Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 24th, 2026

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Is this exacerbating the current humanitarian crisis?

[Mark Richardson]

As far as we know, yes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

You didn't really answer my question earlier. You told us that the Americans sent $6 million through the Catholic Church. However, in concrete terms, how much leeway do you have to respond to the current situation with the green light from Washington?

[Mark Richardson]

We're continuing to have conversations with the American administration about our approach to Cuba and our concerns regarding the Cuban people. We're mainly talking about the needs of the Cuban people in order to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Do you feel that you need Washington's approval before sending humanitarian assistance?

[Mark Richardson]

As I said earlier, we've tried to have a bilateral relationship with Cuba independent of the United States. We've already provided humanitarian assistance in some fairly complex situations when the Americans had different perspectives on Cuba. I don't think that this changes the situation at this time.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

In your second response, you told me that you were in talks with Washington to explain the need to send humanitarian assistance. Normally, a sovereign country that wants to send humanitarian assistance to another sovereign country with which it has a bilateral relationship doesn't need to ask a third country's permission to do so. Do you understand what I mean?

[Mark Richardson]

Yes. I understand. I didn't say that we were in talks with the American administration to ask for their approval to provide humanitarian assistance. I said that we're continuing to have conversations with the American administration about the situation in Cuba and our concerns regarding the current and past humanitarian situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to MP Kronis next, for five minutes.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I want to thank the analysts for providing a really excellent briefing for this session. I also thank the officials who are here.

How many Canadians are left in Cuba?

[Mark Richardson]

That's a good question.

I will defer to my colleague, but I understand that roughly 6,500 Canadians are registered with ROCA, or the registration of Canadians abroad. As one of the members of the committee stated earlier, we understand that somewhere around 5,000 Canadians are long-term residents of Cuba. In terms of the exact number on the ground, I don't have that statistic at hand.

Sébastien, I don't know if you have anything further to add to that.

[Sébastien Beaulieu]

I don't have any more information other than to validate those numbers and to indicate that it's difficult to precisely assess the number of Canadians.

Over the past 10 days or two weeks, Canadian airlines have helped Canadians who had tickets or who wanted to return to Canada to do so. There were special return operations led by Air Canada, WestJet and Air Transat.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you for that answer.

I apologize for not knowing this off the top of my head. Do Canadians need a visa to go to Cuba?

[Mark Richardson]

My understanding is that they do not require a visa.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Is there a full consular complement in Cuba right now?

[Mark Richardson]

Yes, there is.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Just this week we saw some unrest in Mexico that made Canadians on the ground vulnerable. Of course, there were some technical issues with the registration system.

Under the current circumstances, I'm wondering if you have any concerns that the Canadians who are in Cuba right now, whom you can't quite locate.... Is there a way to locate them if there is an escalation of the crisis?

[Mark Richardson]

My understanding, based on comments that our minister made yesterday, is that our registration system is operating quite well. We saw an uptick in the number of registrants in the case of Mexico—although I'm not here to talk about Mexico—of something like 8,000 in one day.

The Government of Canada does not actively track Canadian citizens abroad. In fact, we require them to register with us so that we can provide them with assistance and information if there is a situation. That is the way we have typically approached this situation. We're here, and we maintain a full consular complement in Cuba. We are able, more than willing and happy to provide assistance to Canadians who are in Cuba at this time.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Cuba and Mexico are two of Canada's most popular vacation destinations. Given the level of unrest that's occurring in the world, have you given any thought to some kind of mandatory registration system for Canadians who are travelling abroad?

[Mark Richardson]

That's certainly not an area of my expertise. It's not something that we have talked about or considered, to the best of my knowledge.

I will defer to my colleague Sébastien, but my understanding is that we have relied in the past on Canadians to register with us, and we continue to do so at this time. Canadians don't always want us, as a government, to be tracking where they're travelling abroad, including where they're going on holiday.

Sébastien, go ahead.

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

I gather that the purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Cuba. I don't think that my colleague's questions have much to do with this. I'll leave it up to you, Mr. Chair. However, I wonder whether we should be making sure that the questions concern the humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Because the hearing is actually about the humanitarian situation and consular services for Canadians, it is within the purview.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you for that.

My understanding is that there was a period of significant consular drawdown in Cuba when some Canadian diplomatic staff were affected by unexplained health incidents. I wonder whether, in the event of further civil unrest in Cuba coinciding with a reduction in embassy staffing—if the two things were to happen at the same time—there are agreements in place to provide emergency consular assistance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Give a brief response, because we are over time.

[Mark Richardson]

At this point, we don't foresee a drawdown due to the situation at hand. Obviously, there are ongoing conversations. Like every other organization on the ground, our embassy is experiencing fuel shortages first-hand. To sustain operations and ensure the well-being of our people in case the situation continues to decline, we are having conversations about our duty of care and planning for that. At this time, we don't foresee an active drawdown, and we plan to continue to maintain our consular people on the ground.

We have Sébastien's excellent team here in Ottawa, which is also able to provide assistance to Canadians in need, wherever they are in the world.