Mark Carney is missing in action on Cuba. While the prime minister has found time to praise the illegal U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and bail out private housing developers, he has said nothing about the recent tightening of the U.S. government’s six-decade blockade of Cuba. This is despite vocal demands—including from the NDP and Bloc Québécois—that Carney provide aid to the besieged Caribbean island, with which Canada has long enjoyed positive relations.
The economic strangulation of Cuba—intensified following the U.S. attack on Venezuela in January 2026, which Carney’s government tacitly supported—has worsened already existing shortages of food, medicine, electricity, water, and more. Infant mortality has risen sharply due to the Trump administration’s tightened sanctions. More than 100,000 Cubans, including 12,000 children, have been pushed onto waiting lists for surgeries.
While the Cuban government has shown its willingness to negotiate with the U.S. government—and even to make significant concessions, as a recent package of economic reforms shows—the Trump administration continues to ramp up its aggression against Cuba. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted former Cuban leader Raúl Castro for his role in defending Cuban airspace by downing two airplanes flown by Miami-based counterrevolutionaries. The indictment bears an eerie resemblance to the legal attacks against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the lead-up to the U.S. military’s illegal invasion of that country and the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
Much of the world is standing idle as the U.S. escalates its aggression against Cuba. This includes governments that have benefited from the solidarity of Cuba’s medical internationalists.
On June 18, the European Union announced its support for sanctions against Cuba, effectively joining the U.S. campaign against the island. This is despite the fact that Cuban doctors have long assisted citizens in EU member state Italy. Indeed, doctors in Italy’s Calabria region have said that, despite U.S. efforts to disrupt Cuba’s global medical missions, they “will not do without the roughly 400 [Cuban] doctors who for several years have been working alongside local health staff to mutual satisfaction.”
Grassroots organizations in Canada are speaking out. Many unions, including the Canadian Labour Congress, have condemned U.S. aggression and called on Ottawa to support the island. The United Church of Canada has joined the call. Parliamentary petitions urging Carney to support Cuba have gathered tens of thousands of signatures. Yet so far, the Carney government has only made a “modest and indirect commitment” to send $8 million in humanitarian aid to Havana, an amount that is “paltry by comparison with assistance provided by Mexico and other countries,” as well as $5.5 million in “international assistance” through the Pan American Health Organization. The thoroughly pro-corporate Carney hasn’t even spoken out on behalf of Canadian companies whose operations in Cuba have been squeezed by U.S. sanctions.
Now is the time to join the Cuba solidarity movement. Find your local solidarity organization—there are Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) member groups across the country—to which you can lend a hand. The International Week of Action for Cuba is ongoing, and people across Canada and around the world are mobilizing for rallies, material aid fundraisers, and public educational events. The week’s theme—”No War on Cuba!”—is resonating with Canadians nationwide, as anyone engaged in shoe-leather solidarity work will tell you.
The annual Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade recently returned from Cuba, and the various reports back from brigadistas speak to the blockade-imposed hardships Cubans are forced to endure, as well as their continued support for the revolutionary process. Such brigades are a strong opportunity for Canadians to build people-to-people relationships with Cubans, see the impacts of U.S. aggression for themselves, and gain a first-hand understanding of Cuban anti-imperialist resistance.
We are not powerless. The Carney government may be indifferent to Cubans’ suffering, but we at the grassroots have the strength and numbers to educate fellow Canadians about Cuban realities and to offer material support for Cuba’s independence and sovereignty. It’s the least we can do for a small country that U.S. imperialism has punished so mercilessly.