TORONTO - The resignation of Cuba's ailing president, Fidel Castro, is not expected to have a major impact on the Communist country's relations with Canada, experts on the political and economic relations between the two countries said Tuesday.
Castro, 81, announced Tuesday he was stepping down, ending a half-century of autocratic rule which made him an icon in the world of communism and a relentless opponent of U.S. policy around the globe. The decision effectively sets up his 76-year-old brother Raul, who was temporarily ceded power in 2006, for permanent succession.
Robert Wright, a history professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., wrote the book "Three Nights in Havana" about the three-decade relationship between former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Castro. Wright was in Cuba on Tuesday for a conference when he heard the news.
"I don't think it will affect Cuban-Canadian relations much at all, least in the short run," said Wright.
"Fidel Castro remains alive, he will be the dominating presence in the continuing Cuban story and nobody expects Raul to deviate greatly from Fidel Castro's plan of governance," he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Tuesday he's optimistic that Castro's official departure will open the door to political change in Cuba.
"It is our hope that this decision will open the way for the Cuban people to pursue a process of political and economic reform," Bernier said in a statement.
U.S. President George W. Bush ruled out any changes in his administration's Cuba policy - including lifting a five-decade trade embargo. However, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama said the U.S. should be ready to respond to gradual reforms in Cuba, signalling a change of policy if they take over the White House in the November presidential elections.
When it comes to dealing with Cuba, Canada's foreign policy has parted ways with its traditional western allies.
In 1976, Trudeau became the first leader of a NATO country to visit Cuba since the U.S. economic embargo of the 1960s - a trip that drew widespread criticism at home and abroad for Trudeau. Former prime minister Jean Chretien visited the island nation in 1998. Castro visited Canada in 1959 and, in 2000, he attended Trudeau's funeral where he served as an honorary pallbearer at the family's request.
Cuba is Canada's largest export market in the Caribbean and Central America. In 2005, two-way trade between Canada and Cuba totalled $1 billion.
Cuba is also a major tourist destination for Canadians seeking fun in the sun. The Cuban Tourism Board said about 650,000 Canadians visited Cuba last year.
"The Cuban government and Cubans in general have a huge investment of their economic well-being in the tourism industry. Canadians are the mainstay of that industry," said Wright.
"We're now in the high tourist season for Canadians in Havana and elsewhere... I think the Cubans will take pains to reassure tour providers and airlines and inquiring Canadians that everything that it's business as usual and the status quo prevails and everything will be as it was before the resignation," said Wright.
Canada-Cuba relations date back to the 18th century, when vessels from the Atlantic provinces traded codfish and beer for rum and sugar. Official diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1945.
Ottawa has maintained a foreign policy towards Cuba that it calls "constructive engagement." That means carrying on with political and economic relations while addressing concerns about violation of human rights and democratic freedoms.
But there's nothing "constructive" about the government of Cuba, said Guillermo Sambra , a Cuban -Canadian who was arrested in 1992 for urging Cubans to vote against Castro's government and sentenced to eight years.
"The policy of Canada towards Cuba is ... dialogue, but those guys, they don't understand what the dialogue is," said the 37-year-old construction worker who spend nearly six years in jail before being released in 1998 after Castro gave in to pressure from Ottawa, Amnesty International and the late Pope John Paul.
"Anything for that government right now that smells (like) democracy is a conspiracy -- is helping the Americans; so with them there is no reasonable dialogue,' he said.
Sambra and his family were allowed to leave Cuba and move to Canada, where he's set up the Cuba-Canadian Foundation, a non-governmental group advocating change of regime in Cuba.
Canada co-sponsored a resolution on Cuba's human rights situation for the 14th straight year at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in April 2005. And it has urged Cuban authorities to recognize the rights of freedom of speech, association and the press in the past. However, Sambra says Canada's current policy has done nothing to encourage political changes there.
"Canada should condition its trade with Cuba, with the freedom of press, real democratic changes, the freedom of all political prisoners," he said.
But other groups in Canada think Ottawa is doing the smart thing.
"We've had a different policy towards Cuba than the United States and indeed many European countries," said Marvin Glass of the Canadian Network on Cuba, an umbrella group of 24 Canadian solidarity groups that support the current regime in Cuba politically, culturally and provide material aid there.
"We have had civil and proper diplomatic relations...Canadians by and large have a very positive attitude towards the Cuban government and the Cuban people. The fact that Fidel is no longer the leader ... I don't think will bring about any change," said Glass.
