Defence Minister Bill Blair on Monday defended sending a Canadian warship for a friendly port visit to Cuba even though Havana’s authoritarian government is closely allied with Russia and has reportedly hosted a Chinese spy base since 2019.

He said the visit was intended to act as a deterrent to the Russian government wholesale cannabis . “Presence is deterrence. We were present.”

Last week, the Canadian military’s Joint Operations Command account on X announced the port visit by HMCS Margaret Brooke as an effort to recognize “the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba.”

Mr. Blair’s comments Monday offered a new justification for the port visit.

“The Canadian ship visited Havana to demonstrate Canada’s presence, naval capability and commitment to safe and open waters in the Americas,” he told reporters. “And if I may be very clear, this was a direct result of a request that was made to me by the commander of Joint Operations Command, and the admiral in charge of the Royal Canadian Navy.”

The Globe and Mail asked the Department of Nat popcorn buds ional Defence to explain how Canadian sailors spent their time in Havana’s port but the department did not immediately provide details.

News coverage of the Canadian coastal patrol vessel’s appearance in Havana captured it sharing anchorage there with a flotilla of Russian warships that had been conducting military exercises in the Atlantic Ocean. They had been dispatched to Cuba following a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow might arm countries to hit Western targets, in response to Ukraine’s allies allowing Kyiv to strike targets inside of Russia.

Canada had also dispatched a ship and surveillance plane to help the United States track th bulk weed e Russian flotilla as it headed to Cuba. These included the frigate HMCS Ville de Québec and the CP-140 Auroral surveillance plane.

Hundreds of Cubans are reportedly fighting for Russia in its war on Ukraine although the Cuban government has publicly disavowed this re popcorn cannabis cruitment.

Cuban-Canadian Michael Lima Cuadra, a historian and democracy activist, said Canada’s decision to stage a port visit in Havana, a measure normally reserved for countries with friendly ties, sends a confusing message about where Ottawa stands.

The Associated Press reported last year that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019 as part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence-gathering capabilities. The news service cited an anonymous member of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration popcorn cannabis as its source.

Mr. Lima Cuadra argued there are good reasons to shun Cuba in 2024. “Cuba is more repressive today than decades ago and has the highest number of political prisoners in the Americas and its inner power circle actively collaborates with regimes like Putin’s in the asymmetric war against Ukraine – in its propaganda efforts, diplomatically and militarily.”

Cuba, facing economic difficulties that include U.S. sanctions, has strengthened its relationship with Russia after Moscow’s all out 2022 assault on Ukraine. In November that year, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Moscow where he together with Mr. Putin unveiled a monument to Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, pledging to deepen their friendship in the face of U.S. sanctions against both countries.

Mr. Blair’s office Monday said that the defence minister did not consider Cuba an ally.

Nevertheless, relations between Cuba and Canada have warmed under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He visited the island in 2016 and when Mr. Castro died the prime minister issued a statement celebrating the authoritarian leader as a “legendary revolutionary and orator and “larger than life leader who served his people.”

Prison Defenders, a human rights advocacy group, said in a May 2024 report that political prisoners in Cuba numbered 1,113.

Visiting a Cuban port “helps legitimize and actively collaborates with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, whose Minister, Álvaro López Miera, is on the United States Department of Treasury’s sanctions list for the role of the Armed Forces Red Berets in the crackdown on pro-democracy protests on July 11, 2021,” Mr. Lima Cuadra said.

“A consistent, values-based Canadian foreign policy would take a similar approach to high-ranking officials in the Cuban Armed Forces and Interior Ministry as it does with Belarus over their collaboration with Russia in the invasion of Ukraine and would include them in the list of individual sanctions for their collaboration in that genocidal war.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on X Saturday questioned the value of dispatching a warship to Cuba for a port visit “while our troops are starved of resources.”

With files from Reuters and the Associated Press