The same big theme playing out in this week’s B.C. election was underscoring everything I saw in Cuba on my recent one-week study tour: how to manage a struggling economy to get the most benefits to the most people.
Cuba is often characterized in our popular media as a pariah of international politics, with Fidel Castro jabbing back at angry Americans in his inimitable in-your-face political style, suppressing dissidents on a scale condemned by Amnesty International.
When I first went to Cuba in 1970 as a curious UBC grad I wanted to see socialism up close. As tourists from the west were unknown and untrusted, I was kept under close watch by the Canadian embassy and not allowed to travel outside Havana or even move out of my designated hotel. Then I discovered that the FLQ terrorists who had recently murdered Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte were lounging beside me at the hotel pool. They weren’t exactly talkative.
When I heard about a Vancouver tour group’s trip to Havana to be at the May Day celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, I jumped at the chance. With Fidel Castro in failing health and his regime so far beyond the life expectancy of political leaders of any stripe, I wanted to revisit Cuba before its inevitable transformation. Besides, my wife and my two daughters had all been there on separate trips and come home raving about the warmth of the people, the vibrant music and the omnipresent dancing—notwithstanding a glut of ham sandwiches.
“There’s a lot wrong with Cuba, but there’s also a lot right,” said one friend before I left. What’s wrong comes at you on many levels: the crumbling buildings, the lack of any real newspapers or magazines, the relentless sloganeering, the frustration and poverty of people working for pitiful government-mandated salaries, the malfunctioning elevators at our so-called 5-star hotel, the sputtering, smoke-belching 50-year-old American cars, the crippling shortage of computers and internet access. From a business point of view I saw a heart-breaking lack of opportunity for so many well-educated and energetic Cubans tied down by an economic system owned and controlled by the government.
Many of Cuba’s financial ills can be blamed on the 47-year U.S. blockade, the longest economic siege in modern history, penetrated only marginally by companies like Sherritt, the Canadian nickel mining company now producing Cuba’s biggest export revenues.
Another huge contributor to the country’s economic distress was the fall of the Soviet Union almost two decades ago. The subsequent meltdown from the loss of its major trading partner, triggering a 30% drop in GDP, marked the beginning of the ongoing “Special Period” and its new openness to tourism, some fringe private enterprises, and (until 2004) legalization of the U.S. dollar.
What is right about Cuba is its unflinching support of free education at every level, free quality health care, and racial equality. While the bottom 20% of income earners in Canada saw their income shrink by 21% in the past 25 years, there are no starving homeless in Cuba and illiteracy is virtually nil. There are lots of people struggling to get by on their food rations and cramped housing options, but no one who stays onside politically is denied an opportunity to get educated and stay healthy.
Before the Special Period, Cuba ranked higher than the U.S. in the Overseas Development Council’s Physical Quality of Life Index, although by 2006 it was well down the list (48th, compared to the U.S. (15th) and Canada (3rd)) on the UN’s Human Development Index.
What our governments could learn from Cuba is the importance of shoring up access to full health care and education for everyone, regardless of income—but doing this without squashing opportunities for those who want to do things their own way.