November 14, 2016

Mr. Speaker, I have admired
my friend’s strength throughout [the ordeal of] the
passing of his wife. I know how much Rochelle meant to him. And a few of us, many of us , actually, attended
her funeral service. Rochelle was loved not only by
the people in St. George’s, but by everyone. And I
know how much she support ed MP Bascome in his
journey to where he is today.
I just want to let you know that your family and
you have been in my prayers, and you will remain in my prayers throughout this struggle.
On a lighter note, Mr. Speaker, I would like to
send congratulati ons to Ms. Flora Duffy, a childhood
friend (and also, I used to compete with her, actually,
in races) on her win in the championship for the Xterra World Championships held in Hawaii, as well as her most recent win in Bermuda for the Queen of Ber-muda Triat hlon. I would like to associate the Minister
and the Shadow Minister with these . . . well, the e ntire House, it makes sense, to associate.
Flora Duffy is an excellent athlete, and she
represents Bermuda very well. And I remember, Mr.
Speaker, there were a few of us. There were
Shayla and Shadae Whitter , myself, and Tiffany
Eatherly
. We used to show up to races on Sunday just
hoping one of us would beat Flora Duffy. And I r emember the day I finally beat Flora— I wanted to retire
my running boots. I felt lik e my world was accomplished in running.
So I just want to let her know I am very proud
of her. She is v ery accomplished, and I wish her the
best in her endeavours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I wish to start by passi ng on condolences and
ask that we send them to the family of Mr. Eugene
Vickers. And perhaps the whole House might want to
be associated with that. Mr. Vickers (and I s ay this
unapologetically) was a good friend of the Members
on this side of the House. But he was also a great
community activist and great community leader with
his role in the Reserve Constabulary, being its leader
for many years.
What I found very admir able about Mr. Vic kers, Mr. Speaker, is that upon retirement from his role
with the Reserve Constabulary, he merely found a nother community effort, and that was with the Community Education programme, which he spent a lot of
years working for and working w ith. So he never
stopped his work for the community even when he retired from certain levels of responsibility. It was a
shock to all of us that he passed, because he was
somebody who had a lot of passion and a lot of energy. I think I have associated everybody in the House
with that. Thank you.
I would like to also pass on, and we ask that
we send condolences to the family of Austin (Cheesey ) Hughes. And perhaps the whole House
would like to be associated with that, because though Mr. Hughes was just a sportsman, he was an historic
sportsman. He was a sportsman who broke down barriers, being not only a great all -rounder of global le vels; he was the first outsider to actually become a
member of the Somerset team.

Yes.
Well, as was mentioned at his funeral, Mr.
Speaker, he was loved by many, particularly the l adies, all over the Island. And he liked to remind people
Bermuda House of Assembly


of that, that he was loved all over the Island, not just in
Somerset, but also in St. George’s and everywhere
else.
But I would like to make a special mention for
the Honourable Derrick Burgess, who is a close family
member of Mr. Hughes. Although I have associated
the House, I just wanted to mention that the Honourable Member Burgess had a special relationship with
Mr. Hughes. He was my constituent, and I knew him
well, and his family and his wife (who departed before
him). He wa s a man who had a lot of tragedy in life,
but still kept a very positive outlook on things and kept
going right to the end, as you would have heard at his funeral.
I would like to move on to one other person,
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Alpheaus Calvin Black, known as
“Ardie” Black.

[Desk thumping]

Again, it is another ge ntleman
whom I think that the whole House might want to have
themselves associated with.
Those of us who have close connections with
North Hamilton know of the Black family. But Mr.
Black was another pioneer. A man of humble begi nnings, another constituen t (and I will just finish here) .
. . but he rose to great heights in business and also in
the community and in his work with the public, the
Pembroke Parish Council. And he was someone
whom I think the whole community knew , and of his
achievements in busi ness and sports in the comm unity.
So, thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the
time to give these condolences. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to pay tribute to my very dear,
close friend, Dr. Neil Burnie, who died tragically on
Tuesday in a diving accident at Horseshoe Bay. I would expect the whole House is going to join in with
that. This was an iconic Bermudian figure. And I am
going to share briefly (I know that my time) a couple of
quick anecdotes, because this is a man to be reme mbered for how he lived and what he brought to our
lives and what we can carry on with.
Over 20 years ago, I was sitting in my kitchen
studying for my law finals, and in walk ed Neil Burnie.
And he says, What you up to? And I said, I am studying for my law finals . And he said, Well, come on.
Come windsurfing. It’s a great day. I want to come
windsurfing. I want you to come windsurfing with me.
And I said, Well, I can’t. I’ve got to study. So he picked up my law book, and he looked at it, and he asked me
four questions he picked at random. And I answered
four right, and I had no idea about the fifth.
And he goes, Look. You’re great. You’re going
to get 80 percent. It’s honours . Let’s go.
[Laughter]

And I laughed, and I walked
out the door with him.
At that point , I had known Neil Burnie as long
as it has taken to tell this story. That is the type of i mpact he had on people. He just touched you immediately, warmed your heart immediately, and you were
out the door with him.
I could talk for an hour -and-a-half about Neil
Burnie stories. And hopefully, I will get to do that over some libations this weekend at his tribute. He is going
to be buried at sea off of Horseshoe Bay on Sunday.
But I posted this on Facebook; some of you
saw it. I was walking up the drive with my son on
Tuesday evening. He is five years old. And Neil had
given him the book, which was the forerunner to his
series. And when you opened it up, it had a picture of
him swimming with a shark. I cannot say enough
about what this is going to do for Berm uda and what
the Ocean Vet will mean to us.
But my five -year-old son looked at me, and he
said, Daddy, Mommy said you’re sad because your
friend died. And I said, Yes, I am. And he said, The
Ocean Vet man, the man who swam with the sharks?
And I said, Yes, son. As we get into the car, he looked
at me and he said, Daddy, do you think that that man
maybe went away with that shark? I had to choke
back a tear for a moment. I looked up and said, Yes,
son, I think he probably did.
I think Neil Burnie would have liked that story,
and I think that that is probably a reflection of the man and the legend.
I am going to miss him dearly. There are
many, many people who are going to miss him dearly.
And I know that, as a country, we will recall him
fondly. He was 60 years young. We talk often of
young people that we lose in the 20s and 30s. This
was a 60- year-old man we lost far too young. We
could have done with another 60 years out of him. But he was a bright, bright star shining in our lives. And I
cannot say enough about what Neil Burnie has meant
to the people of this community and what he has done
for animals in this community and the contribution that
he has made to our marina wildlife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Are there any other Honourable Members
who would care to speak?
Bermuda House of Assembly
14 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

