Few allegations carry more historical baggage in Havana than the suggestion that Canadian diplomats were secretly gathering information for Washington. A new report from The Globe and Mail, citing two unnamed sources, says Canada and the United States worked closely on intelligence matters in Cuba between 2016 and 2018, including an allegation that a Canadian diplomat collected human intelligence and sometimes shared it directly with American intelligence officers. Another source alleged Canadians used satellite equipment covertly brought into Cuba by the United States. Ottawa denies that Canadian personnel were engaged in spying. The claims emerge against the unresolved backdrop of the unexplained health incidents that affected Canadian and American personnel in Havana. Public records confirm unusually close Canada-U.S. security cooperation and a genuine Cold War history of Canadian espionage in Cuba, but they do not independently establish that the newly alleged activities occurred.
The New Allegation Goes Beyond Ordinary Diplomatic Cooperation
The Globe report draws an important distinction between governments working together and diplomats allegedly conducting intelligence operations. According to the account, two sources described unusually close Canadian-American cooperation in Havana from 2016 through 2018. One source alleged that a Canadian diplomat gathered human intelligence and occasionally passed information directly to U.S. intelligence officers. A second claimed Canadian personnel used satellite equipment that had been brought into Cuba surreptitiously by the United States. Those are considerably more specific allegations than simply saying the two allies exchanged information.
Ottawa disputes the central characterization. The Globe report’s accompanying description says the Canadian government denies Canadians were engaged in spying. That denial matters because the publicly available government record does document extensive information sharing with U.S. authorities during the Havana health investigation, but it does not publicly confirm the covert activities described by the unnamed sources. Until documents, testimony or other corroborating evidence emerges, the intelligence allegations should therefore be treated as reported claims rather than established facts.
The Alleged Activity Overlaps With the Havana Health Mystery
The reported 2016-to-2018 period is significant because it overlaps almost exactly with the emergence of the unexplained health incidents commonly called “Havana syndrome.” Global Affairs Canada’s official review says U.S. officials informed Canada in April 2017 that American personnel had been experiencing unusual symptoms since the fall of 2016. Canadian personnel began coming forward with possible symptoms by the end of May 2017. Complaints eventually included headaches, dizziness, cognitive problems, vision issues and other debilitating symptoms.
There is already substantial evidence that Canadian and American security officials were communicating closely during this period. Documents obtained by Global News included nearly 700 pages of internal Canadian records and showed meetings involving American authorities, including the CIA, as well as Canada’s CSIS and Communications Security Establishment. Global Affairs’ later review likewise says Canadian officials exchanged information with foreign partners, including the United States. That establishes close operational cooperation surrounding the health investigation. It does not, by itself, establish that Canadian diplomats were collecting intelligence for U.S. agencies before or during those incidents.
The Diplomats’ Lawsuit Has Made Government Secrecy a Major Issue
The dispute is now intertwined with a long-running Federal Court case brought by Canadian diplomats and family members who say Ottawa failed to adequately protect them. A 2025 Global Affairs briefing described litigation launched in 2019 involving 17 Canada-based staff members and dependants seeking $55 million and alleging negligence and breach of the government’s duty of care. The Attorney General denies liability. Years later, the case still had no scheduled timeline for a hearing on its merits.
Secrecy has increasingly complicated that litigation. The Canadian Press reported in 2025 that plaintiffs’ lawyer Paul Miller had attempted to file new information, but the material was being treated as confidential while concerns involving “sensitive or potentially injurious information” were resolved. Under section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act, that category can include information whose public disclosure could harm international relations, national defence or national security. Federal judges can ultimately weigh the public interest in disclosure against the potential injury. The use of that process signals that sensitive government information is involved; it does not establish what that information proves.
Ottawa’s Official Position on the Health Incidents Remains Cautious
Canada’s most comprehensive public assessment was released by Global Affairs in August 2024. After examining security investigations, medical work and environmental factors, the department said it found no evidence that the symptoms experienced by Canadian personnel and their families were attributable to a malicious foreign actor. The RCMP investigation found no criminality, while CSIS also concluded its investigative work. Importantly, the government said those conclusions did not call into question whether affected Canadians genuinely experienced serious symptoms.
That position became more contentious in March 2026. Senior U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials told Congress that earlier American assessments concerning the possibility of foreign involvement should be reconsidered or withdrawn. Global Affairs nevertheless said it continued to stand behind its own 2024 findings, stressing that investigators had not identified a definitive common cause. The new spying allegation therefore lands in an already unsettled debate: whether unexplained health incidents resulted from deliberate activity remains disputed, and evidence that Canada and the U.S. cooperated on intelligence would not, on its own, identify what caused the illnesses.
Canada Really Did Conduct Intelligence Operations in Cuba Decades Ago
What makes the new allegations particularly striking is that there is documented historical precedent. Academic research based on declassified records has established that Canadian diplomats in Havana conducted extensive intelligence operations from the early 1960s into the early 1970s. Intelligence historian Don Munton found that Canadian personnel gathered political and military human intelligence through both overt and covert methods and regularly shared information with the United States and Britain. Some operations were specifically requested by the U.S. State Department or American intelligence agencies.
