldened authoritarian bloc, Canada can no longer afford to treat Cuba as an exception. It is time for Ottawa to align its Cuba policy with its stated commitment to human rights, democratic governance, and the rule of law.
Cuba’s Authoritarian System: A Brief History
To understand Cuba’s role in today’s authoritarian nexus, one must first understand the regime’s domestic foundations. Since Fidel Castro consolidated power in 1959, Cuba has functioned as a one-party state with no meaningful political opposition, independent media, or civil society organizations that operate beyond state control.
Elections in Cuba serve as rituals of regime legitimization rather than mechanisms of democratic accountability (14ymedio 2023). The Cuban Constitution allows only candidates approved by the Communist Party to run for office. Independent candidates face systematic exclusion, harassment, and arrest (Agence France-Presse 2022; Pellegrini and Marco 2023). In the 2023 parliamentary elections, opposition candidates reported intimidation, detention, and violence designed to prevent their participation (Pellegrini and Marco 2023). As political scientist and activist Manuel Cuesta Morúa has observed, Cubans can vote, but they cannot choose (Cuesta Morúa and Jennische 2023).
The Cuban penal code criminalizes virtually all forms of dissent. The crimes of publishing “false news” and “public disorder” are broadly defined and selectively enforced, giving authorities nearly unlimited discretion to prosecute critics (PEN America 2021). The vagueness of these provisions mirrors China’s “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” offence (Davidson 2023), underscoring that this is a tool that both regimes use to institutionalize repression under the guise of operating under the rule of law.
As of December 2025, Cuba had 1,192 political prisoners in arbitrary detention (Prisoners Defenders 2025). Prisoners face torture, prolonged solitary confinement, denial of medical care, sexual assault, and brutal beatings (Human Rights Watch 1999; US House of Representatives 2012; Prisoners Defenders 2022). At least four detained protesters have died in custody while protesting or enduring these inhumane conditions (OCDH 2024). These deaths receive minimal international attention.
Internet access serves as a weapon of control. Since the backbone of the internet infrastructure in Cuba is controlled by the government, it has been able to harness Chinese technology to restrict access and block communications platforms that critics and protestors might use to help them organize. During protests or politically sensitive situations, authorities shut down mobile data nationwide or throttle bandwidth to prevent real-time documentation of state violence. During the July 11, 2021, pro-democracy protests – the largest demonstrations in decades – the regime sharply restricted internet access to limit international awareness of its crackdown (Lazarus and Ellis 2021).
Cuba’s economic system reinforces the government’s political control. Conglomerates controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces, including GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), virtually oversee the tourism industry and control a significant portion of the economy (Gamez Torres 2026). Consequently, the most financially significant and lucrative foreign investment often flows directly to military-controlled enterprises, which use those resources to fund surveillance, monitor dissidents, and acquire technology for digital repression. The vast majority of Cubans remain excluded from meaningful economic participation, surviving in what amounts to a garrison state disguised as socialism.
This is the foundation upon which Cuba’s illiberal partnerships are built. Understanding this domestic reality is essential to understanding Cuba’s role in the global authoritarian network.
Cuba’s relationships with Russia, China, and Venezuela are not merely economic survival strategies. They represent ideological alignments reinforced by decades of co-operation in military affairs, intelligence sharing, and the exchange of repressive techniques.
Russia: From Cold War Ally to Ukraine Recruitment Ground
The Cuba-Russia relationship extends back to the early 1960s, when the Soviet Union emerged as Cuba’s primary benefactor. That partnership involved massive economic subsidies, military aid, and intelligence co-operation, including the establishment of Soviet signals intelligence facilities in Cuba that monitored US communications (Bain 2010b; Central Intelligence Agency 2011). When the Soviet Union collapsed, the relationship entered a period of dormancy – but it never truly ended (Bain 2010a).
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has systematically rebuilt its position in Cuba. In 2014 Russia forgave $32 billion in Cuban debt (Guardian 2014), and Russian oil shipments have helped Cuba weather energy crises (Alonso-Trabanco 2024). Investigative reporting in recent years suggests that Russian intelligence operations have been re-established on the island, including facilities with the technical potential to effectively surveil both the United States and Canada (Kanev 2023).
But the most alarming development involves human trafficking for military service. Since 2023, Cuba has become a primary recruitment ground for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Thousands of Cuban nationals, many deceived by promises of construction work, Russian citizenship, and monthly salaries of US$2,000, have been transported to the front lines. Once in Russia, recruits discover they’ve been conscripted into combat units (Diaz-Balart National Security Briefing 2025; Wiseman 2025). Ukrainian military intelligence estimates that by late 2025 Russia had recruited approximately 20,000 Cubans (Diaz-Balart National Security Briefing 2025).