The Chair recognises the Honourable Minister
for Public Works. Minister Gordon- Pamplin, you have
the floor.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, while the whole House was associated with the condolences to the family of Ardie
Black, let me just add one other thing.
Ardie Black, apart from being an integral part
of the North Hamilton business community, was a very dear family friend, and I would add, from a personal perspective, a counsellor. You could go to Mr.
Black, and he would let you know if he was either
pleased or displeased with whatever it was that you
were doing at the time. As a very dear friend of my
grandmother’s, I always knew that I had to behave as I walked towards North King Street and into the curve,
because I knew that my grandmother would get the
report before I would reach home.
Gene Vickers, family member, and one whom
I have known probably, I guess, since I was about 15
or 16. He is actually fir st cousin to my first husband,
so we had the opportunity to interact and to grow t ogether. And he is one whom I admire tremendously.
Toby Dillas, I had seen him more frequently in
New York than in Bermuda, because as an avid tennis player, I knew that every year when I attended the US
Open, or the year -end Women’s Championships at
Madison Square Garden, Toby would be the one that I
would bump into first, along with his good friend,
Mayor Dinkins, who b ecame my doubles tennis par tner in the Pro-Celeb [Tennis tournament] .
So these are pe ople we have lost, icons in our
community, Mr. Speaker.
I would also like to send condolences to the
family of the late Carlotta Wilkinson, of Dudley Hill in
Paget. Mrs. Wilkinson passed away at the age of 101.
Mr. Speaker, up until the week prior to her
death, she was as alert, as with- it as anybody could
expect —and more so than anybody could expect, because I think many of us far younger do not have that
degree of alertness that Mrs. Wilkinson had. And she
is going to be a tremendous miss, as was evidenced
by the tributes that were paid to her at her home- going
service at St. Paul’s in Paget.
On a brighter note, Mr. Speaker, I would like
to ask that this Honourable House send its congratul ations on the retirement of one of our colleagues over
the summer, former MP Terry Lister.

[Desk thumping]

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Mr. Speaker, I
think that many of us, having spent time with him in
this Honourable House, having been able to observe
what he brought to the equation, would be appreci ative of the example that he set . Certainly , I would like
to wish him well in his retirement. I think that there would be Members of the Honourable House who
would want to be associated. But certainly, I am deeply appreciative of the counsel that I was able to
obtain from him.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister.
The Chair now recognises the Honourable
Member from Sandys North, constituency 36, the
learned Member, MP Michael Scott.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: Mr. Speaker, I thank you.
Mr. Speaker, following on from the last offer of
congratulations by the Minister of Public Works , to the
vacancy in the House at t he moment, made so by the
retirement of the Honourable Member, Mr. Terry
Lister, it gives me great privilege and pleasure to also rise as a Somerset Member of Parliament to lead off
the congratulations and vote of thanks to Terry Lister
for his contribution as an area MP, a Minister of the
Government for many years, including in education
and development.
We take this opportunity to extend to him and
his family the very warmest and best wishes in his
retirement. His contribution was vigorous and passionate and informed on all occasions that he made it
his business to contribute, either in his role as a Mini ster or in his role as an MP in these Chambers.
Mr. Speaker, may I next offer congratulations
on a judicial front, to have this House offer congratul ations to the retiring Senior Magistrate, Mr. Archibald
Warner, and at the same time to offer warm congrat ulations to the incumbent Senior Magistrate, Mr. Juan Wolffe.
Mr. Speaker, t he Honourable and Learned
Member, Mrs. Wilson, another attorney, wishes to b e
associated with this.
Mr. Warner, of course, Mr. Speaker, came to
the bar through the prism of a police officer from Bar-bados. He has made a solid contribution to this com-munity that he now calls his adopted home. I know
that he still regards Barbados as home too, but he has
made a solid contribution as a good forensic attorney.
He brought those skills to the place where most cit izens of this country first bump into the criminal justice
system, the Magistrates Court.
On the congratulations for his replacement,

Sir, under the Progressive Labour
Party, we started the drug treatment court. And Mr. Wolffe has presided and led that drug treatment court,
and led through it the numbers of clients. And it has always been so enlightening and hear t-warming to
see how he presides over and leads transformation of
lives f or persons who come through the drug treatment court. And I think it will bode well for the Senior
Magistrate’s role now that he has this tremendous
experience in this area. That will bring both compassion and skill to this front, as he sits now as the lead
magistrate in the court number one.
Bermuda House of Assembly


Mr. Speaker, on a couple of condolences ( that
I hope I can get in) , firstly for the family of Ms. LeslieAnn Doers [ Robinson] , who tragically di ed over the
course of the break, in her 49th year. I ask, Mr.
Speaker, that we ask this House to send condolences
to her mother, her son Bryson, her husband Donavan,
and Monica Doers [her mother], her brother Randy. Of
course, my learned and honourable fri end, Ms. Kim
Wilson, has asked to be associated with these condolences, as well as Mr. Dennis Lister.
She was a bright spark, and the Bermuda
press, the Warehouse, the stationery store where she
worked were all touched by her loss. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker , and finally, it is a little personal,
too, to the passing of a Warwick lady, Ms. Sylvia Pully, the mother of the three . . . I associate Junior
Minister, Mr. Sylvan Richards. Ms. Sylvia Pully, the mother of Sandra Pully, those beautiful Pully ladies,
and Mr. Richard Pully, who passed over the holiday. I
ask that this House send condolences. And Mr. La wrence Scott has asked that he be associated.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

And good morning to those in the
listening audience.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask this Honourable House to send condolences to the family of Jacqueline Brewer, known to many as “Jackie. ” She was
the wife of the late William “Bill” Brewer, and of course
leaves behind three sons, Barry, Jef f, and Tim ; their
wives; and numerous grandchildren.
Many remember her as an awesome golfer
with a career which started in the late 1950s. She won the Bermuda Women’s Amateur Golf Championship, an impressive six times. Jackie also dominated at her
home course, which was Riddle’s Bay, an unbeliev-able 12 times, between 1964 and 1990. She also ap-peared internationally many times, including the World
Cup games in 1969.
Behind the scenes, Jackie worked tirelessly to
help out the youth of Bermuda in golf, with the Bermuda Junior Golf Association, as well as the Bermuda
Goodwill G olf Tournament. As we know, golf is an
awesome sport, which teaches our youth, instils honesty and respect.
Jackie was also an avid gardener and had a
great collection of Bermuda roses, and I will miss our
conversations at the G arden Centre. Jackie was a
sincere woman, a caring lady who certainly will be
missed by many of her neighbours and friends in Warwick and throughout Bermuda. I would like to associate the Honourable Minister . . .
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Sp eaker, I first would like
to be associated with the condolences being sent to
Mr. Eugene Vickers. Mr. Speaker, many years ago,
Mr. Vickers and I worked together in residential care. I
was in residential care, and he was an avid comm unity worker. And he was very passionate about his
community and our young men, especially our young
black men. We had a lot of conversations about how
we can contribute to the development and saving of a
lot of our young men that we found sitting on the walls
and the like.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to be assoc iated with the condolences being sent to the family of Mr. A lpheaus “Ardie” Black. He was not only a friend
of my family, my mother and my father (my father is
already deceased) , but w hen I was on the Pembroke
Parish C ouncil a few years back he was an avid adv isor to not only me, but to everyone who was sitting
there. And he was the ultimate historian. So I learned a lot about not only Pembroke and the history of it, but
I learned a lot about Bermuda in general. So I ha ve
always taken my hat off to Mr. Black.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to be assoc iated with the remarks going out to the Honourable
[Member] Terry Lister, who has just retired from this
Honourable House. I remember as a new MP, he was
very instrumental in schooling me, bringing me up to
date, telling me how to act and talk, and when to
speak and when not to speak, Mr. Speaker. So he is
going to be a miss. I definitely wanted to be assoc iated with that.
Mr. Speaker, on a lighter note, before I take
my se at, I went to the football game on Memorial Day
[sic]. I ask a letter of congratulations be sent . . .

