March 8, 2023

Mr. Speaker, I would like for congratulations to go out to a group known as Vermeer Re-insurance. They recently held their Women’s Day Gala and presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Ms. Kathleen Faries. And the reason why I mention this group is because they are a group of strong women.
And one of them in particular is the guiding light in my life, and her name happens to be Nekisha “BJ” Tyrrell. So I could not miss the opportunity of giving congratu-lations to them. And of course, if I have to mention strong women in my life and not mention another
woman in my life, that is Sheila Valeria Tyrrell, who obviously is a guiding light in my life as well.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
MP De Silva, you have your three minutes.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning as I would like
to offer condolences and the House to offer condo-lences to a very good friend of mine w hose wife passed
away yesterday. That is the wife of Mr. Millard Beach. His wife was named Julia Marie Beach. And I associate Mr. Whip Neville Tyrrell, and the Deputy Speaker Bur-gess. They were married for 33 years, Mr. Speaker. She was an educator for mos t of her time here. She
taught at Bermuda College, Saltus, Berkeley. And she finished at the Adult Education facility, where she was the administrator. So I know that she will be greatly missed by Millard. We call him “Porky,” Millard Porky Beach. It is a golfing term that he is very familiar with, and anyone who plays golf in the circles will know ex-actly what that means. So I certainly give condolences to Millard and of course all of his family.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I wish to be associated with the remarks of the
Premier and my colleague, Susan Jackson, MP, to cel-ebrate International Wom en’s Day today. As a grandson, a son, a brother of three sisters, a husband and a father to brilliant and very powerful daughters, I am delighted to see that this is being recognised, although I agree with the Premier. It should really be every day. I would also like to give a special shout -out to the female
colleagues here in the House and the Senate, who should be recognised today. The motto, as MP Jackson said, is to embrace equity . And I think we all agree with
that, and I certainly support that.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
Opposition Leader.
Hon. N. H. Cole Simons: Thank you.
I would like to associate myself with the comments made in regard to International Women’s Day. I would like to commend the organisers of the event that was held this morning and in particular the panellists, Christie Arscott, Liana Nanang, Deshay Caines, Kim Wilkerson [and Marico Thomas]. They did a sterling job in regard to finding our sweet spot and not being afraid
to jump off the cliff and make difficult decisions so that you can redefine your life and be living in purpose.
826 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly And I would like to also associate myself and
send special congratulations to my supporter, my wife,
Rochelle Simons, and to my adult daughters, Morgan
and Erin. I wish them all the best on International Women’s Day. Thank you.

There is one Government Bill to be introduced this morning, in the name of the Minister of Finance.
Premier.

FIRST READING

PAYROLL TAX AMENDMENT ACT 2023
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am introducing the following Bill
by its name only so that it may be placed on the Order
Paper for the next day of meeting: Payroll Tax Amend-ment Act 2023.

Members, we are now at that stage of
starting today’s proceedings for the debates on the es-timates and revenues from this year’s budget. And again for our listening audience, there are eight hours
set aside for the daily debates on the budget. During this period, the Speaker is out of the Chamber because [the Honourable Members] are in the Committee of Supply. And when we are in Committee, the House is in the control of the Chairman from the Panel of Chairs. This morning we will start with the Chairman Lawrence Scott in the Chair.
The first Ministry up for debate this morning is
the Ministry of Transportation. That is a four -hour debate. And the remaining four hours of the eight hours will be Statistics, Financial Assistance and Workforce.
MP Scott, Chairman Scott.

House in Committee at 10:40 am
[Mr. W. Lawrence Scott, Chairman]

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

ESTIMATES OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023/24
[Continuation thereof]

Good morning, Honourable Members.
We are now in the Committee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Ex-penditure for the year 2023/24. Heads 48, 30, 34 and 35 are now to be debated.
I call on the Premier to move.
Hon. E. David Burt: We kind did that of out of order.
So I will just say I move that the House do now resume in Committee of Supply to consider the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for fiscal year 2023/24.

Thank you, Mr. Premier.
Now that we are officially in the Committee of
Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24, Heads 48, 30, 34 and 35 are now to be debated.
I call on the Minister in charge to proceed.
Minister, you have the floor.
And this is a four -hour debate. It is now starting
at 10:40.

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT



Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I move the following heads:
Head 48, Ministry of Transport Headquarters; Head 30
Marine and Ports; Head 34, Transport Control Department; and Head 35, Public Transportation be now taken under consideration.
Mr. Chairman and the public, as the Chairman
has said we have four hours for debate. I am going to do mine a little diff erently. We are going to debate
head- by-head, which will allow plenty of time for Members if they want to ask me questions. I have no prob-lem with the questions being answered for Transport. And so, I will give Members sufficient time, whether it is from t he Opposition or anyone from the Government
side who wants to ask any questions in particular.
So, we are going to look at Head 48 at this
time.

HEAD 48 —MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT
HEADQUARTERS
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, today I am
pleased to present —and I am glad to have the Permanent Secretary here today and also the Controller who controls all of the monies under Transport. So I am glad to have them this morning to help answer any questions if need be.
The departments which come under the Ministry’s remit include the following:
• Ministry Headquarters (HQ) —Head 48;
• Marine & Ports Services (M&P) —Head 30;
• Transport Control (TCD) —Head 34; and
• Public Transportation (DPT) —Head 35.
In addition, the Ministry of T ransport maintains
oversight of the following:
• Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority;
• Bermuda Shipping and Maritime Authority; and
• Bermuda Airport Authority.
The budget appropriation for the entire Ministry
totals $72,351,000, as found on page B -196 of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the Year
2023/24.

Ministry Headquarters —Head 48
Cost Centre 58000
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, it is the Ministry Headquarters which is responsible for transportation matters within Bermuda. The mission for t he Ministry of
Transport Headquarters is simple: Transporting people and goods efficiently and safely.
Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of Transport strives
to provide an environment where job creation and en-trepreneurship in the transportation industry are favour-able. The importance of transportation in our commu-nity cannot be [overstated]. Transportation enhances the reach of businesses and people to find relevant services, jobs, activities, goods and productivity. It is vital for our tourism sector, for transporting visitors to the Is-land and moving them around the Island. In essence, transport is the pillar which helps out tourism.
Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of Transport Headquarters, Head 48, as I mentioned includes two busi-ness units: An Administration Section and the Trans-portation Planning Team.

Expenditure Overview

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, we will turn our
thoughts now to the total current expenditure for the Ministry of Transport Headquarters, Head 48, which is estimated to be $23,114,000 for the fiscal year 2023/24. This represents an approximate decrease of $7 million, or roughly 23 per cent, under the prior year’s
budget of $30,054,000. The decrease is primarily due to the $6 million reduction in this year’s budget for the Project Agreement Guaranteed Minimum Regulated Revenue (GMRR), which is normally paid to Skyport. The current GMRR amount included in the operating grant for the Bermuda Airport Authority (BAA), is equal to $5 million. We have gone from $11 million to $5 mil-lion. That is where the $6 million decrease is.
As I mentioned, it represents the estimated
amount to be paid to the Bermuda Skyport Corporation Limited, should Skyport’s actual regulated revenues fall below that of the GMRR. The particulars of the calcula-tion are set out in the Project Agreement. The remain-ing decrease of $1 million represents a reduction in the allocation to Air Service Development. In 2023/24, Air Service Development will be expanded to further posi-tion Bermuda for transformational change in the com-mercial aviation industry, aid economic recovery and enhance the lives of Bermuda residents.
The Bermuda Air Service Development Committee, led by the Bermuda Airport Authority, will con-tinue to work to expand current air service to protect our key gat eway cities and enter and expand into new markets. So most people ask the question about MRG. That is where that funding comes from. So last year we had $4 million, and this year we are going to be budg-eting for $3 million.
The Headquarters budget includes funding for
the two business units mentioned previously, as well as the Current Account Operational/Expenditure Grants and Contributions as seen in the Ministry of Transport Headquarters Subjective Analysis of Current Account Estimates, Grants and Contributions, budget line found
on pages B -195 and B -198, and Schedule 1 for the
Grants and Contributions on page C -19 of the Budget
Book.

Transport Planning Team
Cost Centre 58010

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the Transportation Planning secti on sits within the Ministry of
828 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Transport Headquarters, cost centre 58010, and is allocated a budget of $135,000. It can be found on page B-197 of the Budget Book. The Transportation Planning section oversees cruise ship contractual, opera-tional, regulatory and logistical matters to ensure the
efficient integration of transportation services to meet expectations in Bermuda. In addition, this section spearheads various transportation projects and policy research initiatives deemed important by the Ministry.
Mr. Chairman, Bermuda was fortunate, very
fortunate in 2022 [in that Bermuda rebounded from] the COVID -19 pandemic faster than originally forecasted at
50 per cent level. By early June—so in other words, last
year when we did the budget under the Governmen t
also, the former Minister of Transport (who sits in the Chair right now) budgeted for 50 per cent levels of passengers coming in. June 2022, ships were arriving with 76 per cent occupancy levels despite the COVID -19,
the TA form that you guys want to put back in this year.
And almost 100 per cent [occupancy] toward mid- to
late season and onto November. A full 178 ships called. And approximately 292,477 passengers were originally forecasted in the Ministry budget for 2022.
Mr. Chairman, by way of some hi story, the
2022 cruise season did not start until April 4, as Bermuda was still operating under COVID -19 regulations.
It never stopped. December rolled into 2023 season. Mr. Chairman, in 2022, the City of Hamilton (I know the Honourable Member asked this question the other day to the Minister of Tourism), 11 cruise calls into the City of Hamilton and 12 actually came into St. George’s in the 2022 budget year.
Mr. Chairman, of the 2022 calls, 42 were Norwegian Cruise Lines, bringing 167,000 passengers, and 39 per cent were Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines,
bringing 158,505 passengers. And together our two contract partners brought 81 per cent of the total passengers to Bermuda. Carnival Cruise Lines brought 15 per cent, or 59,922 passengers, and Disney brought
3 per cent, or 11,048 passengers, and 1 per cent being
other. After several cancellations and additions throughout the season, a total of 164 ships actually called into Bermuda, bringing 402,000 passengers. And we budgeted for 292,000 passengers. At an eco-nomic benefit to Bermuda of approximately $167 million—this was a good year for Bermuda.
Mr. Chairman, in 2023 our future looks very
bright. Our two contract partners have confirmed 100 per cent —100 per cent occupancy projections for
Bermuda from April. We are at 100 per cent already.
These figures have increased since my pre -Christmas
press conference and are based on new projections provided by the cruise line this month. This estimate in-cludes 224 calls as printed in the cruise ship schedule at 90 per cent capacity for the 2023 season, along with
the cancellations, as we often have due to weather as you see today, or itinerary changes.
Mr. Chairman (and this was what the Honourable Member had asked the Minister of Tourism the other day), the City of Hami lton is scheduled for 24
cruise calls this year compared to, as I mentioned, 11 last year. And the Town of St. George’s is expected to receive 10 calls. Mr. Chairman, of the 224 calls listed in the cruise ship schedule today, as of March 8, seven
calls hav e already cancelled due to bad weather, one
for scheduling purposes and six for weather reasons. This is to be expected at this time of year, but Bermuda has received six calls at the beginning of January, two of which have been inaugural calls for the AID ABella
on February 17, and the Azamara onward on March 3.
Mr. Chairman, the breakdown in the number of
calls this season is estimated to be as follows:
• Royal Caribbean calls, 74 calls expected this year:
• Norwegian calls, expected 101;
• Carnival calls, 13;
• Disney calls, 11;
• Other calls, 25; which makes
• 224 calls estimated for this year, or budgeted for this year.
Assuming everything goes well, as I said, the
weather like we had today will cause cancellations.
Mr. Chairman, in April we go right into 6,000,
7,000 and 8,000 passenger days. April, October and November will be our busiest months by the number of calls and the number of passengers. And we will shift in June, July and August, which are often softer months compared to the all -peak months. We can al so see that
business will shift at the end of August and September, while our new brands now avoid Bermuda during Hur-ricane alley [or season], as is commonly referred to in the industry, as I am told. However, Bermuda will see more calls overall making shi p calls, as I mentioned,
more evenly spread out through the year in 2023. Just
for the mention, but it is not uncommon, we have sev-eral days in April where there will be no more than two ships in port at the same time, at varying arrival and departure times, so there is no need for any special co-ordination.
Mr. Chairman, Bermuda is scheduled to have
18—18 new inaugural calls in total, which is the highest number in recent history. These calls are ships arriving in Bermuda for the very first time. But it does not nec-essarily mean that these ships are brand new. But most are, and it is typically celebrated with a plaque ex-changed between the host country and port and the vessel, which I did one last Friday.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ensure that my
honour able colleagues and the listening public understand that even though this is a record year for Ber-muda, there is no reason to be alarmed with the in-creased passenger projections. Sure, we will be very busy every day with ships in port almost every day. But
the schedule is evenly spaced out. We do not have two 5,000- passenger ships in port at the same time. Most
days, as in previous years —and I can attest. I, along
with my Ministry team, have been meeting diligently


Bermuda House of Assembly with industry stakeholders and transportat ion providers
to get us ready for the season.
In 2023, Mr. Chairman, cruise ship revenue
projections include $27,300,000 in passenger tax,
$7,700,000 in visitors’ fees, $11,800,000 in Transport infrastructure tax, and $174 million spent by passen-gers’ and crews’ spending, and $12 million in cruise line
disbursement expenses daily, looking for an estimated total of $233 million.
Mr. Chairman, I think it is very i mportant that
colleagues should . . . I looked for an 11- year idea of
where we were and where w e are now. In 2012, we had
153 calls. In 2018, we had 180 calls. This year we will have 224 calls. Mr. Chairman, the number of passen-gers for 2012 was 378,000 passengers. In 2018, we had 484,000 passengers. This year we will have 622,000 passengers. Passenger spending in 2012 was $77 million. In 2018, it was $110 million. This year, $174 million is projected. The total economic impact to Bermuda, Mr. Chairman, in 2012 was $87.4 million. In 2017, it was $81 million. Mr. Chairman, in 2023, we are expecting a total economic impact of $233 million due to cruise ships.
The Ministry of Transport escorted stakeholders from the West End Development Corporation, the City of Hamilton, the Corporation of St. George’s and the Bermuda Tourism Authority to meet with crui se line
partners in Miami last month to discuss Bermuda as a destination, passenger guest satisfaction feedback and our product offerings to ensure Bermuda was delivering on guest expectations. A lot was learned on the visit, and our stakeholders shared what guests can experi-ence this season. New ideas were suggested by the cruise lines as to what the passengers are seeking to do, especially if in port more than one day. Examples
include more beach options; high- end beach cabana
products; daytime entertainm ent; more exciting tours
outside of mainstream tours, especially for repeat guests; and more family -type attractions.
Overall, great excitement remains about Bermuda, but guest satisfaction scores did fall in 2022. Now, you ask me why.

Why?
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: It was something called—
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Yes. There was that form that
they had to fill out. They were not happy with that. So that was part of the reason why it fell down. But mostly they attribute it to COVID -19 regulations, and suggesting, as just spoken to, for calls staying longer in Ber-muda.
Mr. Chairman, the 2023/24 cruise ship schedule can be downloaded from the Department of Marine and Ports website at www.marineandports.bm
. Cruise
ship calls can change, so it is updated regularly. I will be glad to take questions on the cruise lines as we fin-ish up Head 48.

Administration
Cost Centre 58000
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Administration, business unit
4801 under the Ministry of Transport Headquarters will have a budget of $22,979,000 this year. The bulk of the allocation comprises the Bermuda Airport Authority’s operational grant of $14,400,000. There is a $5 million allocation to the GMMR, that is in the case of Skyport as mentioned prior. And there are $3 million all ocated
to Air Service Development. (And I will have to tell you what Air Service Development is all about.) So we went from $4 million to $3 million this year. The balance of the budget provides for the staff of the Ministry of Transport Headquarters. The total budget item is lo-cated on page B -197.

Manpower
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the Transport
Ministry’s Headquarters employs four full -time equivalent [FTE] employees under the following cost centres:
• 58000, three persons: the Ministry comptr oller,
an accountant administrative officer and an executive assistant; and
• 58010, one transportation coordinator. Compensation is estimated at $410,000, or 1.8 per
cent of the total budget.

Revenue
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: With the unfortunate invasion
of Ukraine in March/April 2022 by the Russian Federation it resulted in a total loss of Bermuda’s civil aviation [revenue]. Some $20 million, Mr. Chairman, you would recall from that particular [situation] was just wiped out, gone. And surplus revenues to be paid into the Government of Bermuda since June of 2017, the Authority has contributed in excess of $81 million—$81 million in sur-plus revenue to the government mainly because of those aircrafts coming out of Russia.
The impact of this loss on revenue cannot be
[overstated]. As such, the Ministry is working with the authorities to assess a sustainable model of business. I would like to emphasise again: The Ministry is working with authorities to assess a sustainable model of busi-ness. We have got to find a way to break even in those
departments.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to discuss the year
ahead with respect to the Bermuda Airport Authority.

Bermuda Airport Authority Highlights
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the only Authority which receives a grant from the Ministry of Transport is the Bermuda Airport Authority.
830 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Chairman, the Airport Authority employs 47
full-time equivalent staff. The mostly Bermudian professional workforce have the mandate to provide essential
retained government services as direct employees of the Airport Authority, thus enjoying long- term job stability under the management of a local leadership team with a high- performance culture.
Mr. Chairman, the Bermuda Airport Aut hority’s
sixth fiscal year as a quango under the Ministry of Transport was the 2
nd of March 2023, six years. As you
will remember, they all came under the government be-fore that. The current account expenditure can be seen in the Ministry of Transport Headquarters, Subjective Analysis of Current Account Estimates located on pages B -198, Grants and Contributions located on
page C -19 of the Budget Book.
Mr. Chairman, the Bermuda Airport Authority
delivers a range of essential air navigation services, also known as retained government services, at the L. F. Wade International Airport, including air traffic
control; air traffic engineering, Bermuda public and avi-ation weather, aeronautical information services and the Authority’s facilities, and vehicle and equipment maintenance. On behalf of the Government of Ber-muda, the Airport Authority, as owner of the airport, also oversees the performance of the airport developer and operator, Bermuda Skyport Corporation Limited (or Skyport), and its 30- year concession—30- year concession to operate, maintain and redevelop the L. F. Wade
International Airport.
Oversight of Skyport includes the monitoring of
key performance indicators such as compliance with standard airport operating procedures, international aviation regulations, and building and equipment
maintenance specifications, et cetera. The Airport Au-thority regulates the airport fees charged by Skyport to airport users. These regulated revenues remain lower than projected due to the reduced frequency of com-mercial airline flights and lower passenger volumes
[during the] pandemic period. As a result, the Airport Authority remains contractually obligated under the Project Agreement to fund a portion of Skyport’s reve-nue shortfalls as determined by the GMMR.
The GMMR took effect in 2020 due to the pandemic and its impact on air arrivals. And I want every-body to hear this. The money that we have paid to Skyport since 2020 has been approximately $46 mil-lion. That is just on the GMMR, $46 million. Mr. Chair-man, most people are not aware of this also, that we also pay money to upkeep the airport. The lights that are on at the airport are paid by the Bermuda Govern-ment.
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: We collect not one cent for
tourists coming in on air craft. It is costing us roughly
$20 million —$20 million a year.
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: That is outside of the $46 million that we pay for the GMMR.
The Airport Authority, in coordination with the
Tourism Authority and Skyport, also leads Bermuda’s
Air Service Development with a focus on . . . So most
people are not aware of that. I was not aware of that until I got there. The interesting thing about it is that we had to put, as the Minister of National Security (I think it was the Minister of National Security or maybe the Minister of Tourism) mentioned about we had to put some additional firemen down at the airport. It is cost-ing us an additional roughly $7 million a year for that. Yes, we had to pay for it. And we do not collect one cent. Twenty million dollars. I want to kind of get, you know, make people realise the challenge that we are having.
Mr. Chairman, the 2023/24 capital project grant
request for the Bermuda Airport Authority totals $1,800,000, which represents $200, 000, or approximately an 11 per cent decrease over prior fiscal year.
These funds will be allocated to several ongoing key airport infrastructures and the Federal Aviation Admin-istration, but not limited to instrument landing system replacement; aeronautic al information services; aeronautical information manual; organisation transition, the latter being the official guide to basic flight infor-mation procedures in this regard; the acquisition of IT infrastructure required for international certification of the Authority as an air navigation service provider; Bermuda weather service; immigration e- gates for new airport terminal building; air traffic control. It is anticipated that a number of these capital projects would be completed over a timespan of two fis cal years.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the dedicated teams at the Ministry Headquarters and the Au-thorities under the Ministry for their unwavering com-mitment to service during what will probably prove to be some of the most challenging years for Bermuda in recent history.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
now see whether the Opposition have any questions on Head 48. Thank you.

Yes. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
So I would like to ask some questions. It is
Head 48 on page B -197. So I just want to make it clear
that there are basically two line items for this. So I would like to start first with the General Summary,


Bermuda House of Assembly 4801. And this would be the Transportation Planni ng
Team, cost centre 58010.
The Minister gave us an overview of the cruise
ship schedule for this year. And certainly it does sound
promising. We have got a lot of people. I believe that the Minister quoted an estimate of about 400,000 visi-tors to our Isl and via cruise ship. And my questions will
really centre around how we are going to manage the ground transportation once the visitors arrive on the cruise ships. As we are all very much aware, the pas-sengers like to get off of the ship and immediately wal k
around Dockyard. But then they want to go further afield to the beaches and to see the sights. And I have lived in Dockyard for years. And so I have certainly watched how the public transportation is organised at Dockyard. But I would venture to say we w ere probably
looking at about half the number of visitors when I was living there versus 400,000 that we are anticipating this year.
So my question to the Minister is, What is being
done? And if we might be able to get an overview of at least the general concept of how the ground transpor-tation will be organised in Dockyard this year? I remem-ber that there was a time when we had public buses giving large tours throughout the Island. So I am curi-ous whether we are organising or considering large groups of v isitors being able to be transported throughout the Island using dedicated public transportation, or whether the public Transportation Department will be having conversations with the public service vehicle owners, such as the minibuses and the taxis, to s ee
how the arrangements and the scheduling and the meeting of demand will be carried out for those mem-bers so that they have an understanding and are ready to meet the demand of visitors who want to leave Dockyard by motor transportation? The Minister als o mentioned that there will be
times this season when we may be seeing a number of cruise ships in the Great Sound up in Dockyard at the same time. And I believe I heard the Minister say that the cruise ships arriving—let us say that there would be three of the cruise ships, that the scheduling of them would be such that they are not all in the harbour at the same time. However, the demands on the ground transportation and how there is communication and preparation for ground transportation, given the fact that if we have approximately —hopefully we can have
a full complement of taxi drivers, as an example. You know we are talking 600 taxis for what could be 24,000 guests, right?
So how are we going to manage that with taxi
owners driving already 16 hours a day? They also have to accommodate all of the rest of the Island. How is the Ministry going to be able to meet the needs of this larger number of visitors coming to the Island, and that it will roll over right after the other. So very little down time before the public transportation, whether it is min-ibus drivers, whether it is taxi drivers, are all going to have to come back and work again. So it will be like triple shifts, I would imagine, for a number of these vis-its. So whether we are taking that into consideration and working with the public service vehicle owners to coordinate that so that it is a healthy option, not only for the ground transportation but for the cruise passen-gers? And of course, I have to mention the fact that,
whether we have publi c service vehicles such as taxis,
minibuses, the quadricycles, if we have all hands on deck at Dockyard, we still have a number of cruise ship passengers who want to get on our public buses. And this has caused a major issue for our general public who want to get from the West End into Hamilton. And
the problem which has persisted for years has been that the tourists, the visitors will get on the bus in Dock-yard. The bus is completely full before it even leaves Dockyard. And then from Boaz Island East, anybody who is trying to get to work, anyone who uses the public transportation and particularly buses to move about the Island from about nine o’clock, 8:30– 9:00 in the morning after the cruise ship passengers have had their breakfast, we cannot get on a bus.
And so people who are trying to make time,
who are trying to get to caregiving for the elderly, to get the elderly up out of bed and fed and ready for their day, these caregivers and the rest are not able to get on the buses. And they have to watch two and three buses go by until the volume of tourists has passed through.
Now, I do understand that in the past there was
some doubling up of buses that would leave Dockyard, so one full bus is tourists and sort of a half -empty second bus would come along. But that still throws off the schedule for the Bermudian resident who is using the public transportation, particularly the buses, as their
main form of transportation. And it is thrown off for them because of the high volume of visitors.
So my concern, and if the Minister can give us
any indication or comfort that the residents of Bermuda will still be able to (1) expect that the bus is going to be
there when the bus schedule says it is going to be there; and (2) that they will be able to get on board and
either have a seat or stand up in order to get to their
destination.
My other question around cruise ships, and I
am still on the General Summary on page B -197, [programme] 4801, line item 58010, Transportation Plan-ning Team. I wanted to ask a question, jus t a little question. But how does the Ministry calculate and have a contingency for the number of cruise ships that do have to cancel because of weather? And we anticipate this every year, and of course yesterday was just a real ex-ample of the reality that we face, that the weather can
change in a very short period of time. And cruise ships that are scheduled to come here divert and head to other destinations.
And there must be a cost factor in that because
the Government will always give this beautiful, encour832 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly aging number of millions of dollars that we are forecasting to earn. And of course these numbers are not printed in the Budget Book. These are estimated num-bers. So really, I guess the Minister —these numbers
can come out of anywhere. So my question to the Minister is, What is the loss when the cruise ships are can-celled in particular because of weather? And do we fac-tor those cancellations and that loss of revenue into our numbers? And how does the Transportation Planning Team manage that so that we ar e able to maybe recoup those numbers? Is there a redundancy kind of plan on the side in order to recoup those numbers? Be-cause otherwise, I guess the Ministry could say, you know, We’re going to have 5,000 cruise ships coming
to Bermuda! But, oops, you know, 4,999 of them can-cel. So I just want to have some indication of how the Ministry actually calculates in cancellations and how this is adjusted within the total estimated amount that is expected to be revenue generated from the cruise ships.
My other question is, When a cruise ship is
cancelled does the cruise ship still have to pay all of the fees that the cruise ship in general is expected to pay? Or do we receive— Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And it is [cost centre] 58010, Transportation
Planning Team. And it is on page B -197.
And if I just may make a comment, please? The
Transportation Planning Team is a section within Head
48 of the Ministry of Transportation. There are no line items under this very important, super -significant, huge
revenue- generating section of the Ministry of Transportation. And all of the costs are estimated costs. So until the Government in general is prepared to develop the
cruise ship line items, then I as a Shadow have to ask questions in a vague and undetermined way.
[Desk thumping]

So I will stay on line item
58010, Transportation Planning Team, on page B -197.
And I will ask my final question around that.
And that is, Are ships obligated to fulfil their
fees that are anticipated or are expected to be paid to the Bermuda Government when they are cancelled be-cause of weather? So do we have a contingency in there for that? And then how are we adjusting estimated amounts for things like passenger tax, wharfage fees, docking fees, dockyard maintenance? How are those things recalculated? Or does the cruise ship pay those taxes anyway even when they do not come to Berm uda because of cancellations, let us say, due to
weather? And maybe a supplementary question on that
is, Does Bermuda have any kind of insurance around that? I mean, if there is some sort of cancellation (I do not know) is there some form in much the same way
that we would get insurance for a windstorm? I do not know. I am just asking.
So with that . . . Now, I have one other question
about the cruise ships. The Minister had mentioned cruise ships coming to Bermuda, and the Minister had mentioned Carnival and Disney. And I was wondering
if the Minister might be able to give an indication of the sort of star rating of the ships, the cruise ships that come to Bermuda? And I certainly know that in the ho-tels you can sort of get anything from a two- star hotel,
which may be a basic bed and your basic amenities, to a five -star hotel, which can have your own private pool
and a butler and the rest of it. So I am just curious in general whether there is a scaling of cruise ships and if the Minister might be able to give us a general idea of the quality star rating of the ships that come to Ber-muda.
Because this is rarely spoken about. And although we talk about how cruise ship passengers come on Island and it is estimated that they may [spend], you know, $262 per passenger per day or something to that effect, whether that is adjusted really based—or if it is average of all of the ships. Because maybe there are some ships that come to Bermuda that are more in the two-star or three -star rating, and others may be in the
four- or five -star rating and we just kind of average it
out.


Bermuda House of Assembly For the ground transportation, for businesses
on the ground, for the economy here in Bermuda, I am
sure that the answer to this question would be useful because if we know that we are going to have a number
of, let us say, cruise ships that are middle- of-the-road
economically feasible cruise ships in, then we know that the cruise ship passengers may not be as inter-ested in paying for maybe some of the luxuries and souvenirs that are in the area, versus a four - or five -star
cruise ship that may be generating more revenue on Island. And whether there is some indication that there are differences in the spending power of passengers who are arriving in Bermuda, generally speaking.
I would now like to move over to page C -19,
Grants and Contributions. Actually, did the Minister want to do this sort of cruise ship questions or put the whole thing? Okay.

Thank you.
I would just like to take a moment to go over to
page C -19, which is Grants and Contributions. And this
is listed as line item 7099, the Bermuda Airport Author-ity. And this also falls under Head 48 as listed on page B-198, Grants and Contributions, with an estimated
$22,400,000 which is down $7 million from last year, from 2022/23. And this is the grant for the Bermuda Air-port Authority.
So I just have a couple of questions. And of
course, energy prices are probably the highest on everybody’s mind right now from the single- family home to
large, large structures. And if the Mini ster might be able
to give us an update on how that solar park at the Fin-ger was supposed to work? I do not know, but I thought that at one point the solar park was going to—even though I have had to feed the electricity maybe— [Inaudible interjections]

—to BELCO, and I do not
know if the Bermuda Airport Authority pays the energy for the airport. If the Minister might give us an update on the solar park and how that works with the Bermuda Airport Authority and whether there is some arrange-ment there. Because the high cost of energy is certainly something that we can have control over. So everything we can do should be done to negotiate our energy prices down, especially for such a large building as the airport.
I am also curious as far as the Air Service Development, which falls under the Bermuda Airport Au-thority, which is a part of the Grants and Contributions through Head 48, Ministry of Transportation. I am just interested in finding out a little bit more about associ-ated costs. So certainly we are appreciative as a nation for the Ministry being able to re -institute, reintroduce
the JetBlue direct flight to Boston. That is much appre-ciated. But I am just curious if the Minister might be able to let us know whether there were any c osts associated
with that, how a successful negotiation of a deal like that occurs. Now, I understand that there are certain things that have to be kept confidential. But as taxpay-ers, I believe that we would like very much to get some indication of whether that cost us anything to get that Boston direct flight by JetBlue back in action for us year-round.
And if the Minister might also be able to give us
an indication, under Air Service Development, all part of the grant to the Bermuda Airport Authority, w hether
the Minister might be able to give us some indication of how involved the Bermuda Airport Authority is [as] a part of the negotiation with airlines around gateway cit-ies and terminals. So it is one thing to have the conver-sation about getting an air craft to fly direct or to fly from
one place to another. And now I am going to sort of flip over, using British Airways as an example. Does the
Bermuda Airport Authority get involved in the negotia-tions around whether the British Airways flight is going to fly into Heathrow versus whether it is going to fly into
Gatwick? And whether the Bermuda Airport Authority has any part of the negotiation on what terminal within those airports (I am using the example of British Air-ways) a Bermuda flight flies in? So ev en though we
may try to promote the advantages of a particular ter-minal and a particular gateway city, and there are al-ways positives because Bermuda is an island and we have to get where we have got to go. But I am just cu-rious whether we have to make any kind of compromise
or if we have absolutely no control over what gateway cities and what terminals and what airports the airlines choose to fly between Bermuda and the particular gate-way city?
And another question that I have under Air Service Development is the question around the members
of the team. Certainly, the Ministry of Transportation representatives as well as the Bermuda Airport Author-ity are well known as being part of the negotiation team to work with the airlines to make sure that we have con-firmed airlift. But I am curious whether the hoteliers or representatives for the hotels and also any of the Ber-muda Tourism Authority representatives are also active members in the negotiation team? Or are they just maybe consulted or something? I would just like to get some idea of the composition of the negotiation team and how that is structured so that it can hopefully de-velop from strength to strength and we can continue to get the results that we are getting.
You know, and again I congrat ulate the Ministry for the direct Boston flight coming back. But we still have a long way to go. We still need to see about Mi-ami. We still have many other markets to explore and hopefully confirm.
834 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly And at that level, when we get to that even further afiel d, I am curious whether we still engage with
professional consultants to help us with the negotiation
for Air Service Development. And I am aware that in the past, certainly reading past briefs for the budget, that we have engaged consultants. And to help us to navi-gate through the negotiations with airlines. And I am curious whether we have a consultant on hand now. If we do not, if the Minister might be able to give us an indication of whether this is something that is part of a future plan so that we hav e the best and the strongest
team of representatives negotiating on Bermuda’s be-half for the best air service that we can possibly get.
I am still on page C -19, Grants, 7099, Bermuda
Airport Authority and their Air Service Development. So, I am still on t hat space.
The Minister had mentioned that the Bermuda
Airport Authority had to undergo some infrastructure re-views, you know, the FAA, making sure that we have all of the infrastructure in place to meet the demands of those that are supervising and managing our air ser-vice. And last year there were some questions about some ongoing multi -year projects. But I am just wondering if the Minister can give us some update on, in particular, things like the instrument landing system. There was an IT infrastructur e certification, I mean AIS
or AIM, and whether we were able to transition as an air navigation service provider. And there were also some equipment upgrades for the weather service, and wondering what the progress was or whether these projects have been c ompleted and are now all paid for
and taken care of?
And with that I would like to take my seat for a
few, as I am aware that there are other Members with questions under this Head. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you. And good
morning, colleagues and to Bermuda.
On page B -197 under the Priorities and Objectives, I was just curious. I will go down to the bottom of
the page on B -197 under Administration, 4801, under
Administration, 58000 and, of course, 58010, Transpor-tation and Planning Team.
I understand under Transportation and Planning Team nothing has changed as far as the allotment and the allocation of fees. But I was just wondering in listening to the Minister’s general statement as he was alluding and gave a hint to me that . . . I guess what I
am asking is, in the negotiations of cruise ships, I un-derstand that we do not charge fees for the winter pe-riod because it is kind of like a promotion trying to get that going. And I kind of like the idea that between the months of maybe November —I do not know the exact months. I think it is November. The cruise ships proba-bly end in October or November or some period.
So between that November and the March period, because we know cruise ships then kick up in April, I was just curious as to whether or not we are go-ing to extend that not just for this year, but for the fol-lowing year of this promotion, that during the winter months we do not charge these fees. Which I think is a good idea to get awareness and the likes of coming here during the winter months, whether that is a plan going forward as the Headquarters and the Minister ne-gotiate with the cruise lines.
Also, the Minister under the Planning, 58010,
and Administration, he mentioned about there will be 24 calls for Hamilton, in his statement, and also in St. George’s 10 calls. I was just curious as to how many of those might be during the winter months that we talked about that we will not be receiving fees? The other thing that I was curious about. We know that the cruise ships, actually they are loaded. By the time they get to Ber-muda, they still have quite a bit of inventory on their
ships. So other than the fees that we obtained from the cruise ships, do the cruise lines themselves purchase any other type items in bulk from Bermuda? I do not know, it could be food items, it could even be some fuel; I do not know. I was just curious as to whether there is anything else that they purchase from the Island when they get here, as a resource?
Now, some of the lines —
[Inaudible interjection]

Absolutely. Call everybody in
check, Chairman.
Okay. So I am going to go over . . . Some of
the lines are blurred, of course, because you have the communication between Headquarters and communi-cations with WEDCO for Transportation. I understand that Transportation—they used to have a transportation expert up at WEDCO. I do not know if that is still the same case. So it seems as if they don’t. I cannot re-member the gentleman’s name, but they did have a transportation guy up there to help them with the move-ment of cruise ship people and the likes there.
So what I was curious about was, if we go over
to . . . (I am trying to find . . . let me get the page here
in the back.) These lines are kind of blurred with the Marine and Ports. So I do not want to go into Marine and Ports necessarily.