This recruitment operation bears the hallmarks of human trafficking: deception, coercion, and exploitation for forced labour. Yet it continues with the apparent acquiescence – if not active support – from Cuban authorities. Flight records show increases in Cuban-Russian flights coinciding with diplomatic visits (León 2025), and the Cuban regime has from the outset expressed support for Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine (Tril 2025). The recruitment is not accidental; it is systematic.
China: Surveillance Technology and Strategic Partnership
Cuba’s relationship with China evolved differently. After a period of ideological conflict during the Sino-Soviet split, Cuba and China normalized relations in the 1990s (Cheng 2007). That relationship has since deepened into a comprehensive partnership focused on technology transfer, economic investment, and intelligence co-operation.
China has integrated Cuba into its Belt and Road Initiative, extending billions in credit for infrastructure projects while strategically forgiving Cuban debts (Cheng 2007). These economic arrangements reinforce political alignment. Cuba consistently supports Chinese positions at the United Nations, particularly regarding human rights, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang (Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the UN 2021; CGTN 2021).
China has provided Cuba with surveillance technology essential to maintaining regime control, and Chinese telecommunications companies remain present on the island (Ellis 2022). In 2023, the Biden Administration revealed that China has access to facilities for collecting signals intelligence located in Cuba (Funaiole et al. 2024). Joint military training programs date back over a decade, with reports of the Chinese People’s Armed Police training Cuba’s Special National Brigade as early as 2015 (Domínguez and Martínez Rodríuez 2021).
Venezuela: Exporting Repression and Protecting Dictators
Cuba’s relationship with Venezuela represents perhaps the clearest example of the regime’s willingness to export repression. Beginning in 1999 when Hugo Chávez assumed power, Venezuela relied upon Cuba’s supply of healthcare and education professionals, and intelligence and military advisors. They helped build Venezuela’s domestic intelligence apparatus. And when protests erupted, they coordinated crackdowns (Šerić 2025).
Cuban personnel remain embedded and indispensable in Venezuela’s most repressive institutions, including the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), an agency responsible for widespread torture and arbitrary detention (Berwick 2019). The January 2026 operation that killed 32 Cuban security forces revealed the extent of Cuba’s role: even as Maduro tried to flee, Cuban personnel remained to provide last-line protection (Grant 2026).
Cuban intelligence helped Venezuela suppress the 2024 post-election protests following the disputed election. Cuban state media has conducted sustained propaganda campaigns against Venezuelan opposition leaders, particularly María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, using character assassination techniques honed over decades (Mercedes Giráldez 2024). These campaigns coordinate closely with Venezuelan government messaging, demonstrating that the two regimes are integrating their information operations.
The Canada Contradiction
Canada’s approach to Cuba stands in stark contrast to its treatment of other authoritarian regimes, particularly Venezuela and Nicaragua, where Cuban influence runs deep.
Canada has imposed targeted sanctions on 124 Venezuelans under the Special Economic Measures (Venezuela) Regulations, enacted pursuant to the Special Economic Measures Act. Canada has sanctioned 35 Nicaraguans in response to their gross and systematic human rights violations committed in the country. Canada has sanctioned Russian officials, Belarusian officials, and Chinese officials (Canada Undated).
Yet not a single Cuban official has ever been sanctioned by Canada, despite overwhelming evidence in the country of torture, arbitrary detention, political imprisonment, forced disappearances, and systematic persecution of dissidents. The contrast between Canada’s treatment of Cuba and other authoritarian regimes is indefensible.
Canadian government statements have occasionally criticized Cuban human rights violations, but these statements lack consequences. When Canada condemns Venezuela, sanctions follow. When Canada condemns Cuba, nothing follows. This selective application of principles undermines Canada’s credibility as a defender of human rights and democratic governance.
Not only is this discrepancy intrinsically unacceptable, but the inconsistent application of Canadian policy creates loopholes that dictators exploit. The most glaring contradiction involves enforcement practices related to combating foreign propaganda networks. In March 2022, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) banned Russian state channels RT and RT France from being distributed in Canada, recognizing their role in propaganda and disinformation (CRTC 2022). Yet Cubavisión Internacional—the Cuban regime’s state propaganda channel – remains authorized for distribution in Canada (Teich and Lima 2024). These state-owned outlets collaborate. During the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, we presented to the Commissioner and to the CRTC’s Director of Broadcasting a two-and-a-half-minute video clip of Cubavisión Internacional replaying RT programming, with both Cubavisión Internacional and RT logos visible on screen. Following the public inquiry, we sent a formal complaint to the CRTC. We never received a response.