[Inaudible interjection]

Pardon?
Remembrance Day. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I
said Memorial Day. But it is Remembrance Day.
Mr. Speaker, in spite of what happened after
the game, I would be remiss if I did not get up, and I
want to congratulate both teams for a great game. I
Bermuda House of Assembly
16 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

cannot remember who won, but I know who did not
win.

[Laughter]

Thank you, Mr.
Speaker, and once again, good morning.
I stand to my feet this morning to acknow ledge and remember a gentleman who had his heart
and his life in the east end of the Island, and gave his life to tourism. He slipped his moorings in September,
and that would be one 53 -year-old Mark Whayman.
Mark Whayman gave his life to celebrating what life
was. If you saw him in the street, he always had the
brightest smile. Tourists came from around the world
to be part of his tour on Sand Dollar.
Mr. Speaker, since his passing, he has been
greatly missed, and he will always be missed by those
in the east, and I guess for those around the Island.
Member, Mrs. Jackson, would also like to be assoc iated with the letter of condolences.
On a brighter and happier note, especially for
some, I would like the House to send a letter of congratulations for the achievements of one Mr. Mark
Anderson. And that was for his fundraising endea vours—

[Inaudible interjections]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be
associated with the comments by the Honourable
Tourism Minister, Mr. Crockwell, regarding Mr. Dillas.
Mr. Dillas actually hired me in the mid- 1970s
to work at the Bermudiana Hotel. I was a very young
person then. He was training young people in hospitality. So I was hired without any skill set whatsoever.
All I was doing was pouring water and delivering
bread to tables. I was a busboy.
That was the model that we had in place for
the training and development of our young people.
That has disappeared today, Mr. Speaker. But if we
could learn anything and carry on anything from what was taught by Mr. Dillas, it is to re- examine how we
can reposition our people to get involved back in the
hospitality arena, because it was a model of success. He exemplified it, and Bermuda is better for his contr ibution to our tourism product.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I would like for this
House to send a note of condolences to the family of
Mr. John Darrell. Mr. Darrell, from Southampton, was
a victim of property theft. We debated that las t session, Mr. Speaker. And were it not for decisions made
beyond this Parliament, we would have had a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the very real claims that Mr. Darrell was making. So it is unfortunate that
his passing comes at a time when we have not yet
been able to have these issues addressed. I am hoping that in due course this House can pay proper r egard to his contribution to Bermuda and his quest for
justice by doing what is right and proper. Thank you,

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair now recognises the Honourable
Junior Minister Richards. You have the floor.

Mr. Sylvan D. Richards, Jr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday, November 9
th,
I had the pleasure of attending a celebration of t he
cup service at Marsden First United Methodist Church
in Harris Bay, officiated by presiding pastor, Pastor
Joseph Whalen. The service was a celebration of
Bermuda House of Assembly


Cleveland County Cricket Club defeating previous
champion St. David’s and winning the Eastern County
Cup after 33 years. The church service was very uplifting and inspiring. It was attended by current and
former players. And after the service, we retreated
into the church hall for a very lovely lunch. Pictures
were taken.
Cleveland County Cricket Club and Marsden
enjoy a long history together, the former players and current players being members of the congregation.
So it was a very, very enjoyable Sunday afternoon. Even though it was raining outside, it was very sunny
inside.
I also would like to ask a letter of congratul ations be sent to two constituents of mine, Mr. Speaker,
who were honoured with an article in the Royal G azette a few weeks ago, Mr. Albert Dyer and his wife,
Mrs. Barbara Dyer, who celebrated 60 years of marriage. I had the honour of meeting this lovely couple
before the election when I was canvassing. There are
certain people that you come across in life who just
stand out. And I just found a closeness to this couple.
So after Hurricane Gonzalo, my wife and I
went and paid them a vi sit just to make sure they were
okay, and they were fine. And when we entered the
house, they were sitting there with their daughter and
their son- in-law and their granddaughter. It was such
a joy to see them, and I told them that they had become my mentor s, so to speak, on how to have a
successful marriage. So I asked, What’s the secret?
And Mr. Dyer said that before he goes to sleep every
night, he kisses his wife on the forehead. And then my
wife chimed in and said, Well, the real secret is that
he does what you say ( speaking to Mrs. Dyer). But
they are a very lovely couple, and I just want to send a letter of congratulations for their 60 years of marriage.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Member from constituency number 5. MP D. V. Bur-gess, you have the floor.
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Thank you. Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to send congratul ations to the Eastern Counties Cup Champion. The cup
was first played between Tucker’s Town Cricket Club
(which is still on the original cup, the name of it) and
St. David’s. So it would be fitting that the Harris Bay
Boys (that is where they are from) won that Eastern
Counties Cup Championship. True champions —I
mean, the greatest and most exciting team in the
western hemisphere, Mr. Speaker, over 30 years! I
would like to associate the Member, Mr. Richards, and the whole House, because I am sure Bermuda was
awakened on that day when Harris Bay and Tucker’s
Town Cricket Club won that cup. Also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to send condolences to the family of Elvyn Wears , from Friswells
Hill, a cousin of mine, who was funeralised at St. Paul’s a couple of weeks ago.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Minister for Education and Economic Development.
Minister, Dr. Grant Gibbons, you have the floor.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I also rise on a sad note this
morning to ask that condolences be sent to the family
of the late Victor Garcia (or “Vic,” as he was known by
most of us), to his wife Jackie and children as well. I
think many Honourable Members of the House will
remember Vic as playing a very senior role, both at
the Bank of Butterfield in the human relations area (I think he was the Vice President of HR), and then after
that at PricewaterhouseCoopers (which was probably Coopers & Lybrand in those days. He was a tireless
advocate for the training of young Bermudians. I think
there are many in the community who benefited from
his watchful eye and helped move them forward in the
areas of banking and accounting, as well.
He was a real gentleman, and Vic always had
a bit of a twinkle in his eye as well. He was a very
thoughtful person, active in the community, and I certainly would ask that condolences be sent to his fa mily.
[Inaudible interjection and laughter]

