It’s not only U.S.-Cuba policy that’s maintained with domestic electoral concerns in mind. Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien’s visit with Fidel Castro may also have been undertaken with his electorate in mind: “Chretien’s Cuba trip will win him votes back home because he’s asserting his independence from the U.S.,” says TIME Toronto bureau chief Andrew Purvis. Chretien told Castro that most participants in the recent Summit of the Americas want Cuba to rejoin the hemisphere’s family of nations, and he also pressed for the release of dissidents. His primary message, however: Don’t tell Canada what to do, eh? And that’s a vote-getter on any issue.