Sault man concerned wife, child stranded in Cuba

A Sault Ste. Marie man who spends part of his time in Cuba, is worried about his family still living in the country that’s currently dealing with a crisis.

For more than 10 years, Robert Peace has had two homes. Every month, he spends three weeks in Sault Ste Marie and one week in Cuba, where his wife and stepson live.

Peace calls the island in the Caribbean his second home. But after he flies out this week, he’s not sure when he’ll be able to return.

“Whatever happens, I highly doubt in a month or two everything’s going to open up and we’re going to be able to travel freely back and forth into our all-inclusive resorts,” he told CTV News on a Zoom call from Varadero.

Peace is worried about leaving his wife and stepson in a country dealing with its worst economic crisis in 70 years, dealing with severe shortages of fuel, food, electricity and medicine.

Cuba had been getting its oil from Venezuela, but that ended when the country’s president was captured by the U.S. Oil shipments were then cut off and U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened high tariffs on any country that provides oil to Cuba.

That has created economic hardships for Cubans, many of whom work at the various resorts in a country heavily reliant on tourism.

“They’re making it work behind the scenes, but my guess is in a week everything will be shut down here,” Peace said, referring to tourist resorts.

Many resort staff are staying at the resorts where they work because of fuel shortages for the nation’s buses.

“Things literally change in an hour,” Peace added.

Tourists are being consolidated into resorts so that “it’s not 20 per cent occupancy in 50 different places,” he said.

The Canadian government is warning travellers to exercise a high degree of caution in Cuba. Other than repatriating Canadians, airline travel to the country is at a full stop.

Travel counsellors like Mike Allard aren’t selling trips to Cuba because of the “geo-political situation, which is well beyond our control.”

It’s unknown how long this could last.

“Right now, they’re indicating possibly May, but the impacts to the country, to the travellers, to the people of Cuba are going to be felt for years and years to come,” said Allard, owner of Mallard Travel.

As for Peace, he said he’s tried numerous times in the past decade to bring his family to Canada, without success.

“Canada is very strict on many things -- Cuba is on a list,” he said, meaning that it’s very hard to emigrate to Canada from Cuba.

“So, let’s pray for everybody there. Let’s hope for the best that we can all return safely someday.”

Peace expected to catch one of those repatriation flights back to Canada Wednesday and said he’s hopeful his time away from his second home in Cuba won’t be lengthy.