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Mr. Brown, Member
on that side, would also like to be associated, and
Jeanne Atherden. Let us see; I am not doing too well
here. Yes, Suzann. (Anyway, it has been a long week,
Mr. Speaker. )
While I am on my feet, I would also like to be
associated with the condolences to the fam ily of the
late Jackie Brewer.
I would like to send congratulations, actually,
to the organisers (on a different note) of the Bermuda Convergence Conference, the ILS conference which
just took place in the last day or so, particularly the
two organisers, Jason Carne and Arthur Wightman.
This is a relatively new conference, but certainly one
growing in importance. They have increased the numbers appreciably this year. Over 60 per cent of those attending were from overseas, and they had a really
interesting and qualified field of people who came to
learn about ILS and insurance- linked securities and
collateralised insurance products, as well.
I would also like to send congratulations to the
organisers of the PwC [PricewaterhouseCoopers]
Standard & Poor’s conference. Again, Arthur Wigh tman at PwC for another conference which attracts a
Bermuda House of Assembly
18 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

lot of people to feature Bermuda’s international insurance business, as well.
And I would like to be associated with the
congratulations on the retirement of Terry Lister, and I
mean that in a positi ve way as opposed to a negative
way. The MP brought a lot of important stuff to the
House in terms of how he dealt with his Independence
thing. He has been an MP for many, many years and
certainly one that I respected. I am sorry to see his
retirement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member,
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Member from Sandys, MP Dennis Lister.
Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague who sits in front
over here, the Honourable Derrick Burgess, just rose
me to my feet when he made reference to cricket and
honouring that team down in Harris’s Bay and said
how we all took note of their victory.
But it took me back to earlier in the summer,
Mr. Speaker, to the true class ic of cricket. I think when
we talk of cricket this year in Cup Match, we must admit that this was really one of the most outstanding
Cup Match victories we have seen in a long time.
[Desk thumping]

Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Mr. Speaker, it takes me back
to a year in 1979, I think you may be familiar with that.

Oh, that was a good year.

Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Well, I always thought that
year was the best year, but I think this year has outdone that year, Mr. Speaker. And I would like to make
sure that this House sends the proper recognition to
the Somerset Cricket Club on an outstanding victory this year.
Mr. Speaker, I must say that it actually bids
well for Cup Match. The last few Cup Matches in Somerset have bid well for Cup Match. When you look
at the class of people that have come out and just
packed the stadium, the stands, Mr. Speaker. And I
trust that that will continue as we work hard to bring that sport back to where it should be on our calendar,
Mr. S peaker, as the classic for the summer.
Mr. Speaker, whilst on my feet, I would like to
be associated with some of the other remarks that
were expressed earlier, the condolences to the D oers/Robinson family on the passing of Leslie; to the
Black family on the passing of Mr. Ardie Black; to the
Vickers family on the passing of Mr. Eugene Vickers; to Mr. Kenny Bascome on the passing of his wife; and to the family of Cheesey Hughes, Mr. Speaker. We
know the outstanding sportsman that he was, and it
has already been acknowledged that he recognised
the strength in the West End and was allowed to come up to that part of the Island and play in the classic for our team.
Mr. Speaker, whilst on my feet, I would also
like the House to join me in sending condolences to
the Jones family on the passing of Mr. Peniston
Jones. The Honourable Michael Scott would like to be
associated with that. Mr. Jones was one of those quiet
members of our community, as you will know, Mr.
Speaker, but comes from a strong family in the community. And his loss will be missed amongst his family
and his community. In his early years he worked for
Marine and Ports and in his later years he was one of
the ambassadors as a taxi driver. And surely we want
to remember his family at this time. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to send co ndolences to the family of Frederick 'Boogie' Gordon .
He was a well -known hotelier and a first -class chef.
So I would like to send my condolences to the Gordon
family and his five children.
While on hoteliers, I could not not say a few
words about Toby Dillas. As was said earlier, Toby
was the first black hotel general manager in this country. And he played a part in my life, because as a
youngster, when he was Assistant Manager of Bermudiana Beach Club, I was working over ther e on the
beach as a beach boy and getting my first taste of
tourism. And I really appreciate his contribution and
the lessons that he passed on to me.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself
with the following people and the following comments: Mr. Ardie Black and my former colleague, Terry Lister.
Terry Lister was a very hardworking MP. He had a
clear and sharp mind. He stood on principle, and he
was under -valued.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to also associate
myself with the comments made in regard t o Ms. Sy lvia Pully, Ms. Rochelle Bascome, and, as a member
of the Veterinary Council, I would like to associate
myself with the comments made in regard to Dr. Neil
Burnie. He was a first -class veterinarian. He was
loved by pet owners, and he showed nothing but care
and affection over his charges. So again, on behalf of
Bermuda and the Veterinary Council, I pay my r espects and condolences to his family.
I would like to also send congratulatory r emarks, and I am going to associate myself with Archie Warner and Magistrate Juan Wolffe, again a progressive young gentleman, and I am sure he will do well
on the bench.
Mr. Speaker, Dr. Garcia is a constituent of
mine. And I always could expect a challenging discusBermuda House of Assembly


sion when I visited him in his home in Smith’s Pari sh.
And I would just like to say that Bermuda has lost a
man of the soil, a Smith’s Parish man. The first thing
he said to me when I ran in 1998, he says, Cole, I
don’t quite understand this racial bit. I am a Port uguese Bermudian. I was raised on Flatts H ill. (And this
was in the 1940s, early 1950s. ) And I had black
friends. They were in my house, I was in their house, and there was no problem. And it just really bothers
me that with the challenges we have in this country
we can’t resolve the racial issues .
He also had a passion for special -needs chi ldren. Mr. Jim Brock indicated to me that he worked for
the Department of Education in developing the curriculum for special needs. So again, I salute him for
his contribution to education, and I also salute hi m for
his contribution to sailing, because he was involved in the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club.
Again, thank you for your time, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Member from Hamilton Parish, constituency number
6, MP Wayne Furbert. You have the floor.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would definitely like to be associated with the remarks and the condolences to the
family of Toby Dillas. We all can ment ion the exper ience and the discussions we have had with Toby over
the years. Fortunately, when I became Minister of
Tourism, Toby was one of the first individuals I called,
in Florida, to ask him for some suggestions. And in his wisdom . . . I listened, a nd some things we did carry
out.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to also send condolences to [the family of] a world- renowned speaker, a
writer , and that is Dr. Myles Munroe. That is coming
from the whole Hous e. He has been to Bermuda before at National Stadium with Dr. Vernon Lambe . I had
the fortune to be able to visit him in the Bahamas to
one of his leadership conferences over the years. As
a matter of fact, I was there when they put back in one of the former Prime Ministers of the Ba hamas.
This individual, I do not know how he is going
to be replaced, particularly in the Bahamian atmos-phere. He was one who was willing to stand up
against things that he felt were wrong. He had a very
large church in the Bahamas. Politicians always spoke to him and asked him for guidance in the Bahamian
atmosphere.
It was a shock, I believe, to the world, knowing that Dr. Myles Munroe had been killed in such a
tragic situation. One of the books that stood out to me
was In Pursuit of Purpose. I read that book over and
over again. He has written quite often about vision. So
for him, his wife, as the senior pastor of that church (I
believe his wife, but I am not sure), but I know the jun-ior pastor of the church and his wife, and their child and other members . . . you cannot imagine what
emptiness they must feel right now at that Bahamian
church.
I know that he is a cousin to our Leader’s wife,
Simone. And so, if I had the fortune, I would travel to that particular funeral. So I would like for the House to
send our deepest condolences to Dr. Myles Munroe’s
family, and I will do my best to try to get the address
for the Clerk. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I just would like this House to send a number
of congratulatory remarks with respect to some events
that have happened in recent times.
First and foremost, if this House could send
congratulatory remarks to Yushae Simmons, who hails from Somerset and is a resident of the Cooks Hill
area. And Yushae, for those of you who do not know,
was the first Bermudian athlete to attend a high- level
competition of a Paralympics sport of bocce. Bocce
ball, Mr. Speaker, is where you have this mai n ball,
and then people try to throw other balls to get as close
to the main ball. And it is one of those games that r equires a high level of skill, concentration, focus, as
well as strategy.
Yushae, who is 20 years old, attended the
World Bocce Champions hips in China in September
to compete on behalf of Bermuda. Following the
event, the culmination of the event, she placed third.
She was third place. So she was the highest ranking Bermudian Paralympics bocce ball player. So for that,
I think we all need to commend and congratulate her.
Bermuda House of Assembly
20 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