Yes. But it goes into public
transportation, and I think I will wait until we get to that part.
So the initial question is understanding a little
better, How is the communication for the Headquarters and all of the interest groups like the ferries and like, for instance, the bus service—how is that working as we ramp up all of these cruise ship calls ? We know that we
have had problems in the past. And if I look at some of the other allocations of acquisitions, we are going to be buying ferries and all of these other things. But that is not going to be in effect until a couple of months from now. April is here next month. How is that going to affect the communications and making sure that we can handle all of these cruise ships? The Chairman: Thank you, Member.
Is there anybody else who would like to speak
to Head 48? Honourable Member Jackson, you have the
floor.

Thank you.
I would like to just turn to Head 48, Ministry of
Transport Headquarters, and under that is the Ber-muda Civil Aviation Authority. And if I need a line item, I will go to page B -198 at Revenue Summary, 8108,
Civil Aviation Receipts. So in 2021/22 the Budget Book shows that we
got over $20.5 million in revenue from the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority. I am going to refer to that as the BCAA. It is estimated for 2022/23 that there has been a difference of $17 million lost, not coming, no revenue. So I just wanted to ask the Minister a couple of ques-tions about the BCAA’s future and where we are and how we are going to get to the next step.
So my question to the Minister is, How many
planes did we ever get back? Did we ever get back any of the planes that were in Russia? And I believe in the beginning, I cannot even remember. But I know we were talking like there were 770- odd planes on the register that were sort of leased, many of those. Many, like 600 or so of those, were actually leased to entities within Russia. So these planes were in Russia flying about Russia, and once the sanctions were dropped on Russia because of the Ukraine war, we could not get (“we” being Bermuda as the register of these planes, as well as the leasing companies that actually owned
the planes) —that we could not get the planes out of
Russia.
So did we get any of the planes out of Russia?
Because it is like that conversation went very silent. And so I am just curious whether any of the planes were ever allowed out of Russia or taken back from Russia.
And with regard to the leasing companies, and
again it has been almost a year since we have really had this conversation about the BCAA’s airplane regis-try. But it was my understanding that the airplanes themselves are owned by leasing companies. And just to give a distinction, in the news or wherever, I got the indication that many of these leasing companies are in places like Ireland and places far away from Russia. So they own these planes, and then they lease them out just like Rent -a-Car, Rent -a-Cycle. They rent a plane.
And they would lease their planes oftentimes to Russia.
And Russia—or the Minister is going to inform
us in a bit. But I believe that we have not heard that
Russia has given back any of the planes. So techni-cally, we might have 600 planes that are on the Ber-muda register, or were on the Bermuda register, that are stuck in Russia. They are lost maybe forever. And so my question is, Do we have any legal obligati on to
these leasing companies? Are we as a Bermuda juris-diction, and I am of the understanding that the leasing companies and the popularity of the Bermuda Airplane Registry is that Bermuda is a very stable, strong juris-diction.
And so if there are any legal claims that these
leasing companies may one day take to court, file in court to get their planes back or to get the value of their planes, I do not know. But if any claim were to be sub-mitted, would these claims come to Bermuda’s courts? Which could be quite a—I do not know if “burden” is the
right word. But I would imagine it would be a fulsome calendar for the judicial system to handle if all of a sud-den we have got legal cases claiming suit between Irish leasing companies and Russian aircraft clients . So
what is the update on that? Are we now going to have to prepare for any legal ramifications of these sanc-tions?
836 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly And my other question around the Russian air
bits is, What are we doing to see whether we can build
the registry back up again? So we want this to be a
hopeful end story for the Bermuda Civil Aviation Au-thority. And there has been a year with what (according to line item 8108 on page B -198) is showing that there
has not been any real revenue generated. And what-ever revenue would have been gi ven to the consolidated fund is not coming, with a $17.8 million difference quoted in the Budget Book.
So where do we go from here? And if the Minister might be able to give us some indication of what the future looks like for the BCAA. Are we going to di-versify? Are there new markets out there for us to ex-plore? Are there different kinds of planes that we can get on the registry? I do not know enough about the intricacies of the Civil Aviation Authority to know. But if the Minister might be able to give us some indication because certainly the Premier in his Budget Statement, as well as within the news, has certainly raised this as a concern.
And there are a number of people, staff, there
is a team that works at the Civil Aviation Authority. And I am sur e that they too would like some indication of
what the future may look like. So if the Minister might be able to provide some indication of any consultation or planning that has gone into the next steps for the Civil Aviation Authority, I am sure that this would be of
interest to the listening public, who are keeping a tab on what is happening with the sanctions against the Russian country and the planes that are now in Russia and no longer part of the standard that Bermuda main-tains for its planes on its r egistry.
And I am just going to briefly touch on the Shipping and Maritime Authority. They come under Head
48, on page B -197, the Ministry of Transportation
Headquarters. I had not seen a particular line item for them. But the Shipping and Maritime Author ity, I would
imagine, has faced by no means the same scale of loss as the Bermuda Civil Aviation has with planes in Rus-sia. But I would imagine that we have had some. Maybe the Minister can confirm for us whether there were any Russia -registered yachts or ships on our shipping registry and whether there has been any damage to the—
[Inaudible interjection]

Thank you, MP Jackson.
Is there anyone else who would like to speak
to Head 48 under the Ministry of Transport?
MP De Silva, you have the floor.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a question or two. The Honourable
Member Susan Jackson spiked the questionable things that I had in mind. And I will continue to speak to Head 48 on page B -197.
I found it interesting that the Honourable Member spoke about revenues. And what I would li ke to ask
the Minister is, Can he confirm what effect the electric-ity bill down at the airport has had on our revenues? Because at last count I think it was costing the country about $3 million a year. So if he could clarify what that annual bill is to the taxpayers of this country —
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes, of course.
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes. And of course I would
also like the Honourable Minister to tell us how much we have paid in minimum revenue guarantees since the airport opened. Another great brainchild move of the OBA as they bulldozed ahead with the creation of a new airport. Thank you.

Thank you, MP De Silva.
Is there anybody else who would like to speak
to Head 48, Ministry of Transport, on page B -197?
Keep in mind that this is a four -hour debate and it
started at 10:40. It is now 11:52, and we are just on the first head.
MP Simmons -Wade, I see you in the back
there.

Thank you.
I know it may sound to be repetitious, but I believe the Minister said under Head 48, page B -198, I
believe the Minister said we were talking about almost $3 million in electricity. So I guess my question is a little different. What can be done and what is being done to try to amend this contract so the people of Bermuda can benefit from the money that we are paying, over $3 million in terms of electricity? I am sure I, like most other people, get up and you click that button to see what your electricity bill is . And most of time you are in shock
and concern about what you are paying. This is nothing in comparison to what we are paying based on a con-tract that was apparently badly written and bad terms and unfair terms to the Bermuda Government to L. F.
Wade and at L. F. Wade International Airport.
So if the Minister can let me know what can be
done for us to get out of this part of this very badly writ-ten contract? Thank you.

Thank you.
I just have one other question. When we were
talking about the revenue guarantee for the airport, I was just curious. There is a break point when we will have enough passengers on aircraft to provide enough revenue to make sure that our bills are paid. And un-derstandably, COVID -19 was a fluke for the whole
world. And if anybody has got to apologis e, yes, I am
sure across the board any human being can say that they faced some consequence as a result of COVID -
19. I am putting that out there. It happened.
But there has got to be a point at which we are
no longer dragging our feet. And we are a resili ent community. So I ask the Minister, How many more visitors do we need to get into airplanes where we are up and running again and we do not have to worry about con-sequences that were felt from COVID -19? And that was
a consequence of COVID -19. I just want to know —
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Point of order.

Member.
Go ahead. What is your point of order?

POINT OF ORDER
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: The Honourable Member is
asking the Minister, What point do we have to get
where we do not have to pay XYZ and we have reve-nues coming in? The Honourable Member was part of the Government that helped support and form the agreement that we now have to live by!

I agree with my colleagues.
That was not a point of order.
But my question again is, we have had to start
with airlift to Bermuda with very few passengers on it. We had to deal with the travel authorisation form, which was cumbersome and frustrating and expensive. And then we had to deal with certification of vaccination cer-tificates. I get it! People were not flying! But people are flying again in full force. So, I would li ke to know from
the Minister, How is Bermuda spreading its wings to at-tract visitors back to Bermuda so that our airplanes are healthy, filled with people, visitors wanting to come to Bermuda again from gateway cities where, you know, we can start with the low-hanging fruit from gateway
cities that are popular? When are we and at what per-centage level do our plane capacities need to be in or-der for us to really be back in an above- the-line healthy
airlift journey? And if the Minister might be able to give us
some indication of where we are and where we need to be. Thank you.

Thank you, MP Jackson.
Is there anybody else who would like to speak
to Head 48, Ministry of Transport Headquarters, found on pages B -196 through B -199 in the Budget Book?
With there being nobody else indicating, Minister, you have the floor.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, you know, I love this idea. Because it allows individuals to ask questions, for the pub-lic to get more understanding [regarding] revenue or expenses. So I welcome all of the questions that have been put forth by my colleagues and also by the Oppo-sition.
Let me answer that first question, the last question from my good friend, Honourable Member Jack-son. As an accountant, we always try to match . . . we
are in business, you try to match the revenue with ex-penses. And what we are saying is that we are paying out roughly $20 million in expenses for the airport right now. So if we are calling ourselves the Bermuda Airport Authority that actually runs, has kind of oversight of the
airport, but it is the taxpayer who pays that money out. But we receive not one cent from that particular ex-penditure item. So whether we have 100 million or 20 million people arriving through the air port, to match the
revenue with expenditure, we will never have that abil-ity until we actually are able to get revenue from the
generating that that expense causes.
So any business who is running, whether it is
my simple coffee shop I used to have, if som eone were
to have taken my coffee shop—
[Inaudible interjections and laughter ]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I don’t know. Coffee shop.

Minister, you have the floor. Stay focused.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Yes.
So what I am saying is if I only had expenses
and no revenue coming in for that (it was going out to somebody else, the retail store next door), you could never have made any money. So you are just paying out money, paying out money, paying out money.
And all I am saying is that the Governm ent has
been continually paying out money in this particular op-eration, and we will do it for 30 years until we are actu-ally able to get it back one way or the other. We will never be able to, no matter how many people come in, to break . . . so it is running right now, we are running
838 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly at a loss. The country, the taxpayer, are running at a
loss because there is no revenue matching with the ex-penditure.
So we have a lot of questions. Let me see if I
can answer. Some questions I will be able to answer. Some I probably have already forgotten because there
were so many questions. And, Honourable Members, if I do not answer, I have no problem with your writing it down and I will see whether I can get the answers to you.
Let us start with the ground transportation up
there with so many people coming in. The Honourable Member mentioned, I think it was 400,000 passengers coming into Dockyard. I mentioned this year we will have roughly 622,000. So it is 200,000 more than last year. So we have a challenge. We have a c hallenge.
So I have been meeting with many of the stakeholders, whether it is the minibus group, whether it is the taxi drivers, whether it is with Skyport, whether it is hotels. We are going to have some challenges.
So how we are trying to contract that, I think I
made a statement not long ago that we have roughly 81 taxi drivers (at that time; I do not know the exact number right now) who were not actually licensed for this year. It is mainly because of probate or some other means or other reasons. Then as I said, there are taxi drivers who actually operate, who work for whether it is government departments or private organisations, fire-men, policemen, TCD [Transport Control Department], Works and Engineering. And this goes on and on. And the cars unfortunately are parked up. So we do have some challenge. How do we counteract that? Well, as I said we have been meeting with the taxi drivers and we have been meeting with minibus operators. We met with Skyport. I am using Skyport as an example.
You have heard the time when people were
coming in through the airport and there were no taxis. We are trying to encourage individuals, and if the taxi drivers are listening to me and others are listening to me, of how do we find a way to benefit the drivers down there and benefit the tourists who are coming in? I use
a concept so you can visualise it. There are certain times during the day, particularly mid- morning, afternoon when I used to say planes are dropping out of the sky or they are landing at certain times when there are
hundreds of tourists coming in. So I have had discus-sions with Skyport on how —we have down there what
we have a shared- ride concept. And we normally do not
use that . . . they do not normally say “we” because we
don’t actually . . . we are not down there anymore.
There was a time when we had a traffic officer down there. But now Skyport has their own traffic officer. When we could share rides. And they normally shared the rides at the end, at the time when people are still waiting.
So we ar e using the idea of encouraging
Skyport and hope the taxi drivers will pick [the tourists] up. So if I land, I am able to share a ride with the Op-position. You know, myself as an individual, and I say, Listen, Ms. Jackson. Let’s share a ride to the Hamilton Princess, for example. So a ride to the Hamilton Princess normally for one individual is, you know, $32, roughly $32 right now to go by taxi. And so the taxi driver makes $32. However, if we share a ride, Ms. Jackson, MP Jackson will pay $25, so she saves $7. I will save $7. But the taxi driver will make $50. So there is a real benefit for all parties, all right?
So there are some things we are discussing to
make that work. I am going to be meeting Skyport very soon again to make sure we find out, how do we do
this? There is a line that says zone, because they are by zone. Zone 1, you get in this line. Zone 2, zone 3. Now, you do not have to share a ride with anybody. You can say, I’m going in my own taxi. And a taxi driver does not have to take shared ri des. It is up to them. If they
want to lose $18 . . . $32, $50 minus $32, yes, $18.
Then it is more beneficial. Now it is not by myself, Ms. Jackson and Mr. Pearman. It is by, it will be just two groups, two groups. We are not sharing that type of a concept. But we are allowing that concept to take place and trying to encourage it.
That shared ride concept is already at the airport. We are just trying to put it in action and encourage individuals to use it. Like I said, I will be meeting with Skyport to tr y to make that happen.
But at the Dockyard how do we move passengers? There has to be better coordination. We will be meeting sometime soon with the Chairman of WEDCO and his team of how do we coordinate it better? There is some discussion within our team at the Ministry of
how can we do things better? We have had discussions with Meyer and other groups of how they see things happening, which I think is coming along. Will we have challenges? We are going to have some challenges.
There is never a chance in life when there is no challenge in life. I do not know how perfect it is, there is always some type of challenge.
Most people get off of the cruise line and they
try to head down to Horseshoe Bay, for instance. And so we have these shuttles going back and forth back
and forth. Unfortunately, sometimes a minibus will stay there instead of going back to Dockyard. So we are go-ing to find a way to encourage, make that happen. We are going to now have a traffic officer at Horseshoe Bay, which we never had, all right, to encourage them to get back up to Dockyard, back and forth.
You had mentioned the idea of, and it was very
much a concern for me is we have heard where Som-erset residents have not been able to get onto buses because [buses] go by. If you know where the buses park up in the area, it is not right into Dockyard. So what is going to happen is that in the early morning runs, they are going to come out and go straight into town. They are not going into Dockyard per se to pick up any pas-sengers. The whol e idea is to . . . Because early morning runs, whatever it is, we want to make sure it is clear for residents of Somerset to have a clear ride. Now, will


Bermuda House of Assembly there be some times when there is an overflow? Possibly. But that is up to the director to continue to monitor
that concept and see how we can improve the game as we go along. And then when that is done, then they will go into Dockyard to help to move some of the passen-gers to Horseshoe Bay, and this goes on and on. So these are things that we are working on.
We are also having discussions with—you may
be aware of the community buses out there. There are ATs (from airport taxis ), which consist of minibuses and
whatever. We may expand their horizon to allow them to do other things where minibuses are being done right now to give them . . . and also help increase the list of
people coming out of Dockyard. Like I said we are hav-ing discussions. We are not fully there yet, but hopefully we can encourage and get that movement going.
So, yes, we know there is a challenge coming.
We are working on those challenges. Will it be perfect? I can guarantee it will not. I will be up there. I plan to spend the first day when they come in in April, and that is when the whole idea of this large group starting to come in in April. I plan to spend the whole day up there observing and then see how we can make some ad-justments. I will see whether the PS [Permanent Sec-retary] and other people will be willing to go up there during the day. And of course Stacey Evans may have some lunch up there and spend some—Ms. Washington, and get some things done. But it is a whole day of,
How do we monitor, view these things and make these things happen? So that is how the local movement from Dockyard [is progressing].
And there are other things we are having discussions with the taxi drivers about. We are not quite there yet. We are having discussions within my Cabi-net, my Cabinet colleagues to get support from them
on certain things. And until we get everything nailed down, I am not willing y et to go public on those particular items.
The Honourable Member, I think, I am not sure
it was you or whether it was MP Cannonier had men-tioned about loss of revenue. So we do not charge. The schedule runs from April to October where we get pas-senger tax . And I mentioned passenger tax and infrastructure tax. And thanks to MP Zane De Silva. When MP Zane De Silva was Minister of Transport, he is the one who encouraged infrastructure tax. And it has been very successful. We collect these funds from the cruis e
line, and it helps with the infrastructure, whether it is ferries, whether it is other things. And as you know, we have some money in the budget this year to improve things at Marine and Port, fixing our ferries, and the whole list goes on.
So 2019 was the first time we had infrastructure tax. It was $5.1 million under the Honourable Mem-ber Zane De Silva. We are now collecting, or we hope to collect $11.8 million this year. So there are some benefits [to the government] that the cruise line and the Minister of Transport are working [on] hand in hand. Of course, they charge passengers. And the passengers pay for all of these types of things. And I remember it was $15 (I am taking a guess now), $25 for a passen-ger tax. But I think it is $15. I stand to be corrected, $15 for infrastructure tax. I stand to be corrected on that one, but I will confirm it. Because we collect $27.3 mil-lion on passengers.
Now let me just say this to you. You asked
about how we are going to hope to collect it. As every budget or the accountant understands, we go through the idea, how many passengers are coming, roughly? We budget for a conservative number of either ships coming in or whatever it is. And so we are budgeting between 85 per cent and 90 per cent of passengers.
We are not budgeting at 100 per cent. If we budget at
100 per cent, we will get more than a number. And we
hope that the whole numbers come in. And it is a lot more money that will come in between passenger tax and also for infrastructure tax, so we hope that wor ks.
But as I said last year, the Minister budgeted for 50 per
cent of passengers because we had the COVID -19 situation. But we came in at 72 per cent.
So, it is nice to budget conservatively. Any Minister of Finance, anybody who is doing finance would budget under expectation and hope the best would work out. And if you do those type of things, whether a law firm or accounting firm or restaurants, they budget for a lower number. And if it comes up higher, then the stock market goes crazy because you got a higher re-turn than you anticipated. So that is why we budget at 90 per cent.
But when the ships are not being charged passenger tax, between November and March . . . and this
is something that we are encouraging. And I believe the OBA had the same things, what we call regular calls
and occasional calls. Right? So occasional calls for
during the time when the OBA was in Government, that was 25, 26, 36 and 44 and 61 in 2017. We will have 130 occasional calls this year. So you guys had it dur-ing the time, and that is the time when, in those numbers, when they will come in, and they come, you know, they come. And I am sure at that time they have the same benefits that we have in place right now. So this is not new for not charging passenger tax. Or at that time you [the Opposition, then Government] did not
have infrastructure tax. So we did not charge it.
Well, what did we receive? And you know, I
was just told, here is some interesting stuff. So there is something in there called Cruise Ship Port Expenses. So Cruise Ship Port Expenses was $7.5 million in 2012.
It was $9 million in 2018, and now $12.4 million this year. And here are some of the things that are being charged to the cruise ships. Removal of grey water, black water or garbage. Of course, they have got to move that, so there is a charge for that. Wharfage fees are being charged. So, I believe Dockyard or Hamilton or whether the docks up in Dockyard, they will get us some wharfage fees. Port fees, agency fees. Agency fees are Meyer and their group. Stephen Dorris may
get some fees. Tender service. When we do tender, we
840 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly charge them for tender. Fresh water, tugs, customs
fees if need be. We charge them for customs overtime. Port dues, pilotage, line boat, dockage, line handling, dock master fees, and spa re parts, stamps, fuel. And
so there are other charges. There are charges that they normally still have to pay, but like I said, does not come into being when it comes in, when it comes to passen-ger tax, which goes directly to the consolidated fund or the transport infrastructure fund, which also goes to the
consolidated fund.
But the visitors fee, the visitors fee goes to BTA
[Bermuda Tourism Authority]. Now, that was not in place when the OBA was in Government. We put that in place in 2019 and that came about, if you recall, Mr.
Chairman, that they dug (I call it a trench, but what do you call it?) a channel. They dug a channel. And they borrowed, RCI borrowed I think it was $14 million to dig the channel. And when the PLP became a government, we were lo oking to raise passenger tax. And they said,
Oh, no, no. We have this liability concern, which they charged their visitors cabin tax, it was called. There was this cabin tax they used to charge their visitors. I said to them, Okay, well, fine. That works. What we can do is take the debt (I think at the time it was roughly $6 million or $7 million) and put it on the BTA books. So
that money, that debt went on the BTA books. And then we said, Okay, how will we pay for it? So we, BTA, the
Government encouraged them to continually pay that
fee, visitors fee to BTA. All right? So they will get roughly, if everything goes well,
$7.7 million. Now, we have under -estimated. I think we
are budgeted, I think those guys were budgeted $6 mil-lion for BTA. I am not your M inister. [You have] to confirm that number. So if they get over that, it is well. So that is how it works in regard to expenses. Sometimes
cruise lines are charged, and other times they are not charged.
Let me see if I can answer some other questions here. BCAA [Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority].
How much time do we have left?

You have roughly 13 minutes until
lunch.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Okay. Let me see what I can
answer. Sometimes confirmed it is $25 for transport in-frastructure tax. The questions, I have a whole bunch of them here.
BCAA. Yes, BCAA. It was interesting that when
I was the Minister in 1995 of Transport, I met with Boris Yeltsin’s son -in-law and Boeing, the Chairman of Boeing. And that is how the Russian aircraft came on the registry at that time. Now, there were hundreds of them, hundreds of them.

Member, you are speaking to the
PLP’s budget.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Yes. But I am just telling you
how the aircraft, the funds came into existence.
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert : So the whole idea . . . So I
understand how the whole idea of the revenue came in place. I was very much involved in negotiating with the way for it to happen. So we received over that year, over the time, millions of dollars, millions of dollars in regard to the fee coming from BCAA. Now because of—
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, th at was not because of
the party, it was because of another person.
So the whole idea, the whole idea was . . . So
the benefit to BCAA has been significant. Should they have or been (How can I say? I am trying to be a little wise here) diversified (Let me use the word “diversi-fied.” That is the word I should use), diversified over the time? And they have been to a certain extent. How pro-active they were is questionable. Because when you have seen a lot of money from —you know, you do not
have to wake up nights or daytime and figure out where money is coming from. It just flows, like flowing with milk and honey. And it is not different from any family where money is coming in from rents and et cetera.
Then all of a sudden, you know, the renter goes crazy or you lose the property. And you say, Well, where is the money coming from? So you have to now be crea-tive in how you are going to get money in.
So the whole idea of BCAA —and you will see
no line item in there. We are not giving them any money
this year. We are not giving any money to Bermuda Shipping and Marine. At the end of the day our man-date is to ensure that those two operations at least break even one way or the other. Right? That is the ef-ficiency part of it. How do we work to encourage them? And so we will work with them over the next two or three
months to find a way to break even with those two groups.
Let me see these questions here. You had
asked the question, Cruise Ship Planning Team, how does the Ministry calculate cruise calculation? I think I
answered that question already. Yes, I did answer that question.
Do cancelled cruise ships still pay the fees?
No. The answer is no. If it is cancelled, no. You do not pay. I don’t know who asked the question. So if you do not come in, you do not come in. And that is why we take a conservative number on numbers that may not take in. Because if we assumed that everybody was coming in, that would be a bit too . . . We just do not
budget like that.
Does Bermuda have insurance for loss of revenue over cancel led calls? No. No.



Bermuda House of Assembly Ms. Susan E. Jackson: I thought I would ask.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: That was a good, it was good
. . . but I guess you can ask us .
Are there ratings of cruise ships? There probably are. It is on Google somewhere. We do not go on Googl e. I am a great cruiser. I have done 29 cruises,
and my cruise line is Royal Caribbean [RC]. I love Royal Caribbean. I do not —
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Yes. But I am just saying, I
just personally . . . my family and I, we do RC quite often.
Air Service Development. One of the associated contracts . . . So we do not give out that information. As you know, we do not. No part is ever dis-closed of minimum revenue guarantees. No! Now, you as a former Minister in that department for the party, you would know —

Then can you confirm, because as I was listening to the brief, brief, that I thought
I heard that under the Bermuda Airport Authority $3 mil-lion had been budgeted and put aside for the airlines? Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, so if that is the question,
yes. We set aside $3 million. But we do not say how that $3 million is given.
I would tell you, despite what the Royal Gazette
said, we spent $1,500 to make a trip up to JetBlue, and now JetBlue is coming. So the money that we will re-ceive from JetBlue is significantly higher than the $1,500 that the Royal Gazette was complaining about
on the front page of myself and the team going, which consisted of BTA, which consisted of the Bermuda Air-port Authority. We had the Hotel A ssociation with us.
We do have advisors (you call them consultants), which BAA has, and also Skyport has advisors when it comes to airlines. So we both have them. So it worked out well. And we met with American Airlines last week, talking about the Miami f light. Unfortunately, they will not be
flying to Bermuda this summer. They stopped in May, and they will probably re- fly again five months later.
Now, that is a challenge. Our airlines are getting full, and there is a challenge to us. So we are hav-ing dis cussions with them on, how do we get a bigger flight, a larger aircraft coming out of Charlotte, right? Because the seating capacity, and the former Minister may help me out because I am not a pilot. But I think it was about 104 on the smaller aircraft, 120? I do not know. Yes.

The average aircraft that comes to Bermuda seats 150 passengers.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: A hundred and fifty. So we are
asking for larger ones, and I believe—not believe. But we have a meeting I think this week or next week, next
week, talking to them about how can we get a larger aircraft out of Charlotte. And we are having discussions with other airlines on how do we get some more aircraft here? And so if anything happens, that is where a part of that $3 million, if need be, right? For years we have had . . . When we first came out of Miami, I know Dr.
Ewart Brown, who first brought American out of Miami, there was a minimum revenue guarantee there. And all countries pay something, right, from time to time. But we do not reveal what airlines get. But $3 million—so last year we had $4 million. We are going down to $3 million. That tells you that things are either getting bet-ter or we have found different ways of negotiating dif-ferent things, right? So that worked out in the country’s favour.

The solar part.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, the solar part. I am glad
you asked that question. So the solar part was put in place by the OBA. You remember that, don’t you? Yes, they put it in place. So that does not go to Skyport, nor does it go to BAA. It goes directly through a transformer right to BELCO. So the government gets nothing out of that. So we pay roughly $3 million a year on electricity. Yes, the lights on at the airport, you can go by and say, I am paying for that.
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, you negotiated the
wrong thing. The OBA unfortunately negotiated the wrong thing.
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Drive by. When you drive by
the airport and you say, I’m paying for those lights. And we collect not one dollar or one cent in revenue. How in the world did we do that? The $20 million roughly that
842 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly we pay right now a year is the same amount that we
were paying when we had the old airport, roughly a year. But the revenue came to the government, pas-senger revenue tax. We used to get money, but now we get nothing.

We have a new airport.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: And now we are paying out
money. And anything that the BAA is responsible for,
the lights and the aeronautical and everything else that runs on the runway, that is what we are paying for. You know, it is amazing how we got involved in such a crazy deal. And this Government is always cont inuing to find
ways and look at ways of how we can make that hap-pen. But I want every Bermudian driving by when they are coming from St. George’s and just look and point at that airport every morning or nighttime, in fact it is on morning times, too, I am paying for those lights. I am paying for those lights. Not even the new airport, the
old airport also! The old airport. I am paying for those lights. Keep on saying it. I am paying for those lights.
And you blame only one person.
[Crosstalk ]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: How much time do I have left,
Mr. Chairman? The Chairman: You have three minutes.
[Crosstalk ]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I am trying . . . A lot of these
questions I have already answered. Let me see.
What is the communication with Headquarters
and all of the other agencies to ensure we can handle the cruise passengers? Well, I have kind of answered already. Transportation coordinator. We will be working with WEDCO to see how we can do it even better.
How many planes can we get back during the
lease? Who is “we”? For BCAA never owned—we do not own those planes. They belong to lessors. So we have leased them. We may still have a few on the books that we are looking at or monitoring; I am not sure. But we do not actually own any planes .
The Bermuda Shipping Registry, I think you
had asked about Russians on that. There may have been a few, but that impact on BCAA was not as great —as a matter of fact, it was insignificant compared
to the aircraft registry. (Two more? One more minute?)
And BCAA, yes, they have a marketing team
now. They are now a source, some of them here re-cently in I think it was Malaysia knocking on doors. So they are out there trying to knock on doors. But it is not easy because some of these aircraft registries, author-ities, have been there for years. So they are trying to find another marketing way to get these aircraft there. Hence, why the Government says, We are not giving you a cent, BCAA. We are not giving you a cent , BSM.
We have now got to find a way to break even going
forward.

Good afternoon, Members.
We now resume in the Committee of Supply for
further considering of the Estimates [of] Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24, under the Ministry of Transport, Heads 48, 30, 34 and 35.
I call upon the Minister in charge to proceed.
The Honourable Minister, Wayne Furbert.
Minister, you have the floor.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

ESTIMATES OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
FOR THE YEAR 2023/24

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT
[Continuation thereof]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you.
Mr. Chairma n, I am not in charge. The Permanent Secretary is always in charge.

You may go right ahead, Minister.

HEAD 30 —MARINE AND PORTS SERVICES
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the budget for
Head 30, Marine and Ports Services , commonly referred to as M& P, is found on pages B -200 through B -
204 of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for
the year 2023 /24.
I believe we have two hours left. Correct?

Minister, that is absolutely correct. It
began . . . and it will conclude, unless I stand corrected,
at 4:10 pm.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: All right.
As I said, these other ones are not too complicated, so we might finish a little earlier unless the Op-position wants to go on and ask further questions.

Expenditure Overview

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the total current expenditure for the Department of Marine and Ports, Head 30, is estimated to be $22,054,000 which represents an increase of $2,341,000 , or an increase
of approximately 12 per cent over the 2022 /23 budget.
Mr. Chairman, with an increase of cruise passengers comes an increase in cost to the department. As we mentioned earlier this morning we have a very significant increase in passengers, and the increase is mainly due to different staff. We are going to have to fulfil some vacant funded posts, but also address the [decrease] in funding in relation to mandatory overtime, and fuel requirements, which will increase the cost in that particular head.
The department worked diligently to find a resolution and make the necessary service changes to as-sist the residents who rely on the Pink [Harbour] Route Ferry. The Pink Route has increased service and hours of operation which commenced operations on March 6.
That was Monday gone.
The Chair man: Mm-mm.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The prior schedule was commuter based and only provided service during the morning rush hour. Three runs in the afternoon rush hour, and four runs from Monday through Friday. To accommodate requests from the riding publi c, the new
Pink Route schedule includes the following:
• Operates 10 runs per day, from Monday
through Saturday .
• Four runs have been added to cover the late
morning to noon day .
• Saturday service was added at the request of the riding public .
• With the new budget coming on board, Sun-days will also be added, s o people can get to
church.
Marine and Ports Service expenditures are set
out under the following business units , West End
(Dockyard) , Central (Hamilton ) office, East End (Fort
George) , found on page B -200 of the Budget Book:
Programme 3006—West End (Dockyard)
• Navigational Aids, cost centre 40040—
$751,000;
• Tug Service, cost centre [ 40140] —
$1,784,000;
• Tender Service, cost centre 40210—
$384, 000;
• Dockyard Maintenance, cost centre 40260—
$3,391,000.
Programme 3007—Central (Hamilton)
• Ferry Services —$8,000,000;
• Mooring and Boat Registration—$293,000;
• Administration, cost centre 40220—$2,790,000.
Programme 3008—East End (Fort George)
• Maritime Safety and Security —$2,542,000;
• Pilot Service and Offshore Search and Rescue—$ 2,111, 000.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Marine and
Ports Service saw significant increases in two cost [centres] 40140 and 40090. Tug Service, cost centre 40140, was increased by $550,000 and the increase is due to the return of overtime required to support international shipping, the increase in tug fuel due to the in-crease in shipping of the upcoming season, and maintenance, Ferry Service, [cost centre] 40090 was increased by $1,408,000. The increase is due to the right-sizing of the Ferry Service fuel budget that was
unfunded in the fiscal year 2022/23, and funding for the vacant post and repair maintenance for the depart-ment’s aged fleet.

Revenue
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, Revenue, you
can see that on page B -201. Total revenue is anticipated to be $6,052,000. Charges are normally as we mentioned earlier.
• ferry services;
• tug services;
• boat haulage;
• pilotage fees;
844 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly • boat moorings; and,
• port dues.
Those are some of the costs we recover when
the ships come in even though they come in what we
call off season.

Capital Expenditure
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Capital expenditure, [found
on page] C -5. We are setting aside $4,271,000. This
represents an increase of approximately $3,830,558. The bulk of the increase of $3 milli on represents a reallocation of the Maritime and Ports Dockyard Work-shop Renovation. Funding for the 2023/24 fiscal year is approximately $863,000 [which] has been appropriated for the floating docks refit project. An additional $88,000 was allocated for t he completion of the
Hunter’s Wharf Bow Loading project.
The capital allocation spending for the department, found on page C -13 in the Budget Book, is in the
amount of $4,315,000. Mr. Chairman, $150,000 is set aside for navigational aids which represents a de-crease of over $100,000 when compared to the 2022/23 budget. For ongoing repair and replacement of the department’s ageing ship navigation infrastructure, the capital budget will be $380,000, [which is] an in-crease of over $100,000 over 2022/23.
Capital acquisition allocation provided for the
department’s fleet of ferries and other vessels refit and replacement project totals $3,785,000, which repre-sents a decrease of $1,715,000 of the revised esti-mates of the prior year.

