What Canada can do is call for accountability and transparency in terms of the aid getting on the ground. We have access to networks of Cubans who have provided feedback to us following hurricane Melissa in October. We know that Europe and Canada sent millions in aid, but the only aid that those folks in the east of Cuba received—those who had been heavily impacted—was in January and February, from aid provided by the United States.
I do think that having diplomats on the ground helps in pushing to make sure that the aid gets to the people in need—the people whose homes have been destroyed or people who are living without roofs—and that they're seeing that basic aid, food and other basic necessities arrive when Canadian assistance goes there.
The problem is that these UN agencies, as was said earlier, collaborate with Cuban GONGOs, not NGOs. GONGOs are “governmental non-governmental organizations”, an Orwellian term, like the Federación de Mujeres Cubanas and the Union of Young Communists. They're tied to the Cuban government. They follow orders from the Council of State and from the Castro family. They're not independent operators operating in good faith on the ground.
I think that providing aid to Caritas, which is a church-connected charity that has demonstrated the ability to get aid across the island to people in need, is one way to do it. The other one, as Democratic Spaces has requested, is to push for civil society to also provide that aid across the island—actual civil society, not the GONGOs.