In fact, her objectives and goals now are to qualify for
the 26th Paralympics Games in Rio, as well as the
2015 Parapan American Games that will be held in
Toronto next year. So, in that regard, she is the
[daughter] of Ashanti Simmons, and if we can send congratulations to her.
In addition to that, I would like for this House
to also acknowledge one of our newest PhD cand idates in Bermuda, Dr. Renee Simmons, who has just
completed her doctoral programme, doctor of ps ycholo gy. And her clinical research project was entitled
“Children’s Mental Health Treatment in the Primary Care Setting: Investigating the Perceived Roles and
Responsibilities of Physicians in Bermuda.” She is the
proud daughter of Roderick Simons, Jr., and Laverne
Simons, formerly of St. Mary’s Road in Warwick. And
her grandparents, Roderick Simons, Sr., and Joan
Simons Simmons, of Warwick, as well as Oscar
Franklin and Carolyn Franklin Young.
I think we have to congratulate this young
lady. She recently graduated from Georgia Intern ational Convention Center at College Park on November 1
st, where many of her family and friends also attended. She is, again, a doctor of psychology and will
be working here in Bermuda, developing her practice
locally with the Association of Diagnostic and Psychological Services.
Also, real quickly —

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to send condolences to the family
of Mr. Winston “Bobby” Jones. As Bermuda had
fought and battled the hurricane the night before of a
cat 3, the next morning, unfortunately, Mr. Jones was
in a road fatality accident as he was taking his son to
have a shower at the Hamilton Princess. Mr. Jones was very involved with the Jamaican Association and
also was a strong member of the Cedarpark comm unity association. He is survived by his wife Shirelle
and his son Shirwin.
I would also like to be associated with the
condolences to Mr. Eugene Vickers. Mr. Vickers interviewed me to be a reserve policeman (gosh, back in
the 1980s). And we always had a wonderful relationship after that. We also rode around i n police cars,
having lots of chats about how different people feel about things in life and achievements, what people need to do. Then later in life he was a constituent of
mine, and we shared different opinions on different
issues. But at the end of the day, he was a good
friend of mine.
I would also like to send condolences to the
Ardie Black family, and I would also like to be assoc iated with condolences to Dr. Neil Burnie, who was a
very close friend of mine also. And I would also like to
send congrat ulations to the former Minister, Mr. Terry
Lister. Mr. Lister and I spent a lot of time in the back
coffee room, talking. And he also has assisted me in how I could improve on speaking in the House and
debating.
Also, we spent a fair amount of time in the
Public Accounts Committee, and he has a wonderful mind and is very articulate.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Would any other Honourable Member care to
speak?
Yes, the Chair will recognise, from Southam pton, the Hon ourable Member Zane De Silva. MP De
Silva, you have the floor.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to be associated
with the condolences for Mr. Toby Dillas. They have
been well documented today. I know that he had a
close working relationship with my wife’s mother for a
long time. And I know he will be sadly missed.
Also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to be assoc iated with the condolences for Charger Reid. I worked
with Charger much over the years when he was in
busin ess, Mr. Speaker, and certainly enjoyed my time
with him.
I would also like to be associated with the
condolences for Mr. Eugene Vickers. Also, Ms. Jackie Brewer, and, of course, I do not know if anybody
talked about our good friend from up the west, Mr. Speaker, who worked up the west, Wayne Dears. You
know, he lost his life. Associate everybody with
Wayne Dears, Mr. Speaker. He will be sorely missed.
Port Royal, you know, has suffered two losses of life
up there this year. So our heart goes out to the employees, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I also wish to send condolences
to the family of Mr. Parke Woodrow “Woody” Burrows,
Bermuda House of Assembly


whom you know quite well. Also, Marc Bean, the O pposition Leader, would like to be associated. I spent a
lot of time at Woody’s house as a youngster, Mr.
Speaker. His son and I . . . he was in my wedding. And we have a relationship that continues today. And of course, you mentioned Dennis Lister. The Honourable Member, mentioned 1979. Well, 1979 was a
good year for Woody, too, because as y ou will r emember, he paraded Gina Swainson, who was
crowned Miss Bermuda—

Miss World.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes. So he paraded her
around in his well -known car, “The Thing”. You will
remember that, I am sure, Mr. Speaker, being from
the west.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to be assoc iated with the condolences for Neil Burnie. I knew Neil
very well. Neil would walk in my office with his harmonica. He did not care what meeting I was in. He would just walk in, singing, burst the door down. I
don’t care what meeting you’re in! That is how he was.
Everybody knows that is how Neil was. In fact, he
named one of his s harks, I think . . . Maybe Members
know —

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Zane?

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: No, he did not name him
Zane, Mr. Gibbons.

[Laughter]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: He named that shark I sland Construction.

[Laughter]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Because he had a little pet
project, as some Members, I am sure . . . The Honourable Member Pettingill knows about that project.
But he was a character, to say the least, and he will
be missed by many.
Mr. Speaker, on the lighter side, I woul d like
the House to send congratulations and best wishes to Mr. John Payne, who recently retired. Associate Mr. Cole Simons. You might know that John worked for
the National Office for Seniors for many years and
Immigration, as well. And I think you know t hat he left
his mark.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to finish on, if
the House could send a note of thanks and congrat ulations to the PGA of America for the eight years that they came to Bermuda and hosted the Grand Slam.
They will be sorely missed. Asso ciate Mr. Crockwell,
the Honourable Member, as well. I think the whole
House, yes, the whole House would like to be assoc iated, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by associating
my remarks with those of the Member for St. George’s
West, who spoke about one of Bermuda’s great
women, who epitomised what i t was to be a true Bermudian woman. And that is none other than the wife
of our colleague and friend, the Honourable Mr. Kenneth Bascome, his lovely wife, Rochelle, whom I knew personally. And I know she was a great soul mate to
that Honourable Member. And she is going to be
deeply missed.
Mr. Speaker, I also wish to associate myself
with the three icons who were mentioned. First, Mr.
Ardie Black, who was not only an icon of the North Hamilton business community, but an icon of Bermuda’s business community for decades. He has
passed on that legacy to his sons, and that business
remains a stable and productive and profitable bus iness in my constituency. Mr. Black always had words of wisdom, as many have articulated here, for me. And I alway s appreciated list ening to him.
What some people may not know, Mr. Black
was also an avid footballer. I know that he once played for my team, Pembroke Hamilton Club, but I believe— and, Mr. Speaker, you may be able to help
me here—he may have also, I think, played briefly f or
the legendary Pembroke Juniors.