Manpower

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: We have 161 individuals, full -
time equivalents for 2023/24. The department’s perfor-mance measures, found on pages B -203 and B -204 of
the Budget Book, remain positive. It is important that the department continues meeting its performance tar-get measures to meet the required international stand-ards. Maintaining these levels continues to be challeng-ing with the rapidly ageing fleet. As we go along, the department and the Ministry continues to look at how to put those things back in shape and improve our fleet of ferries.
As mentioned in previous years, the Department of Marine and Ports Services represents one of the most critical operational arms of the Government of Bermuda as it facilitates the movement of vital shipping commerce in and out of Ber muda’s ports. There was a
total of 898 international ship movements in Bermuda waters over the reporting year 2022/23.
The services the department provides include
pilot boats, tugboats, tender services and the Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre. During t he fiscal year the
department is responsible for 402 search and rescue cases, assisting both ships and aircraft locally and in-ternationally. The 2023 cruise ship season looks bright. As we mentioned, there are 224 calls this year for ships, [compared to]164 calls last year, which signals good news for the Bermuda economy.

Major Policy Changes
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, you would be
aware that Bermuda performed extremely well during the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Audit in December 2021. We will see major policy changes
such as the implementation of the Marine and Ports Service Act 2021 legislation and supporting regula-tions. The new Act will ensure all legislation and sup-porting regulations are up to date. Bermuda continues to oper ate to international standards as per the International Maritime Organization and International Conven-tion for the Safety of Life at Sea, SOLAS.
I am happy to announce the Marine and Ports
Service Act 2021 legislation was published with the of-ficial Royal Gazette on January 25, 2023. The department will continue consulting with stakeholders throughout the commencement process to ensure a smooth transition to the new legislation.

Plans for the Upcoming Year
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The plans for the upcoming
year of that particular department will include
• training of departmental staff to international standards will continue to ensure the depart-ment meets its international obligations in line with safe running requirements;
• progress with the department’s s uccession
planning to ensure highly technical posts within the department are filled by qualified Bermudians;
• training for tug captains and engineers of the department’s state- of-the-art tugs to ensure
our tug captains are fully trained;
• progress the renov ation project of Marine and
Ports workshops in partnership with the De-partment of Works and Engineering;
 continue with the public -private partnership
programme for the removal of derelict boats;
• assist the UK Maritime and Coast Guard
Agency Overseas Territ ories;
• Port reception facilities review.
Mr. Chairman, a lot of people may not be aware
that the Pink Route actually trains a lot of our pilots. So,
a lot of the young upcoming pilots are quite happy that this is back in place as they are trained for when they go into the deeper waters out there in the Sound itself.
I would like to thank the staff of Marine and
Ports for their excellent search and rescue and piloting services as well as for delivering an efficient, con-sistent, and reliable ferry servic e. That is Head 30.
I will go to Head . . .

Go ahead, Minister.

HEAD 34 —TRANSPORT CONTROL DEPARTMENT
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Head 34, TCD, Transport
Control Department,
The Transport Control Department’s mission is
To assure the safety of all road users.
Mr. Chairman, the TCD oversees the operation
of all motor vehicles and road users on Bermuda’s roads. The department monitors and regulates the sizes, functionality, roadworthiness, physical appear-ance and quantity of all vehicles by carrying out the fol-lowing activities:
1. oversees the management of the vehicle safety and emissions inspection programme;
2. administers the registration and licensing of all vehicles;
3. conducts practical riding and driving examina-tions for all riders and drivers;
4. regulates traffi c by monitoring drivers and vehicles;
5. issues permits for the operation of commercial and Public Service vehicles; and
6. implements road safety initiatives.
Periodically, the department inspects public
garages, rental minicars and cycle liveries to ensure
compliance with the conditions of their respective permits. The department also issues special permits, such as one- day permits which allow a person to use an insured but unlicensed vehicle on public roads (usually driven to be repaired) or to the department for inspection, and Sunday permits for commercial vehicles which are prohibited from being on the road on Sun-days, Good Friday, and Christmas day.

Department Overview

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the TCD is divided into five separate business units: Administration, Registration, Examination, Traffic Enforcement, and Road Safety.
The Administration Section is responsible for
the overall operation and administration of the depart-ment and its three facilities: North Street, Rockaway
and Southside. As most people are aware, you can get your car tested at those three places.
This includes professional services for the
management of the safety and emissions programme as well as external IT support for the eTCD online programme, the Driver and Vehicle Registration System (DVRS), the Appointment Management System (AMS) and the Electronic Vehicle Registration (EVR) system. Each of these systems are critical to ensuring optimum customer service . In addition to the aforementioned,
customers can now manage their own appointments online through AMS, and the department is partnered with the four major motor insurance providers for “real time” electronic transfer of policy information to the DVRS.
The Registration Section is responsible for registering and licensing all vehicles, issuing driver li-cences to all persons who operate vehicles on our roads, along with identification, senior and special per-sons cards. This section is also responsible for c ollecting all revenue for transactions conducted by the de-partment.
Mr. Chairman, the Examination Section conducts all driving and riding tests to ensure that appli-cants are proficient at operating the vehicles on Ber-muda’s roads.
The Traffic [Enforcement ] Section is responsible for the enforcement of road traffic and motoring laws, issuing moving violation and parking tickets, issu-ing permits for the movement of oversized trailers with heavy or wide loads, unlicensed vehicles, and occa-sional Sunday permit s. This section also [monitors] the
Electronic Vehicle Registration (EVR) system and works alongside the Bermuda Police Service.
The traffic [enforcement] officers are also deployed on street patrols to ensure all vehicles operated in Bermuda comply with our legislation. They are also responsible for ticketing abandoned vehicles and co-ordinating with sister departments to arrange for their removal and disposal.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak just briefly
on that. We are aware that there are a lot of c ars and
bikes floating around in different areas. If you hear of any, as far as MPs or anyone in the public are aware of any bikes or cars that are laying about, give the TCD a call and our role is to try to do something to take those particular objects of f the road, as far as removal.

The Minister is moving forward on
Head 34, Transport Control Department, and he is un-der the General Summary, business unit 3401, page B -
205.
Minister.

Expenditure Overview
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, TCD’s budget
allocation of $5,206,000 for 2023/24, an increase of $724,000 over 2022/23, which can be found on page
B-205. It should be noted that around 66 per cent, or
$3,423,000 of the $5,206,000 total budget is allocated to salary. So most of that is salaries.
Professional Service is $410,000.

Administration (cost centre 44210)
846 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: As far as Administration cost
centre 44201, the estimated budget is $2,161,000. This
represents an increase of $311,000 or an increase of 17 per cent.

Registration (cost centre 44040)

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the estimated
budget for the Registration Section is $927,000 for the fiscal year. The amount represents an increase of $128,000, or 16 per cent.

Examinations (cost centre 44000)
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The budget for the Examinations Section is $1,258,000 and represents an increase of $4,000, or 8 per cent.

Traffic Enforcement (cost centre 44110)
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The estimated budget for the
Traffic [Enforcement] Se ction will be $604,000. This
represents a 20 per cent increase, or $100,000 over
the prior year’s budget.

Road Safety (cost centre 44090)
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Road Safety will go up from
. . . they received $80,000 this year. Mr. Chairman, this
post w as defunded during 2021/22 fiscal year and remained unfunded for the 2022/23 fiscal year. This re-striction prevented the recruitment of a substantive Road Safety Officer (RSO). Funds have been allocated for the RSO’s salary in this budget. Therefore, recruit-ment will commence as soon as practicable after
April 1.
Of the $256,000 allocated to the Road Safety
Section, as seen on page B -205 of the Budget Book,
the Road Safety Council will receive $80,000, and $90,000 has been allocated to the Project Ride pro-gramme.

Revenue

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: We will see a significant
amount of revenue for this particular department.
It is anticipated that during 2023/24, [TCD will
collect] $29,994,000 in revenue. This represents an in-crease of 3 per cent over the prior year.

Capital Expenditure
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Capital Expenditure, found on
page C -13, the sum of $1,376,000 has been allocated
to begin the long overdue repairs and upgrades to the vehicle testing equipment in the department’s three fa-cilities: No rth Street, Rockaway and Southside. The
majority of these funds, approximately $1 million, has been expended on the current fiscal year, with $376,000 being allocated for the continuation of the projects in 2023/24.

Human Resources
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert : Human Resources, we have
42 full -time equivalents (employees). The full complement of staff at this department is 46. Therefore, this number represents the four posts that were defunded to reach budget targets last year.
I take this opportunity to thank the staff of the
Transport Control Department

Plans for Upcoming Year
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Transport Control Department will continue to review and update the Motor Car Act 1951 and the Auxiliary Bicycles Act 1954 and their ancillary regulations. In 2023/24, the department will fo-cus on modernising the public service vehicle industry
by consult ing with the four components: stakeholders,
minibuses, taxis, and I mentioned earlier airport limou-sines. Included in the discussions and will continue to be is the taxi inspection companies. Ideas being looked at are new methods of dispatching requests for service, new equipment, introducing fair payment by credit and debit cards, and new vehicle models.
Mr. Chairman, the anticipated increase in
cruise ship arrivals may require supporting an increas-ing number of public service vehicles available to move our vessels throughout the Island. And we talked about
[this] earlier on.
To ensure customer satisfaction and safety,
TCD will surely be introducing regulations for the mini-bus service to bring them up to the same standard as
our motor taxis, as minibuses right now do not fall under any specific regulations.
The Road Safety Council will work in conjunction with the Road Safety Office to continue the imple-mentation of Operation Caution, the Government’s five-year Road Safety Strategy 2018– 2023. Operation Caution will be extended to 2024 to cover the time lost on the pandemic.
One of the key deliverables of the Strategy in
2023/24 will again be recommendations for enhancing the Project Ride programme for Bermuda’s youth li-censing. Applications to undergo training and final practical exams on public roads will take place in the TCD yard. Mr. Chairman, that is TCD. And let me just
touch on a few things.

Go right ahead, Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: It is important for people to
get their . . . there are times when people aren’t licensing their cars. We have that challenge and if you are not aware, TCD has the ability to see if a person’s car is not licensed. I am not going to tell you what those


Bermuda House of Assembly particular objects are, but they can catch you. So get
your car licensed. If not, there could be a heavy fee.
In addition, Mr. Chairman, we know that some
people have challenges with the licence, paying for the whole year. You have the ability to get a three- month
or six -month licence for your car. So let’s say my birthday was February 28, you can get a licence—
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I said if it was. My birthday is
really March 30.
[Inaudible interjections]

March 30, Minister. Very well.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I just didn’t want to tell you
that, but I go 36.
[Laughter and inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: And many people have approached me on this. Right? We are going to make that process simple for individuals who want to get their car licensed for a period, three months or six months. All right? The Chairman: Three months or six, yes.
Hon. Wayne L. Fur bert: Well, I am going to make it
very simple. The process that we have right now is too complicated and confusing. For the elderly, if you want to get your car for a period of time, three months or six months, we are looking to process . . . and as time goes
on you will hear what the process is. But we can give our people headaches because people cannot afford it for a year. But we will be able to get a licence for three months, six months or a year after that.

Yes, Mini ster.

HEAD 35 —DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, Department of
Public Transportation (DPT), is found on pages B -209
through B -212 of the Budget Book. The department’s
mission is Moving Bermuda with a quality public bus service . You are all familiar with what the public bus is. The estimated cost, expenditure, for that particular service is $21,977,000. This is found on page B -
209. This is $4,189,000 or 24 per cent higher than the
2022/23 budget.
The department has three bus business units:
Transportation, Maintenance and Administration.
Programme 3501—Transportation
• Bus Operations, cost centre 45010—$11,241,000.
Programme 3502—Maintenance
• Repair Servicing, cost centre 45090—
$4,561,000;
• Inventory Management, cost centre 45115—
$1,394,000.
Programme 3503—Administration
• Administration, cost centre 45120—
$3,983,000;
• Management Support, cost centre 45200—
$798,000.

Transportation—Bus Operations

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The public bus service is in
operation 365 days a year, 18 hours a day, in order to
provide Island- wide transportation across 11 bus
routes. Unlike most public transportation systems around the world, school bus service is coordinated during the school year with free transportation provided year round to the resident school students.
The current account expenditure for Bus Operations under cost centre 45010 is $11,241,000. This is an increase of $1,282,000 or 13 per cent more than the
prior year’s budget.

Maintenance—Repair Servicing
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the department employs a team of professionals in Repair Servic-ing to maintain the fleet of public buses, support vehi-cles and equipment. The cost centre 45090 is $4,561,000 or an increase of $769,000, or 20 per cent
over last year’s budget.

Inventory Management
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Cost centre 45115, is
$1,394,000 or an increase of $320,000, or 30 per cent
more than the prior year’s budget.

Administration
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The Administration Section is
primarily responsible for developing department strat-egy, policy, and procedures —ensuring that the people,
processes, and resources are available to deliver a quality public bus service. The cost centre 45120, which accounts for salaries, utilities and shared ser-vices is estimated to be $3,983,000 for 2023/24. This is
848 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly an increase of $1,758,000, or 79 per cent more than
the prior year’s budget. This is the adequate funding
level needed to support that service.

Management Support

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The Management Support
team is responsible for selling and processing bus and ferry fares; and providing administrative services for ac-counts, procurement, and human resources. The ex-penditure for Management Support is estimated to be $798,000 for 2023/24. This is an increase of $60,000, or 6 per cent more than the prior year’s budget.

Revenue
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, it is anticipated
that in 2023 DPT will generate approximately $3,322,000 in revenue, as found on page B -210 of the
Budget Book. This will be attained primarily from col-lection of statutory bus fares.

Capital Expenditure
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the capital acquisition estimate for the department, as seen on page C-14 of the Budget Book, totals $6,085,000. This is primarily for the acquisition of new electric buses con-sistent with the procurement strategy for [replenish-ment] of the aged diesel bus fleet.

Manpower
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the total complement of full -time equivalents in 2023/24 is 228 individuals, as recorded on page B -211 of the Budget
Book. This is an increase of five compared to last year.
The breakdown of full -time equivalents by each
section is as follows:
• Bus Operations, 160 full -time equivalents;
• Repair Servicing, cost centre 45090, has 47
full-time equivalents;
• Inventory Management, cost centre 45115,
has been allocated five full -time equivalents ;
• Administration, cost centre 45120, has four full -
time equivalents;
• Management Support, cost centre 45200, has
12 full -time equivalents, unchanged from the
prior year’s budget.

Major Policy Changes

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Mr. Chairman, the department of Public Transportation continues to progress on the path of technological advancement and investment. The most important resource is people.
The goal is to consistently deliver a quality public bus service that is [convenient] to all who use the system, i nvesting in the new technology, replacing old and unreliable buses, recruiting subject matter experts and training existing employees of focal points in the strategy to advance the department.
Last year the arrival of 30 electric buses
marked the first m ilestone of the full transformation of
Bermuda’s public bus fleet from diesel to electric. A public survey was conducted on the Government’s for-mer website to find out what residents and visitors think about the new electric buses.
Mr. Chairman, the people have spoken. Our
study has shown that there is an overall enthusiasm for the new technology. [This is] evidenced by the reduc-tion in noise, fumes and the impact on the environment. One participant summed it up nicely, More electric buses, please. Mr. Ch airman, we have heard the call
and we are answering. I am pleased to report that 40 new electric buses are on the way . . . well, not quite on
the way, but being built.
The buses are scheduled to arrive in groups of
10 in successive weeks later this summer until all 40 buses are on Island. The old diesel buses that are too costly to maintain will suitably be retired from duty. DPT will have 70 new electric buses in operation plus the remaining operable diesel vehicles in good time for the 2023 school year. With sufficient vehicles in operation
to provide the full daily public transportation service, the need to secure minibuses to supplement the school service will no longer be required.
I am pleased to add that the complement of the
mechanic staff travelled to the United Kingdom in staggered groups to complete Level 3 and 4 EV hybrid cer-tified training with tailored material that is specific to the new electric buses. The Department of Public Trans-portation is on a short track to provide reliability , dependability, and improvements to the passenger experience. With the introduction of new technology, the de-partment is committed to technical leadership and en-hanced asset management. Continuing investment will be made in the training, development and r ecruitment
of a post responsible for fleet maintenance. The depart-ment will establish a work -planning function and retool
the maintenance section to support the next generation of buses. Considerable improvements are underway to facilitate an infrastructur e. The automated bus washer
and recovery tow truck are both past their useful ser-vice life and the department is in the beginning stages of the procurement process for both.
Mr. Chairman, I can confirm that the department head is looking at certain staff actually going to China. This is being discussed to see whether they can go and take a look to see what is being done to make sure that they fall in line with what we want to do here in Bermuda. If you recall, if anybody has ridden the bus, I think there w ere one or two bells on ther e and it was
like . . . so we are adding more push bells so that people can . . . that was recommended by the actual staff
itself, and also by the public.
Passenger Experience


Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The Department of Public
Transportation aspires to be Bermuda’s preferred
transportation solution. To achieve this, the department
will focus on improving the passenger experience, both in person and through technology. All frontline repre-sentatives will benefit from customer servic e training
while the advancement of projects such as digital fare media and real -time passenger information will improve
the public bus service.
Mr. Chairman, as I conclude the brief to the Department of Public Transportation Services, Head 35, I would like to thank the management and staff of the department for their commitment to serving the resi-dents and visitors of Bermuda.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to sincerely thank
the entire Ministry of Transport team for their hard work and commitment that ensures that we have a safe and efficient transport system. I would also like to thank all Ministry partners for their efforts and collaboration with the Ministry as it is these kinds of relationships that have served and will continue to serve the community best.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my presentation
for the Ministry of Transport. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Minister, for that brief brief. It was wel-come. T hank you for reporting on all three heads.
I would like to begin with Head 30 on page B -
200. I am going to jump right into the Ferry Service, which is on B -200 under General Summary. It is [item]
3007, line item 40090, Ferry Service. I would like to ask the Minister if he could just give us a rundown on the
Orange Ferry. There wasn’t much discussion about the Orange Ferry in the brief, but clearly this is an important issue for those who have businesses in St. George’s as well as those who are living in St . George’s, that during
the months that the Orange Ferry is running that it is a regular and consistent service. And so, I am wondering if the Minister might be able to give assurances to the passengers of what is the expectation for the Orange Ferry for t he summer months, and give some satisfaction to the entrepreneurs in St. George’s, in particular, that it will be up and running smoothly.
I did hear the Minister mention, and I am not
sure I can reference the number, but he did reference that there is funding in place for the bow facing wharf and I am curious whether that is part of the finishing of the construction and renovation or anything to do with making sure that everything will be in line for the Or-ange Ferry this summer for the St. George’s run.
My other question regarding the Ferry Service,
I am still on page B -200, 40090. We have an allocation
this year of $8,008,000. That is a substantial amount of money. It is an increase from last year of $1,408,000. And I believe that I heard the Minister say that a good
portion of that is going toward the maintenance and the fuel and the operations of the physical ferries. And so my question to the Minister, especially based on the successes that we are seeing with the electrification of the buses, whether the Ministry is looking at all into the electrification of the ferry services in Bermuda?
Now, having said that, I would like to give a bit
of a preface on the fact that the Pink Ferry in Bermuda is an icon. That is just a part of the postcard for Ber-muda. I believe that many people love to see the traditional diesel ferry tooting around the harbour. However, as Bermuda does become sophisticated, more environ-mentally conscious, contributing to climate change, that if we were to find a suitable replacement so that we
could bring down some of the fuel costs and the oper-ation and maintenance costs of our ageing fleet, in par-ticular looking at the Pink Ferry, which I would imagine has some contribution to this annual increase, that we would maybe consider somethi ng that is electric.
I would now like to move on, still on ferry boats,
but to C -13 and the Capital Acquisition, 76540. We
have an allocation—and this is for Capital Acquisitions, so purchasing of ferry/pilot boats. And we have esti-mated this year that we would invest $3,785,000 in this. So, I didn’t pick up from the Minister what we were go-ing to replace, whether it is a new ferry or whether it is a new pilot boat. What are we actually going to pur-chase this year for that?
While just speaking to the pilot boats, I would
like to go back to page B -200, General Summary 3008
and Piloted Services Offshore 40180. So we are spending $2,111,000 this year, which is an increase of $202,000. And I noticed that year we had about 659 international ships that were coming in and out of our shores. And I believe that I heard the Minister mention that we have 898 ships, maybe for 2023/24. So if he could maybe confirm please that it is that substantial increase? And I would imagine with the cruise ships that this is adding t o that. But we also have the tankers
and container lines and all the other ships that visit ad hoc throughout the year.
But I did not see a whole lot of change in the
staffing numbers for Piloted Services. When I turned to page B -202, at 40180, we have 19 staff. We have a
position for one additional staff. And I guess what I am asking the Minister is whether we are again going to be able to accommodate an increase like that in the num-ber of ships. And I believe that I read in the news that ships were now r esponsible that if a pilot is offshore
with a ship from Bermuda and if for any reason that ship either for weather reasons or whatever, is not able to come straight back into Bermuda shores, that the ship
850 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly would be responsible for travel costs and the rest. And
I guess what I am getting at is to ask the Minister how
we will manage that given this increase load of ships coming to Bermuda if we do find that pilots are in other ways predisposed with a number of 20, at best, whether . . . and I would imagine that within that pilotage services offshore that we could find ourselves running thin. And so, I just want to make sure that we do have enough people to manage it.
Now, the Minister did also mention that there is
a succession plan in place and maybe he can add if there are any initiatives to attract more young people and anyone who would like to get into the profession.
I have a couple of questions on page B -200
still, [business unit] 3008 and 40100 Maritime Safety and Security. I certainly would like to als o extend a
thank you to the search and rescue teams. I am sure that it can be very uncomfortable to be on our oceans in bad weather and also in very dangerous situations sometimes when dealing with search and rescue of ships in open seas.
And again, on page B -202, I am seeing that we
have a steady staff of nine. And as much as we thank and appreciate the staff members for all they do, again, I just want to make sure that we have the staff available and whether our staff numbers are . . . if I could ask the
Minister whether these numbers are sufficient based on the regulations or whether we have room to increase that and whether it is that there aren’t people interested in pursuing in getting involved in piloting and maritime in Bermuda, or if nine staff is s ufficient.
I now would like to move down to page B -200,
the Tug Service 40140. So, we are investing $1,784,000 and that is up $550,000 for this year. I am just curious whether the Minister can give us an update
whether this tug service increases because of the in-creased cruise ship schedule. And whether, again . . .
and I am sorry to ask it, but we have looked at consist-ently the same number of staff in past years and now we are seeing this incremental change in increase in the volume of maritime [activity ], and I just don’t want
to see us, especially not an accident to happen be-cause we did not have sufficient staff. And if there is any profession in Bermuda, the maritime just absolutely has to be the top of the heap as far as a real reflection of (no pun intended) an admirable profession to have in Bermuda. And so I just want to make sure that we protect and make sure that we are able to retain that industry as Bermudian as possible with pride and not run a few people into the ground because of exhaus-tion.
Just sticking with the tug services, I believe we
had . . . and there was a tugboat that had a little accident with a cruise ship earlier this year. And I read in the newspaper that there is an investigation that is tak-ing place. I believe the mast fell off of it. It hit the side of the cruise ship. And I believe that the cruise ship was fine. So, it is not about that. But there was an investiga-tion according to the news report and I am just curious if there was an update and whether there was addi-tional t raining that was needed or any additional costs
that were involved to repair the mast that fell over, et cetera.

Yes, I will try to wind this one
down very quickly.
So my last piece, and again, I am focusing a lot
of the human resources in the maritime right now, for this year, making sure that they have what they need. And over on page B -201, under the Subjective Analysis, under Training, we have allocated $335,000 which is what we have spent in the past year. And I am just curious if the Minister could give us some indication of who might be training for captains, engineers?
Is the training going to be held overseas? Or
will trainers come her e and train within our waters? So
if we can get a little information on that. Again, I don’t want to throw a wrench into it, but it is just the nature of the beast. We did have a little collision during a training session about a year or so ago with a reef , which was
what made me think about the investment in training. And in particular, how we . . . or if the Minister can give
me any indication on how training might have been im-proved after that collision given the fact that Bermuda does have a very unique reef system. We have a
unique channel system. And so is it enough if staff train-ees go overseas? And I can understand some of the


Bermuda House of Assembly academic and the theory that they would get overseas,
but whether we do bring in anybody or if there are cer-tified trainers on the Island to make sure that we pro-vide quality training and that accidents don’t occur be-cause they are costly.

Thank you.
I have just one last question for Head 30. I am
on page B -201, and I wanted to just take a look at the
. . . under Subjective Analysis, the energy costs.
So, of course, the energy costs are going up.
We have invested this year, or are estimating to inv est
$2,678,000 in energy, which is a lot of money. And this is an increase of $806,000 for this year. And again, it just makes me curious, and I would like to ask the Min-ister if we are taking, or creating, or having a full review of our energy efficiency within the Marine and Ports Ministry for this year because, clearly, our energy and our fuel costs are driving our operational costs very high.
If there were a review, could we take a look at
what it would cost for us to invest . . . I would like to see
it electric. If you can tell, I am kind in that mode right
now, but certainly what we can do to sort of drive some of those costs down. Because I think if we wait for fuel prices to go down, we may be waiting a very long time and Bermuda does not deserve, as a Government, having to spend money in a place where we might be
able to save money. We should [not] be held hostage by fuel and oil.
With that, I will move on to . . . Oh! Should I
take my . . . I am going to take my seat for a moment.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, good to see you.
Yes, on page B -201, under the Revenue Summary. I am just curious, we seen an increase here of about $565,000. Of that $565,000, is that due to in-creased traffic or did we increase fees in any way, a combination of both? It would be good know about that.
I think part of that question . . . I will go to a
second part of that question. If you flip over to page C -
13, under Ministry of Transport and scroll down four items down, 76540, Ferries and Pilot Boats, we can see in the revised amount that we certainly spend a bit more than we anticipated. Maybe that was due to mainte-nance problems. I am just curious what that is, referring to why we had to go $2.5 million over what was pro-jected.
But we seem to go back to normalcy here in
estimate numbers for 2023/24, $3.785 m illion. Now I
understand that in this line item here it is classified “U” which essentially means that we are just replacing what we have. There aren’t any additional ferries being pur-chased. Is that a fair assessment? Because it is classi-fied as “U.”
So, with the increased traffic that we understand [will] take place under the cruise ships coming to Bermuda, and the number of passengers, I would have thought that we would have been looking to add to the fleet of ferries because we know that St. George’s i s
underserved for sure. So how do we plan on accommo-dating the traffic with the same number of ferries and understanding that St. George’s with this increased traffic could do with maybe two or three ferries with all this traffic. I don’t know. If he can explain that to us. I think that is it.

Thank you.
That just triggered another question. On page
B-201, under Revenue Summary, toward the bottom,
8763 Tug. And we are showing revenue of $1.469. So,
$1,469,000. I am curious. We had old Faithful and old
Powerful retire. And I read in the news that both of
those tug boats went down to Trinidad (I believe). Did
we sell those boats? Were they given away? If we could just find out what happened to Faithful and Powerful
when they retired and were sent down to Trinidad. I think that is it for that head.
So, I woul d like to move on to Head 34,
Transport Control Department.

So, this is on page B -205. I
would like to begin with the objectives on the page. There is an objective in here [t]o develop an improved public transportation network utilising modern technol-ogy. And I believe in the brief the Minister may have
just quickly referenced advancements. And I would like the Minister if he has time to just let us maybe have a bit of an update on any digital fare technology, in particular. And I may bring that up when we get to a more specific line item, but generally speaking, whether we do have an objective or a mission to become a little
852 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly more digitally facing with customers and within the public transportation system. This could be to collect data
on the number of people who are riding our buses, hav-ing a sort of GPS location specific technology around the buses, et cetera.
So, just looking at how we may be able to digitise. Because let’s face it, we have done very well in other areas, becoming more digital, and we will get to that in the next head. So I am just curious to see what advancements can be made in the Transport Control Department.
There are a couple . . . I will leave that alone
for the sake of time.
Within the policies and the overview of the
Transport Control Department, the Road Safety Legis-lation falls under this umbrella generally. So there is no specific line item that speaks to legislation around t his,
but certainly the Minister referenced Operation Cau-tion, which is a road safety strategy. And it is expected to last until this year. This year would be the final year of making sure that everything is included in there. And if the Minister might be able to give us just a brief . . .
yes or no even, on the addition of things like stop light cameras, and also any updates in the Project Ride training and how the training is going.
And I was also curious whether the Minister
could give any indication or whether we are collecting data to collate between young people who go through Project Ride and are we in any way able to match if at any age, let’s say even up to the age of 40, or as long as Project Ride has been in existence, how many, if any, of the Project Ride graduates have ended up in serious road traffic accidents. Because I think that would be a really good way for us to measure success to a certain extent. Have the Project Ride lessons really
become a part of their lives or was this just a simple step in order to get them on the road as quickly as pos-sible? And whether we are actually seeing a change in rider behaviour on Bermuda roads or whether that was simply an exercise.
I would like to now go to page B -205, under
General Summary. This includes examinations of vehi-cles, registration of vehicles, road safety, traffic control and administration. This year it is totalling $5,206,000 and that is an increase of $724,000. That is a 16 per
cent increase. I would like to ask the Minister, Are we getting really good value for our money? Are we . . . we
are increasing in every single area of the general sum-mary. So in every section of the Transport Control De-partment, operational costs are increasing. And I don’t have any indication, other than 44090, Road Safety, where the Minister did mention there will be a road safety officer hired to assist with that section, but I don’t know what all of these increases are going toward. And I just want to make sure that we are getting good value for money.
I tried t o do . . . and I am not even going to get
into it, but I tried to do a little bit of analysis, in particular 44040, Registration. Which is the second item under General Summary on page B -205. And in a nutshell, I
am trying to find out . . . and this is a s pend of $927,000.
I didn’t know, and if the Minister could clarify for me, whether this has anything to do with wages.
Is this an increase in wages in the registration
department within Transport Control? Because I couldn’t see where there was any indicat ion that we
were investing in any particular project, as such. And when I turned over to page B -206, I don’t see anything
under wages. So I don’t know whether that $724,000 is wages and somehow it has been put —
[Inaudible interjections]

Page B -205 is the $927,000
operating cost. But when I turn the page to B -206, I am
seeing zero for wages. So I don’t know whether $927,000 is for wages or whether we are investing in something that is going to cost $927,000 for this year,
under Registration.
And now I would like have a look, still on page
B-205, Examination.

I have a question about emissions testing. I have two themes. One is staff and re-sources and developing m aritime professions, and my
other is environmental consciousness.
We certainly had, at one point (now many
years ago), the capacity to measure emissions. Cer-tainly it would not be something I would advocate and immediately, Let’s jump in and start measuri ng emissions. But clearly this is something that under a previous PLP administration, emissions was an important feature and we were ahead of the game. But then we stopped it and we stopped it for like decades. Now we are at this critical point where emiss ions is a new conversation piece.
So we have the garage at least, the physical
plant. I don’t know whether we have the equipment an-ymore. But we talk a lot about emissions testing, but I am not convinced and if the Minister might be able to convince us that there is any indication that emissions testing is a part of the examination of our vehicles in Bermuda. If it is not, whether this is something that would be reintroduced. Because if it is going to be rein-troduced, I believe that the general public, the motoring
public would certainly need quite a bit of leeway. Be-cause many of our vehicles are ageing and I would im-agine that it would be an added stress for the road us-ers.
But, again, emissions testing is talked about all
the time, but there isn’t any real evidence of emission testing or emission measuring. I mean, even if we were to just measure emissions in Bermuda for awhile with-out it having any penalty on the vehicle ow ner, but just

B ermuda House of Assembly to get an indication of how much emission is being released into the air by our cars and our motorbikes.
[
Pause]

M m-hmm.
Members, now there are about 60 minutes left
in the . . . as we go into the resumption of the . . . for
further consideration of the expenditures in revenue and expenditures for the year 2023/24, that being Heads 48, 30, 34 and 35.
The Shadow Minister Susan Jackson is preparing to continue to offer questions to the Minister on those heads.
Shadow Minister.

Yes. Thank you.
I am trying to abbreviate my questions. So, still
on page B -205, under General Summary, 44090, Road
Safety, the Minister did let us know that allocation is
being made to have an additional road safety officer, which is a great thing. And he also mentioned that there are cameras out there that are monitoring whether our cars are licensed or not. But I am just curious if the Min-ister has any indication of what are some of the 2023/24 objectives for the Road Safety Council. Yes, it is won-derful to have awareness and education campaigns, and we all get out there to really promote safe driving on our roads. But is there anything more [happening with] the Road Safety Council and with Project Ride and the Road Safety Week? And now they have got a new roads safety officer, what can be done to really get us to the next level of safety on our roads?
I certainly would not want to in any way infringe
on the Minister’ s right to set policy and the rest, but I
am aware just through watching news and things that there are all kinds of things. There are breathalysers that are installed in cars of convicted folk driving under the influence, where you have to actually blow into the breathalyser before the car will even start. We have got education programmes that really go into the detail and give you a real feel for what your vision actually looks like in a blurred state when under the influence, which are just video educational programmes with a test.
So, I am just wondering how the Road Safety
Council and the road safety officer might be able to just beef it up a little bit as far as the education and aware-ness and possibly if we could, start to really collect some data because we have . . . it is almost like the
standing column in the newspaper now of all the folks who are being caught, especially driving under the in-fluence. And you know, my condolences, my heartfelt sympathy for those who have lost family members be-cause road accidents. It might not have anything to do
with driving under the influence, but just the fact that our roads are now becoming weapons and we must try harder. And if the Minister can give me some indication of the motivation to be more comprehensive in our road safety programme.
I would just like to turn the page to B -206 under
subjective analysis, just very quickly under Profes-sional Services. I noticed that we spend about $379,000 a year on Professional Services. This year it is going up slightly to $410,000, and I am just wonder-ing if the Minister can give me some indication of what that $410,000 gets spent on. And the reason I am say-ing this is that it was my understanding, and I may be wrong, that much of the Professional Services was in-troduced and the investment was made in the online
registration, the eTCD, all of the online and technologi-cal advancements within the Transport Control Depart-ment. And I use it to [set up] my email reminder, time to
come in and examine the car, et cetera. So it seems to
be working really, really well. The insurance companies just immediately send in policies, et cetera. So I would have thought that maybe the costs were going down now in this area. So, unless we are doing something . . . and if the Minister could maybe provide any indication that we are adding to this, or if we are just main-taining the platform, the technology platform, the online platform that we have now. Why would we still have to spend the same amount of money every year and maybe even go up a little bit? It is just a minor increase of $31,000, but I am just curious why we still have to pay so much now that we have an established online electronic vehicle registration programme.
My final piece is page B -206, looking at the
Revenue Summary. I noticed . . . could the Minister
please tell me exactly, 8391, Exam fees for wheel, and there is a revenue increase of $413,000. And I am just curious what increase that is. Is it that [because] there are more cars that are four -wheeled that are coming
onto the Island? Maybe he could itemise that a little for me or whether fees are going up. I don’t know.
And then if I go down a little further to 8473,
Commercial Vehicles.

