The Canada-Cuba relationship is significant: Cuba is Canada’s largest merchandise export market in the Caribbean/Central America region, and Canada is Cuba’s second‑largest source of foreign direct investment, especially in mining, energy, and tourism‑related sectors. Canada maintains an approach of engagement and dialogue, balancing commercial cooperation with advocacy for human rights and democratic freedoms.
Tourism is the most visible people‑to‑people dimension of the relationship. Before the pandemic, more than 1 million Canadians visited Cuba annually, making Canada by far Cuba’s largest source of tourists. Even amid recent declines, Canada remains Cuba’s top tourism market: between January and June 2025, Canadian arrivals fell from about 577,000 to 428,000, yet Canada still ranked first among all visitor‑origin countries.
Commercial relations, along with the people to people ties are now being squeezed by the U.S. administration’s hard blockade against Cuba.
Cubans say every day is a struggle for survival as they face blackouts, water and fuel shortages
Jorge Barrera · CBC News · Posted: Mar 21, 2026
U.S. committing ‘crime’ against people of Cuba, says senior government official
Melanie Chantelle González Barrios, 15, has two young children and says she dreams that some day, when they grow older, they’ll be able to leave Cuba and escape the daily fight for survival her family faces.
González Barrios lives in a one-bedroom home in Havana’s Buena Vista neighbourhood with her 17-year-old husband, a daughter aged one and a half, a six-month-old son and her grandmother.
The family keeps several tubs and jugs always filled with water because they never know when they’ll be hit with a power blackout, which also cuts off the water.
Blackouts have been common for years, but now, since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in hopes of forcing the country’s collapse, the interruptions have become more frequent and longer, sometimes engulfing the whole country.
Officials say the energy blockade is inflicting harm on all parts of Cuban society, and residents — many of whom relied on a tourism industry that has evaporated — struggle to secure basics like food and water.
“I think it’s something that is going to get worse,” said González Barrios. “Sometimes, because of the power, we can’t get water and people go crazy.”…
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Canadian companies could face big losses as change looms in Cuba
Evan Dyer · CBC News · Posted: Mar 22, 2026
In Havana on Friday, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez, argued that Canada should maintain the commercial relationship with Cuba that has made it the country’s largest foreign investor after Spain.
“Since 1972, it has maintained the largest flow of visitors to Cuba. It is an important relationship,” said de Cossío, who once served as Cuba’s ambassador in Ottawa.
“There are important trade relations. There is foreign investment…. Despite the fact that we do not have a coincidence in all the political and international positions, we have always known how to solve our problems, our differences, and work with them based on dialogue and based on mutual respect.”
But de Cossío’s hopes for more Canadian investment look unlikely to be realized, amid crippling power shortages and increasing difficulties collecting monies owed.
This week, Canada issued new advice for Canadian companies thinking of Cuban possibilities, warning of “payment risks” amid an “ongoing liquidity crisis.”
And the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), the Crown corporation that helped many Canadian businesses enter the Cuban market, has stopped assisting and encouraging new entries.
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