Thank you.
Also, Mr. Cheesey Hughes, I would like to
associate my remarks with those that were expressed earlier, another icon of the Bermudian sporting communit y. He always had kind and supportive words for
me, and he made his mark in Bermuda’s sporting hi story. And he shall not be forgotten.
Finally, Mr. Charger Reid, or should I say Mr.
Sinclair Hewetson “Charger” Reid, Sr., we are related
Bermuda House of Assembly
22 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

through marriage, Mr . Speaker. And I just want to take
a minute or so just to let people know that, besides
again being an iconic sportsman for the legendary
Wellington Rovers back in that late 1950s, early
1960s period, Mr. Speaker, Charger Reid was a man who wore so many hats that it is unbelievable. In
terms of his private life, the amount of jobs and occ upations he had, the amount of businesses that he was
a part of is just something that I must take note of.
For example here, it says that Mr. Reid had
several jobs in his lifetime. He worked on the research
vessel, the Sir Horace Lamb, bringing home films and
slides of his adventures throughout the Caribbean. He
also worked at Maytag on the Air Force base, Esso
and Shell, where he refuelled aircraft. He owned two
taxis, one of which he would drive, in addition to his
full-time job.
Now, listen to this: Charger Reid, as he was
affectionately known, also raised cattle and pigs, had
a milking cow and owned a chicken farm which co nsisted of 1,200 sucklings and leghorns. From t his
farm, he was able to supply eggs to the markets in the
East End communities.
Furthermore, he also operated Pitchers Var iety Store in St. David’s for a time, and a small grocery
store called St. David’s Market. This, as I am l ed to
believe, would have happened way before he started,
with his wife, Reid’s Restaurant. So again, these are
the type of individuals whom we have lost in this
community, Mr. Charger Reid and Mr. Black, in particular, who were also great entrepreneurs and great
exemplars of that Bermudian spirit which we all a ppreciate and love. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Are there any other Honourable Members
who would care to speak?
The Chair will recognise the Honourable Pr emier. M. H. Dunkley, you hav e the floor.

Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity
just to be associated with the messages that honourable colleagues have given after our break from the
House over the late summer and fall period. I certainly
would be remiss if I did not pass on condolences to many upstanding Bermudians who passed away while
we were out.
As the honourable colleague just mentioned,
Charger Reid and the family of Jackie Brewer and
Ardie Black and Cheesey Hughes and E ugene Vic kers.
Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I was shocked on
Tuesday to learn of the passing of Dr. Neil Burnie. I
think everyone in this House knew of him and proba-bly had stories about him personally. But he was a
larger -than- life person who will be dearly m issed and
gone too soon. Mr. Speaker, I do want to reflect a bit on the
unfortunate passing of Fire- fighter Baker. I had the
honour of attending the funeral a few days ago. Fire -
fighter Baker certainly passed too soon. He was a
good young man who contributed greatly not only to
his family and his friends, but certainly to the Bermuda
Fire and Rescue Service. He was a well -respected
colleague down there. And I know the service takes it hard when one of their colleagues passes, and they
were the first responders to that incident —it is very
difficult to fathom at this time, Mr. Speaker. So we
give strength to the Bermuda Fire and Rescue Service, as well.
And certainly, Toby Dillas was a man whom I
knew growing up, because he was one of those peo-ple who liked everybody and had time for everybody,
and certainly contributed greatly to Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, I know it is difficult for our honourable colleague Kenny Bascome, but I want to take
this opportunity to be associated with those cond olences on the passing of his lovely wife, and just to
say a message to my honourable colleague that he showed strength and fortitude that very few individuals
could have done at that funeral to get up and deliver
the message that he did. So, Kenny, Honourable
Member, you know y ou are in our thoughts and
prayers forevermore in your difficult period that you have gone through.
On a brighter side, Mr. Speaker, it is not often
that we have the opportunity to congratulate a world
champion in Bermuda (as first delivered by honourable colleague Outerbridge) from the East End of the
Island. I took the opportunity to call Flora Duffy after she won the world championship and talk to her about it, and she was certainly over the moon. But, Mr.
Speaker, I can tell honourable colleagues that she is a
human being, because she ran the New York Mar athon about a week later and finished about a minute
ahead of my brother. So she did come back to earth
pretty quickly when she ran the New York Marathon.

[Laughter]

Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: Certainly, I would like to
be associated with the congratulations sent to the Honourable Member Terry Lister, who just retired from
this place. While he did sit on the opposite side of the
House from me at all time, he was a fair man. He was
a respected m an. And his contribution to Bermuda is
very well measured. So, congratulations for a career in politics that helped our Island move forward.
Certainly I would like to be associated with the
congratulations on the retirement of Senior Magistrate
Warner and the best wishes for Juan Wolffe.
Mr. Speaker, I will finish where I think it is a ppropriate to finish, with congratulations to Cup Match
champions 2014 in defending the Cup.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Bermuda House of Assembly


[Pause]

We move now to the Orders of the
Day. And the Chair will recognise first the Honourable
Premier, Premier Dunkley.

MESSAGE TO HIS EXCELLENCY
THE GOVERNOR

Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: May it please Your Excellency: We the Members of the House of Assembly of
Bermuda thank Your Excellency for the gracious
speech which Your Excellency was pleased to open the present session of Parliament.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Carry on.

Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I realise I have the opportunity at
the end of this debate, probably sometime after mi dnight tonight, to say a few comment s. But I would like
to just take this opportunity to say a brief few comments as I introduce the Throne Speech for honourable colleagues on both sides of the House to make their contributions today.
Mr. Speaker, I think that it is fair to say that
this is a very ambitious agenda for the year, legislative
year to come. And I think it was summed up very well by the BPSU in their comments to the media shortly
after the Throne Speech was read by His Excellency
in the Senate Chamber (due to the difficult weather
conditions we experienced last Friday) when the
BPSU (and I quote from their comments) said: “A balanced and appropriate for the times we are living in . . . moderate and included good initiatives that will seek
to improve the economy and the social well -being of
Bermudians.”
Mr. Speaker, I think that sums up the approach that we tried to take on this.
We realise, Mr. Speaker, as it says on the
cover of the Throne Speech, that the challenge of our time is the opportunity of our time. There is no doubt
that we face very significant challenges, just like every
community throughout the world faces. But Bermuda
Bermuda House of Assembly
24 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

has very significant challenges we have to face. And
the way we like to look at it on this side, Mr. Speaker,
is while we face those challenges, we also have a
very real opportunity to turn those challenges around.
So we have cast this Throne Speech out as
an ambitious agenda for the legislative year coming up, one that we know we have to help our people as
we move forward, and we also have to make sure we
stimulate and turn the economy around.
So against that backdrop, Mr. Speaker, I look
forward to the debate today. Thank you.

Good morning, good morning.

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: And good morning to honourable colleagues, and good morning to the people of
Bermuda.