We are still on page B -206.
Still in Revenue Summary. So we have done the exam-ination of four wheels. Now I have come down a little further to midway, 8473, Commercial Vehicles.
I am noticing that we are looking at an increase
of revenue by $566,000. If I may also get an explana-tion, are we introducing and expecting more commer-cial vehicles on the road? Because if I look at it, it looks like the “exam fees -four wheel,” which is almost a half
a million dollars, and the commercial vehicle revenue at just over a half a million dollars, they look like they
go together. So it looks like there is some kind of vehi-cle that is going to be introduced and there are more of them, versus a fee increase. But it could be a fee in-crease, I am not sure. If the Minister could just provide
854 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly some information and clarification on that. It would be
appreciated.
I would now like to move over . . . Oh! One last
. . . page B -208. This is very important from a constituent here. This is the performance measures, business unit 44110, Traffic Control. It says to keep response to
abandoned vehicle reports to under 10 business days. And I am just going to take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether we actually have the capability in the form of a truck or a crane or whatever the vehicle is that actually responds and takes the abandoned vehicles away.
I understand that there was no vehicle to remove abandoned cars and bikes. I don’t know if that is true. But I am asking. If there is actually a truck or tow truck or whatever vehicle in place to remove aban-doned vehicles at this present time or if there is money allocated to purchase a vehicle, and if we could get an idea of when that vehicle would be purchased and on the road to collect abandoned vehicles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I take my seat.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just wanted to speak to my colleague, to follow up with my colleague’s query as it r elated to abandoned vehicles. We have that as a large issue in my constituency as well. My understanding, as it is, is that the department does have the ability to recover aban-doned vehicles because they do not have the necessary trucks and also they lost the space at the quarry where they would store those vehicles whilst the own-ers were contacted and all those sorts of things.
So, I just wanted to reiterate with my colleague
that abandoned vehicles are becoming quite a prob-lem, certainly in my constituency. And every time I try to have them removed it seems like a long bureaucratic mess, and so my question to the Minister is, What are we doing about that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just like to move onto Head 35, Public
Transportation. It is on page B -209. I would like to just
start with 45090, and that is Repair Servicing. So, it
looks as though there are $4,000,561 which is an in-crease of $769,000 for repair services for our buses, for public transportation. And I would like to ask the Minis-ter when and how we are going to start to retire some of these . . . I would imagine the diesel buses that are
clearly costing an awful lot of money in maintenance and repairs. And so is there a retirement for that?
And when I speak of the retirement of it, it
makes me ask the question on the next line item, 45115, Inventory Management, and that is, It seems
that we are introducing the electric buses in bulk. And sometimes when we introduce things in bulk then they are all going to retire at the same time. So, whether we are taking a look and considering that, so that we don’t find ourselves in a situation that we have been in the past with the diesel buses where they are all kind of ageing at the same time and breaking down. And so if the Minister might be able to give us a little bit of an indication of how we might be able to reduce the repair
services, which I am guessing is because the high cost of maintaining the older diesel buses.
And then how are we managing the new inventory so that we don’t find ourselves having huge repair costs in the future? Because we m ay find that the electric buses are all ageing at the same time and needing additional costly repair services.
And under the Repair Services for the electric
buses, has the Minister found that there are any partic-ular quirks at all about the electric bus es? I mean, I haven’t heard anything, but are the batteries managing okay? Are they storing the energy? Are they maintain-ing themselves?
When we come to, under Repair Services, and
I just want to ask about the electric buses and repair services, I will pr eface by saying I actually ride the bus
quite a bit. I love it. So I ride it from the West End into Hamilton. And no offence to the Minister of Public Works, he has already absolutely declared how he feels about the roads. However, riding on the electric
buses and feeling the vibration of going over the potholes and the uneven paved roads, I am not joking and I am not exaggerating, you can literally feel all the inner parts of the bus just vibrating. And it is constant for long periods of time to the point where sometimes I would
ride the bus and it almost feels like you could see a screw would be bouncing out of one of the handles where you hold, if you have to stand, because the bus is full.
These are the kinds of things that I would just
like to ask the Minister, under Repair Services, whether we are taking a close look at how the electric buses in particular are handling our roads, especially in their present condition. And whether we are vigilant of the fact that the interior of the buses can be just as fragile
as the engines of the buses as well, and to make sure that the internal furnishings of the bus don’t start falling apart sooner rather than later because of the vibrations of uneven roadways.
On page B -210, under Revenue Summary,
8679. This is m oney that we are going to make from
bus passes, is an increase of $332,000. [Tickets] 8681, is money that we are going to make from ticket sales. We have an increase of $29,000. And 8683, Tokens,


Bermuda House of Assembly there is an increase of $80,000. And my question to the
Minister is, Are we looking to see an increase in bus fares in 2023/24? And I will take my seat . . . Oh, one
final question. Sorry.

Still on Head 35, under page
B-209, 45120 Administration. There was mention earlier about the school buses. And I am just wondering, under Administration, if the Minister might be able to give us an update or just tell us how much the contracts for the school minibuses are. I see the minibuses pick-ing the school chi ldren up in Southampton. It is a wonderful thing. I think it is lovely. But I am sure it comes at a cost. I am just wondering how much that cost is. The Minister did say that as soon as we have the full fleet of electric buses up and running that this mini bus service for school children would stop. But I am just curi-ous how much money we are spending on the minibus contract for school buses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

While he is getting his notes
together.
My final question is on page C -14, Capital Acquisition. There is $150,000 that has been allocated for . . . and this is line item 76912, Digital Fare Media. And
this is a really important question. Can the Minister pro-vide an update on whether it is anticipated that the $150,000 in the Capital Acquisition will be spent for the
Digital Fare Media?
Now this, very quickly, is a cashless payment
system. So, people would be able to pay for bus and ferry ticket fares, by using a credit or debit card online rather than having to go to the main bus terminal and use cash. I would hope that this would still remain, that you could pay cash. But are we looking toward 2023/24 to introduce digital fare media at all? The Chairman: Thank you, very much, Shadow Minister.
Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There ar e very good questions coming from
the Members from the other side. And we appreciate them. Some questions we will be able to answer. If we do not answer your questions, please put them in writ-ing and I will get back to you, because, unfortunately, when som e of the questions were being asked, some
of our technical people who were listening, I think the radio went down, the streams. Something to do with . . .
so unfortunately, we won’t be able to answer everything but we will do the best we can with the infor mation we
have.
You had mentioned something about Project
Ride. I think the question was, How many of the Project Ride graduates have been in serious accidents? We will have to locate that. I don’t think they actually record it when police get an accident statement, By the way,
have you had Project Ride? So it is probably unlikely
that this question will ever be answered. Now, you may want to look at the age of the individuals. I am sure they may have that. And I believe that the Project Ride be-gan in the 1990s. . . . In the 1990s, say if you work from
there and add on 23, you can see how many years .
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I
am not sure if it was myself, I think it was myself that did Project Ride around that time. But I . . . you have to
work back. So if you look at that information, then you work back from the numbers as far as the agency, how many people. The older you are, then I don’t people in the 1970s and 1980s had Project Ride. But people like our age, 35 and 40, we had Project Ride.

[Laughter]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: So, I am just confirming.
When did Project Ride . . . do you remem ber? Yes,
around 1990- something. So you can work the numbers
back from there and see what Project Ride was about.
And it was very, very beneficial and has
helped. But you know, sometimes a lot of people pass Project Ride, but when you come to the individual, when people want to race. I read about it. When people
are older or people are riding at 16, their Mobylette [mo-peds] , and they will be racing down from town to Hamilton Parish or St. George’s or up to Warwick. They don’t race as much as they used to r ace. Like they used
to. But they do have where people are overtaking you on the corner.
I remember seeing some people . . . how do
they get through? I mean, sometimes I feel I almost hit somebody they were so close. Those types of things, it is more from, not racing, but like I said, just not being
cautious about what you do, like on a bike. Sometimes they are speeding and sometimes the weather of course will have conditions. But Project Ride, as I said,
856 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly it is going to be very hard to measure from that perspective.
Do you have an indication of the objection of
the Road Safety Council ? They are Community Outreach to engage and educate the community about road safety and Road Safety Council and its goals. Of course, we have Public Relations and we have the Chairman, Mr. Lister, and his team. He is seen quite often out there engaging the public regarding Project Ride and marketing. You know, promoting those types of plans and objectives. And of course we are giving them more funding this year to get the message out there. Like I said, it has come down to an individualistic type thing nowadays. And we do the best we can. Sometimes, you know, people learn when they feel. And unfortunately, that is what happens sometimes. Like I said, overtaking on a corner. I don’t know how they get through those corners sometimes, but that ac-tually takes place. But Project Ride is definitely a good plan and
the Government is looking to do even more looking at it. When you say, we don’t get tested on the road with
Project Ride right now. So we are looking at where . . .
before, yes. You get your permit or licence. You had to
actually go on the road and be tested.
What is the $410,000 for professional service
for TCD? That information, the $410,000, I will probably have to get back to you because I don’t have that infor-mation. I don’t see that information in my bri ef here, but
I will try to get back to you on that particular question. Professional service for TCD. Unless I am missing something. See page B -34, they mentioned.
What is the increase in revenue of four -wheel
vehicles? Is it a fee increase? No, it is not a fee increase. It represents the actual projection of four -wheel
vehicle licensing revenue projections. It is four -wheel
cars. So that is a projection, I am assuming. Sometimes you meet those targets and sometimes you don’t. But I believe the department is being served as possible so we will probably reach it from there.
Are we going to purchase a vehicle to collect
abandoned vehicles? This is an interesting question. The department has been talking about it regarding the actual collections, the truck. A nd I have been looking at
the efficiency whether we get a truck or we don’t get a truck. Because it isn’t that you would be out there every day. So do we do a clean- up where you hit it for a week
or two weeks and the cost may be less. You know, we are look ing at those types of things. But we have money
in the budget for abandoned vehicles. So it is in there and our Parks Department is also assisting us with the storage of vehicles. So that is what I said earlier, they don’t want to house any vehicles stored up in the parish
or . . . call TCD or you can call myself directly and reach
out as some Members do. And we will see what we can do to get it moved because there are some concerns in that area.
One of the questions you asked was, Have
there been any problems with the electric buses. Yes, I mentioned about the bells. We are going from four to eight bells. That way you won’t have to walk way up front to push a bell. So the next 40 buses will have a longer range battery as an improvement. So those types of things, these are things we heard from the pub-lic and also heard from TCD staff. When I got there one gentleman took me up on one of the buses and most people . . . you probably don’t realise but when you sat
in the seat on the bus, it was like you were ki nd of
crooked. Literally. And so it has now been straightened up. The department is working on that. So I am very grateful for the staff pointing that out to us.
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Yes. Literally, it is like . . . it
was weird how it was sitting. So now they have straight-ened that all up. I am sure we have a few more to do, but that will be taken care of even in the order as they come along. Are we vigilant with the maintenance of the
electric buses due to uneven roads? Y es, we have a
full maintenance section and qualified mechanics who do an extremely good job. I have met the young gentle-men themselves. These guys are professional. And they do have challenges as all departments have, but they are doing the best they can.
Is there any increase in bus fares? No. There
will be an increase in ridership; hence, why there is an increase in revenue. As I mentioned, with the increase of passengers on cruises, so more passengers, more
revenue. We have considered the same passenger .
You will question why. But unless people say, I am not going to get on the bus or the ferries , then there is a
question. But now that we have 200,000 more people
coming in from cruises, you expect more ridership that will take place.
But am I looking at bus fares and ferries? We
are looking at something and we are having discus-sions within the Ministry . Whether there should be a different price for Bermudians or whatever, or where a Bermudian shows residence and whatever. We will take a look at that because the cost of operation . . .
mainly . . . remember, 90 per cent of our fares are for
our tourist arrivals. But the Government subsidises all of that.
And the question is, Can we get to a closer
level or . . . I heard them . . . and I am not going to tell
you how much. I had a meeting with the Royal Carib-bean Line and they told me how much they actuall y
charge to get on the bus and ferry. I was shocked. What they charge to get on and what we charge. I was stunned. And they asked why we aren’t charging more. If I told you the numbers, you know when you go on those trips and you go downstairs the cruise s hips, you
are buying a ticket or token to go to Horseshoe Bay or whatever . . . I was stunned. He said, Well, why aren’t
you guys charging more? He gave me some . . . I was
tempted to do . . .


Bermuda House of Assembly [Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: —but I want to have some
more discussions with my Cabinet colleagues and of
course the public to get some feedback.

Thank you. Yes.
I asked the same question and the whole conversation of whether it is fair and I don’t want to use the word, but I am going to. Is it discriminatory for visitors,
tourists versus locals. And so I thought of the sugges-tions which they do in a number of citi es which is having
sort of like peak times. So, especially if you are coming out of Dockyard to somewhere like Horseshoe Bay that there might be a peak time fare. If you are local and you have a bus pass, it doesn’t matter. You can get on a bus whenever you want. But if you are buying a token from Dockyard to get to Horseshoe (let’s say) or to get to town that there might be a peak time rate which might go over a bit more. Thank you.

Thank you, Shadow Minister.
Minister.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: All those things can be taken
into consideration whether it is discrimination . . . I am
not an expert on that. I would have had to talk to people whether they think it is discriminatory to charge a differ-ent fee for . . . I am sure that somewhere along the line
. . . and you know seniors ride free. Is that discriminatory because you are older or younger?
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Earn. Okay, you earn.

Discriminatory. Carry on, Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, young people ride on
the buses free and outside of school they still ride free. It is a decision the Government at the time decided. As a matter of fact, I think Dr. Brown was the one who did the student’s part. I am not going to tell you who did the seniors. But it was all about recognising about wanting to make sure our seniors . . . and didn’t realise. I remember this certain Minister came to me (I am not go-ing to tell you who the Minister was.) and he said, Let’s try to give all seniors free licence fees. Oh! When the person told me it was $25 million, roughly, I knew the Minister of Finance was not going to approve it. But that was ten cents! Remember it was ten cents for seniors? I thought, We can afford to
lose ten cents. And that is why seniors got free bus rides. So it is every aspect. Every Minister and Ministry in the Government look at it, How can we benefit our citizens? And they may be . . . like you said. The
cruises. I guess t hey are discriminating against . . . because they are getting . . . if I told you, you guys won’t
believe me. I was stunned. But we will look at it. Whether it is done this year or next year, we will have to take a look at it. Now the Government is always look-ing at finding ways to pay back these things. I mean, fares are expensive. I think it is somewhere between $10 [million] and $11 million for one ferry. Right? How did he pay for it?
You know . . . electric. Did I answer your question on electric? You were asking a question about
electric ferries. So, electric ferries, as you know the Government is looking at things to be electrified . . .
electrification by 2035. Will everything be electrification by 2035? Probably not. Like there are some things, lik e
the ferry, that may not. They are looking at the technol-ogy. Whether you know . . . you know how salt water
gets in that thing, gets inside. But they are looking at it. It is going to be more than $11 million that we would pay for a regular ferry right now. So, those things we will look at. Whether it is trailer or a tractor or whatever it is.
So the aim is 2035 that everything will come to
a certain criteria; however, there are things that may not be by 2035. It might take longer . . . we know that
cars can be. We know that already works. Bikes can be
probably by that time. They say about the tractors or
trailers, or whatever it is. Buses we did a good job on buses. I know TCD got Public Works to do a lot of the work for us in that direction of electric vehicles.
So whether it takes place, some countries are
aiming for 2030. We will learn from experience from others and see how that . . . but the committee is actually in place right now looking at all those different prop-ositions.

Former Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Former Minister. And it was a
good job because he was able to raise money to pay for some of these things.
We collected roughly $11 million. That is with
just one ferry. What he did well at the time was encour-age Norwegian. I think they have tw o ferries that they
paid for. So that helped out our system. RCI or RCL . . .
RCL is looking at . . . because we are having discussions with them on certain things they want to do. They are looking at three ferries. So they pay for the ferries and maybe we will benefit from those particular items.
But as we go along we will have to continue to look at that. We are . . . we have the head of . . . the director of
Marine and Ports, pretty well goes away once a month right now to look at the ferries that are being refurbished up there in Boston. He has to be there to see how things are working out. And so we are doing that. Some ferries . . . you asked a question about certain ferries
whether we will still have them in place. It may come to that. I will see if I can find that.
So that is being worked on. And when we get
there, we will get there. But will they all be done by 2035, I don’t know.

Thank you, Minister.
And just for Members, just to remind you that
we are in the Committee of Supply f or further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24. And it is the Ministry of Transport.
The Honourable Wayne Furbert has the floor. He is an-swering questions after Members have posed their questions.
Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Page C -13, Capital, purchase
of ferry. Probably that was the question; I can’t remem-ber who asked it. What are we replacing? That is what I just talked about. About the budget for replacing and fixing up the ferry that I told you that is in Boston right
now that is being worked on.
A question, Is the number of international ships
of 898 for 2022 correct? And the answer is yes. Again, it could be we may not have all of them but that is what is being budgeted for right now.
How will we manage the ships coming into Bermuda with the staff we have? Scheduling is very im-portant. I was listening to the Director Cann at a meeting the other day, talking about ferries . . . no, he was
talking about big ships. I didn’t realise that Director Cann knows his stuff. We have a good team down there
at Marine and Ports. I was impressed. I went up there
yesterday and visited the site up at Dockyard. He is young man, he is 36 or 37, and will soon be taking over the Fleet Management —35 years old! A young man.
I said, Well, why can’t you take it over tomorrow? Because a gentleman has been here for 30 year s
. . . and he said, Becaus e I need more training. And he
accepts that. He said a year and a half, and I am going to try to make it for a year. But the guy is very intelligent. And so we have a good group of young men and women who are at Marine and Ports.
I met a young lady who is a pilot. She helps
train individuals. So I am very proud and I am sure the Ministry is very proud of them. And the executives are very proud of who we have in place right now. I know if I had one of those boats I [would] probably crash on one of the rocks .
I was telling them the story about when somebody sold me a boat once and dropped it off at Harring-ton Sound. You know, it was the first time I was on a boat. I had to go over and get some gas over at the Flatts. Took my boat out there. But I didn’t know about the brakes. I ploughed into the dock at Flatts. Now, it didn’t go hard. But I tell you, I tell you, I hit it. And a second time I was going out to Dockyard and I ended up over a reef. I said, This is the last time I am getting on a boat. You know, let me save my swimming and let somebody else drive the boat. But, yes, those are some of the experiences I had. So I could never be a pilot unless I am being trained. Like I said, the Pink Ferry helps to train these young men— The Chairman: I was just about to ask, Minister, which
head that fell under.
[Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, that falls under Managing—

Carry on, Minister.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: What is the increase in tug
services? Due to more cruise calls in 2023/24, that is why we have an increase in tug services.
What is t he update to the tug boat accident with
the cruise ship? We will have to get back to you on that question.
If you have any questions that I missed or didn’t
answer, I welcome them. Just send them to me or ask them in the House and I will try my best to answer them.
How did we service St. George’s? You know, I
have been speaking to the . . . just like the MP from
Warwick, he bothers me day and night regarding the


Bermuda House of Assembly Pink Ferry. I have been . . . MP Renee Ming has been
asking me about the St. George’s ferry.
Yes, I have asked yesterday or the day before
what we [are doing]. Right now the St. George’s ferry
operates when the seasonal cruise ships take place. And if a ship is in town or at Dockyard for over 24 hours, that is, they come in at 9:00 and they leave at 3:00, it doesn’t make sense because they have to be back to the boat by 1:00. So it doesn’t make sense. It takes an hour to get down to St. George’s by ferry. The ferry will operate. But we don’t have a current operation of fer-ries going to St. George’s .
Now, they tried it. As far as I understand they
tried it. That is what they told me. And hardly anybody got on it. The load was very, very low. Because it takes an hour to get down and an hour to get back and by the time . . . you can be up town. And you have to leave
probably at 7:30 in the morning, or 7:00 or 7:30. So that is probably why a lot of St. Georgians . . . and I will be
meeting with individuals in St. George’s very soon to have a further discussion with them. And w e will be talking to the Director at Marine and Ports to see whether . . . what are the possibilities? And if there is a possibility, and if there is any reason, then we will look at any cost impacts. That is the Government, revenue and costs, to see if th ere is any feasibility at making it work.
But those are some of the challenges that we have. I will take the Member.

Yes, just a further question to
that. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Minister.
When I was asking that question I was particularly referring to the increased traffic of tourists and the ferries that go back and forth. I am also curious that it takes an hour from St. George’s to Dockyard, you said, on a ferry? A straight shot, one shot?
[Inaudible interjections]

Yes. Thank you. I have an Orange Ferry question. So, if we are just using the Orange Ferry for tourists, does that mean that the Orange Ferry just sort of sits at the dock when it is not being used? Or is it used for special events? I know that [for] the National Trust Christmas, you could not go down on a ferry, but . . . is it special events or it is just more . . .

Thank you, Shadow Minister. I am sure
you will wait for the Minister to get a reply on that.
Minister, you may continue.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Member Cannonier, it takes
40 minutes. It is 20 minutes longer for a ferry maybe . . . but he may be speeding. And so we have to take
our time coming through . . . It is definitely a larger boat
than yours.
[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: You can run the reefs.
And so they take about an hour. That is what I
have been told. And of course, the amount of knots is
much slower than yours and so that is one of the rea-sons why it takes a long time.
Where are we with digi tal fares? The team is
still reviewing that and looking at the direction that we should be heading. Let me see . . .
[Pause]

About 15 minutes.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Fifteen.
Is the Capital Funds mentioned to complete the
bow loading in St. George’s? Yes. Somebody asked me that question. This will complete the project.
Question, has energy cost increased? Answer,
yes. The BELCO increase has had a direct impact on the department’s energy cost. This is the ferry cost.
This was a question. Were the old Powerful
and Faithful sold? Answer, yes. The tugs were sold and
have departed Bermuda.
Is the current search and rescue staff suf ficient? The answer is, we have sufficient specialised Marine and Port staff to carry out search and rescue operations.
Unless I missed a question, and if I did, I ask
Honourable Members to send me those questions and I will do my best to try to answer t hem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, very much, Minister.
860 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly It has been moved that Heads 48, 30, 34 and
35 . . . that they be moved.
Are there any objections to that?
There are none.
They are so moved; they are approved.
Thank you, very much, Minister.

[Motion carried: The Ministry of Transport Heads 48,
30, 34 and 35 were approved and stand part of the Es-timates of Revenue and Expenditure for 2023/24.]

We now, Honourable Members, resume in Committee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24 under the Ministry of Economy and La-bour, Heads 14, 55, and 60 are to be taken into consid-eration.
Minister. You may move, Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I move the following heads.
Head 14—Statistics; Head 55—Financial Assistance; and Head 60—Workforce Development be now taken under consideration.

It has been moved that Heads 14, 55,
and 60 be t aken under consideration.
Go ahead, Minister.

MINISTRY OF ECONOMY AND LABOUR

HEAD 14 —DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, it gives me great
pleasure to present the budget for Head 14, the Depart-ment of Statistics, found on pages B -174 through B -176
of the Budget Book.

Mission
Hon. Jason Hayward: The mission of the Department
of Statistics is To produce and provide statistical information for data- driven decision- making for Bermuda.

Department Objectives
Hon. Jason Hayward: The department seeks to fulfil
its mandate by delivering quality data that align with in-ternational standards and best practices, to fac ilitate a
culture of evidence- based decision- making for policies
and programmes. As such, the Department of Statis-tics’ objectives are as follows:
• Improve ease of accessibility to statistical data and information for the people of Bermuda, through innovati ve digital tools using leading
data techniques.
• Adopt current international statistical method-ologies, standards, and best practices in the collection, compilation and production of statis-tics.
• Operate a transparent and citizen- centric department by improv ing the understanding and
use of statistical data and information.
• Develop the talent needed to sustain a highperforming department.
Mr. Chairman, t he total current expenditure of
the Department of Statistics found on page [B -174] is
estimated to be $2,360,000 for the fiscal year 2023/24. This budget is $189,000 more than the 2022/23 budget allocation, reflecting a 9 per cent increase.
Mr. Chairman, the increase in the department’s
budget is attributable primarily to the launch of the 2023/24 Household Inc ome and Expenditure Survey
(HIES). The cost is reflected in business unit 24055 Census and Survey Research Unit, and was last con-ducted in Bermuda in 2013. The objective of this survey is to obtain household income and expenditure data for a broad range of consumer goods and services purchased by households. These include residents’ ex-penditures on: food, beverages, clothing, furniture, mo-tor vehicles, travel, medical, household and personal services.
Information on householders’ demographic
characteristics and their employment status, income,
and ownership of consumer durables will also be col-lected. The data and information from the survey will be
used to
• revise the basket of goods and services for the Consumer Price Index, which measures the annual rate of inflation;
• develop new benchmark values for household consumption for use in estimating the annual growth of the economy or Gross Domestic Product; and
• assess the level of economic well -being for
households in Bermuda.
Mr. Chairman, the Subjective Analy sis of Current Account Estimates of the Department of Statistics is found on page B -175. Please allow me to highlight
the material object code increases and decreases. Mr. Chairman, the budget for Salaries, line item 1, de-creased by $97,000, or 5 per cent. This reduction is attributed to the difference in pay scales between per-sons leaving at senior pay scales and persons entering at lower pay scales. Training, line item 4. There has been an increase of $7,000, or 70 per cent, in the funds
allocated for loc al and overseas training and development to build statistical capacity.
Travel, line item 5, increased by $16,000, or
229 per cent, as a result of overseas training opportunities, workshops and meetings resuming. Advertising and Promotion, line item 7, increased by $7,000, or 140 per cent, due to the publicity campaign associated
with the upcoming Household Income and Expenditure Survey. [HIES]. Professional Services, line item 8, in-creased by $184,000, or zero per cent. This increase is attributed to anticipated professional services. Rental,


Bermuda House of Assembly line item 9, increased by $17,000, or 12 per cent. This
increase is attributed to anticipated rental increases.
Energy, line item 11, increased by $6,000, or 12 per
cent. Materials and Supplies, line item 12, increased by $10,000, or 18 per cent, to cover the expense of purchasing supplies for the upcoming Household Income
and Expenditure Survey.

Capital Expenditure
Hon. Jason Hayward: In accordance with page C -13,
the Department of Statistics had a capital expenditure of $17,000 for the year of 2022/23, which was used to purchase laptops for the upcoming Household Income
and Expenditure Survey. There has been no capital funding provided for 2023/24.

Manpower
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, as seen on page
B-175, Employee Numbers, there are a total of 21 full -
time equivalents (FTEs) in 2023/24, which is unchanged from the 2022/23 FTE estimates. Recruitment is underway for two statistical officers and one assistant statistician.

Performance Measures
Hon. Jason Hayward: The Department of Statistics
Performance Measures are found on page B -176 of the
Budget Book. This is what we achieved in 2021/22. Mr. Chairman, business unit 24015, Administration:
1. Indicator: Improve accessibility to statistical data through innovative digital tools. Target
2021/22, Growth of social media presence by 25 per cent. Actual Outcome 2021/22, Achieved an increased number of followers on social media by 89 per cent.
One second, Mr. Chairman. In an effort not to
draw out the debate, what I am not going to do is go back to 2021/22 but focus on the outcomes for 2022/23.
Business unit 24015, Administration:
1. Indicator: Improve accessibility to statistical data through innovative digital tools. Target 2022/23, Increase the number of followers on social media by 15 per cent.
2. Indicator: Number of courses taken by st aff in
recognised training in statistical methodologies and best practices. Target: 2022/23, twenty [courses].
Business unit 24020, Core Statistics and Publications:
1. Indicator: Email and tablet devices for the col-lection of Consumer Price Index price data
used. Target 2022/23, Collection rate 50 per
cent electronically. 2. Indicator: Scope of economic statistics in-creased to production account estimates by in-stitutional sector, GDP by income approach es-timates, household final consumption expendi-ture using the Classification of Individual Con-sumption According to Purpose. Target 2022/23 is 100 per cent.
Business unit 24025, Core Annual Surveys:
1. Indicator: Data Quality Assessment Frame-work for National Accounts completed. Target 2022/23, Achieve 60 per cent of the five components of the Data Quality Assessment Framework.
2. Indicator: Economic Activity Survey and Bal-ance of Payments Survey data on trade be-tween special purpose entities and non- residents aligned with the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM) vers ion 6. Target 2022/23, Response rates to surveys 85 per cent.
3. Indicator: Electronic devices for field data col-lection during Labour Force Surveys. Target 2022/23 is 100 per cent of data collection.
Business unit 24055, Census and Survey Research:
1. Indicator: National Household Income and Ex-penditure Survey from data collected via elec-tronic devices. Target 2022/23—this was actu-ally postponed until 2023/24, and preparations are currently underway.
2. Indicator: International Trade Statistics pro-cessed on a mont hly basis for use in the production of key economic indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product and Balance of Pay-ments. Target 2022/23, Data processed
monthly.

Major Achievements
Hon. Jason Hayward: One major achievement for the
department was the transfer of the international trade database from Microsoft Access to a structured query language database. This was a collaborative effort be-tween the Department of Statistics and the Department of Information and Digital Technologies. After the data-base was built, the international trade data was migrated successfully to the new system. The new data-base is a marked improvement over the old database, as it is more efficient and manageable. Another achievement for the department was the expansion of the Balanc e of Payment and International Investment
Position publication to include two new tables on Inte-grated International Investment Position. This table ex-pands the Integrated International Investment Position to include the flows of transactions and other changes between quarterly reports.

Plans for the Upcoming Year

862 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the department
will produce the following core publications in the upcoming year 2023/24:
• Monthly:
o Retail Sales Index; and
o Consumer Price Index.
• Quarterly:
o Balance of Payments and International
Investment Position; and
o Gross Domestic Product by Expendi-ture.
• Semi -Annually:
o Labour Force Survey Report.
• Annually:
o Bermuda Digest of Statistics;
o Bermuda Job Market Employment Briefs;
o Employment Survey Tabulation Set;
o Annual Gross Domestic Product;
o The Information, Communication and Technology Profile;
o Environmental Statistics Compen-dium; and
o The Tourism Satellite Account Report.
Mr. Chairman, the department will conduct the
following surveys:
• Retail Sa les Survey will be conducted monthly;
• Consumer Price Index Survey will be con-ducted monthly;
• Hotel Gross Receipts Surveys will be con-ducted quarterly;
• Construction Survey will be conducted quarterly;
• Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Survey will be conducted quarterly;
• Employment Survey will be conducted annu-ally;
• Economic Activity Survey will be conducted annually;
• Labour Force Survey will be conducted both in
the spring and fall of 2023; and
• Household Income and Expenditure Survey
will be conducted in 2023/24.
Mr. Chairman, the department conducts ad hoc
surveys, provides survey samples, and undertakes in-depth research and analysis of data. In addition, the department provides statistical advice and professional consultancy in the collection, processing and analysing of data for government departments.
Mr. Chairman, the department will engage in
activities such as processing and providing trade sta-tistics, fulfilling statistical data requests from local and international organisations, and making presentations to internal and external stakeholders.
Mr. Chairman, at the request of the Director of
Statistics, the Management Consulting Section con-ducted a review of the department’s organisational structure and recommended improvements to the or-ganisational operational efficiency. During the upcom-ing year, the Department of Statistics will strive toward implementing these recommendations.
Mr. Chairman, let me take this opportunity to
acknowledge and thank the hardworking staff of the
Department of Statistics, led by the Director, Mrs. Melinda Williams, and her team of statisticians and support staff for their continued commitment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This concludes my
budget presentation for Head 14.

For the benefit of the listening audience and my Honourable Members, we are now in Committee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24. We are doing the Department of Statistics. Honourable Minist er Jason P. Hayward is now presenting Heads 55 and 60 to come.
You may proceed, Minister.

HEAD 55 —DEPARTMENT OF
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I will now present the estimates of expenditure and revenue for Head 55, the Department of Financial Assistance, which can be found on pages B -182 through B -185,
and pages C -13 and C -19 of the Budget Book.

Mission
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the role of the
Department of Financial Assistance (DFA) is to ensure that individuals with insufficient financial resources
have access to services in order to gain, maintain or regain a minimum standard of living while encouraging personal and economic independence. The services enable the individual to maintain dignity and self -worth
and encourage the development of personal skills and resources. The department derives its mandate from the following legislation: Financial Assistance Act 2001, Financial Assistance Regulations 2004, Child Day Care Allowance Act 2008 and the Child Day Care Allowance Regulations 2008.
The mission of the Department of Financial Assistance is T o assist vulnerable Bermudians to maintain a minimum standard of living during challenging economic times , as indicated on page B -182. The department embodies this mission, and the ethos is very
clear when delivering its mandate. The Government is committed to reducing poverty and inequality in Ber-muda, and will strengthen the support to families in an effort to assist them in being self -sustaining. Building a
stronger community will result in a safer and more con-fident nation.

Categories of Financial Assistance Awards



Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, Financial Assistance is intended to assist with partial or full financial
awards, in accordance with legislation, f or such items
as follows:
• food
• rent/rest/nursing home fees
• utilities
• health insurance
• adult day care
• home care
• medication/medical equipment
• child day care allowance
Approval for financial assistance is based on
proven need and a means test . This means tes t will assess the basic needs for a household to sustain monthly obligations either in whole or in part. Eligible and qualified clients in receipt of financial assistance are classified into one of the following four main cate-gories:
1. pensioners
2. disabled
3. earnings -low employed
4. abled- bodied and unemployed
As of January 2023, the total number of persons on financial assistance was 2,035. The largest category continues to pertain to pensioners, with 1,019 persons, or 50 per cent of total persons in r eceipt of financial assistance. The next highest category was per-sons with a disability, at 747, or 37 per cent. Then persons employed with insufficient earnings at 141, or 7 per cent, followed by able- bodied unemployed persons at 128, or 6 per cent. There were approximately
109 children being supported in the Child Day Care Al-lowance Programme for this reporting period.
Mr. Chairman, the monthly average number of
new financial assistance applications received by the department currently stands at 51. The vetting process for each new application is meticulous and extensive, as information is requested from third parties such as landlords, rest and nursing homes, financial institutions and other government departments to ensure appli-cants are accurately means tested.
The officers of the department adhere to a turnaround timeframe of approximately two to three weeks from the date of receipt of each new application to the completion of the vetting process. This strict timeframe ensures that the needs of the public are prioritised, and that financial assistance relief is provided within the shortest possible time. Whilst vetting new applications, the department continues to successfully service all ex-isting eligible financial assistance clients without inter-ruptions. For the past three fiscal years, the department
provided this seamless continuum while also shoulder-ing the added responsibility for the Supplemental Un-employment Benefit (SUB) programme.

