Cuba invited the Canadians to Havana to celebrate "the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba," according to a tweet by Canadian Joint Operations Command. No Canadian naval vessel had visited Cuba for more than 50 years until Justin Trudeau came to power at the end of 2015. The Margaret Brooke is the first Canadian warship to visit Havana since the Fredericton, and the second to visit Cuba (HMCS Charlottetown stopped in Santiago de Cuba in 2018). Four hours later, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock suggested that the Cuba visit was part of a deliberate departmental strategy. He said the Communist Party will use the Canadian visit domestically to try to show the Cuban people the country is not diplomatically isolated.