The arrangement developed after Washington lost its normal diplomatic presence in Cuba. With the U.S. embassy closed following the breakdown of U.S.-Cuban relations, Canada’s continuing embassy presence provided access that American officials no longer had. Canadian diplomats could speak with officials, travel around the country and observe developments first-hand. Munton’s research says they sometimes responded to specific American intelligence requirements and worked with British intelligence personnel as well. That Cold War record makes modern allegations historically plausible in a broad sense, but historical precedent is not evidence that the specific activities reported for 2016 to 2018 actually occurred.
Cuba Has Long Occupied an Unusual Place in Canada-U.S. Intelligence History
Canada’s position during the Cold War placed its diplomats in an uncommon situation. Ottawa maintained relations with Fidel Castro’s government while remaining one of Washington’s closest security partners. Canadian officials therefore had access in Havana at moments when the United States had little official presence of its own. The diplomats witnessed major developments including the Bay of Pigs aftermath, Cuba’s growing alignment with the Soviet Union, the Soviet military buildup and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Intelligence gathered from that environment was valuable precisely because Canadian personnel could operate where Americans could not.
The relationship was not simply a matter of Canada automatically adopting American policy. Canada did not always share Washington’s view of Castro’s government, and Ottawa maintained diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba. Yet Canadian officials also saw Soviet activity in the Caribbean as a legitimate security concern and valued cooperation with Western allies. Historical intelligence work in Havana therefore reflected the complicated position Canada often occupied: maintaining an independent diplomatic relationship with Cuba while simultaneously contributing information to its closest intelligence partners. The newly reported allegations revive that tension more than half a century later.
Diplomatic Reporting and Espionage Are Not the Same Thing
One reason the current controversy requires careful language is that diplomats routinely gather information. Canada even maintains a specialized Global Security Reporting Program dedicated to collecting security-related information overseas using overt diplomatic methods. A federal intelligence oversight review says the program grew from 11 positions when it was created in 2002 to 31 positions by 2021. Officers interview government officials, journalists, academics, activists and other contacts to provide Canadian decision-makers with on-the-ground reporting.
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency describes the program as operating in a complicated space between traditional diplomacy and intelligence requirements. Its officers are accredited diplomats and say they operate overtly, do not pay sources and do not secretly task contacts. International diplomatic law allows embassies to ascertain conditions in host countries through lawful means and report them home. That differs materially from allegations involving covert equipment, secretly tasked sources or an official passing intelligence directly to another country’s intelligence service. As a result, evidence that Canadian diplomats collected useful information in Cuba would not necessarily amount to proof that they were “spying.”
Intelligence Sharing With Washington Is Already Deeply Institutionalized
Canada and the United States do not need an improvised relationship to exchange intelligence. Their formal cooperation stretches back decades. The Communications Security Establishment says the 1949 CANUSA agreement established a bilateral framework for sharing signals intelligence between the two countries and helped lay the foundations of the broader Five Eyes partnership. Canada now works within Five Eyes alongside the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
Global Affairs itself describes the department as fully integrated into Five Eyes as both a consumer and contributor of intelligence. Canadian contributions include signals intelligence and specialized diplomatic reporting, while foreign ministries, intelligence agencies, militaries and signals-intelligence organizations across the five countries cooperate through the partnership. That extensive institutional relationship makes intelligence sharing between Ottawa and Washington routine in many circumstances. The unresolved question raised by the Cuba report is narrower: whether Canadian diplomats in Havana crossed from authorized Canadian reporting and normal allied cooperation into the particular covert activities described by the unnamed sources. The existence of Five Eyes does not answer that question.
Canada’s Relationship With Cuba Is Much Bigger Than the Intelligence Dispute
Despite decades of security tensions between Washington and Havana, Canada continues to maintain substantial diplomatic, economic and people-to-people connections with Cuba. Government figures show more than 700,000 Canadians visited the island in 2025, making Canada Cuba’s largest source of foreign tourists. Two-way merchandise trade reached approximately $909.8 million in 2024, making Cuba Canada’s largest bilateral trading partner in the Caribbean. Canada has also remained an important source of humanitarian and development assistance to the country.
There is little indication Ottawa intends to allow the latest intelligence controversy to define that broader relationship. On September 25, 2026, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced that Carmen Sorger would become Canada’s next ambassador to Cuba, replacing Marianick Tremblay. The timing places a new ambassador in the middle of renewed scrutiny over what Canadian personnel were allegedly doing in Havana a decade earlier. For now, the public record establishes three things clearly: Canada has historically gathered intelligence in Cuba for its allies, modern Canada-U.S. intelligence cooperation is extensive, and Canadian and American officials worked closely during the unexplained-health investigation. Whether Canadian diplomats secretly spied for Washington between 2016 and 2018 remains a contested allegation that Ottawa denies.