Department Objectives
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the departmental objectives can be found on page B -182, and I
am pleased to report that similar to what was reported in the prior year, there continues to be tangible im-provement geared toward achieving each objective. It is the intent that a robust and consis tent approach for
monitoring risk and enabling compliance will provide value- added capability to the current system and aid in
robust technical solutions when addressing areas of concern. As a result, the department has been able to integrate the management of risk into its strategic and operational management system and place emphasis on leadership, governance, processes, actions and controls within the context of change management, with positive results.
For example, the process has facilitated the investigative, compliance and finance sections of the department to more readily identify and prevent areas of potential fraud, abuse of the financial assistance sys-tem and overpayments to clients. Improvements can be measured by a more efficient turnaround of case refer-rals to the Attorney General’s Chambers, random au-dits of client cases to detect any areas of concern, and deploying preventative measures to manage the cost of awards in accordance with legislation and budgetary constraints. Evidence of this approach can also be gar-nered from the recent findings of the consolidated fund audit, whereby there were no major audit exit confer-ence point deficiencies as it pertains to the department.
The Department of Financial Assistance must
ensure that all actions and transactions as performed by all officers are in compliance with the department’s legislation and any other legislation that impacts the na-ture of the service provided. Based on the nature of the service delivered by the department, there are no
known documented [typologies or] red flags that the department can refer to in identifying corrupt practices, except for enhanced know your customer (KYC).
Therefore, to mitigate this risk the department’s compli-ance framework (listed as follows in no specific order) is used as indicators in identifying, understanding, as-sessing and monitoring potential risks:
1. department policies, procedures and legisla-tion;
2. government contract management practice;
3. investigations and legislative compliance;
4. audit specific to the Office of the Auditor General and Department of Internal Audit; and
5. a governance structure that reinforces man-agement’s message of honesty and integrity.
The department continues its practice of adhering to internationally recognised standards of care when managing relationships with financial assistance
clients, and this will be explored in more detail under the section Financial Assistance Social Workers.
The department continues to collaborate with
the Department of Information and Digital Technology on the introduction of digital forms for persons making an application for financial assistance. The intent is to
864 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly connect the public service with the people of Bermuda
through comprehensive, secure and accessible digital forms. Modern, innovative digital t echnology facilitates
internal efficiency and effectiveness and mobile work-ing conditions. This is identified as the last performance objective on page B -182. It is hoped that data- gathering
and reporting are expected to be less onerous in the very near fu ture. This will improve the department’s
data analytics function and risk management.

Performance Measures
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, performance
measures for the Department can be found on page B -
185 and demonstrate to stakeholders and citizens t he
achievement of public value to a vulnerable population group. These performance measures are deliberately concise and precise, as they focus on measuring out-comes, which better articulates the ability of the depart-ment in advancing effectiveness and ser vice delivery.
For example, in accordance with page B -185 are the
following measures:
1. Reduce recoverable debt from the prior
year. This allows the department to eliminate waste and control budgeted amounts by effectively dealing with financial assistance fraud, and reduce abuse of the system and overpayment of funds. The original fore-cast for 2022/23 was to reduce recoverable debt by 15 per cent from the prior year, and the revised forecast
remains consistent. At the time of this brief the depart-ment ac hieved its 15 per cent target and is expected to
exceed this percentage by March 2023. As will be dis-cussed in more detail later in this brief, this achieve-ment is as a result of the tremendous work performed by the department’s investigative officers.
2. Reduce the number of able- bodied and/or
earnings low clients from the prior year. Financial Assistance is committed to making work pay, and its award structure provides a foundation for this so as to ensure persons do not lose all benefits if they find some employment. Financial assistance reform is being pro-gressed to advance this policy to help get more people back to work, discourage dependency, and [assist peo-ple to] become financially independent. All able- bodied
persons who are in receipt of financial assistance are required to register with the Department of Workforce Development for job- seeking purposes. This allows clients to participate in workforce- related assessments
and development programmes. The Department of Fi-nancial Assistance continues to collaborate with the
Department of Workforce Development to achieve this performance measure.
The original forecast for 2022/23 was based on
the hope that, with continual review and formulation of strategy, 10 per cent of clients who fall in the categori es
of able- bodied unemployed and earnings -low could be
transitioned out of Financial Assistance and into sus-tainable work with independent living conditions. How-ever, with the lingering effects of the COVID -19 pandemic, the revised forecast has been adjust ed to zero
[per cent]. The target outcome for 2023/24 will return to 10 per cent as initiatives with Workforce Development
and collaborations with other external agencies are de-veloped.
3. Reduce the number of legitimate client complaints from the prior year. This is aimed at improving the service quality. The department completed service standards training in 2022 and addresses legitimate cli-ent complaints in a timely and efficient manner without compromising professionalism. For its revised forecast for 2022/23 and target outcome for 2023/24, the de-partment will be benchmarked against a 50 per cent reduction of reported legitimate client complaints.
4. Reduce the number of Review Board appeals from the prior year. A Financial Assistance Re-view Boa rd is appointed to hear appeals against the director’s decision to
• refuse an application for an award;
• impose special conditions on an award;
• suspend in whole or in part an award;
• vary an award;
• revoke an award; or
• require repayment of any sum of money in ac-cordance with legislation.
On an appeal, the Board may confirm, vary or
reverse the decision which is the subject of the appeal. Notice of the Board’s determination, together with a statement of its reasons, shall be given to the appellant and to the di rector, and unless the Board otherwise directs the determination shall come into operation when the notice is given.
Therefore, this performance measure is aimed
at improving the overall administration of the Financial
Assistance Act, regulations and poli cy. The reduction
in the number of legitimate client complaints, as previ-ously discussed, led to a positive correlation which re-sulted in only four registered appeals in 2022/23. Out-comes from these appeals remain pending with the Re-view Board.

Expenditur e Overview
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, total current expenditure is estimated to be $54,121,000, as shown on page B -183. This amount constitutes 70 per cent of the
total budget allocated for the Ministry and is an increase of $1,161,000, or 2 per cent, from the prior year’s original budget. This increase in the budget request is re-quired to fund the Financial Assistance programme, based on a forecasted upward trend of new applica-tions due to Financial Assistance reform and adjust-ments to the value of Financial Assistance awards in
2023/24, specifically with reference to amendments to the Financial Assistance Act 2001 and amendments to the Financial Assistance Regulations 2004 table of al-lowable expenses. In addition, there will be an exBermuda House of Assembly pected knock -on effect in general administrative expenditure during the fiscal period, based on increasing
caseloads.
Note that during 2022/23 the Ministry received
additional funding to provide food assistance relief for persons eligible to receive financial assistance and who
are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the constant rising cost of food. This additional funding totalled $931,691 and was appropriated to cost centre 65997, National Health Emergency. Overall, with this addi-tional funding the revised total current expenditure for
2022/23 stands at $53,892,000 as shown on page B -
183. However, taking this into consideration, the in-crease in the budget request for 2023/24 from the prior year’s 2022/23 revised budget amount remains at 2 per
cent.

Capital Expenditure
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, total capital expenditure is estimated to be $29,000 in fiscal year 2023/24 compared to $95,000 from the prior year, as shown on page C -13. This capital budget of $28,749
will be required to replace two photocopier s that have
reached the end of their useful life. Replacement is es-sential, as the lack of efficiency with the current ma-chines impacts the productivity of the department and significantly hampers the department’s ability to pro-cess payments to applicants in accordance with legis-lation.

Manpower
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the department
is required to conduct frequent reviews of resource utilisation so as to identify any structural deficiencies and capability gaps. This exercise has become even mor e
critical given that the operational demands of the de-partment have increased beyond the normal rate of at-trition. This increase was initially due to the adverse ef-fects of the COVID -19 pandemic on the unemployed
and under -employed and has resulted in higher -thanaverage monthly Financial Assistance applications be-ing submitted. Also, the application process is intensive and thus warrants the resources to maintain the steady flow of intake and administrative business activities.
In addition, this House wi ll be aware that the
Speech from the Throne 2022 highlighted new initia-tives that will result in amendments to the Child Day Care Allowance Act 2008, Financial Assistance Act 2001 and Financial Assistance Regulations 2004. These amendments are aimed at expanding the pool of persons who can qualify for Child Day Care Allowance and provide social protection systems that will guaran-tee more families, including some in higher income brackets, to have access to resources that will allow them to meet their basic needs. In addition, Financial Assistance reform will assist households requiring im-mediate assistance with expenses to meet short -term
needs.
As a result, these initiatives will grant easier accessibility and eligibility to Child Day Care Allowance and Fi nancial Assistance. Therefore, it is anticipated
that this will result in an even higher number of applica-tion submissions. Hence, with all of these factors taken into consideration, the department’s capacity to deliver its service will need to be managed.
Similar to the prior three fiscal years 2020/21,
2021/22, and 2022/23, the department received an ex-tension to additional funding for temporary service pro-viders in 2023/24. Due to the adverse effects of the COVID -19 pandemic on unemployment and under -employment, there has been an increase in the number of applications and the number of clients, which led to an increase in the portfolio for each Financial Assistance officer. This funding has ensured capacity can manage the demand for the service requested and is crucial to
mitigating burnout and providing assurance that the de-partment will continue to perform its fiduciary responsi-bilities in compliance with the law, its governance struc-ture, risk management and internal controls.
This additional funding, which represents six
potential service providers, has been classified under Consultant Services, Local, as it cannot be classified under Salaries until final Cabinet approval is received to formalise six new full -time positions. Note that this is
a different approach taken when compared to 2022/23, whereby the six potential full -time equivalents were included in Salaries. This results in a variance of six as shown on page B -184. The same page shows that the
total full -time equivalent count for 2023/24 for the department remains at 34 substantive posts.

Output Measures
Hon. Jason Hayward: The 2023/24 budget estimates
are listed as two business units and are shown on page B-185. They are 65050, Grants and Administration, and
65080, General Administration.
Mr. Chairman, cost centre 65050, Grants and
Administration, is estimated at $50,008,000 and is also found on page C -19. These funds maintain the Financial Assistance programme and the Child Day Care Al-lowance programme. This amount represents an in-crease from the prior year’s original budget appropria-tion of $1,146,000, or 2 per cent. More specifically, this
increase is broken down as follows:
1. an increase in the budget request for payments to pensioners, persons with disabilities, earn-ings-low employed and able- bodied unemployed persons from the prior year, by $771,000, and;
2. an increase to the Child Day Care Allowance grant from the prior year, by $375,000.
866 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly As previously discussed, this increase is required to ensure Financial Assistance payouts can be
sustained in 2023/24 due to the following:
a) the anticipated increase in applications based on proposed amendments to the Child Day Care Allowance Act 2008 to increase the value of awards under the Act and expand the pool of persons eligible f or the benefit; and
b) amendments to the Financial Assistance Act 2001 and the Regulations of 2004 as part of Financial Assistance reform including changes to the Schedule of Allowable Expenses to bet-ter reflect the increasing cost of goods and ser-vices for w hich assistance is provided. Building
Blocks, a phase of this reform, will assist households requiring immediate assistance with expenses for a short period.
Mr. Chairman, the total estimate for cost centre
65080, General Administration, for 2023/24 is $4,113,000 as shown on page B -183. This is an increase of $15,000, or 0.4 per cent, from the prior year.
This increase is mainly due to an expectation of higher operating costs as a result of increased caseloads cou-pled with increasing retail prices. This increase is ex-plained as follows:
1. a re-allocation in the budget from salaries to local consultants of $517,695 for the six service providers, as previously discussed; also, a de-crease in salaries by $5,925 due to vacant funded positions being filled and the new hires starting at the beginning of the PS scale;
2. an increase in telephone costs of $4,000, based on current monthly expenditure. In 2022, management replaced old government mobiles as it became necessary to ensure immediate assistance is provided to Fi nancial Assistance clients and communication with Minis-try Headquarters during and after hours, and also when staff is on leave to manage client emergencies;
3. an increase in repairs and maintenance of pho-tocopiers of $1,000;
4. an increase in printing of $5,000 due to an in-crease in costs associated with new case-loads, such as paper and toner;
5. an increase in repairs and maintenance of of-fice equipment of $1,000 because of increased printing and photocopier/equipment usage;
6. an increase in office supplies by $5,000 due to rising retail prices and re- order quantity levels;
7. an increase in food supplies by $1,000 due to rising food prices;
8. an increase in minor furniture and fixtures for furniture of $2,000 to facilitate minor purchases due to ageing and broken furnit ure and equipment;
9. an increase in cleaning materials by $2,000 based on increased pricing and the require-ment for deep cleaning services to actively pro-tect staff against COVID -19 and other infectious diseases.
The department continues to identify key levers of success and failures while deploying short -term
planning cycles and an agile forecasting tool during this time of uncertainty.

Investigations
Hon. Jason Hayward: The department’s investigative
officers continue to conduct investigations and pursue individuals or organisations that commit fraud and abuse of the system. For instance, the following five case studies, based on actual events, are provided to inform the public of the nature of fraud and abuse that are being commi tted by persons receiving financial assistance:
Case Study 1—Fraud. The subject, who was
an eligible client of the department in the category of disabled, received Financial Assistance awards during the months of July 2020 through August 2021. One of the awards provided was food, which was supplied via
a monthly updated food card to be utilised by the client only. The subject was locally incarcerated during the period November 2020 to August 2021; however, the subject did not notify the department of a change in the subject’s circumstances. In addition, the subject handed over the food card to a family member for per-sonal use during the period of incarceration. The family member was not a client of Financial Assistance. Inves-tigations conducted by the inves tigative officers resulted in computer and photographic evidence of the activities of the fraud being committed—that is, an un-authorised person having access to a Financial Assistance food card. This case was referred to the Attorney General’s Chambers for legal restitution and remains
pending.
Case Study 2—Fraud, Unreported Employment/Income. The subject, who was an earnings -low
client of the department, did not disclose income from an afterschool programme. Any income earned must be disclosed to the department so as to determine con-tinued eligibility and the value of awards for financial assistance. Instead, the subject provided the depart-ment with fraudulent job search sheets and deposited any income earned into a family member’s bank ac-count so as to hi de the audit trail of income earned. This
case was referred to the Attorney General’s Chambers and eventually resolved in HM Magistrates Court, where a repayment plan back to the department was determined.
Case Study 3—Fraud, Unreported Employment and Other Income. The subject, who was an eli-gible client of the department in the category of disa-bled, was deemed unable to work. However, infor-mation was received from another government agency that the subject was gainfully employed as a driver. Field surveillance was conducted by the department’s


Bermuda House of Assembly investigative officers, and evidence was obtained that
indicated that the subject was indeed employed and did not report any earned income to the department. In ad-dition, it was also discovered that the subject recei ved
a lump- sum payment of $17,000, which was also not
reported to the department. This case was referred to the Attorney General’s Chambers for legal restitution and remains pending.
Case Study 4—Fraud, Food Card Abuse. The
subject, who was an earnings -low client of the department, travelled overseas for medical purposes. During the period overseas, the subject provided a cashier at a local market access to the subject’s Financial Assis-tance food card. Investigations were conducted by the department’s investigative officers, and digital evi-dence, a pattern of use and times of usage were ob-tained. This evidence demonstrated that the cashier purchased produce for self -use and then funnelled
cash into the subject’s bank account. The cashier was not a Financial Assistance client. The local market
opted to handle the matter internally by garnishing the cashier’s wages and reimbursing the full amount back to the government. The subject was suspended from financial assistance for three months.
Case Study 5—Unrepor ted/Unauthorised
Travel. The subject, who was an earnings -low client of
the department, was flagged as completing multiple, unreported, unauthorised overseas travel. In accord-ance with the department’s policy, eligible Financial As-sistance clients must not ify the department for authorised overseas travel. The department’s investigative of-ficers conducted investigations and engaged with other government departments to confirm the subject’s travel times and dates. This matter was referred to the Attor-ney General’s Chambers and is currently awaiting trial
at HM Magistrates’ Court.
Mr. Chairman, at the time of this brief there
were 42 active cases similar to the case studies pro-vided for which the total reimbursable amount due to the government was $304,801. This comprises 32 ac-tive cases that were referred to the Attorney General’s Chambers and 10 cases that are currently under the remit of the investigative officers. Again, these cases are a result of fraudulent activity or abuse of the system by Financial Ass istance clients.
The department’s investigative officers received, on average, seven tips per month from the start of the fiscal year —that is, from April 2022. Suspicious
activities are brought to the department’s attention via certain channels such as investigative officers’ field in-vestigations, the department staff observations and in-ternal findings, together with tips from the public. Pri-mary and secondary data research is conducted within a compliance framework to ensure evidence gathered can be used for legal redress. The framework used is guided by the department’s legislation, policies and procedures, and the Criminal Code. As a reminder, I would like to urge the public that if you wish to report an incident of someone committing Financial Assis-tance fraud, please call the department’s hotline at 2977867. And that is 297- STOP.

Financial Assistance Social Workers
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the Financial Assistance social workers’ workflow trends are concen-trated on case conferences/case disc ussions, individual counselling and overseas medical transfers. These trends support the known importance of facilitating case conferences and case discussions as an effective tool in ensuring that comprehensive service plans are developed and executed. Individual crisis counselling continues to be provided for an interim period of two to eight weeks following an acute or traumatic event to help stabilise the client’s symptoms and to coordinate long- term care, based on the assessed need.
The Financial Assi stance social workers increasingly participated in multidisciplinary, complex case conferences with the Health Insurance Depart-ment, the Community Social Worker, Prison Services, Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) and other rele-vant stakeholders to establis h comprehensive strategies to address increasingly complex cases including clients with chronic mental health disorders and to ad-dress the increasing prevalence of rough sleepers . Efforts to more proactively aid individuals and families in need were elevat ed.
During this fiscal year, there has been an observed increase in hoarding behaviour by clients
served by Financial Assistance, resulting in the de-struction of the landlord’s property and subsequent evictions. Hoarding is known to be related to obses-sive-compulsive personality disorder, attention- deficit
hyperactivity disorder, as well as anxiety and depres-sion. The role of the Financial Assistance social work-ers is to intervene with the provision of short -term crisis
counselling and to refer the individual to the appropriate long- term treatment. This increasing phenomenon supports the growing need for crisis and long- term counselling services.
Social workers’ weekly team meetings are conducted to provide a consistent space to conduct case reviews, address ethical issues and boundaries, ad-dress legal issues and mandated reporting, address any counter -transference and promote self -care.
Mr. Chairman, the Financial Assistance [FA]
social workers have been proactively participating in in-home visits to asse ss high- risk clients and ensure their
overall well -being. The department is working collaboratively with Habitat for Humanity of Bermuda to assist with identifying elderly or disabled FA clients living in derelict conditions. Department social workers will assist clients with completing the required application, and if selected, Habitat for Humanity will make home improvements that will ensure families do not live in un-safe, substandard or unhealthy environments.
868 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The department is also working collaborativ ely
with the Salvation Army to support persons with housing challenges. Representatives of the social workers’ team visited the facility to survey the existing accom-modations, as well as the newly built container transi-tional living facilities. The team was able to brainstorm with the programme’s executive director on potential options for Financial Assistance support. The next step is to determine what support can be provided to eligible facility residents.
The social workers’ team conducted a presentation to the Bermuda College, Introduction to Social
Work Class, in an effort to promote their profession to a future generation of social workers to serve the peo-ple of Bermuda. Department representatives also par-ticipated in a Community Violence Workshop hos ted by
the Ministry of National Security. The objective of the two-day workshop was to have the experts contribute
to the formulation of the Island’s strategic plan to holis-tically address community violence. Additionally, de-partment representation partici pated in a two- day SafeLives Domestic Abuse Training/Workshop, which ad-dressed the psychopathological aspects of an abuser and the psychological impacts on survivors.
Mr. Chairman, the Financial Assistance social
workers participated in a Mental Health Fi rst Aid training course. The course provided participants with the resources to help those experiencing mental health problems and to guide them to appropriate professional help. The team also participated in an online self -study
course entitled the DSM -5 and Psycho- diagnostic Interviewing Online Course, which is intended to improve diagnostic interviewing skills with an emphasis on the therapeutic care of the client.
Within the department, the social workers, in
conjunction with the executive assistant to the director,
provided the means to support the purchase of school clothing [summer and winter] for over 70 clients with school -aged children. This included supporting the
preparation of over 200 purchase orders and the col-lection of clothes and shoes from various retail stores. All of the clothing was distributed to the parents prior to the start of the 2022/23 school year.

Collaborative Partnerships
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, earlier in this
brief I outlined collaborations that the department has been engaged in with other government departments and external agencies, specifically the Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Infor-mation and Digital Technology, Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army. However, I would also like t o
highlight some other collaborations that regularly go unseen:
a) In Q3 2021, a joint ministerial initiative between the Department of Financial Assistance and the Department of Education was forged to fa-cilitate the transfer of three- year-old children who w ere in receipt of financial assistance into
the Bright Start Programme. This programme was intended to provide two years of high- quality learning experiences through a progressive 21
st century teaching and learning experience
and address one of the five pr iority areas of
Bermuda’s Strategic Plan for Public Education. This initiative continues to be a success.
b) The department has been collaborating with the Department of Parks since 2015 in provid-ing health insurance coverage for participants in the Skills De velopment Programme. The
programme is intended to provide hands -on
skills so as to promote the enhancement of knowledge, skills and experience to facilitate the possibility of securing employment. To date, over 110 persons have graduated with approximately 60 per cent securing partial or
full employment. This initiative reduces the need for dependency on financial assistance.
c) During the 2022/23 fiscal year, strengthening the Financial Assistance social workers’ collab-oration with partnering departments/agencies was a primary focus. This was accomplished through the development and distribution of Department Frequently Asked Questions [FAQs] and through conducting internal depart-mental meetings with key partners/stakehold-ers, including the Department of Child and
Family Services, King Edward VII Memorial Hospital [KEMH], Age and Disability Services [ADS], Lady Cupid Compassionate Associa-tion [LCCA], North Star Dementia and the Kid-ney Transplantation Programme. Partnership expansion continued in respect of treatment and housing resources. Collaboration contin-ues with Transformational Living Centre and Dignity House (a residential programme for the mentally challenged). Site visits were con-ducted at Summer Haven, Mid Atlantic Well-ness Institute, WindReach and Tom orrow’s
Voices. Site visits of Messina House and Yel-low Roses (communal and transitional hous-ing) were also conducted to survey the envi-ronments and to learn more about the pro-gramming and services offered by the facilities.
Inter-departmental agency collaboration meetings were also held with Turning Point Substance Abuse Programme and Age Concern. Ongoing collab-oration with the Attorney General’s Chambers contin-ued to support the development of the memorandum of understanding as a tool to hold clients accountable for
maintaining eligibility in relation to compliance with spe-cial conditions imposed by the Director of Financial As-sistance in accordance with section 9 of the Financial Assistance Act 2001.
Visits to rest and nurs ing homes were also conducted, which provided the social workers the opporBermuda House of Assembly tunity to tour the facilities, meet the facility staff in person and address any barriers to client placements. The Senior Social Worker participated in an introductory meeting with a representative of the Bermuda Counsel-lors Association to discuss the long- term strategy for
strengthening the Association and the steps for ad-vancing the Bermuda National Association of Social Workers. Follow -up meetings will occur to assist with
the wor k that needs to be done. Partnership expansion
and strengthening efforts will continue via collaboration meetings on a quarterly or bi -annual basis with respective partners/stakeholders.

Major Policy Changes
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, in 2022 the Government expressed its commitment to providing access to the Supplemental Unemployment Benefit (SUB) to certain individuals whose employment was directly im-pacted by the COVID -19 pandemic. As a result, the
Public Treasury Supplemental Unemployment Benefi t
Regulations 2020 became operative, and the Depart-ment of Financial Assistance was appointed to manage key functions as laid out in that document. To ensure business continuity in all other key activities and deliv-erables, the department changed its operational strat-egy to facilitate this new legislation.
This programme ended in November 2022;
however, from the inception of the SUB programme, 177 persons had satisfied the criteria for receipt of the supplemental unemployment benefit, which included health insurance coverage for those persons who requested it. The total cost was $3,171,920. However, from the 177 eligible recipients, 149 were cancelled due to persons receiving employment, non- compliance
with legislation or persons receiving other forms of fi-nancial aid. At the end of this programme, a total of 28 persons remained eligible and received the final benefit in November 2022.

Minister, can you pause there?
For the benefit of the listening public and Honourable Members, we are now in Committee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24. Honourable Min-ister Jason P. Hayward is discussing Financial Assis-tance, Head 55, and [Department of Workforce Devel-opment, Head] 60.
Minist er, you may resume.
Just one other thing. This debate started at
3:55 pm and will conclude at 7:55 pm. Thank you.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the Financial
Assistance social workers referral process was restruc-tured, resulting in a more streamlined process of as-signed cases and a more equitable distribution of cases amongst the team members. Full implementation of conducting psychosocial assessments on identified able- bodied unemployed and earnings -low applicants pre-screened to warrant such commenced in May
2022.
In an effort to streamline department processes, the Senior Social Worker assumed responsi-bility for the monthly collection of rest/nursing home cli-ent census data/reports. This includes quantifying rest/nursing home beds for each facilit y, identifying
hospitalised rest/nursing home Financial Assistance clients and identifying rest/nursing home client deaths.
The attendance of the drug treatment court and driving under the influence court was restructured, with teams of two social workers rotating coverage quarterly. This
change facilitated the ability of each social worker to manage their caseloads more effectively. By the social workers’ attendance at the courts, they are able to mon-itor the participation of Financial Assistance clients and to facilitate interagency collaboration, as appropriate, with Court Services, Probation Services, Teen Haven, Turning Point, Men’s Treatment and Women’s Treat-ment programmes.
Each social worker was assigned to serve as a
Collaboration Champion with specific agencies/depart-ments. In this role, each social worker is responsible for fostering a collaborative relationship with four to five partners/stakeholders to ensure an ongoing inter -
agency approach to the care and well -being of the clients served.

Plans for the Upcoming Year
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, there continues
to be a focus on the even distribution of case files among officers so as to promote an equitable working environment. As of January 2023, the distribution of caseloads among Financial Assistance officers remains equitable and currently stands at 150 files per officer, which is within acceptable industry standards. This was only achievable because of additional funding provided for temporary service providers, as previously discusse d. However, as previously stated, there is expected to be an increase in overall caseloads based on the implementation of the Throne Speech initiatives and Financial Assistance reform. Therefore, a review of the department’s organisational structure to mat ch
alignment with these strategies will be required, and the department has engaged Management Consulting Ser-vices to review and advise accordingly.
Mr. Chairman, the Social Work section of the
department will begin conducting psychosocial assess-ments of all clients categorised as either “able- bodied
unemployed” or “earnings low,” to comprehensively de-termine the clients’ needs. This will enable the depart-ment to more holistically identify and address any chronic emotional and psychological issues contrib-uting to barriers to self -sustainability and psychological
well-being. Additionally, relationships with collaborating
agencies and resource centres will be expanded and
fortified, to ensure efficiency in services as our clients traverse one provider or resource to another. In order
870 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly to effectively implement these processes, innovative
technologies will be explored and utilised as much as possible.
Mr. Chairman, the department will continue to
focus on standardising current procedures and clearly defined polici es that govern operational activities. Assessments will be more consistent and clear to ensure the avoidance of confusion for the client and to reduce inequalities. This process will also aid the department’s investigative officers in documenting a bluepri nt for financial assistance (fraud) typologies, which can be used in other jurisdictions as a point of reference.
Mr. Chairman, Members of this Honourable
House will be aware that in November 2022 there were some amendments made to the Financial Assistance
Act 2001 and the Financial Assistance Regulations 2004 as a means to begin the initial phases of financial assistance reform. You should note that the Ministry is continuing to advance the initiatives set out in our ear-lier proposals. However, following additional consulta-tions with stakeholders there may be a need to make some adjustments to ensure the continued success of the programme. More information will be tabled in this forum in the coming months when the following pro-posed changes are expected to be approved for imple-mentation:
a) provisions for families to retain up to 50 per
cent of child support payments not to exceed a maximum total of $5,000 in any given period whilst receiving any type of financial assistance awards;
b) provisions to allow recipients to retain 50 per
cent of excess earnings, not to exceed $5,000 whilst receiving financial assistance; and
c) provisions to allow the department to recover
overpaid funds from third parties.
The legislative process has already begun for the
above reform Phase Two and Phase Three will include
the Throne Speech initiatives as follows:
a) amendments to the Child Day Care Allowance programme;
b) amendments to the Schedule of Allowable Ex-penses;
c) amendments to the Financial Assistance Act to include the introduction of a short -term relief
subsidy fund.
Both Phase Two and Phase Three initiatives
are targeted for completion by the end of fiscal 2023/24.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Financial Assistance continues to work hard to support Bermudians that have been disadvantaged as a result of an ever -
changing economy. For this, I continue to recognise and applaud the hard work and dedicated actions demonstrated by the team at the department, under the guidance and leadership of the Director, Ms. Pandora Glasford.
Mr. Chairman, that ends my presentation on
Head 55, the Department of Financial Assistance.

Minister, you may proceed with Head
60.
Honourable Members and the listening public,
we are now in the Committee of Supply to consider the Estimated of Revenue and Expenditure for the year
2023/24. Honourable Minister Jason P. Hayward is now on Financial Assistance, and he is reading Head 60.
Minister, you may proceed.

HEAD 60 —DEPARTMENT OF WORKFORCE
DEVELOPMENT
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I will now move
to the 2023/24 estimates of revenue and expenditure for the Department of Workforce Development, Head 60 found on pages B -186 through B-191, and C -19 of
the Budget Book.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Workforce
Development continues working towards its mission as highlighted on page B -186, To develop a resilient workforce, to provide a sustainable and stable community.
Mr. Chairman, the objectives of the department
are
• to implement the Youth Employment Strategy;
• continue to execute Phase 3 of the National
Re-employment Strategy;
• strengthen partnerships that facilitate industry training, development programmes and initia-tives;
• to expand Apprenticeship Training Pro-grammes to include high demand occupations in the workforce;
• provide support to the newly formed National
Workforce Development Advisory Board and a
National Certification and Apprenticeship Board;
Mr. Chairman, the d epartment’s 2023/24 mission statement and objectives continue to be aligned with the Government’s vision statement “Future For-ward Government for the People of Bermuda.”
Mr. Chairman, the department’s primary aim is
to support Bermudians to become work ready and to position them to successfully participate in Bermuda’s workforce. This starts at their transition from the safe space of the classroom and school environment and continues through until retirement. The Department of Workforce Development is a partner and advocate in ensuring Bermudians are prepared for the workforce by providing
• youth employment opport unities for students
and graduates;
• scholarships for local and overseas study;
• apprenticeship and training programmes;
• internships in high demand occupations;
• national certification training;
• career guidance and Professional Development;


Bermuda House of Assembly • assistance on redundancy and career
changes;
• employment readiness training;
• registration support for the Bermuda Job Board.

Current Account Estimates
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, as noted on
page B -187, the Department of Workforce Development has been allocated a budget of $4,114,000 for the fiscal year 2023/24. This budget is $110,000 above the original budget allocation for 2022/23. This increase is due to streamlining and collapsing cost centres for departmental efficiency purposes. This will allow manag-ers and staff to increase fiscal responsibility within the department and be better aligned and agile in pursuit of departmental goals and objectives.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Workforce
Development comprises three programmes as noted on page B -187:
• 6001—General Administration;
• 6003—Career Development;
• 6004—Training.
Mr. Chairman, programme 6001, General Administration, is responsible for the overall management and administration of the Department of Workforce De-velopment. As seen on page B -187, business unit
70000, Administration, has been allocated a budget of $817,000 for the financial year 2023/24. Salaries for this cost centre is estimated at $478,511, with $338,445 allocated for administrative costs. This sec-tion is staffed by five full -time employees, cons isting of
the director, a management accountant (unfilled), an administrative accounts officer (unfilled), a customer
service representative (unfilled) and a two- year temporary IT Officer (unfilled), as reflected on page B -189.
The administrative section o f the department has had
retirements and resignations in the past fiscal year. Re-cruitment for these and other positions in the depart-ment are a priority this fiscal year.
Mr. Chairman, programme 6003, Career Development, is comprised of Career Development Administration 70300. The programme is responsible for developing Personal Employment Plans as a result of client assessment, core soft skills training and employ-ment readiness training. Where indicated, clients may be referred for specific skills training and other support services to increase the individual’s prospects for suit-able employment and job retention. The section works closely with employers, the Department of Financial Assistance to assist abled- bodied clients and the Department of Immigration. Funding for this section sup-ports the Personal Employment Plans, Youth Employ-ment Strategy initiatives including the Graduate Trainee Programme, Summer Employment Pro-gramme and the Summer Internship Programme.
Mr. Chairman, the 2023/24 budget allocation
for the entire Career Development Programme is $1,478,000, which is an increase of $6,000 compared with the 2022/23 original budget allocation. This in-crease is due to increased programm e costs for youth
initiatives and the collapsing of cost centres.
Mr. Chairman, the Career Development section is staffed by eight full -time employees consisting of
one career development manager, three career devel-opment officers, two training and development officers, one intake officer and an administrative assistant, as
indicated on page B -189. Recruitment for the unfilled
positions in the section are ongoing and will be filled by the second quarter of the fiscal year 2023/24.
Mr. Chairman, programme 6004, Training, provides administrative support and oversight of the National Training Board activities such as the apprentice-ship programmes, the distribution of scholarship fund-ing for local and overseas students, professional des-ignation training schemes and national certification of designated trades. This section comprises Training Ad-ministration, Certification, and Apprenticeship and Pro-fessional Development. The 2023/24 budget allocation for the entire Training Programme is $1,819,000.
Mr. Chairman, the Training section, 70014, is
staffed by eight full -time employees consisting of a
training manager, three training and assessment offic-ers, two standards and enforcement officers and two administrative assistants.
Mr. Chairman, staff shortages for the post of
two standard and enforcement officers will be filled by April 2023. Recognising the impact on programme deliverables due to COVID -19 and staff shortages and reallocation of resources, efforts to maintain optimum programme deliverables proved to be a challenge.
Mr. Chairman, the Apprenticeship/ Profes sional
Development performance measures are outlined in
business unit 70016 on page B -191. The scholarship
programmes included in this business unit are available to individuals 18 years old or older, and who are inter-ested in expanding their skills, qualifications and knowledge focusing on vocational and technical education. Financial support is provided for local and over-seas educational pursuits.
Mr. Chairman, the Training section awards
scholarships based on local workforce needs, particu-larly in areas underrepresented by Bermudians. During
the period 2022/23 the department, in consultation with the National Training Board scholarship committee, provided funding for a total of 34 students for overseas studies. This year proved to be even more challenging, recognising the fact that while many of the candidates were well deserving, the challenge was that this year, compared to 2021/22, the request for overseas schol-arship funding was oversubscribed by nearly 150 per
cent, up from 10 new recipient’s last year (2021/22), to 23 this year (2022/23).
Mr. Chairman, in alignment with the Ministry’s
Bermuda Youth Employment Strategy, the awarding of scholarships to an increased number of Bermudians pursuing tertiary education further demonstrates this
872 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Government ’s commitment to the development of
youth by providing funding for scholarships in high demand occupation in workforce in the amount of $350,000, [for] 23 Bermudians students to study at various overseas educational institutions.
Mr. Chairman, to further assist overseas and
local scholarship recipients, upon graduation the De-partment of Workforce Development invites recipients to take advantage of a paid Internship and Graduate Training and Development Programme in their field of study to obtain invaluable industry experienc e. As a result, a total of 53 Bermudians between the age of 18 and 26 were provided funding, career development, mentorship, coaching support and employment oppor-tunities in their chosen field of study.

