As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper headed to Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Costa Rica this week in part of what he hopes will be a revitalization of Canada's engagement in the hemisphere, today's Ottawa Citizen offers this critique by a professor of political studies at University of Prince Edward Island:

"Put simply, official Canadian policy toward Cuba is now curiously mimicking the failed U.S. approach of the former George W. Bush presidency - precisely when the Barack Obama administration is initiating a more moderate and more practical Cuba policy . . ."

". . . [T]he key to Canada actually opening the door to the wider hemisphere is clearly not through Costa Rica, but by fostering closer relations with Havana. But if we fail to cultivate closer ties with the Cubans, our vaunted "Americas Strategy" is necessarily doomed to failure."

Citing Cuba's standing at the UN (last October's vote on the U.S. embargo was 187-2), its 30,000 doctors throughout the hemisphere,its inclusion in the Rio Group (which excludes the United States and Canada), and its leadership of the non-aligned movement, the author, Peter McKenna, makes a strong case for why Canada's 'Americas Strategy" fails to factor in a key country which, "punches far above its international weight class." McKenna warns:

"If the Harper government does not revitalize our engagement policy with the Cubans, Canada faces the very real prospect of jeopardizing its long-standing bilateral advantages and ceding those to the United States and others (including the Chinese)."