Another troubling inconsistency is the gap between Canada’s stated policy and actual practice regarding engagement with Cuban civil society in Havana. In October 2024, then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified before the public inquiry that Canadian diplomatic missions have a “responsibility” to “engage with civil society organizations and various actors, not just governments.” He stated, “I am actually quite certain that Canada does engage with a range of civil society actors in Cuba, like everywhere else” (Public Inquiry 2024).
This is false. Pro-democracy activists in Cuba report otherwise. Despite formal requests submitted since the summer of 2025 by Democratic Spaces and Human Rights Action Group, and lists of activists we provided with offers to facilitate meetings, the Canadian Embassy in Havana has continued to not engage with independent journalists, opposition groups, or victims of political repression. José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba and one of the island’s most prominent dissidents, clarified that the last time the Canadian Embassy invited his organization to an event was during the Stephen Harper government, over a decade ago.
What Canada Should Do: Ten Concrete Recommendations
Canada cannot afford to maintain its inconsistent approach towards Cuba while claiming that it is a leader on human rights and democratic governance.
The following recommendations in our full report provide a roadmap that Canada’s government could use to align Canadian policy with Canadian values:
Conclusion: Time for Policy Coherence
Canada’s approach to Cuba is not simply outdated; it is incoherent. Ottawa cannot credibly condemn authoritarianism in Venezuela while treating its primary enabler as a Canadian ally. Canada cannot champion human rights at the United Nations while voting to shield Cuba from accountability. Canada cannot ban Russian propaganda while permitting Cuban propaganda to be broadcast in this country. Canada cannot claim to engage with Cuban civil society while refusing to meet with the island’s most prominent dissidents.
It is readily apparent that Cuba is not an isolated regime struggling under US sanctions, but rather an active node in an authoritarian network that includes Russia, China, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, and North Korea. These regimes co-operate militarily, share intelligence, exchange surveillance technology, coordinate propaganda, and work systematically to reshape international norms around human rights and sovereignty.
As democracies worldwide confront this challenge, Canada must decide whether its Cuba policy serves Canadian values or undermines them. The evidence is clear: current policy fails both strategic and moral tests. Cuba helps Russia recruit fighters for an illegal war of aggression. Cuba provides China with intelligence platforms aimed at democracies in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba trains security forces across Latin America in repression. And through it all, the Cuban people endure one of the world’s oldest dictatorships and most repressive systems with minimal international support.
The recommendations outlined here are not radical. They simply ask Canada to apply to Cuba the same standards it applies elsewhere. Targeted sanctions, public condemnation of abuses, and support for civil society are tools Canada already uses. The question is whether Canada will continue to exempt Cuba from the principles it claims to uphold.
The launch of the full report, Cuba and the Authoritarian Nexus: Internal Repression, External Aggression, and Illiberal Partnerships (Lima, Terranova, and Teich 2026) provides an opportunity for Canada to reconsider its approach. The report documents in extensive detail the history of Cuba’s authoritarian system, the depth of its partnerships with other repressive regimes, and the implications of those partnerships for democratic governance in the Americas and beyond.
Canada has traditionally presented its Cuba engagement as pragmatic; Canada posits that it is productive to maintain dialogue while others pursue isolation. But after several decades of internal repression and external aggression, the results speak for themselves: Cuba’s system has not moderated. Its human rights record has not improved, and its partnerships with authoritarian powers have not weakened. If anything, the opposite is true, and it is time for Canada to acknowledge this reality and adjust accordingly.
The Cuban people deserve better. Democracy in the Americas deserves better. And Canadian foreign policy deserves the coherence that comes from aligning actions with stated values.
About the authors
Michael Lima, Isabelle Terranova, and Sarah Teich are co-authors of Cuba and the Authoritarian Nexus: Internal Repression, External Aggression, and Illiberal Partnerships, published by Human Rights Action Group and Democratic Spaces on February 24, 2026. Lima is a researcher and director of Democratic Spaces, an NGO seeking solidarity in Canada with human rights defenders and civil society in Cuba. Terranova is a legal researcher with Human Rights Action Group. 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.
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Many of the resorts in Cuba were and continue to be financed by Quebec millionaire individuals through shell companies in an effort to hide their identities. Hence Ottawa’s support for Cuba. This been going on since Pierre Trudeau.