Major Achievements 2023/24
Hon. Jason Hayward: I now shift to highlight some of
the additional work that was undertaken during the 2023/24 financial year. Beyond the COVID -19 global
pandemic, the Department of Workforce Development implemented targeted programmes and initiatives to design and implement ser vices, training, career development and employment programmes and initiatives to enhance the opportunities and improve the social, ed-ucational and economic lives of Bermudians.
Mr. Chairman, I now shift to the work of the
Training section. The apprenticesh ip and trainee programme successfully expanded its apprenticeship, training, and internship programmes through engaging targeted industry partners and hosting numerous focus group consultation meetings. As a result, additional op-portunit ies were provided f or Bermudians to participate
in full- and part -time employment and training for apprentices, by specifically promoting employer incen-tives for formalising apprenticeship and trainee oppor-tunities. Steady progress continues to be made, in for-malising apprenticeship and training schemes with both the government and private sector. Notable progress has been made in the hospitality sector resulting in 26 Bermudians registered in a Management Trainee Pro-gramme in alignment with the Hotels Concession Act
2000.
Mr. Chairman, benefits of these training
schemes to employers and trainees include payroll tax waiver, wage subsidies, paid on- the-job training, work
experience and industry qualifications. This payroll tax exemption from the Office of the Tax Commissioner provides relief for employers who are committed to
training Bermudians. This fiscal year the training sec-tion expanded training opportunities to include 15 new formalised Apprenticeship and Training Schemes. Since 2022 to the present day , we have had six companies apply for tax relief for 23 persons.
Mr. Chairman, the trainings section management and team recognised the need to shift and adjust operationally in programme offerings. The ability to be flexible and responsive to meet the change in need and demand of employers, stakeholders and clients was paramount in achieving the department’s strategic plan and desired deliverables for the way forward. The de-partment has deliberately engaged in several public -
private partnerships to respond to workforce needs. As a result, the department continues to take a collabora-tive approach to create opportunity for employers to connect with potential employees to identify and ad-dress Bermuda’s workforce needs.
Mr. Chairman, the department teams continue
to meet directl y with businesses, employers, local recruiters and potential employees to explore new op-tions in labour market trends to provide training and professional development opportunities that lead di-rectly to employment. Attention and reference is de-rived from data and information in the Department of Statistics Bermuda Job Market Employment Briefs, De-partment of Immigration: Closed and Restricted Job Categories List, as well as feedback and resources from external industry -driven stakeholders and industry
profes sionals. As a result, measurable gain has been
made through various modalities of consultation, col-laboration, virtual and in- person focus group meetings,
on-the-job training, online learning webinars, internships, apprenticeships and trainee programmes.
Mr. Chairman, the department continues to
provide sponsored training programmes and initiatives to fill the gap where Bermudians are underrepresented to be trained and employed in high demand occupa-tions in the workforce. This information is guided by the industry recruiter business partners and professionals
as well as the Bermuda Job Market: Employment Briefs. The department uses this data along with the information from the Department of Statistics’ closed and restricted job categories list to determine areas of
training and development programmes for Bermudians.
Mr. Chairman, the department continues to
work in collaboration and consultation with industry stakeholders and professionals as well as local and overseas training providers to expand apprentices hip
and internship training and employment opportunities for Bermudians in the technical, vocation and trades. During the 2022/23 period, the department supported
60 apprentices and sponsored trainees in the areas of
• HVAC
• healthcare
• automotive service tec hnician
• electrician
• hairstylist
• elevator mechanic
• accounting
• shipping and logistics
Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to recognise the efforts of the team at the Department of Workforce Development in supporting Mr. Chance An-thony who is currently on the Oleander as an apprentice. Mr. Anthony is a Workforce Development scholarBermuda House of Assembly ship r ecipient and the department worked in partnership with the Bermuda Maritime Academy to prepare
him for success.
Mr. Chairman, additionally, other pertinent factors associated with the identification, coordination and implementation of current and future tr aining programmes must be taken into consideration to better un-derstand the dynamics, impact and outputs of quantita-tive and qualitative data and information in this context. They include, but are not limited to, specific business models, employer needs and job occupational require-ments, work permit status, qualification, education and training experience, and client status.
Mr. Chairman, the Ministry is . . . the Ministry is
. . . the sentence is written awkwardly. I’m trying to reword it in my brain. Mr. Chairman, the Ministry is . . .

Minister for the benefit of the listening
public, we are now in the Committee of Supply to con-sider the Estimated of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24. Honourable Minister Jason P. Haywar d
is now giving his presentation on Workforce Develop-ment, which is Head 60.
Minister, you may proceed.

Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the Ministry
has received approval from Cabinet for amendments to
the National Training Board Act 1997, to create a National Workforce Development Advisory Board and Na-tional Certification and Apprenticeship Board. The ob-jective is to better align and engage a diverse range of employers, businesses, critical stakeholders, industry professionals, local and overseas trai ning providers to
advance the critical work and function of the depart-ment guided by the Bermuda National Workforce De-velopment Plan.
Mr. Chairman, the Department of Workforce
Development continues to work with the Occupational Advisory Committee and the I ndustry Assessment
Panel to promote national certification and recertifica-tion of tradespersons for welders, electricians, automo-tive mechanics and landscape gardening. Recommen-dation to streamline the national certification process using the Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition of Prior Learning model as a means of assessment for National Certification, introducing the launch of an online training and testing platform for identified trades-persons to utilise as a self -pace assessment tool in
partnershi p with Bermuda College and the National
Training Alliance is also a practical option to advance
the National Certification process. Utilising an online platform provides greater access to requisite courses for National Certification. The online virtual training, testing platform and traditional classroom instruction will be aligned with the National Certification Code and Standards.
Mr. Chairman, whilst I highlighted the challenges with the standards and enforcement section of the department, I would be rem iss if I did not highlight their accomplishments in spite of the challenges with
resources. The training team was able to convey na-tional certification to 29 persons in the area of land-scape gardening, which took creativity and coordination during a time w hen the I sland was still under
COVID -19 restrictions.
Mr. Chairman, under the National Occupation
Certification Act 2004, Welding is a practical assess-ment that requires a minimum standard set by the Ca-nadian Standards Association, through the Canadian Welding Bureau. This is the standard requirement for
national safety training for all construction- related jobs,
guided by the National Training Board, Occupational Advisory Committee comprised of industry experts.
Members will have seen reports of nine welder
tradesmen who have recently successfully completed the welder’s practical assessment test, administered by
the Canadian Welding Bureau assessment team and have been awarded their Welder ID Card and National Certification Certificate.
Mr. Chairman, the D epartment of Workforce
Development continues to be steadfast in their commit-ment to formalise training and the awarding of National Certification to enable Bermudians to retool and up-grade their skill sets. This process is a career pathway
for Bermudians to become certified and obtain the cre-dentials required by industry and employers for em-ployment opportunities in vocational, technical and trade occupations in the local workforce. At this time, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Mr. Jibreel Tal-bot, CWB Welding Inspector, former Occupational Ad-visory Committee Chairman for his foresight in advanc-ing the welding assessment process.
Mr. Chairman, recognising the need for an alternative training and development modalities to meet the needs and demands of “at -risk” clients the training
section provided funding for training programmes for at-risk individuals. The Successful Academic and Vocational Education Programme (SAVE) is a collabora-tive partnership with the following stakeholders:
• Department of Financial Assistance;
• Court Services;
• Bermuda College;
• MIRRORS;
• Bermuda Housing Corporation; and
• Department of Corrections.
SAVE coordinates services and resources for
at-risk individuals to increase access to academic and
vocational training. Apprenticeships , on- the-job training, internships and professional development are avenues utilised to help participants to achieve self -sufficiency and sustainable employment.
Mr. Chairman, the Summer Employment Programme (SEP) coordinated by the Career Develop-ment sect ion assists Bermudian college and university
students in the development of their career goals by connecting work experiences to their academic learn-ing. Work assignments are professional in nature and based on entry -level job descriptions. Interns receive
874 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly placements within government, private and non- profit
sectors where they learn leadership and decision- making skills, time management, conflict resolution, and career and work competency standards.
This year, although the pandemic presented
unique challenges, the Summer Employment Pro-gramme commenced in June 2022. The Summer Em-ployment Programme is a major initiative which pro-vides work experiences for students currently enrolled in college with an emphasis on work in their field of study, connecting theory to real life. The intent of the
programme is to prepare participants for entry level em-ployment in Bermuda’s workforce. The goals and ob-jectives of the Summer Employment Programme are as follows:
• To provide participants with meaningful work experience opportunities to enhance learning, personal and career development.
• To provide exposure to valuable employment
opportunities with the Government of Bermuda.
• To provide opportunities to learn leadership and decision- making skills and encourage citizenship and community service.
• To introduce participants to career and work competency standards.
• To aid participants in the development of their
career goals by connecting their summer work
experience to their academic learning.
The Department of Workforce Development
continues to provide the highest number of summer employment opportunities for Bermudian college and university students. This year’s programme success-fully placed 81 students. Each intern completed up to
10 weeks and received a maximum $6,000 stipend for
work performed.
Mr. Chairman, the Career Development section also coordinated the Summer Internship Pro-gramme for high school students. The programme runs for the month of July and provides participants with an introduction to the workforce and career exposure. As a result of the programme, Summer Internship Pro-gramme participants are better equipped to make more informed choices about their future career path as they
have been exposed to varying career options in the workforce. This year there were a total of 52 partici-pants from the public, private and home schools. The programme continues to have a deliberate emphasis on work readiness and developing talent for Bermuda’s workforce.
Mr. Chairman, it is important to highlight the
work the section continues each summer to prepare youth for Bermuda’s workforce and address youth un-employment. Similarly, the Career Development team has facilitated employment r eadiness training sessions
for private and public schools. Our training and devel-opment officers have had a physical presence in the schools throughout this fiscal year, the team has facili-tated several sessions for S4 students. The emphasis was on career readiness, utilising the Bermuda Job Board, sharing information on the summer employment programmes and preparedness for scholarship appli-cation. Supporting career awareness and work readi-ness in the schools is a worthwhile partnership, one that we hope wi ll bear fruit for many years to come.
Mr. Chairman, during this financial year, the
department remains intentional with addressing youth unemployment. Youth, between the ages of 18 and 26 have historically seen the highest unemployment levels according to sequential Bermuda Job Market Employ-ment Briefs . COVID -19 has compounded the challenges that this age group faces when trying to enter Bermuda’s workforce. Therefore, the Career Develop-ment section continues to offer the Graduate Trainee Programme. A total of 15 recent college graduates
were selected for the opportunity in this year’s pro-gramme which was offered in October 2022.
Mr. Chairman, I am happy to report that five
participants in this recent cohort of graduate trainees have received and accepted of fers of full -time employment and two offers are pending at this time.

Plans for the Upcoming Year 2023/24
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I now shift to
highlight the work that will be undertaken during the 2023/24 financial year. The department will c ontinue to
a) implement Phase 3 of the National Reemploy-ment Strategy;
b) implement the Youth Employment Strategy;
c) implement the Personal Employment Plan;
d) expand Apprenticeship, Training and Intern-ship programmes;
e) engage industry partners to advance industry -
driven programmes and initiatives that leads
directly to employment opportunities for Ber-mudians.
Mr. Chairman, the following information provides the “how” of the implementation of the above-mentioned programmes and service deliverables to the public.
Mr. Ch airman, the department will continue to
execute the implementation of Phase 3 of the Work-force Development Reemployment Strategy, aimed at reducing unemployment. This strategy, in alignment with the Government’s platform initiatives and Ministry priorities , is designed to implement a phased approach
to provide training and career development opportuni-ties to facilitate the ease of finding employment for Ber-mudians. Additionally, due to the contraction of the workforce, the plan includes collaborating with i ndustry
partners to provide quality training and development programmes for Bermudians to retrain, reskill, upskill, and become equipped [which] will reduce the number of work permit in specific occupations that have a high number of expatriate workers. The primary objective is to get Bermudians back to work doing jobs that Bermu-dians can do.


Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Chairman, consultation and collaboration
meetings with key industry partners aims to design and
implement industry -driven training and career development programmes, apprenticeships, internships and the like that work in the interest of unemployed Bermu-dians as well as those that add public value to the coun-try. These programmes and services for clients aim to provide targeted training and development in identified areas of workforce need that directly connect Bermudi-ans with employment. Improved case management of client profiles and engagement with industry partners will enhance progress to better connect employers with trained and qualified unemployed Bermudians f or employment opportunities at various levels of occupations in the workforce.
Mr. Chairman, to further advance the development and implementation of the reemployment training and development plan, guided by current and projected industry -based needs and i nformation from the Department of Immigration, focus will be targeted in occupa-tions of the workforce designations to facilitate employ-ment opportunities in high demand occupations espe-cially in restricted and closed job categories held by guest workers based on workforce trends and labour market information.
Mr. Chairman, the department will continue to
increase the number of training and development pro-grammes and apprenticeships to reduce both adult and youth unemployment and align with industry needs. The department continues to experience considerable
success with employer engagement and public -private
partnerships. For this reason, the Training section, in consultation with the new National Workforce Advisory Board, will establish a more deliberate approach of en-gaging key industry stakeholders. The approach will be
more measured to understand what resources are needed and what additional incentives can be imple-mented to increase the number of on- the-job training
opportunities for Bermudians.
The secti on will target the following industries
for the 2023/24 budget year:
• hospitality;
• vocational/technical trades;
• information technology;
• allied healthcare; and
• other high demand occupations.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s practice of using a more focused approach in providing options for local and overseas scholarships and funding support that creates a direct talent pipeline for Bermuda’s work-force. We recognise there are individuals who do not have the economic means to pursue higher learning. The department will award scholarships on the com-bined basis of financial need and workforce priorities. Scholarships will be awarded to persons pursuing pro-fessions in areas traditionally underrepresented by Ber-mudians to reduce the number of work permits in occu-pations that have a high number of expatriates to get Bermudian back to work in entry -level, mid -level and
high- demand occupations in the workforce.
Mr. Chairman, the department’s proven success record has resulted in the increase in education,
training and employment opportunities for Bermudians. They include over 100 Bermudians between the age of 18 to 26 obtaining certificates, diplomas and associate degrees in programmes of study in high demand occu-pations such as landscape gardening and horticulture; personal care/cosmetology and hair dressing; business administration; electrical wiring; butcher and meat fab-rication; restaurant server; HVAC; culinary arts; finan-cial literacy and financial management; wood technol-ogy; bartending; associate of science, applied science; automotive technology; plumbing technology; welding; emergency medical technicians; nursing; medical ad-ministrative assistant; and human resource just to name a few.
Mr. Chairman, additionally, due to the demand
and increased requests for higher educational pursuits at the honours, masters and medical degree level in high- demand professions such as public health, dentistry, microbiology, engineering, social sciences, physiology and law, the department has responded favourably
by provide funding for 95 Bermudians who wish to level up and advance their education and training at the high-est level in these specialised careers and professions .
Mr. Chairman, the department remains committed to invest a total of $350,000 to support Bermudians to pursue tertiary education locally and at overseas educational institutions.
Mr. Chairman, the department will continue to
work closely with the Department of Communications and make a more concert ed effort to inform the public
of the various training, career development employment opportunities and services available through the use of focus groups and industry stakeholder engage-ment, digital and social media platforms. This targeted approach will encourage unemployed and underem-ployed adults and youth to register at the Department of Workforce Development, and be at the forefront to participate in the various training, career development employment opportunities and services available to support and provided to them on a year round basis. Additionally, the department will be meeting people where they are by hosting career readiness sessions in various parts of the community. This will be another way to engage with persons who may not be comforta-ble with attending our offices for the assistance they
need.
Mr. Chairman, the department, in consultation
and collaboration with industry partners, utilises data driven information to make sound policy decisions for the development and implementation of progr ammes
and services. This year the department increased and expanded its apprenticeship training programme in var-ious occupations in the workforce to include a total of 36 Bermudians. They include journalist coding design
876 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly and development, butcher training, elevator mechanics, heavy vehicle maintenance and repair, electricians and project and facilities management. This synergistic approach enables direct engagement with the public and private sector stakeholders, employers and busi-ness to connect directly wi th employees for potential
employment opportunities.
Mr. Chairman, the department remains committed to ensuring that Bermudians are not disadvan-taged and that they are sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of the workforce. To that end, the department will embark on developing and implementing a more strategic succession planning approach within Govern-ment, particularly in high demand occupations to pro-vide experience and training in high demand sectors in the workforce.
Mr. Chairman, in the upcoming financial year,
the department will continue to collaborate with govern-ment departments as well as the private industry sector to better understand forecasted needs. For example, the department will co- sponsor local and overseas
training, career development, graduate training experi-ence and internship programmes to increase practical on-the-job training, apprenticeships and employment
opportunities for Bermudians in the various occupa-tions in the workforce.
Mr. Chairman, this department remains at the
forefront of providing training and career development
programmes and services for Bermudians in prepara-tion for the world of work. The men and women are committed to ensuring that Bermudians are not disad-vantaged and that they sufficiently prepared and sup-ported as they navigate the opportunities available within the workforce. As I conclude my presentation, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the
hardworking staff of the Department of Workforce De-velopment under the leadership of Director, Mrs. Malika Cartwright.
Mr. Chairman, this now concludes my budget
presentation for Head 60 for the Ministry of Economy and Labour.

I would start with . . . first of
all, in doing research for this contribution, the PATI statement was up to date for that department. And that is always very, very helpful because when we prepare for these, we do want to make sure that our contribu-tions are useful and relevant. And quite often . . . sometimes, the information is so outdated that what the Min-ister says and what I am looking at is entirely different. So, I just wanted to thank the Department of Statistics
for keeping its PATI statements up to date, and to es-pecially congratulate them on their commitment to training which was shown not only in the Budget Book and their performance and measurements, and things like that, but also in their products that they are putting out into the market. That is usually a thankless job. So,
I just wanted to make sure that I started by saying thank you to all of them for that.
With that being said, Mr. Chairman, I will start
with some questions relating to the general summary outlined on Head 14 for the Depar tment of Statistics. I
am looking at page B -174 of the Estimates. Especially,
I see a 22 per cent decrease in funding, but I do not see
any impact to the performance expectations. It looks like they are going to lose a quarter of their funding in the business unit 24020, Core Statistics and Publica-tions. That team is responsible for quite a number of items , and what I wanted to do i s ask the Minister what
impact are we having, or what impact is he anticipating
losing nearly a quarter of their funding?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will move on. I don’t think that ’s the area that has
been dealt with .
My question to the Minister is, last year we saw
that decrease in full -time equivalents, what, if any, impact has that had on operations for the Department of


Bermuda House of Assembly Statistics? And given the anticipated increase in work,
especially as it relates to the household survey, is the
professional services budget adequate? Is that where we are looking to actually increase resources to the de-partment?
I note under current account estimates, projected analysis under [page] B-175, that the training
budget will increase by 70 per cent. But under performance measurements or expectations they are identical to last year. So, it looks like we are doing the same training, but we are spending more on it. I know the
Minister spoke briefly to it, that they were doing training this year to build statistical capacity . I would like him to
explain the apparent variance.
Also, I see that the travel budget has increased
by 229 per cent. The Minister said in his statement that
conferences are effecti vely back on. Can he define
which conferences they are going to be attending? Or, rather, what are they anticipating for that travel? Again, the household expenditure survey is quite crucial for making sure that the CPI [Consumer Price Index] is up-dated and that strikes me as a new priority for the de-partment going into this year.
A further question, Mr. Chairman, is I noted under Head 14, Department of Statistics, page B-176, under performance measures, specifically business unit 24020, core statistics and publications, it says we are going to do, relating to email and electronic devices for the collection of Consumer Price Index data used. The target outcome for the fiscal year is collection data, 50 per cent of that information electronically. We are in
2023, so my question to the Minister is why are we still collecting really anything that is based on hard copy?
Another question in relation to that same business unit where we are talking about the scope of economic statistics increased to production acc ount estimates by institutional sector; GDP by income approach estimates; household final consumption expenditure using the Classification of Individual Consumption Ac-cording to Purpose, and this reads identical to last year. So, if you would please explai n what, if any, progress
has been made in that space.
Also, moving on to business unit 24025, core
annual surveys. When does the Minister anticipate the Labour Force Survey result to be published? And 24055, the Household Expenditure Survey was an-nounced as taking place last year. But the performance
measure says it was postponed to this financial year upcoming. Can the Minister explain why it was de-layed? And does he anticipate it being completed (as
in published) in this financial year? I am concerned because it was postponed last year due to COVID -19 and
then postponed again into this current financial year. So, I am concerned that it will get postponed again next
year.

Member, is that a question or a statement? Mr. Jarion Richardson: Both, Mr. Chairman. Both. So,
please explain why it was delayed, whether it will be completed, as in published, this financial year. That is the question, Mr. Chairman.
That is my first batch of questions for the Department of Statistics. I can keep going, or did you have
a chance to answer those yet ?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I note the major achievement made under the
Department of Statistics, namely, moving from Mi-crosoft Access to an SQL [Structure Query Language] database for international trade data. That is really quite helpful. I am quite sure they are very proud of that and all that work. I also note that m anagement services
made recommendations to improve the delivery of ser-vices within the department. I just wanted to note that this is quite impressive that they would do that volun-tarily and, therefore, quite a lot of confidence can be had in that.
With t hat being said, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the responses for Head 14.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, as it pertains to
the . . . I will begin with the Household Expenditure Survey. The— The Chairman: You may proceed, Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward : The Household Expenditure
Survey did not have sufficient funding allocated in last year’s budget even though the performance measure was set out for it to be achieved. What we did was come
to this Honourable House and get additional supple-mentary funding for both the Household Expenditure
Survey and the Labour Force Survey. The Household Expenditure Survey has to take place over a duration of time , and, as a result beginning on the back half of
the last calendar year , would not have been sufficient
for th e adequate collection of the data.
The anticipated collection is scheduled for the
next fiscal period. We have used partial funding that we received in this year’s budget to ramp up the resources that are required to assist with execution. However, the majority of the funding has to do with employment
costs. When you talk about we do not have to increase the staffing complements for the surveys [that is] be-cause we onboard temporary survey clerks and survey agents to conduct the surveys during households. That is where the bulk of the money is actually spent, on paying the wages of the temporary clerks to carry out the survey. It is not anticipated that we will do collection this year and have our results produced for the same
fiscal period. So, the results may be delayed and produced
in the next fiscal period. We may have preliminary data
878 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly that you can probably use as benchmarks for other statistical work, but, certainly, the overall production would not be completed in anticipation of the next fiscal pe-riod.
An additional question you asked in terms of
training and development of staff, I think it is extremely important, the methodology surrounding statistical computation changes. As a result, as those statistical methodologies change, regional conferences and courses are held to update individuals within the region. We fall within the CARICOM region as it pertains to uti-lising commonality of framework. And it is important that you use regional commonality framework so that you can compare data throughout regions. If everybody else is updating their statistics and they are using new methodologies and you are using old methodologies, then you cannot compare data jurisdiction to jurisdic-tion because you would be comparing apples to or-anges. So, these courses are used to build capacity of individuals and also refine data requirements.
But statistics is not our direct . . . you cannot go
to university and . . . you can go to university and study
statistics. But if you are practicing national accounts
statistics, that is very unique methodology that you do not learn in the school system and you would need to
ensure that you kept up with the latest revisions to the system of national accounts.

For the benefit of the listening audience, Minister Jason P. Hayward is giving replies to MP
Jarion Richardson on Head 14, Statistics.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I am awaiting
clarity on why business unit 24020 declined by 22 per
cent. Once I am provided with that particular clarity , I
will share it with the Member. Did you have any other
questions that I missed, Member?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Honourable Minister.
So, waiting on the 22 per cent, and there is a
question that relates to what impact, if any, that de-crease of full -time equivalents has had from last year.
That is about professional services. So what impact, if any, has happened since the last fiscal year given that headcount was lo st? Thank you.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, as I articulated
in the book, all of our core statistical outputs were ac-tually produced. And so, we have not had a lag in any of our core statistical outputs being reduced, as it per-tains to the headcount .
What I did indicate is that management services was doing a review the department. We actually
got approval from Cabinet to do a reorganisation to combine units within the department and also bring on additional resources to assist with the timely dissemination of data.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My contribution this evening as it relates to Financial Assistance is , first of all , to reiterate just how
important it is to Bermuda that we deal with this matter quite fully and conclusively. You might notice, as I think anyone who has wandered around the City of Hamilton, that it seems that more and more people are falling on harder and harder times. You can barely walk a block without feeling compelled to assist someone. That re-ally concerns me, Mr. Chairman, because obviously Hamilton is quite crucial to the commerce in Bermuda; it is the hub of everything we do. And Financial Assis-tance is literally the safety net for our entire society and in every society. As I have said before, both to the Hon-ourable Minister and to yourself, Mr. Chairman, how we treat the vulnerable amongst us is really the defining quality of who we are. But to that end, Financial Assis-tance is not a “nice” to have, it’s not an “interesting, ” it
is in fact quite crucial. And if we do it wrong, we hurt the
most vulnerable amongst us.
To that end, Mr. Chairman, I would like to start
with employee numbers under Head 55, specifically page B -184. We note that the employee numbers anticipate dropping by six persons. My question is why
were those six persons lost? Why do we anticipate losing six people? I know the Minister has spoken about hiring people and using a graduated scheme to bring them in through the professional services budget line item and the vendor and consultant line item. To that end, I would like to ask if the people who are currently
offsetting, or the people currently coming on board via
the consultation route, are they entirely consultants? Do they have any benefits in their contract s? And how
long does the Minister anticipate before they can get on
board fully so that they can get all government benefits?
Another question, Mr. Chairman, in last year’s
budget brief the Minister said that risk management was researched the year before, that is 2020/21 and 2022. With your permission I will r ead that from the
Hansard, as that influences my question.

You may proceed.



Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Jarion Richardson: The Minister said, 1“. . . risk
management framework that conforms to ISO 31000
(International Organization for Standardization) was being researched for consideration and implementation. The standard is used to promote a consistent ap-plication of best practice in business activities. Essen-tially, the principle standard evaluates an organisation’s ability to [effectively] demonstrate proficiency to con-sistently provide services that meet customer and reg-ulatory requirements, and to demonstrate continuous improvement.”
I have some additional notes, I am going to ask
. . . a bit disjointed, but I beg you indulgence, Mr. Chairman. My question is what happened to this initiative? I
know the Minister spoke about risk management being implemented, but anyone who works in compliance knows that it is one thing to say I want to do something ISO compliant; it is a whole other thing to actually be ISO co mpliant. So, my question to the Minister is, Are
they actually certified as ISO compliant (that is, in risk management)? And what practical improvements have been made to the department?
And my question also is, why is the risk management project, which m ight have been quite a large
project, certainly it is in private sector, not reflected in
performance measures and expectations?
Now, the Minister noted that one of the results
of using the new risk management framework is there are no red flags, and that, in and of itself, to compliance people is a red flag because risk is everywhere. Risk is only probability by severity. And so, there is always some risk. No red flags is a concern. So, I would ask the Minister again if we are in fact ISO compliant under
risk management.
Further, I would ask under risk management if
he could speak to random audits. He had spoken about a compliance framework being implemented that deals with the policies and procedures within the department, government contract procedures , investigation, audit
most especially by relying on the Auditor General and government structure. My question relates to investiga-tion and audits. Who is actually checking to make sure that all these processes are working?
Typically, what we see in regul atory compliance is first, second, and third lines of defence as we call it. And I just did not hear a lot of that language in his presentation. So, my question really relates to who is actually checking to make sure everything is working properly within t he department pursuant to the Risk
Management Methodology, ISO 31000.
Moving on Mr. Chairman, I have a question related to the performance measurements. And, under Head 55, specifically on page B -185 business unit
65050, to reduce the number of (quote) “able -bodied”
and/or (quote) “earnings low” clients form the prior year. The original forecast for this financial year was 10 per cent and the revised forecast says zero per cent.

1 Official Hansard Report , 11 March 2022, page 742 So, it is reporting to my mind that no one was able to, no one in the able- bodied or low earnings category was
able to come off of financial assistance. And this might come up later on during work force development. So, if the Honourable Minister can clarify weather or not that took place.
I specifically have a question. If I may r ead from
the Hansard from last year, Mr. Chairman? The Chairman: You may proceed, Member.

Those two categories in last
year were said . . . and I thank the Minister for updating
those numbers, but I will have to use last years for this. The persons employed with insufficient earnings or with earnings low, as was outlined in performance measures, was 196, and able- bodied persons unemployed was 170, so there were 366 people who were eligible for this process to reduce them off of financial assistance.
My question is, Was anyone able to get reduced off of it? And I further want to reflect on the Fi-nancial Assistance Amendment Act. Again, from the
Hansard, with your permission, I can read.

2“The Financial Assistance
Amendment Act 2021 was enacted in October 2021. This change represent s Phase One of Financial Assistance Reform and requires recipients to register with the Department of Workforce Development for job seeking purposes; participate in workforce related as-sessments and development programs and enter into a Personal Employment Plan [PEP] agreement within six months of the date of application to avoid disqualifi-cation of financial assistance awards.”
So, my questi on is, Did any of that take place,
that is, entering into the personal employment plan, et cetera, for the performance measure to reduce the
number of able- bodied and or earnings low clients?
That is 65050.
Shall I continue, Mr. Chairman?

Please proceed, Member.

2 Ibid. 11 March 2022, page 743
880 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Jarion Richardson: The Honourable Minister said
last year “Mr. Chairman, during the next fiscal period”
[that is the one we are in at the moment] “the depart-ment will focus on introducing and implementing Phase Two of Fin ancial Assistance R eform. . . .
“Mr. Chairman, the social work arm of the department will begin conducting psychosocial assess-ments of all clients categorised as either ‘able- bodied
unemployed’ or ‘earnings low,’ in order to comprehen-sively determine the client’s needs.”
So that goes to actually a much earlier question
as well, for progress on those items which were out-lined as objectives for this year.
And—
[Inaudible interjection]

You may proceed, Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, the Member
asked a question regarding ISO 9000 which is a Risk Management Framework or Compliance Framework. Unfortunately, the certification was not available at the time the initiating department saw it. It was also costly
to become certifi ed in that framework. So, we did put
matters in place to mitigate risk which I spoke about in terms of understanding, assessing, and monitoring po-tential risks thru department policies procedures and legislation, government contract management, practice investigation and legislative compliance, audit specific
to the Office of the Auditor General and the Department of Internal Audit and also a government structure that reinforces management’s message to honesty and integrity.
Additional to that, the Member asked regarding
the full -time equivalents. I did speak that $518,000 was
budgeted for full -time equivalents which would have
you see a reflection of 40 in the previous fiscal year. However, due to the issues of onboarding the particular staff and the hiring process, in order to maintain staffing levels we did continue with, in this fiscal period, con-sulting contracts. These consulting contracts are ven-dor contracts. I deem them to be inadequate because they do not provide benefits and that is what we put in
place in terms of the Independent Contract Guidelines. My desire will be that those individuals are temporary employees rather than vendors and they will seek to transition as quickly as we possibly can all vendor con-tracts into temporary contracts, employee contracts.
You asked a question regarding personal employment plans. We did specifically work with the De-partment of Work Force Development, and we were able to pilot a programme to ensure that we had a proper framework for assessing personal employm ent
programmes. Personal employment plans. You would note
that we did make changes in this House and we de-bated the Financial Assistance Amendment Act which would have made it mandatory for all able- bodied persons to be on a personal employment plan. You will
also note that I indicated that unfortunately that Act was not brought into force because we had challenges, con-stitutional challenges with the mandating of current personal employment plans and so I indicated that we
were bringing the Act back to this House to revise it with Phase Two revisions. Or I would have brought it the first time with Phase One and all you would see is an Act
which includes Phase One and Phase Two. With the
necessary changes that Chambers actually recom-mended, as it pertains t o what will be pilotable from a
civil advisory standpoint regarding personal employ-ment plans.

Please hold for a minute, please,
Member.
For the benefit of the listening public, we are in
Committee of Supply for further consideration of Est imates of Revenue and Expenditure for the year 2023/24. Minister Honourable Jason P. Hayward is re-sponding to riveting questions from MP Jarion Richard-son on Head 55, Financial Assistance.
It is my distinct honour to hand over this debate
to Learned Member Scott Pearman. He is now the captain.
[Mr. Scott Pearman, Chairman]

Thank you, Honourable Members.
Minister, you have the floor.

Hon. Jason Hayward: Another question was regarding the performance measures, zero per cent for reduc-tion in ABU’s [Able Bodies Unemployed] . What we recognise is that during the pandemic we saw more able-bodied persons coming onto Financial Assistance, it was just not the economic climate to achieve the reduc-tion, but what we now see is the reduction back to 10 per cent and that reflects the targets that we wanted
to achieve prior to that 10 per cent. We will continuously
work with Workforce Development to transitions as many persons as possible off of Financial Assistance. Easier said than done, but we do need to have some
type of manageable target of success as to how we are transitioning people off.
I did indicate that the social work staff are doing
a yeoman’s job in terms of doing evaluations and as-sessments of clients and that is because we recognise that notwithstanding that we can provide someone with an employment opportunity, sometimes they are not in a mental state to maintain employment and so some-times you need a holistic approach and that is what we are aiming to do. Provide a holistic approach so that we are not just getting people into the workplace but it is a sustainable journey for that individual.


Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Chairman.

