MIAMI.– The diplomatic offensive that the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC) since the end of 2022 received strong support from Canadian deputy Stephanie Kusie.
The conservative legislator met with representatives of the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan exile communities in Miami to express her party’s support for democracy and human rights in the region.
Kusie, the first elected official from that country to travel to the Capital of the Sun to meet with ARC activists, maintained that “Canadians believe in democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
The visit of the Canadian representative occurred after the ARC asked the government of Canada to stop the allocation of funds that the Havana dictatorship allocates to further repression on the island.
The legislator said that “we must work to educate Canadians about the difference between Cuban culture, which many of us appreciate and enjoy, and the regime.”
To which he added: “It is time to stop romanticizing this dictatorship and recognize the reality of what is really happening in Cuba. I have good news for Cubans. “They can expect more support from their Canadian friends.”
In June 2023, a delegation led by the coordinator of the ARC, Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, visited Canada and also called for an end to subsidies to the regime chaired by Miguel Díaz Canel.
During his visit to Miami, Kusie also met with U.S. Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar of Florida’s 27th District, the daughter of Cuban exiles and a prominent critic of the Cuban regime and its supporters in the United States and around the world.
Both leaders discussed the diversion of Canadian public funds to branches of the communist regime in Cuba and possible areas of collaboration in the coming years.
Kusie served in various roles internationally, including serving in Argentina in 2006 and as Consul of Canada in El Salvador from 2006 to 2008, as well as Consul of Canada in Dallas, Texas, from 2010 to 2013.
Since 2022, the ARC, which brings together 54 organizations for democracy and respect for human rights in Cuba, has been carrying out a campaign to prevent Canada and the European community from continuing to support the Cuban regime with funds that are allocated to programs other than those who motivate that cooperation.
Thanks to the international efforts of the ARC, the Government of Sweden formally requested in November the review of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (ADPC) of the European Union (EU) with the Cuban regime, taking into account “serious violations” of the human rights in Cuba.
The ARC has been officially received in the national congresses of Peru, the Dominican Republic, Sweden, Lithuania, Canada and Costa Rica, in addition to meetings of representatives of that organization with legislators, political leaders and activists from more than ten countries.