THRONE SPEECH REPLY

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour
and privilege, to stand to provide the initial Reply to
the Throne Speech 2014 .

[Inaudible interjections; OBA Members exited the House]

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: Mr. Speaker, I am going to
pause because, apparently, the One Bermuda All iance Government have decided to vac ate and leave
the Chamber on our Reply, even though we have not
received a Ministerial Statement on the gun violence.
[Pause]

Carry on, Honourable Member.

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The
good thing, Mr. Speaker, is that this Reply is not directed to the One Bermuda Alliance. This Reply is directed to the people of Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, Proverbs 29:18 teaches us,
“Where there is no vision the people perish.”
While the O ne Bermuda Alliance Government
has promoted the politics of fear —F-E-A-R—in order
to obtain short -term political gain and success, the
Progressive Labour P arty still maintains its decadelong commitment to advance the politics of fairness in
a Bermuda that has increasingly s een little of it of late. Nothing illustrates this more than the fact that
the Government’s non- existing economic recovery
continues to place a disproportionate burden upon
those who are increasingly less able to carry its burdens.
Mr. Speaker, s hared sacr ifice, as articulated
by the Government , can never be a reality if the sacr ifice in question falls more and more upon lower - and
middle -income workers, the small - to mid -sized bus iness sector, and Bermuda’s black community in particular, as evidenced by the Government’s own unem-ployment data.
Mr. Speaker, Bermuda has waited patiently
for almost two years for this G overnment to get its act
together and deliver on its promises. Sadly, much like
the hundreds of homeowners who are still without the necessary sl ate supplies to repair their roofs, those
hopes continue to be unreali sed.
Similarly, the hope that we would have had a
referendum on gaming, or that the Government would
have embraced the Opposition’s recommendations for online gaming, or our proposals for the blue economy
in order to diversify t his economy also remain unrea lised, as does the hope of thousands of Bermudians
for economic relief and renewal. Clearly, the concept of collaboration that the O ne Bermuda Alliance
speaks of so often is a word devoid of meaning, as it
has never been put into practice.
Mr. Speaker, w hile there are some items contained within the year’s Throne Speech that are worthy of consideration and debate, the majority of which are ideas that were initiated under a PLP Gover nment , the general consensus is that the O ne Bermuda
Alliance is content with maintaining the status quo.
Mr. Speaker, t he Progressive Labour Party
understands intrinsically that there must be sacrif ice in
order to address our not -so-insignificant fiscal cha llenges, but a plan that does not truly produce shared
sacrifice, as was the case with the now -deferred Pu blic Bodies Reform Bill, is not one that we, along with our friends and social partners in labour, can support.
We encourage Bermudians and the Gover nment to revisit the PLP’s plan for deficit reduction, as
articulated in our 2014 Budget Reply. You will note that it closely parallels the recommendations which
have emanated out of the Trade Union Congress and
is consistent with our values and governing p hilosophy.
Mr. Speaker, y et besides challenging the
Government and the special interest groups that they represent, we also challenge the Bermudian people to recognis e that there is no going back to the glory days
of Bermuda’s golden era of tourism during the 1960s
and 1970s. And neither will we see a return to the
economic boom times driven by the exponential
growth of international business and construction on
Island that existed during the early to late 2000s of the
last decade.
Bermuda House of Assembly


Mr. Speaker, t hat is not to say that we will not
see renewed growt h and vitality in our economy, e specially if we can create a more diversified economy
along the lines that we have recommended. B ut that
growth and t he Bermuda that it will benefit will be a
different type of econom ic growth tha n what we have
previously experienced.
That is why we must keep our eye on strat egic challenges such as an ageing population, a global
reinsurance industry that is experiencing root and
branch structural reform due to major innovations,
such as investment -linked securities, and the ongoing
relentless march of information and other forms of
technology, to name but a few.
Mr. Speaker, l et us recogni se that in order for
economic growth to occur in a balanced manner, and
not overly dependent on external help, it is essential for us to be bold and reform our education system lest
the rationale and justification for current OBA policies
that put Bermudians second or third in their own country finds root. Our education system must be stream-lined for efficiency and made effective by placing more
accountability on schools and student outcomes. Our
system must not only demand academic excellence, it
also must demand discipline and social excellence.
Mr. Speaker, l et us also acknowledge that we
need, and the times demand, major immigration r eform in order to protect the interest s of Bermudian
workers in their own country, as opposed to undermi ning that interest on the altar of political and economic
expediency, as appears to be the case today.
At a time when human resources globally are
the most valuable of resources , it makes no sense
investing in workforce development and education at
the local level if , at the same time , immigration pol icies are undermining the ability of Bermudians to obtain good well -paying jobs and pursue their professional aspirations.
Mr. Speaker, l et us also put politics aside for
once and embark on an in- depth discussion regarding
health care reform and its associated cost. We say put
politics aside, as good health is not biased or partial to
which political party one supports. Neither does sic kness care for which p arty a person may vote for.
Mr. Speaker, t hese and other challenges d emand that all of us begin to view the world around us
a little differently and be cognis ant of the very real i mpact of these and other trends on our lives, and Bermuda’s global competiveness, as we move forward.
Lastly, these new challenges also require a
new way in which we imagine success in Bermuda.
We posit that it is not always achieved by working for
others as employees. The PLP stands squarely in f avour of facilitating a more entrepreneurial society. We are determined to lower the barriers to entry acros s
the board so those persons and the enterprises that
they create can serve as engines of growth in Bermuda, as they do in most countries. We have already signal led our support for
black economic empowerment, and we more broadly wish to see more Bermudians empower themselves
and their families by turning their attention to entr epreneurship as the pathway to success, as traditional
sources of employment begin to decline. Economic
empowerment, regardless of who desires to be empowered, must be driven by an ex panded private sector, and persons need to be free to compete. Not ev eryone will or can be an entrepreneur; neither will those
who do find success . But let us recognis e that jobs
cannot be created in any other sustainable way.
Mr. Speaker, our deficit redu ction plan, as articulated in our 2014 Budget Reply, is indicative of the fact that a future PLP Government recognis es the r eality of one of the foremost political obligations, that being the practice of prudent fiscal responsibility. It should be noted that our deficit reduction plan arrives
at the same destination and at the same time as the
OBA, the difference bein g one of altitude and att itude—in other words, an alternative glide- path. We
also recogni se that fiscal responsibility ultimately
benefits all of society, but , in particular, it benefits
those most in need, those of us within the lower and middle income bracket. Make no mistake Mr.