Yes, I thank the Honourable
Minister who responded about the employment plans and the phase of the Financial Assistance Reform.
Also, the Honourable Minister just mentioned some of the emotional and mental impacts with employment and we note my earlier question that said there would be psychosocial assessments done. My question is, Have psychosocial assessments been done for all clients under able- bodied and earnings low?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Jason Hayward: I think the Member has tripped
me up a bit with the “all,” and so I am just trying to verify the psychosocial assessments that have been done for
all. But obviously in my brief I indicated that that work had been done in terms of providing psychosocial as-sessments and so I will determine “all” and if not all there may be some parameters as pertains to it may
not be applicable for all assessments needed. Some persons may have had an initial screening which deter-mines that they may not require a full assessment, but I will get directly on that from the department.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Also, [I am] happy to proceed but I want to
make sure that we do not lose sight of the outstanding query on Head 4, specifically [page] B -176 on the general summary, the 22 per cent decrease i n funding for
business unit 24020. [I am] just very mindful that that is still there.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Yes, I am still waiting on the
data from Statistics as pertains to the reduction in that 24020, Core Statistics [and] Publications category.
I do have an answer to the question the Honourable Member asked regarding random audits and who performs this. Random audits are performed by the compliance unit of the department , which includes
the investigation officer, deputy director and the depart-ment contr oller. A governing structure that reinforces
management’s message of honesty and integrity. This comprises part of the total compliance framework which includes department policy procedures and the other five areas that I indicated when I talked about the holistic assessment that we use outside of the compli-ance framework that you had identified.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
I thank the Honourable Minister. I have further —
Hon. Jas on Hayward: Just a point of clarification. I believe the brief highlighted that the psychosocial assess-ments will be done for all clients except for pensioners when needed. Like I said, once they have been as-sessed or screened and it has been determined that those individuals were needed it will be done on a needs basis. The Chairman: Thank you, Minister.
MP Richardson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
I thank the Honourable Minister.
That is an ever -so-slight change from the Hansard, but certainly something that we will keep an eye
on as we go into another budget, if I am here, anyway, or the Minister.
With that said, . . . oh, moving on to questions
still within Head 55, some general questions, first a statement. I note that a lot of the work of the Financial Assistance Department is in fact not in the performance measures. This includes Phase Two of the Financial
Assistance Reform, psychosocial assessments, em-ployment plans, and the House will authorise spending in the range of $54 million and those key initiatives are just not in the book. I said this year on year , and I suppose one day the Minister will just write it in there, but that is my stand on that one.
I have a question relating to capital expenditure
on page C-13, specifi cally 76696, if you will bear with
me, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A general question, especially as it relates to
the spending altogether. The cost -of-living crisis has
882 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly impacted all of us in Bermuda. And the Minister has alluded several times to a seeming increased need for financial assistance. Can the Honourable Minister speak to what changes have taken place, or that he an-ticipates taking place in the next financial year to ac-commodate the cost -of-living crisis and its impact on,
again, the most vulnerable amongst us?
I would like to note that it is fitting on National
Women’s Day that the childcare allowance increase is being debated here. I think that the work of especially mothers goes unappreciated and it is key, in order for them to support their families and still enter the work-force, that childcare be supported. So, I think that is a
fantastic i dea to make sure that we continue to support
in that way.
The Minister noted in his presentation that the
portfolio for each officer had increased and that addi-tional consultants and vendors had been hired. Could he speak to how many consultants and vendors have been hired to support the officers? The Chairman: Thank you.
Honourable Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: There was a question around
the cost -of-living crisis and what adjustments had been
made in financial assistance. I will bring before this Honourable House changes to the table of allowable expenses that will have revisions that will reflect the in-creased costs of goods and services provided to finan-cial assistance clients. We are in the process of revis-ing the table for food allowances so that w e can have
the nutritional levels assessed and food allowances ex-pended. But generally , what we will find in the framework of reform is that it deals with increases in benefits
and expanding as the eligibility requirements.
We are also allowing persons to retain more of
their income. So, with the changes that we are making in Financial Assistance Reform persons . . . in the previous form ula it was a dollar in, and that entire dollar
was factored into their income calculation. Now, if they make a dollar, it will be 50 cents of that dollar calculated into their income calculation so that they retain 50 per cent. The same would apply to chil d support payments,
so that persons have funds to provide for their children and have some level of access to cash, something that they were not allowed to have in the past. You might know that a Financial Assistance recipient in the past was only allowed to hold funds up to $250. That has been moved up to $5,000 now. Those individuals would also be able to receive gifts up to $2,500.
And a gift is extremely important because we
talk about organised gifts, such as appliances. If the refrigerator of pers on on Financial Assistance breaks
down, they can’t just go and receive a gift from a mem-ber of the public as it currently stands , as it pertains to
received cash, to go buy a refrigerator or whatever it
might be. So, this allows that person to receive gift s so
that they can get those particular appliances. We are changing the eligibility requirements for
child day care allowance and expanding the amount to
parents so that they can take advantage of child day
care allowance, but also increasing the rates t hat appear under child day care allowance. I believe that the
current rate is around $800. But the average monthly cost of child day care is roughly around $1,100. You will
see the rates reflect that. So, we are doing a lot from a
Financial Assistance standpoint.
It cannot be understated the work that we do in
providing supplemental unemployment benefits for per-sons who did not qualify for Financial Assistance. But we still made or found a way to administer our pro-gramme to give those individuals health insurance and roughly about $1,500 a month so that they can live in this current environment. So, a number of works have
been done in that particular area.

Thank you, Minister. Do you want to
address the question on IT, or should we get the MP to
put another question?
Hon. Jason Hayward: As it pertains to capital expenditure, the question was why $90,000 was not in the re-vised estimate for 2022/23. This was actually an error. Actually , $95,000 should have been in the revised estimate for 2022/ 23. So, thank you for highlighting that.
The cost is in relation to an upgrade in the Financial Assistance software and changes to the soft-ware to accommodate FA reform in accordance with legislation. So, the calculation that is done within Finan-cial Assi stance i s utilisation of reform software. When
we change the formulas , it is non -applicable. Then you
have to change the software so that it better reflects the actual calculation within FA.

Thank you, and I thank the
Honourable Minister.
Also, general questions, again, relating to the
future plans . . . well, talking about next year. Two questions: What is the Government’s plan regarding pen-sioners increasing? The Minister has already gone on record talking about ageing demographics, and we are


Bermuda House of Assembly well aware that we cannot reduce pensioner s off of financial assistance (well, we will see). But one of the
things that struck me, Mr. Chairman, it was quite disap-pointing to discover that in Bermuda half of everyone on financial assistance were pensioners, people who should be very much enjoying their retirement and
should not be trying to figure out how to live after a life-time of work. So, I am a little concerned about the pensioners currently on financial assistance, especially since we are anticipating more pensioners and less working people.
So, my question to the Honourable Minister is
what is Government’s plan regarding pensioners in-creasing on financial assistance?

Thank you, MP.
Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: The Member will see an increase of grants and that increase in grants would in-clude national uplift for an increase in pensioners. But that is a fluid category. And I say fluid because we have persons who are departing earth who were on financial
assistance , while you have persons who are coming
onto financial assistance.
Certainly, we anticipate over the next few years
that the pensioners category will increase. But I do not have the same level of concern as the Member shared as it pertains to the number of pensioners on financial
assistance. I believe it is a social protection that is there to support our elderly population.
So, I am somewhat comforted that they are
able to get the necessary support that they need as they age. And that, with the wraparound other social programmes that we can provide for our seniors
through our National Seniors Strategy, I am quite confident that we do a lot for our seniors. And I am quite pleased that the majority of the funding goes to support that portion of our population while the mind- set of
many may be that we have a whole lot of able- bodied
persons on financial assistance. The actual fact is that we are supporting our seniors.
Like you said, it does show where the Government’s priorities lie when we see the work that we are doing to support mothers with children and our young kids and also our seniors.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
I thank the Honourable Minister.
A few more questions, two more questions,
and I believe one outstanding is I would ask the Minister to speak to the portfolio for each officer and how many additional consultants and vendors are assisting those officers.
Hon. Jason Hayward: The answer to that question is
six, Mr. Chairman, as indicated in the brief. And we want to have full -time equivalents created so that we
can increase our staff level up to 40. But until that pro-cess is done, those persons will remain on some sort of temporary contract.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
I thank the Honourable Minister.
My last two questions under here . . . the Minister noted that social workers are detecting incidences of hoarding and OCD and other mental illnesses which can sometimes result in the awardees getting negative effects, including being kicked out by landlords. We are already well aware that we have a shortage of housing inventory in the market so this would impact our vulner-able persons most especially. My question is, what is the department offering
for mental health clients and also the social workers who are undoubtedly onboarding a lot of society’s ills at the moment?

Thank you.
Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I went into great
detail to explain the number of collaborative engage-ments that the social work department is doing with ex-ternal agencies to support the population, whether it be with MWI and other groups —Probation Services , Teen
Haven, Men’s Treatment Centre, Women’s Treatment
Centre—a ll of tho se collaborative efforts aim to try to
provide a level of holistic support for clients who are on FA.
When we start to talk about persons, FA clients, who are getting kicked out of housing because of some of the mental health issues experienced, we do have to have a level of natural empathy for the home-owners. And we will continue to work to find suitable housing for individuals.
Most times, like we said, we try to work with the
Salvation Army as well and the social workers have been down there and continue to work with Salvation
Army and other groups to try to find suitable housing outside of what I will call the market stock of housing. The Housing Corporation assists greatly. We would know that nearly two years ago I had to go out and do a public appeal and ask homeowners to consider taking
in Financial Assistance clients because there was not the appetite of homeowners to take on Financial Assis-tance clients. Some, generally because of the stigma. But I would venture to believe that those people who have developmental health challenges where they are
hoarding and destroying persons’ properties on the lower end of the spectrum and not what the general . . .
884 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly their behaviour . . . or exhibit behaviours of our general
client population.

Thank you, Minister.
MP just for a moment . . . Honourable Members
and members of the listening public, we are in Commit-tee of Supply for further consideration of the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the budgetary year 2023/24. We are currently in a debate on the Depart-ments of Statistics, Financial Assistance, Workforce ,
which come under the Ministry of Economy and La-bour, and Minister Jason Hayward. Those are budget heads 14, 55 and 60. This is a four -hour debate and
there is approximately an hour and 25 minutes left, with
the debate ending at 7:55 pm.
Minister, you are back on your feet . If you’d like
the floor, you have it.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Yes, I was answering the question regarding mental illness. I did mention MWI who we work closely with, but we also work closely with Dig-nity House to provide services. They provide day sup-port for individuals who find themselves in need.
The Member did speak to the number of vagrants generally that are on the streets. You would be surprised that a number of those vagrants are actually
Financial Assistance clients. So, there are a number of
persons who by their own . . . I don’t want to say by their
own choice, but they choose not to live in traditional housing. So, they receive food allowances and things of that nature. So not every vagrant on the street or person you would assume to be vagrant goes without. A number of those individuals are FA clients.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would follow up with two questions. Would the
Honourable Minister be able to comment on the mental health support for the actual social workers instead of the clients (he answered about the clients)? Also, the Honourable Minist er mentioned his appeal at one point
to assist with housing FA clients.
To that end, I do know of a story where a person did house someone in some space they had and wound up having quite an adverse impact to their life-style. They lost quite a few things, et cetera. That’s neither here nor there . But my question to the Honourable
Minister is, when someone encounters a distressed in-dividual, especially a family or something like that, how do they get in touch with Financial Assistance? The Honourable Minster mentioned that there are now some phones in use, or new mobile phones and there is an emergency number, or something like that. So, if
he could speak to how a person who is trying to help a person or family gets in touch with Financial Assistance during out of office hours, I supposed is the question. And the other one was mental health for the social workers.

Thank you MP.
Honourable Minister, if you care to answer
those two questions under Head 55.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Each client of F inancial Assistance has a caseworker assigned to them. And that caseworker would be known to the client and those other persons who are directly in relation to that individ-ual. So, the answer to the question would be to identify who the caseworker is and c all that individual. And then
the individual most likely is available after hours as well.
So, I don’t want to go into giving out individual case-worker ’s phone information, but I just want to note that
that resource is actually available for individuals to reach out to. If you know the person’s caseworker, cer-tainly you can reach out to the department and have a conversation with the department and get that case-worker’s information so that they can provide the sup-port that is required.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This was actually a difficult one to scrutinise
these estimates. The PATI statement for this depart-ment is almost 10 years old and includes things that have changed in legislation significantly, including La-bour Relations Department and this team reporting to
Home Affairs. So, this was a great example because
there were a number of statements the Minister made that you just could not follow along. So, it is a disservice. And I think that that needs to be said—that these
PATI statements have to be taken seriously.
With that being said, Mr. Chairman, I would like
to speak to Head 60, page B -186, as it relates to the
department’s objective to continue to execute Phase 3
of the National Re- employment Re- Integration S trategy. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will read from one of the Minister’s statements.

Thank you.
On 18 June 2021, in the House of Assembly ,
the Minister highlighted some of the initiatives of P hase
1 of the Re- Employment Strategy. It included things like
13 new training, career development and employment programmes; 650 persons participated in a number of programmes, et cetera.
Then the Honourable Minister said, “Phase 2
initiatives will focus on training, re -skilling, up -scaling
and utilising the transferable skills of unemployed Ber-mudians.” To this end he named a number of initiatives,
including economic stimulus programme jobs initiative, industry -driven network partnerships, training and development, employer and industry engagement.
To that end, my question now relates to what
is Phase 3 of the National Re- Employment Integration
Strategy? Thank you.

Go ahead.
Hon. Jason Hayward: I will just re -read that paragraph
“The Department will continue to execute the imple-mentation of Phase 3 of the Workforce Development Reemployment Strategy, aimed at reducing unemploy-ment. This strategy in alignment with the Government’s platform initiat ives and [Ministry] priorities is designed
to implement a phased approach to provide training and career development opportunities to facilitate the ease of finding employment for Bermudians. Addition-ally, due to the contraction of the workforce, the plan includes collaborating with industry partners to provide quality training and development programmes for Ber-mudians to retrain, reskill, upskill, and become equipped [that will] reduce the number of work permit in” high demand areas. “The primary objective is to get
Bermudians back to work . . . .”
So, I think the Member is looking for the specific initiatives. That was general, but I think he was asking for more of what are the specific initiatives that will be executed. I will endeavour to get that infor-mation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and I definitely agree with the Honourable Minister. That is exactly what I am looking for. My problem in as-sessing right now the department’s objectives, and to be clear we are talking about the House authorising a spend of $4.1 million and the Department of Workforce Development is going to execute Phase 3. I cannot distinguish Phase 3 from Phase 2. So , I thank the Honourable Minist er for committing to getting the initiatives and
line items for that project.
To that end—

I see the Minister is on his feet.
Yes, Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Just as a matter of clarity, when
we talk about phases, Phase 3 does not hav e to be fundamentally different from a lot of the work that we have done in Phase 2. For example, if you run a training programme in Phase 2 that training programme may be
run again in Phase 3 as well. This is not like a gradual
thing, but it is just saying Phase 3 because we are looking at the cohorts of training that have been taking place, so there may be a level of duplication between what has been done in Phase 2 and in Phase 3.
The other thing to be mindful of is when you
look at that budget allocation it is not just for the re- employment strategy, we also have the youth employment strategy, you also have the personal employment plans in that same shared pool.

Subjective analysis of current
account estimates, where I see that energy . . . the department is anticipating an increase in energy of 63 per
cent. And I am not sure where that comes from, or how we got to that number. So, I would like the Minister to
speak to that.
Also, my understanding is that the department
is currently housed in government property . I did not
see any rental accommodations or changes. So, I just
want to see where that increase is coming from.
The next question is in relation to performance
measurements, specifically I note that the department will be combining business units. But the performance measurements are remaining inside of those old units. A great example would be on page B -191, where we
have career development under business unit 70400, which is going to merge, or won’t be staffed or funded, but merged with 70300, admin. But youth employment strategy is still under the old business unit. My question is, Is this intentional? How will the Ministry track this
going forward? What does that look like operationally?

Thank you, MP Richardson.
Honourable Minister, those are questions on
page B -188 under subjective analysis. And then page
B-191 under business unit 70300 and 70400. You have
the floor.
Hon. Jason Hayward: The logical answer I can provide to the Honourable Member regarding energy costs is that right now the Department of Workforce Develop-ment i s shared. The energy is shared between the Labour Relations section and the Department of Work-force Development, which falls under two separate . . .
all in the same Ministry, but under two separate sec-tions. It is anticipated that we are going to do work to
transition to a Department of Labour and move out of that building. Maybe in anticipation of the Labour Rela-tions section moving out , then they will be responsible
for the entire cost of the electric bill for the building.
As it pertains to the busines s units, what we
find is that some of the business units were broken out and that simply did not make sense because, one,
there were multiple units , but they were all one unit. For example, career development, the administration and the development section would be compressed into
one. I do not think that we have updated the performance measures the same way we updated the other portion of the budget and consolidated those. So, that is an exercise that needs to be done.

Last year the Honourable
Minister briefed the House that the department will con-tinue to implement Phases 2 and 3 of the . . . oh sorry,
here we go, “The department will continue to . . . implement the Youth Employment Strategy.” When I look at
the youth employment strategy , I am trying to get probably questions similar to my last on the national re- employment strategy. I am trying to understand what makes it so different from the current business objec-tive and performance measures of Workfor ce Development . They seem to have a great deal of overlap, if not
identical. And I am just trying to wrap my head around what in the youth employment strategy is different from the day -to-day work of the Workforce Development Department.

Thank you, MP.
Honourable Minster, you have the floor.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Just to give an update of some
of the training that I have been informed will take place in Phase 3: certified administrative assistant programmes, certified cleaning programme, and training
for construction workers. They will take place in Phase 3 as some of the identified training.
You are going to find . . . I wouldn’t say that . . .
I wouldn’t agree with the individual in terms of the over-lap. What I would say is alignment. Anyt hing that we
ask the department to strategically do it has to be di-rectly aligned with its business objective. The youth employment strategy will be directly aligned with the business objectives. If you look at the nine goals that are featured within the y outh employment strategy,
some of them transcend the Department of Workforce


Bermuda House of Assembly Development, understanding that the Department of
Workforce Development is responsible for the facilita-tion. I did commit to provide ongoing updates as it per-tains. The last updat e I provided was for the fourth
quarter of the last calendar year as it pertains to the initiatives that we were aligning with the youth employ-ment strategy. I will endeavour to come back to this Honourable House and roll out the next set of initiatives that will be undertaken in direct alignment with the
youth employment strategy.
So, when you see . . . I wouldn’t say it’s an
overlap; I would just agree that there is a level of align-ment and naturally there should be a level of alignment.

Yes, I just wanted to compliment the Minister on the objective and performance measures actually containing refe rence to linking to
Ministerial Statements and briefings. It is very helpful to see and to read a management report that actually con-nects dots instead of , a lot of time, is just raising more
questions.
So my question, still on the youth employment
strategy 70400, is , Why are the original and revised columns missing since the youth employment strategy, as I said before, was mentioned in last year’s budget brief and last year’s Hansard? But we are sort of missing it
in this original forecast and revised forecast for the year 2022/23.

Okay. Thank you.
Minister, do you see that page?
Hon. Jason Hayward: Certainly. What would happen
is that we did not have performance measures for that particular period. So, these performance measures are
new performance measures that we have been target-ing outcomes for 2023/24, notwithstanding that the youth employment strat egy was developed in the last
fiscal period, we simply did not have performance measures for that particular period. I would like to indicate that I have had some
feedback as to some of these direct works that the De-partment of Workforce Development will be doing in this particular quarter —

Please proceed.
Hon. Jason Hayward: —in alignment with the youth
employment strategy, and the three initiatives are: high school students for transition to the workforce (we want to work direct ly with the high schools to provide programmes for those individuals); the Bacardi Shake Your Future programme; and we will also be running an additional hospitality training programme for young persons.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have questions relating directly to the Budget
Book, again, bear with me . . . yes, I will start here.
Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned , the PATI statement has not been updated. Quite a few times the Min-ister spoke to persons that I just had no context. S o,
can he actually let us know what the roles and duties are of this division, standards and enforcement officers? What exactly does that fill within the Department of Workforce Development? Thank you.

Thank you, Minister.
MP Jarion Richardson.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My questions will relate to page B -190, specifically business unit 70014, training administration. Ac-tually, I will start with 70000, administration. I note that the performance objective on this page is to support the operations of the department to ensure the accounting processes, policy and procedures align with financial instructions. They reduced the turnaround time to three
business days. Out of curiosity to the Minister, why was that revised from five business days? The Chairman : Your question is the top of page B -190,
correct?
Hon. Jason Hayward: Yes.
888 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: Thank you.
Honourable Minister, you have the floor.

Hon. Jason Hayward: That is a good question. I will
ask for a response from the department to answer that very specific question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Further, requesting clarification from the Minister on business unit, training administration 70014. The performance on page B -190, or measure, is input initial
client’s case data into the Career Information Develop-ment System within two working days of receipt. The target outcome is five working days. I am not sure two working days versus five working days . . . is that an
error, or how do those two things work together, I would ask the Minister, Mr. Chairman.

—I will take them. And we will see
when the Minister stands up. We will defer to him, yes? Mr. Jarion Richardson: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I note under training administration that one of
the measurements is to arrange monthly meetings of
the board in committee, and they say there are 10 meetings. My question is, are there not 12 in the year? And provide quarterly reports of the meetings of Ber-mudians in industry driven occupation. Can the Minister provide an explanat ion of what those quarterly reports
of Bermudians in industry driven occupations are? That is it . . . oh, and one question for clarification on the next page B -191, under career development, business unit 70400. I see number of persons registered, number of new registrants (it’s about twothirds of the way down from the top of the page), num-ber of new registrants on internal database, number of persons placed. It says under the revised forecast for 2022/23 “discontinued.” And then it has a targeted out-come of 500/300/150, respectively. So, my question is,
What happened with the discontinued during the last, or this year?

The Minister is on his feet.
Hon. Jason Hayward: That 22 per cent relates to staffing so it is directly related to the allocating of funding regarding staffing. But then there are two separate things. There is the reduction of debt and then there is a differential in terms of new staff being onboarded w ith
senior staff and the disparity in pay between the new staff and the persons who will be at a higher pay scale.

Thank you, MP Richardson.
Does any other Member . . . Oh, I see the Minister is on his feet. Yes Minister. You have the floor.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Yes, I am wondering if we can
close off the debate and I can endeavour to get those answers to the Member when they come in.



Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: MP, the Minister has offered to give
you the answers to the remaining questions rather than
delay the debate. But before we do that, let me just
check . . . are there any other Members who have
questions for Minister Hayward on Heads 14, 55, and 60, being the Department of Statistics, Financial A ssistance or Workforce Development?
There being . . . oh, MP Richardson is on his
feet.

There we go. Members, we have just concluded the debate
and a motion has been made by the Honourable Prem-ier to rise and report progress. And that motion has been agreed to. So, we are just waiting, as we conclude
the Chairing of the B udget Debate, and the Speaker will
resume in the Chair for the general House.
[pause]

House resumed at 7:02 pm
[Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr. , Deputy Speaker, in the
Chair]

The next order of business is
the second reading of the Public Holidays Amendment and Validation Act [2023], and it is w ith the Premier, the
Honourable David Burt.
You have the floor, Premier.
Hon. E. David Burt: Good evening, Mr. Deputy
Speaker.
I move that the Bill entitled the Public Holidays
Amendment and Validation Act [2023] be now read the second time.

Continue.

BILL

SECOND READING

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT
AND VALIDATION ACT 2023
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, very much, Mr. Deputy
Speaker.
The Bill before this Honourable House amends
the Public Holidays Act 1947 to make proclamations made by the Governor under the Act subject to the negative resolution procedure and validates proclamations previously made under the Act.
Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members will recall
that the Legislature was most recently invited to con-sider a proclamation fo r a public holiday on the 18
th of
October 2021 to mark the Olympic success of Dame Flora Duffy. Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members will know that the practice has been to make such procla-mations without parliamentary scrutiny. However, re-cent advice from the Attorney General’s Chambers has confirmed that this is not the correct process.
I can advise Honourable Members that under
section [1] of the Statutory Instruments Act 1977 a stat890 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly utory instrument means among other things a proclamation. Under section 6(1) of that Act every statutory instrument made by the Governor is subject to parlia-mentary scrutiny. Under section 6(2) the affirmative resolution procedure applies unless the enabling Act specifically applies the negative resolution procedure.
Honourable Members will no doubt have taken
note that section 4 of the Public Holidays Act 1947 does not specify the negative resolution procedure and, as such, it is the affirmative resolution procedure that ap-plies to proclamations made under the Act. Mr . Deputy
Speaker, this can be impractical in circumstances when the legislature is not in session and there is a need for a public holiday to be declared for some observance or event.
Accordingly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Legislature is invited to approve amendments to the Act to en-sure that proclamations made under the Public Holi-days Act will now be subject to the negative resolution procedure. Additionally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in consid-ering the previous practice it was further proposed to validate those proclamations previously made under the Act. It should be noted that it is opportune to make these amendments presently by the proclamation pro-posed to be made by Her Excellency the Governor to
declare Monday , May 8, 2023, a public holiday to mark
the cor onation of His Majesty the King Charles III.
I am pleased therefore to commend this Bill to
the House for consideration and support of Honourable Members. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

[Hon. Dennis P. Lister, Jr., Speaker, in the Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Premier.
Does any other Member wish to make a comment? Opposition Leader, you have the floor.
Hon. N. H. Cole Simons: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We
have no objections to the legislation. We studied it care-fully and we just have one question in regard to retro-activity feature of the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, can the Premier share with us the
details of previous proclamations that have gone through and were approved that have to be ratified? And how far back are we going? Is he able to quantif y
and identify previous proclamations that need to be captured under the retroactive feature of this piece of legislation?
Other than that, we have nothing further to contribute. And, as I said when I stood up, we support the legislation. Thank you.
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My memory is not that far . As long as I have
been in the legislature, the only particular instance that
I can remember would have been the proclamation made by Her Excellency the Governor for a public hol-iday to mark the passing of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. That is the only one that particularly comes to mind as we note. As stated in my brief for Dame
Flora Duffy there was an affirmative resolution proce-dure laid inside this Honourable House and debated. So, in this case we are changing to a negative resolu-tion in case there is any other particular matter where the Governor may make a proclamation for a public hol-iday. So that is the only one that comes to mind, Mr. Speaker, for the information of the Opposition Leader.
[No audible response]
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you very much, Mr.
Speaker.
That much being said, I move that the Bill be
commit ted.

You may continue.
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you.
Clause 1 provides the citation for the Bill.
Clause 2 amends section 4 of the principal Act
to renumber the existing provision as subsection (1)
and to insert a new subsection (2) which provides that proclamations made under subsection (1) shall be sub-ject to the negative resolution procedure.
Clause 3 amends section 6 of the principal Act
to insert a new subsection (3) which provides that proc-lamations made under subsection (1) shall be subject to the negative resolution procedure.
Clause 4 validates proclamations made under
section 4 or section 6 of the principal Act prior to this Bill coming into force.

It has been moved that the Bill be reported to the House as printed.
Are there any objections to that?
There appear to be none. The Bill will be reported to the House as printed.
I call on Mr. Speaker.
[Motion carried: The Public Holidays Amendment and Validation Bill 2023 was considered by a Committee of the whole House and passed without amendment.]

House resumed at 7:09 pm
[Hon. Dennis P. Lister, Speaker, in the Chair]

REPORT OF COMMITTEE

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AMENDMENT
AND VALIDATION ACT 2023

Do your third readings and then we will
do the introduction of the other. SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDER 21
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, very much, Mr.
Speaker.
I move that Standing Order 21 be suspended
to enable me to move that the Bill entitled the Bill enti-tled Public Holidays Amendment and Validation Act 2023 be now read the third time by its title only.

Members, we are going to ask for the
indulgence of the Hous e for additional Bills to be tabled
that were not here for this morning when we were on the section of Bills being laid. If the House will [grant] indulgence, we will have the Bills tabled at this time.
Do we have the approval of the House?
[No audible r esponse]

Okay, yes.
Hon. Walter H. Roban: I just want to make sure—
892 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: Yes, go ahead.

Hon. Walter H. Roban: I don’t want to do it without
your indulgence.

PAPERS AND OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS TO THE HOUSE

MARINE AND PORTS AUTHORITY
(PORT DUES) REGULATIONS 2023
Hon. Walter H. Roban: Mr. Speaker, I move that
Standing Order 14 be suspended to enable me to pre-sent a communication to the House with the Governor’s recommendation and in accordance with section 36(3) of the Bermuda Constitution I have the honour to attach and submit for the consideration of the Honourable
House of Assembly the Marine and Ports Authority (Port Dues) Regulations 2023, proposed to be made by the Minister responsible for Marine and Port Services in exercise of the power conferred by section 40 of the Marine and Ports Services Act 2021.
May I proceed?

Yes, continue.

MARINE AND PORTS
(SEABORNE SERVICES) REGULATIONS 2023

Hon. Walter H. Roban: Mr. Speaker, I move that
Standing Order 14 be suspended to enable me to pre-sent a communication to the Hous e with the Governor’s
recommendation and in accordance with section 36(3) of the Bermuda Constitution I have the honour to attach and submit for the consideration of the Honourable House of Assembly the Marine and Ports (Seaborne Services) Regulations 2023, proposed to be made by the Minister responsible for Marine and Port Services in exercise of the power conferred by section 65 of the Marine and Ports Services Act 2021.

MARINE AND PORTS AUTHORITY
(PILOTAGE DUES) REGULATIONS 2023
Hon. Walter H. Roban: Mr. Speaker, I move that
Standing Order 14 be suspended to enable me to pre-sent a communication to the House with the Governor’s recommendation and in accordance with section 36(3) of the Bermuda Constitution I have the honour to attach and submit for the consideration of the Honourable
House of Assembly the Marine and Ports Authority (Pi-lotage Dues) Regulations 2023, proposed to be made by the Minister responsible for Marine and Port Ser-vices in exercise of the power conferred by section 71 of the Marine and Ports Services Act 2021.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All were done on behalf of the Minister of Transport.

Correct. Thank you. Premier.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

GOVERNMENT BILLS

CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT ACT 2023
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I move that Standing Order 14 be suspended
to enable me to introduce a Bill to this Honourable House.
I introduce the following Bill which according to
section 36(3) of the Bermuda Constitution Order re-quires the Governor’s recom mendation so that it may
be placed on the Order Paper for the next day of meet-ing. This is the Customs Tariff Amendment Act 2023.

Thank you. Continue.

PUBLIC TREASURY (ADMINISTRATION
AND PAYMENTS) AMENDMENT ACT 2023
Hon. E. David Burt: I move that Standing Order 14 be
suspended to enable me to introduce a Bill to this Hon-ourable House.
I introduce the following Bills so that they can
be placed on the Order Paper for the next day of meet-ing, the Public Treasury (Administration and Payments)
Amendment Act 2023.

Thank you. Proceed.

PAPERS AND OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS TO HOUSE

GOVERNMENT FEES AMENDMENT
REGULATIONS 2023
Hon. E. David Burt: I move that Standing Order 14 be
suspended to enable me to present a communication to the House.
With the Governor’s recommendation and in
accordance with section 36(3) of the Bermuda Consti-tution I have the honour to attach and submit for the consideration of the Honourable House of Assembly the Government Fees Amendment Regulations 2023, propos ed to be made by the Minister of Finance in exercise of the power conferred by section 2 of the Gov-ernment Fees Act 1965.

Thank you.
Does any Member wish to speak?
Deputy Speaker, let me set the clock for you
and turn 20 minutes on.

HOSPITAL REDUNDANCIES
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in my travels today I got a call
from a very distraught parent informing me that at the hospital in Bermuda eight workers will be made redun-dant. I got a little concerned about that as I think most of us would because I’m thinking about families, and I do know a few of those employees have children. Some are single parent homes that these folks work in. Mr. Speaker, these workers are due to be made redundant in June, I am told.
We, the taxpayers of this country, last year we
gave over $160 million as a grant to the hospitals and
this year it is approximately the same figure. Mr. Speaker, I don’t begrudge what people make in income, but it concerns me that we are going—not we, but the Bermuda Hospitals Board—is going to send eight folks home. And as people refer to sometimes low
hanging fruit . . . and I don’t mean that in any disrespectful way when I am referring to those workers. But these workers are probably making about $50,000 to $60,000 a year. So, they need every penny that they earn in order to live, I wouldn’t even say comfortably, because $60,000 today to a single household is really no money. Once you pay rent, food, and you got three other children to feed and all the expenses that families have to incur trying to have a stable foundation for fam-ily, M r. Speaker.
What concerns me, Mr. Speaker, [is that] we
have workers at that establishment making over $500,000- plus, $300,000- plus, $400,000- plus. So, it
looks like in order to save money we get rid of eight workers that probably make $60,000 a year. Ei ght
workers won’t even pay enough for the highest pay cheque down there. So, we’re going to get rid of eight workers in order to keep one high- paid individual, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, if the hospital has got to save
money, just like the workers in this country went without a wage increase for I think 12 years, and even the pol-iticians in this country, present, 15 years, no pay in-crease. And they are going to get rid of these folks, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I know one person, they rent from
government, they are wondering what is going to happen to them and their children. Where would they go? No worker in Bermuda today should have to go through
that pain and agony. Here it is March. And come June they are gone. And then the next thing they are in ar-rears and rent and everything else and the family just
dwindles away, dwindles apart just slowly but surely because they are not making any money, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, losing a job is tragic. That’s the
worst thing that can happen to a worker, particular ly
when those workers are being, as they understand it, let go because of a new system they are putting down at the hospital, the digital system.
We shouldn’t be putting in systems that get rid
of people. We should try to move those people around. You are telling me that a hospital that big would get rid
of eight people and yet they are going to keep all these high -paid people. Why is it all the time that the low income person has to suffer? They are, when you think of redundancies or terminations, it’s always the low income people that go first. They are the ones that have to go through these traumatic experiences. They are the ones that if bread goes up by 20 cents, they feel it. That person making $500,000, $300,000, $200,000 re-ally wouldn’t feel anythi ng if bread goes up 20 cents.
And we all know in Bermuda right now the cost
of living . . . food . . . and it’s not that Bermuda can do
much about it because we import just about 100 per
cent of everything.

True.
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: And we are faced with
the cost of getting this food here and then it is much more expensive for us because when a ship brings in food, they travel back empty. That is a cost to us, the importers of that product.
Yes, it is going to be much more expensive,
and these are the type of things that those workers who participate in paying taxes and helping to give a grant to the hospital and now these folks that sit in high places are saying to get rid of eight workers, Mr. Speaker. I am appal led at that, when I see our workers
are going to suffer like that.
I am calling on the Bermuda Hospitals Board,
the Council, [and] the Ministry to get in there and save these workers, because they were told that there would not be any cuts. Now they are being told this week that eight of them are going to lose their jobs. How cruel can people be in a time when we are just coming out of a pandemic and the Government is doing its best, Minis-ter of Labour and Economy is doing his best to try to get investment in this country, the Premier is out trying to do [his] best to try to get this country moving again? And in the midst of all of it we got a government quango (let’s call it that way) —the hospital —that receives a
$106- plus million from the tax payer, that i s going to let
eight workers go.
I plead on the good graces of God to step in
and let these people come to their senses and save these jobs. Because we cannot stand by and watch this happen, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
894 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: Thank you, De puty.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution tonight?
I do not see anyone.
Colonel, Minister of Works, you have the floor.

Last night several members of our caucus were invited to the Fairmont South-ampton so that we could have a presentation on what they have planned for there.
Now you will know, Mr. Speaker, that many of
us have waited with great anticipation to see some movement on that project. We have followed meetings that they have had already with the people that live close to Fairmont Southampton as part of their out-reach to the community to explain what it is that they are doing and to get buy -in. The Opposition shouldn’t
worry; they are going to invite them too.
Hon. N. H. Cole Simons: We are going tomorrow.

You are going tomorrow? Good. Hopefully you will be as excited I am and we were, in that room last night, Mr. Speaker.
I have been in favour of this project since the
very beginning, since the hotel closed, that we should negotiate whatever is required in order to get that hotel open. That is my view. Many countries have been
providing concessions to hoteliers and getting hotels built in their country. We have floundered for decades because we think we are different. And we are in so many special ways. B ut the prospects of this opportunity will reap benefits for decades to come for Ber-muda. And people just have to go and look at it with an open mind.
During construction there is going to be a thousand jobs. So, every Bermudian who wants to work or does w ork in the construction industry will be able to
work. When the hotel opens, there is going to be 700 jobs working in hospitality. And the aim of this is to do what they have done before. And we have had a lot of people come into this country and a lot of people reached out to this country to offer us the world. And they talk; they don’t deliver. But in the case of G encom ,
they actually have a living example in this country. They own Tucker’s Point . They purchased it when it was in
debt and losing money and floundering. It is now a successful entity today, Mr. Speaker.
One of the questions last night was what is the
split between Bermudians and foreign workers at Tucker’s Point . And the presenter said he thought it
was 85 per cent. Mr. Speaker, today it was confirmed that it is 92 per cent. Fairmont Southampton has the
same approach, to not just have Bermudian waiters, and housemaids, and people working at the middle and lower level, but also at the senior level of the hotel. There is a plan to hire people before the hotel opens because their philosophy is you learn best when you see a hotel in operation at the standard that they want elsewhere. So, they will send Bermudians to work in those hotels before this hotel reopens.
Mr. Speaker, they made a presenta tion first on
the hotel because they are aware of developers coming into this country for decades and saying, I will build a hotel if you let me build some condos first . Well, of
course, nobody can attest to that, where you have had several entities that have come, they built the condos, and we are still waiting for a hotel. In the case of Fair-mont Southampton, they have made it crystal clear that
the hotel will be refurbished, it will be open and operat-ing before they even look to employ any of the benefit s
from an S DO.
And the presentation that was made last night
in terms of what they are going to turn it into . . . I think
all of us that were in the room are familiar with the hotel. All of us have been there for functions or have been into the Jasmine Lounge and enjoyed the facility. So,
we were quite interested in some of the specific details of what this new entity is going to have, Mr. Speaker. I cannot even describe what they are going to do down at the beach site other than to say that the tennis courts are gone. And it is going to be a full entertainment cen-tre as I understand it. With Bermudian entertainment, not just there but throughout the property.
They have the Bermudian way of doing things
well on their agenda and plans to implement. There w ill
be nine restaurants in the hotel, Mr. Speaker, and I can
imagine every Bermudian lining up to go and visit prob-ably all nine of them.
Mr. Speaker, we were there for two hours. We
got a tour of the . . . they have been doing some work
while the hotel is closed. I was quite surprised. First, we arrived at the hotel, and they took us on a tour of the new rooms. And we walked to the fourth f loor and
walked down and there was carpet on the floor. They said this is the old carpet, this is the new carpet. This is the old rooms, what they used to be. And these are the
new rooms.
And then we went to the Fairmont Gold floor
and did exactly the sam e thing. And the quality and
standard of furniture and furnishings in those rooms meet five- star quality, Mr. Speaker. And the hotel management and organisation are determined—deter-mined—to raise the standard of care and delivery of services to visitors to this country.
Mr. Speaker, this project now is going to cost
$450 million. That is a lot of money —a lot of money. [It
is] probably the biggest investment that has ever been made in this country, certainly more than the airport, which was claimed to be the biggest investment. Mr. Speaker, this investment in Bermuda does so many


Bermuda House of Assembly things. It demonstrates a commitment to Bermuda and
to our country, and it also will send a signal to every other investor that has been thinking about Bermuda for the last 30 years [who] said, I am not going there
because it is too difficult. It is too expensive. It is too prohibitive. The Government is not supportive of mak-ing this work. Mr. Speaker, this project will provide opportunities for Bermudians for generations to come.
Mr. Speaker, as explained to us yesterday, the
residences that they are going to build are not going to come until after the hotel is open. And so, carry this through to its logical conclusion. If somebody comes and buys a residence in Bermuda, that means t hey are
coming back. That means they are bringing their friends. That means they are sending their family. We will get back to some of the old traditions of tourism in this country where people came on spring break as col-lege students and then graduated and came back as families and grandparents and great -grandparents.
Mr. Speaker, I asked the question last night if
the presentation was secret, because halfway through the presentation I decided I was going to say something in this House tonight in support of this project. I know that there are haters. I know they are not interested in facts. They are interested more in the PLP not succeed-ing with anything that helps our economy.
Mr. Speaker, one of the questions that was
asked—and it is in my mind every Tuesday —is, When?
That question was asked last night. And the answer is quite simple and painful. When you have a $450 million project with five entities trying to come to some agree-ment, you need to have a whole lot of lawyers making a whole lot of money wr iting a whole lot of contracts
trying to get agreement. And that is what they have been doing for the last several months, Mr. Speaker,
and continue to [do]. [It was] indicated they are in Ber-muda this week doing the same thing.
People can complain that w e do not know a
date, but think about this, Mr. Speaker. Would anybody who is in Government be happy to not know a date as opposed to knowing a date? The Opposition has criti-cised the Premier up and down the country because he will not give them a date. The last time he gave them a date it did not materialise, and then they called him a liar. So, the fact is he is not prepared to give a date; they are not prepared to give a date. They give a range. But I have every confidence, Mr. Speaker, that the peo-ple w ho are investing $450 million in Bermuda like making money. And as such, they are not happy that the hotel is not open and they are not able to make pro-gress, but they are not going to be able to do that un-less they can convince the people who are investing that every duck is in a row. And while it is not conven-ient, not desirable, and not something we look forward to in having to wait on, the fact that there is progress that is being made off the radar, and has been since the hotel closed, is an encouraging sign, Mr. Speaker. I draw a lot of comfort and confidence from the
fact that the people who are doing the Fairmont South-ampton . . . this is not their first rodeo. This is not their
first hotel. And I am talking globally, not just in Ber-muda.
The advantage we have is that they are a hotel
operator here, and the number two person at that hotel is a Bermudian. So, they have demonstrated their com-mitment not just to Bermuda but to any country where they are going to operate in. Common sense would dic-tate t hat it is better to have Bermudians in Bermuda
serving you, Columbians in Columbia, Americans in America, than a whole lot of foreigners that cannot tell you the best place to get a fish sandwich.
Mr. Speaker, this opportunity for Bermuda is
huge. I would invite those people who disagree with
everything the PLP does even if they agreed with it yes-terday —if we suggest it, they will disagree—I would invite them to just pause and reflect and look at why would these people . . . if the PLP is so bad at encouraging and developing investment, why would these
people talk to us if they did not think they were going to make some money and make a success of this exer-cise? It makes no sense, Mr. Speaker. It makes no common sense.
We are in a position to be able to facilitate the
rejuvenation of this country. Every unemployed electri-cian, carpenter, painter, non- experienced worker will
have an opportunity to get a job, will have an oppor-tunity to get a career. Part of their remit is to invest and to support education i n this country, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister of Education was in the room last
night and indicated to them that the next . . .

Signature school. I
knew it began with an “s.”
The next si gnature school is going to be hospitality. Therefore, there will be opportunities for those people to be employed in the industry, and Fairmont has indicated that they will be first in line looking to em-ploy them, to support them, to train them, to develop them, and to promote them. Mr. Speaker, this is a huge opportunity for Bermuda, and it would be nice on this one occasion if we agreed it was a good opportunity and that we were all going to support their effort.
Some of the comments as reported by them
coming out of the meetings that they had with members of the community were attended mostly by the MP for constituency 30, MP Jason Wade, who reported that
90 per cent of the people . . . let me not use that number. Most of the people who attended, their one question was, When are you going to start? That is the question that is on many Bermudians’ minds.
Let me just say a few things, Mr. Speaker,
about SDOs and the fact that the hotel has one and is applying for another one. Mr. Speaker, in the interest o f
transparency, they produced on slide the 2009 SDO,
896 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly and then they overlaid it with the 2023 SDO. Mr.
Speaker, there is a marginal increase in the amount of real estate that they are going to use for the new SDO. I know that the conservationists . . . well, they have already started with their criticism, Mr. Speaker. And let me just say something that I said today in relation to another matter to the media.
We as a country cannot afford to save every
old building in this country and refurbish it. [It is] not possible. So, when people start squealing about clear-ing of trees on Turtle Hill, . . . Mr. Speaker, I live in eyesight of the Fairmont Southampton Hotel and have done for a number of years. Most of those trees are casuarinas. Most of those trees should be cut down and
[the land] developed. And I think that, Mr. Speaker, we have to stop being the country of No. We have to stop
being the people of No. Forget that the PLP is in
charge. That is the reality of our existence right now.
Nobody complained when the OBA let St.
Regis build a hotel. Now it did not open until we came, but that is the nature of the type of government that we run. We start down a path, and if we lose the Govern-ment, they pick up the ball and carry it, and vice versa. Mr. Speaker, thi s is going to provide opportunities for
Bermudians for generations to come. If anybody wants to just casually look at the progress of this and the work that is going to be available from a construction point of view . . . [There will be] decades of building in this country, Mr. Speaker.
I would encourage everybody in this country to
exhale—I got it, Mr. Speaker —everybody in this country to exhale and look at what is being presented factu-ally. You probably can go on a website, or there will probably be publ ic opportunities for people to go and
hear from the people directly and ask their questions
directly. Do not believe us. Do not believe them. Go and get the evidence for yourself and recognise that it is go-ing to be a significant contribution to this count ry and to
our benefit. All of our benefit.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[Desk thumping]

I just wanted to add a
few things to what [Minister] Colonel Burch said, which I thought was important [when] following right after. First of all, in the presentation, one of the things that they did say was that they would be sending Bermudi-ans overseas to train them. So, they were committed to Bermudianisation. Also, the residences that are going to be built are not fractional; they are going to be totally
owned by the persons who bought them.
The other thing . . . I guess I was one of those
people, as well, who did not fully understand what was going to be happening with Gencom. They have also
made a commitment to have town hall meetings all around the Island so [that] it can be transparent, so [that] people are not concerned [about] what Gencom is doing, and also to get an understanding of what the guarantee is. They also specified that, with the SDO, it is going to be 30 per cent of the property —the green
property —that is going to be built on because they are
not going out, they are going up.
In terms of the thousand people that will be
working, they did clarify that they are going to have peo-ple working 14 hours a day. And they felt that this pro-ject once started would be completed within 12 to 16 months. The final thing they said was they are not just committed to a party; they are committed to the people of Bermuda.
Thank you.
The S peaker: Thank you, MP Simmons -Wade.
Minister Hayward, would you like to make a
contribution?

CONTROVERSY OVER MINISTER’S COMMENTS
IN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
Hon. Jason Hayward: Certainly, Mr. Speaker. Mr.
Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak this even-ing.
Mr. Speaker, since I last spoke in this Honourable House on the motion to adjourn, it seems as though my comments have created quite a stir. Last
Friday I used my time to articulate that no matter how much you extend your hand to try to work with a cer tain
group of individuals, they will turn right around and use your generosity to undermine you. We have this false notion of collaboration. What has been evident since I last spoke is that the reality that I spoke about has man-ifested itself. We have seen a clear manifestation of a
group of people deliberately designing a strategy to try to undermine individuals. [They] deliberately take one line out of a speech to tell the public or to create a nar-rative that I do not care about persons’ votes.
It starte d on Sunday with MP Dunkley on social
media followed by a Mr. De Couto on social media fol-lowed by the OBA’s chairman. [They] are deliberately taking a statement [and] pulling it out of context to cre-ate a narrative. I guess that is politics, but it goes di-rectly to what I was explaining. Many do not like the examples I used. But Mr. Speaker, it is the reality that the OBA Government is not interested in working with the Progressive Labour Party Government. The reality is they will use every opportunity, including soundbites, to create a narrative to deliberately undermine individ-uals.


Bermuda House of Assembly What was attempted, from my lens, was they
attempted to assassinate my character. [There was]
not one mention that I said individuals whose houses I go to, who put their dogs out, who I then see at the
polls, and who say, You have not come to my house, that I am not interested in their vote. I said it last week, and I shared their sentiments. But how come there were no dogs in the story that the One Bermuda Alli-ance sent out? How come they did not speak to a greater level of humanity when persons go to knock on persons’ doors, and one sets an animal on a human being. [There was] no mention of that —just that Hayward does not support people that do not look like him or do not agr ee with him.
Where did the OBA get that from? That was not
included as part of my speech. You know what? They do not like what I said or how I said it. They know what is in their playbook —attack. Mr. Speaker, I guess that
their aim is that I will be silen ced, that I am forced to
come out and retract statements, that I pivot in my po-sition.
Mr. Speaker, I am a free Black man, and I will
use the floor of this House to speak my truth [just] as everybody in this House has an opportunity to speak their truth. I will continue to speak my reality. And Mr. Speaker, being free means you accept the conse-quences of your words. But if I say something and I mean it, I will stand by it. But this twisting around words to create a whole fictious narrative that did not exi st, I
cannot understand that. Or maybe I can because I trust the OBA to be exactly who they are, and they continue to show themselves as that. And this is a manifestation of that. [It] cause[d] so much of a stir that it has caused the political party I bel ong to to put out some sort of
qualifying statement because they have so much of the
public in an uproar based off of the narrative that they created. And it is not just them; it is their media outlet that they use as well.
The article says that I told people who do not
agree with me or do not like what I am doing or do not approve of the work that I am doing that I do not want their votes. Where did the Royal Gazette get that from?
They have one portion of what I said in quotes and cre-ated a whole fictitious narrative around it. I woke up this morning to Hayward being rebuked by the Premier .
Mr. Speaker, I grew up in the AME church. The
only time I have heard rebuke used is for the Devil. That is the only time in my entire life I have heard rebuke used, when somebody is referring to Satan. But then if I say the paper is trying to demonise me, I am delu-sional. It is wrong, Mr. Speaker. But this is the political game that we are in. I hope each and every one of us understands the playing field. I hope the OBA are clear
that notwithstanding what they do, what type of traction they get in the media, [and] all of the negative com-ments that are associated with my name, that I will not be silenced. I will not be muzzled. I will not be muted. I will speak my truth. That is all I have, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I made a statement in this House
that has offended the OBA, that the 30 do not need the 6. Mr. Speaker, I stand by that statement 100 per cent.
The 30 do not need the 6.
Secondly, if an individual sets their dog upon
me when I am canvasing, I do not want their vote. That is my truth, Mr. Speaker, and I hope that it will set me free. And I am comfortable with the words that I just spoke.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You know that I had no intention
to speak because the duties of the Government Whip distract me from doing things behind the scenes. So, I had not even prepared myself to speak. So, I will be
brief.
I am going to go along the lines of my colleague
who just sat down. Having seen yesterday’s Royal Ga-zette where my honourable colleague was highlighted—on the front page at that —it did disturb me.
And I slept on it. I had not spoken to him bec ause I
knew if I had spoken to him, he would have told me he does not need me to defend him. And he has obviously done it himself tonight. But I do feel that I need to say something publicly, especially when he has been de-scribed as delusional arrogance. I know the Honourable Member a little better than that. As I said . . . And I
am sure he is probably —he is looking at me now —and
he is probably even saying, I am going to tell you, Tyr-rell, later, ‘I do not need you to defend me.’
But as I said, I will cont inue. One of the reasons
why I am going to continue, Mr. Speaker is that it is Ja-son today . . . sorry, the Honourable Member Jason
Hayward today. And it could be any other of us on this side tomorrow. So, I do believe I will defend my hon-ourable colleague.
898 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Speaker, over on this side of the House, we
tend to sometimes use the term the combined Opposition. We say it in jokes sometimes, but it obviously has
some validity to it. What I am going to say is that I think the combined Opposition—without naming who we
think they are—has had some additional recruits, three in particular, one who feels that because he is learned [and he] knows so much; [another], who thinks he is a historian, and I think he sometimes rewrites history. And [the third], well, let me say for all three I think . . .
Mr. Speaker, you have heard the term —it is nothing—
the wrath of a woman scorned. Well, I am going to say it must obviously apply to those three. I will not call their names, but I will certainly leave it at that. Because, l et
me say, all three, I think, had some interest in this Pro-gressive Labour Party at one time.
Mr. Speaker, my honourable colleague, I know
him as a good man, a good father, husband, brother, uncle, and cousin to many, and I certainly knew him as a good f riend. He is a friend to me. He is very passionate about what he thinks and his actions. Let me say that his words . . . And again, tonight he has basically
said what he has to say. I personally may not have said it in the way he said it; but I can certainly say from per-sonal experience that I have experienced the same things in my canvasing. And people know that I can-vass. It is no secret. People know that I canvass regu-larly. And, yes, people set dogs on you. Or you knock on their doors, and they act as i f they are not home, but
their cars are there.
Sometimes what I do is, I take the phone from
one of my colleagues who travels with me and dial the number. And somebody answers, but they will not an-swer the knock. [Do] you know why? They looked through the window and saw the green shirts. And they
know what the green shirts mean; that the Progressive
Labour Party is on- site. So, they are not going to open
the door.
Mr. Speaker, let me say, as I said, I was not
really prepared for this, but I think my honourable col-league just said that none of basicall y what he said the
other night was what was reported in the paper. I cer-tainly think it was taken out of context. And his context was more local than international as they are trying to say it is going to disturb. It was a local example that he gave. And I think the international people are a lot
smarter than to think that my honourable colleague would say something like, I do not need your vote, and
take it as far as it has been taken by the Royal Gazette .
So again, I say that it has been taken out of context. I know the Honourable Member. He means well and has a good heart. I will certainly always encourage him. He encourages me, so I certainly would encourage him. Mr. Speaker, I just will probably end by saying
that the life of an MP in Bermuda is a strange animal. We all know each other. We run into each other often. I live in my constituency, so as soon as I come out of my gate, I have got constituents stopping me, waving to me. And they obviously thi nk they own you. They do. So, I can understand after the long day that my col-league had the other night, he was probably frustrated and expressed what was on his mind. And I will end by saying he is a good man. I know him well.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I feel duty -
bound to just weigh in a little bit on a subject I know very well. Through golf I would have had practice in how division is manifested. I am just going to cast our minds back to December 2, [2016]. A report was done
by a joint select committee in this House that revealed that there was little said about some of the findings that took place and were uncovered of some of the partici-pation that went even further than people who sic their dogs on people at their house. People did not even come forth and own up to the fact that they may have participated in persons being pepper sprayed and the like. If someone went back and really, truly looked at
some of the reports and some of the things that took place and some of the statements that were given by Ms. Holshouser and Mr. Kenny Bascome that revealed
there was a great deal more than people were prepared to admit to, it w ould speak to some of the real divisions
that exist in this country.
I know very well, Mr. Speaker, that in this country (and I have spoken to it many times) when a political party plans its course around deliberate polarisation, when the White community in this country —95 per cent
can pretty much guarantee where they are going to vote no matter how good that particular party is and how badly they may have been performing—would hold their nose and move in one direction and then craft a course around syphoning 20 per cent of the Black
vote in order to get some type of victory and a marginal area of 25 per cent. That is the definition of polarisation.
You know it very well, Mr. Speaker. You know how it
exists.
In my earlier speech on the Monday following
the Budget Reply, I gave credit to two young men, in
particular, on our side who spoke that day, MP Jache Adams and Minister Jason Hayward, for their presen-tations and what I looked to the future for them to hold for this country. One thing that I have learned from standing in 1983 and toiling in the vineyard, finally get-ting elected in 2007 and serving for nine years, is that one of the playbooks of the UBP and the OBA is to at-tack leadership, to attack leaders. I think PLP . . . It is
no secret why people would call it the Burt administra-tion. There is no reason why they would call it the Smith
administration. There is no reason why they would call it the Cox administration. Because if you can attack a
leader sufficiently, you start breeding . . . to create


Bermuda House of Assembly some type of division. And we have seen that. Attack
the leader. Call everybody corrupt. Keep fanning that type of narrative.
The young Minister Hayward, who I have a
great deal of respect for, [and] others in our party who are both on the front and back benches, are advancing a very important initiative that the former Government OBA got wrong. They tried to do parallels, but they force fed people. They said, Take it or leave it. They caused people to march and get all wound up, and they pepper sprayed them —pepper sprayed them!
And then [they] engaged lawyers to protect
themselves from being able to really disclose what was going on while they engaged in the politics of not get-ting to know the community. And I understand it, Mr.
Speaker , because for years i n politics, sitting with the
conservatives of this country, I was never good enough to be considered for a saved seat, save and except for Southampton West when Ralph was alive and [when]
Harry was alive or . . . or giving it up, and I was not
ready then.
[I was] never good enough for Paget. No. You
know why? Because I spoke out on subjects similar to today. [I] spoke up on independence. [I] stood at the polls for independence. [I] tell people today I spoke, but [I] stand up for everyone in this country ir respective . . .
Understand. Tell them, Look your opinion is valuable.
There.
But this young Minister is advancing something—and I would say a very good way —growing the
labour force so that there is a tax base sufficient enough, Mr. Speaker, to make sure t hat you and I can
have a pension in five years. That is important. And it is how you go about doing things as a Government that causes a country to move forward. And you would have
it—they would have it —that this Government does not
care about the economy.
They come up here and put a book on the
economy on everyone’s desk like we are stupid and do not know [economics]. And [they] would not even tell you that when the PLP gave the Butterfield Bank a $250 million guarantee back in 2008 at the cusp of the recession, yes, that probably the person who was the
author of that book was the deputy chairman therea-bouts of that bank that went into serious financial trou-ble. But you do not hear about that. You do not hear about the decisions that were made in boardroom s
back in the mid- 2000s that caused the economy to collapse like a [deck] of cards.
You do not hear about decisions, [about] how
Bermudians, working- class people, used to leave their
money out in their gas tubes for persons like my cousin Mr. Powell. I se nt my cousin Mr. Powell to come by,
collect my mama’s money for her insurance, her life policy, and that gets evaporated. Why? Through board-room decisions. Brother Derrick spoke about how . . .
how . . . how working- class jobs are being . . . being
eradicated. But we saw an economy eradicated, and you know what narrative came from the conservatives? And I raise my hand. I understand it better than
most. [It] was that it was the PLP’s fault. The PLP caused a global recession. [That was] on the backdrop of the most buoyant economic miracle this country experienced between 2000, around 2002, 2007, [or] be-fore, and probably the only mistake was not putting enough beans away like where Mr. Cox had that . . .
retirement . . . not retirement fund . . . it was a su fficient
fund, an unemployment fund— [inaudible interjection]

Right. That was one of our
visionaries who had put that . . . and during the buoyancy no one was reckoning [it was] a global recession. And so, the workers of this country got short -stripped
because when the union realised that the country was in trouble, the first group of people to really embrace
that there was a recession was the hotel workers of Bermuda who took a pay cut at . . . down . . . at the at
the triennial down at the . . . down at the Liberty Theatre, their congress. I said, Wow! And that pay cut stayed
in place for a quite a long time. Why? Because they wanted to preserve jobs.
There has been a tremendous level of disingenuity in this country. And a lot of the division stems from the fact that when . . . And you have to . . . You know,
when I was a young man, you know, Dr. Hodgson, Dr.
Eva Hodgson, always used to talk about slavery. But our root problems are caused by our origins. You know, in Britain today you have people who benefited from a sugar cane industry in Jamaica and places like that that are having second looks at the generational wealth that they accumulated and the impact that is having on per-sons who come from those communities. And I believe
in my heart of hearts that there are people in Bermuda who are afraid of that narrative coming—chickens coming home to roost in Bermuda.
And I share that. I tell people, you know, on all
my sides I look back on who I am. I am a Ratteray. I am an Anderson. I am a Hall. I am a Boris. I am a Hig-ginbotham. I know where these families’ origins c ome
[from]. And so, when I walk into St. Georges, I know . . .
Hey, you know, a lot of people do not look at me as a St. Georgian. But I know that my families come from way back, and they go on both sides of the political di-vide. But I noticed that the Whi te community is not as
honest and forthcoming, because when you are the beneficiaries of a system that has been set up on wrong decisions . . .
There were laws that made what people did
wrong, right. And so, when a system has been built on that type of foundation, there are people who have ben-efited who are still benefitting that do not want to go back and look at that. But we have to examine that . And
young people look at it a little bit differently than . . .
When I was younger, I probably looked at it a little bit differently. Certainly, my experiences as I travelled around the south all by myself under the protection of
900 8 March 2023 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly the Almighty God and the good people that He put me
in contact with that . . . that shielded me from some
things, Mr. Speaker . But that is the reality of this country.
And the Royal Gazette is an institution founded
on the very racist foundations that we have to get over
in this country. And let me tell you this: We could be Black and carry that ball just as well knowingly and un-knowingly. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant sometimes. There is something wrong with it when it is harmful. There is something very wrong with i t when
people might know that you are ignorant and play you. And there is a lot of playing going on.
I tell people . . . ask the Honourable Wayne
Furbert. He will tell you how the numbers work, [how to] look at a situation, and so forth. And so, I am just here
to say that the days of the consultants’ playbooks, who come here, who come in this House, who say, Say this to win people over. Say this. This will tickle them up and divide them . That project up at Fairmont Southampton
Princess, that SDO . . . I . . . I am . . . that I am in . . .
that I am prepared to support is taking place on . . . in
. . . in land that my great grandmother Boris -Hall owned
up by the cycle shop.
I asked my Uncle Bill, [who is] 92 years old,
Where did granny own that land that was compulsorily acquired that Ms. Browne- Evans represented her and
got her seven times more . . . or of five or seven times
more than what the Government wanted to give at the time?
And he said, Right up there by the cycle shop.
I thought it was over by the golf shop, but he said, No.
It was over by the cycle shop.
I am here to say that it is a national imperative.
People are saying, What are you going to do with the
economy? But when you look and see that when the
Southampton was built in . . . opened in 1970, you had
the Lantana—now closed. You had the Sonesta—now closed. You had Bellmont Hotel —now closed. You had
Elbow Beach—now closed. You had Horizons —now
closed. You had Glencoe—non- existent.
And so, what you are going to also have is a
residential component that leases back a certain amount of . . . of the year hotel beds. And I would guarantee anyone that goes there . . . Ask them. Quantify if
the building that faces that segment, how many bed nights that equates to, because it is significant.
You cannot come here and criticise the Government because there is no air service. And the Gov-ernment is trying to get the beds put back in place. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot criticise us for doing that and then try to put [up] stumbling blocks just to score political points. The best example that any Opposition has in this country of how to be a good Oppo-sition [is to] take a page out of my book.
When I was a Senator from 1998 to 2007, the
first Opposition (we had a library that I studied) was the Progressive Labour Party Government Opposition with just seven Members in the House, seven faithful Mem-bers and three dynamic Members in the Senate. They came with solutions. And do you know what the Gov-ernment did? [It] took a lot of them. And they got my
major and said, Why [do] you byes steal all our ideas?
That is your job. Come with solutions so that
people can see that you are solutions oriented. Stop trying to criticise. Stop playing that race card because you have been built on racism. Institutions are racist from their origins. That is why people went out of their way to get rid of the UBP. But I always used to say, You can run, but you cannot run away from yourself. You
took the same thing and transported [it] to another name.
[It is] the same stru cture. And what I am trying
to tell you is, there is a way out of this. Start working for the people. Start coming with some solutions. This Government is trying to rebuild this economy. I should not be here today. I should be somewhere else. I only came back because a very sick child said, Daddy, you have got to go home, and . . and . . . and do what you
can. That is what you came into this House for. You [went there] . You did what you did at 25. You waited 25
more . . . Go home. I am going to get better.
And I am telling you, take a page out of the
PLP’s book. You are down to . . . you are down to nothing. Stop playing that old UBP playbook. I understand it better than you. I was trained by them. I was trained by them. I grew up in it. And I am telling you I can see it. That is why I had point it out to Cole because I knew
where you were going.
And I know that although some people could
have plausible deniability and say, I didn’t see that doc-ument, I know that there were some people that knew
what was going on. That is the way it happens. And
when you are . . . and it is the narrative because what
they will tell you is that I have always been passionate. He says, You are emotional. No. That is who I am.
Some people . . . You know that is who I am. I
am Peter Anderson’s grandson, the man who used to
push his boat out in the middle of Scaur and give a ser-mon. I never met him. He is in my DNA. And I am happy to say, he has a better version of him coming behind me. He has a better version coming behind me. Peter
Anderson’s offspring from Salt Kettle . The Andersons,
Earl Anderson’s people.
[inaudible interjection]

Absolutely. But you have
to know who your people are, what your foundation is built on, and not be ashamed of it.
Make something better of it because there are
some persons who are beneficiaries of some things that oppressed other people. And we have to do better. Take a page . . . Study. If you want to study somebody,
you want to study what an Opposition is, I am going to give you seven, seven reasons, seven subjects to study.


Bermuda House of Assembly An Hon. Member: You only have one minute left.

Freddy Wade. Ottiwell
Simmons. [Those are] the seven that stood firm, stood strong on the backs and the 60
th anniversary.
I used to go to Berkeley. And although I was a
young man, I knew I wanted to be in politics. I used to look from Somerset and count my relatives: the Ratter-ays, the Roberts, the Halls. Absolutely. They were all in the House: the Mortons , Hodgson[s]. Up and down the
country.
But look at that faithful seven and then the
three in the Senate: Smith, Allen, and Scott. [Look at the] issues they dealt with. [Look at the] solutions they spoke on. [Look at the] education they spoke on. [Look at the] law and order they spoke on [and the] tourism.
And they carried the message.
That is my time.
[Timer chimes]

Thank you, MP.
Premier, you have your 20 minutes.

CONTROVERSY OVER MINISTER’S COMMENTS
IN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you very much, Mr.
Speaker. And it is good to certainly be in the House tonight. We have heard a few things on the motion to ad-journ today.
My morning started slightly aggravated because I awoke to a newspaper headline that the Minis-ter of Economy and Labour quoted so well where it said that Burt Rebukes Hayward. And I want to read the very first line from the Royal Gazette story, Mr. Speaker. It
starts like this, and I quote, “David Burt has rebuked Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, for stati ng that he” (in bold) “does not need the votes of
people” (This is in bold on their website for the record.) “does not need the votes of people” (It goes on to say) “who think he is not engaging with them or doing a good job.” End quote.
Now, Mr. Speaker , we have all heard the Hansard. We have seen the Hansard. And fortunately, there are balanced media organisations in this country, such as Bernews , that put the entirety of the Minister’s
speech up for persons to hear. And what the Minister said was very c lear. There are people who sic their
dogs on him and then come around and say, I did not see you at my house. Now, Mr. Speaker, you have canvassed far longer than me, so I am sure you have ex-perienced the exact same thing. I am sure there are many Members in this House on this side who have had dogs sent out on them, Mr. Speaker.
It is unfortunate, but again, Mr. Speaker, here
we see precisely what the Minister of Economy and La-bour spoke about, precisely what the Honourable [Member who] just took his seat [spoke about], precisely what the Government would talk about. It is the penchant of the daily newspaper of this country to mis-represent facts, [to] misrepresent positions, [and to] take and twist words to form a narrative.
We know how the game is played. We understand very clearly. Mr. Speaker , I am a student of politics, so I get it. But there should be absolutely no shock and surprise over on Par -La-Ville Road when Members
of this House say that the Royal Gazette and the O ne
Bermuda Alliance is the combined Opposition. No sur-prise.
And I will just say this because I am certain he
is listening. If the editor of the Royal Gazette does not
like that, if the editor of the Royal Gazette and the persons who may happen to have shares in Bermuda Press Holdings or otherwise do not like that, then they need to stop acting like it. Stop printing the One Ber-muda Alliances’ press releases as gospel. Because if the headline of your newspaper accuses a Minister of this Government of saying something that he did not say—no quotes, no reference to what the One Bermuda Alliance said, just who think he is not engaging with them or doing a good job—nonsense, Mr.
Speaker. And all I can say is, Mr. Speaker, that is why
persons consider that newspaper [to be] a tabloid. Be-cause it is nonsense.
I do want to refer of course, Mr. Speaker, to
something that was put out by the One Bermuda Alli-ance yesterday. I know their new Chair is there. I understand clearly what is going on at OBA headquarters because, you know, they are trying to take as much at-tention off of their absolute lack of any coherent eco-nomic policy with this country [as possible]. They are trying to take the attention off of any lack of a coherent ability to actually mount coherent policy positions in this Honourable House. They are trying to let people forget that in official statements they had to retract items that were published [and are] probably still on their website, and forgetting that they had to rescind 16 per cent of
their policy positions over the weekend. They want peo-ple to forget that, to try to divert and distract attention.
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Bermuda House of Assembly And here is the funny thing that I saw in the
One Bermuda Alliance’s press release. It says, and I
quote, Mr. Speaker, “I thought one of Mr. Hayward’s
roles was to attract foreign investment to the island, not cause alienation.” End quote. I am here to tell you this, Mr. Speaker . I have canvassed houses with many
Members of this party. And many times we knock on the doors, and there is someone who is a foreign investor. I remember one day I was canvassing with the Hon-ourable . . . I am sorry, the Junior Minister who ran in
constituency 12, who sits in another place, and I had
knocked on the door of someone who I had seen just a few weeks earlier in an international business meeting talk about stuff, and we struck up a conversation. But guess what, Mr. Speaker ? He did not set his dog on
me. He did not set his dog on us. And I can promise you, Mr. Speaker, that there is no foreign investor that
is coming to this country that when a member of a po-litical party knocks on the door, they will send their dog out to get them. So let us be real.
And there was a, you know, a little bit of . . .
(how would I say?) comedy earlier today as a Minister and I were leaving one meeting with international inves-tors and going to another meeting of international in-vestors where the international investors were compli-menting that same Honourable Minister for the work and progress which he has been able to achieve in ad-vancing the Government’s economic agenda. That is what we were hearing on the doorsteps of Pitts Bay Road, far different than what you would see on the newspaper or the paper that gets printed out of Par -LaVille.
It was funny because the Minister and I were
chuckling. And he said, Well, I guess this is what people
do walking down the street the same day that you are
rebuking others. But the Minister and I have a great relationship. And the fact is, if the Minister was to be r ebuked, he would be sitting in this House today as a backbencher, but we in this party value his work. We in this party value his passion. He is one of the hardest -
working Ministers I have ever worked with, delivering time and time again, taking on additional items in his portfolio and executing them well, Mr. Speaker. That is
recognised not just in this country, not just in this House or in this party, but as I said, down on Pitts Bay Road, in the boardrooms where persons are grateful for the work, energy, and attention which he gives to his portfolio [and] the detailed way in which he goes about his work.
But here is what I will say, Mr. Speaker . We
know how the game is played. And it is clear that at The Music Box they are in full election mode. It is clear. And that is okay because rest assured, this Progressive La-bour Party Government will be ready. What will hap-pen, is, Mr. Speaker, we will go back to the country with
a record of accomplishment. That is what we will do. And when you heard the Honourable Minister say earlier today that the efforts [of] the combined Opposition to muzzle him, to try to paint him into a corner, will not be successful, I co -sign on that because it is not. Because as I said today, we were back doing the work that we did.
Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker , the Honourable
Minister for the Economy and Labour has responsibility for the Bermuda Business Development Agency. The same Business Development Agency that put on a magnificent Risk Summit that attracted a number of people to thi s Island, doubled the attendance last year,
was fully funded with sponsors, and was a success for all persons who attended, Mr. Speaker. That is the work
that we are doing.
There is no mistake [or] error, Mr. Speaker , that
over the last three years the number of jobs has grown in international business by 15 per cent. That does not
happen by accident, Mr. Speaker. It takes work, energy, effort, and a Minister of Labour (before), and a Minister of Economy and Labour who does what is nec-essary to ensure that the workforce is ready, that the
labour that is required to grow our economy can be sup-plied, and that we continue to have economic growth.
And the policies that have been put in place
have meant that in that growth in international busi-ness, there have been more Bermudians hired than those who have come in from overseas. Many people want to forget, Mr. Speaker, but I am not going to let
the people forget. Just like I said inside of our Budget Statement, we are going to tell our own story.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to end with a quote. I
am going to say that one more time. A quote. And it is something that Prime Minister Mia Mottley shared with me when we were in Barbados last year. Of course, we are both leaders who have large parliamentary majori-ties, her s far larger than mine. And we are leaders that
experience the same rough and tumble when you are
firm in your vision and your conviction to move things ahead. And I will close today with this quote. She said that some newspapers should be in the paper bus iness, but maybe not the newspaper business as their paper is better used in the restroom.
[Laughter]
Hon. E. David Burt: Good night, Mr. Speaker.