I t is not the rich who will suffer from i ncreas ed national debt and the spectre of default;
rather, it is the ordinary citizen and resident who will
bear the brunt of the negative effects of such a sc enario.
Mr. Speaker, it is also important to recognis e
that fiscal responsibility is not an end in itself, and it
must eventually translate into a commitment to r educe
the level of interference that we, politic ians, via laws,
policies, taxes and regulations, impart on our people
in their daily lives. While the OBA and others continue
to advance the notion of a smaller government
through cuts and efficiencies, the P LP posits that a
smaller government will have no appreciable impact in
the lives of our people if it is not com bined with the
principle of less government. The foundation stone of
a free society , where the oppressed and the sufferer
may rise up and take their rightful place amongst their
fellow men, requires nothing less . If eradicating dependency on government is a desired outcome, then there must be an alternative for our people to have the
freedom to raise their standard of living by their own
efforts and by the help of others.
Mr. Speaker, w e welcome the idea for the diversification of the local banking sector. It is som ething that w e first called for in our 2013 B udget Reply,
and we are happy that , two years later, the OBA have
seen the light. We are also pleased to see that the BMA is seeking to improve the money service regul ations. These two initiatives have the potential to
strengthen our economy and provide opportunities for
Bermudians to parti cipate via ownership or emplo yment. In particular, the PLP has identified an emer ging sector that, with these improvements, can become
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26 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

a source of additional diversification of our economy —
that is, a global mobile money service business se ctor.
Mr. Speaker , we are pleased with these i mprovements because, after 23 months of OBA Government, Bermudians are still being laid off, jobs are
being outsourced, businesses are closing, wages and
hours are being cut and frozen. With that backdrop,
the OBA continues to state that the economy has
turned the corner . But their own Throne Speech highlights their deception. On one page, the OBA says,
“Bermuda’s Gross Domestic Product —the measure of
economic activity on the Island—increased by almost
one per cent in 2013, the first growth in five years.”
And on the next page, “If current trajectories hold, the
Financial Year 2014/15 will be the year in which the Island, after years of recession, finally moves from decline to real growth.”
Mr. Speaker, did the recession end l ast year
with “growth” of our GDP , like on page 5, or will it end
this year , like on page 6 ? The fact is that , in spite of
the OBA and PLP efforts, there is little growth on the horizon.
Mr. Speaker, t he OBA has stated that they are
exploring the idea of reverse mortgages for our seniors. We do not support the introduction of reverse mortgages. There is no doubt that the majority of our seniors face a cash flow problem , as their fixed i ncomes are hardly sufficient to make ends meet. But to offer a product that will see an increase and transfer
of debt to the beneficiaries of their labour, usually their
children, is a diabolical scheme of disinheritance.
Even if the OBA Government, alongside the bankers,
decide to offer our seniors a reverse mortgage, we
advise our seniors to not accept it and to stay far
away from such a scheme.
Mr. Speaker, w e would encourage those of us
who have elderly parents, who have sacrificed for us to be educated, and have acquired property that is
intended to be passed on, to pay attention to the plight
of our parents. If you are still waiting for the time when
you will be able to claim your inheritance, then you
have an obligation today to provide financial relief while they are alive. Do not be so negligent that your
parents must suff er the indignity of depending on a
bank, or, for that matter, the government.
Mr. Speaker, w e as a people cannot continue
to hold on to our motto, Quo fata ferunt —Whither the
fates may carry us . It may have been good for Sir
George Somers when he put the Sea Venture on the
reefs off Bermuda in 1609, but it is not good enough
for us in 2014.
The global rating agencies have warned us
about the dangers of the lack of diversification of our economy. Yet the OBA continues to ignore these
warnings, ignore the job losses, ignore the company
closures, ignore the wage reductions, and have dem-onstrated neither the interest n or the ability to diversify
our economy . The OBA’s myopic focus on maturing industries and failure to even look at div ersification
and new industries will not produce the growth our
people and our economy require.
Mr. Speaker, our party fully supports t ourism
and international business, and we will continue to put
resources and policies in place that will allow these industries to thrive. How ever, relying on these two
industries alone will not be in our best interest. We must increase our scope of possibilities and open up
doors and opportunities that have n ever been done
before. We realis e the challenges, but how we view
the challenges is what will define us. We can choose to see t he challenges as stepping stones or as obst acles. The PLP choose stepping stones.
Mr. Speaker, o ver the years, we have
schooled our people to be workers and not entrepr eneurs. Those who have attempted to put their ha nds
in the fire to attempt entrepreneurship have been turned away by the syst em or barriers put in their way
due to a lack of capital.
Mr. Speaker, s ome Bermudians have come
up with creative business ideas over the years, but
have been shut down due to monopoly policies. We
have become an Island that does not allow compet ition in a big way. We have lived in our own protective
cocoon for too long, and while the world is taking on
new investments, we bow to pressure by interest groups. The past has gone , but the future is before us
for those who can clearly see. If we are going to keep
or increase our standard of living , then the economic
walls of noncompetition must come down.
Mr. Speaker, our strategy is to increase real
growth in our economy so that governm ent revenue
will increase and that our debt level will be reduced to
an acceptable level. As previously stated, we support
the expansion of our banking sector, which will allow
other banks to enter our shores. We believe we
should invite some of the top la w firms around the
world to operate in Bermuda. The model that we use may be similar to how some of the top accounting firms came to Bermuda. These foreign investments
will bring new business and create new jobs and opportunities.
Mr. Speaker, w e support the blue economy,
which stimulates entrepreneurship, competitivenes s
and employment, inclusive of s ea-bed mining, aquaculture and off-shore fishing. This will lead to the creation of new job opportunities, the diversification of our
economy and the creation of new revenue streams for
Government.
We also encourage less red tape, to allow
greater foreign investment in the Bermudian marketplace, with a particular emphasis on creating greater
competition in the insurance, fund management,
wealth management, telecommunications, and information and technological/E -commerce industries.
Mr. Speaker, Bermuda has always been l ocated in a strategic part of the world. It is our view that
we can capitali se more on this position by allowing
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other industries to come here. T o this end, we will i nvestigate the benefit of setting up an economic free
zone on some of the property owned by the Bermuda
Development Corporation. We believe by giving high-tech companies the right concessions , they will set up
offices in Bermuda. We al so support the investigation
and feasibility study of a trans hipment hub in highvalued commodities.
Mr. Speaker, w e also acknowledge the need,
in addition to the proposed legali sation of medicinal
cannabis, to look at the CRC [ Cannabis Reform Collaborative ] report recommendations on the issue of
recreational use. The global trend is such that we
should not hesitate to turn this into an opportunity that
can help stimulate tourism and provide job opportunities for Bermudians, in addition to increased revenues
for the Government.
Mr. Speaker, despite millions of dollars spent ,
with little or no political oversight and less accountabi lity, the Bermuda Tourism Authority has failed to get the results we were all hoping it would achieve. The
emphasis continues to be on marketing our way out of
what is fundamentally a product problem. Bermuda
remains an expensive destination with a dated pro duct that has earned a reputation as failing to give
value for money.
The PLP proposes expanding airlift by seeking partnerships with airlines to connect with Latin
America and the Caribbean. We also recommend do-ing a feasibility study for a small ship for St. George ’s
on a regular basis. It is also important to allow entertainment, bars and restaurants on selected beaches
to both add an ex citing product for our visitors and
encourage Bermudian entrepreneurship.
We must aggressively go after the convention
business and also aggressively go after the medical
tourism business. We must also discuss , Mr. Speaker,
Bermuda hosting a major golf tournament to replace
the Grand Slam.
Mr. Speaker, t he Department of Airport O perations should be changed into a q uango for the purpose of creating an Airport Authority. This would pr ovide the fundamental framework and infrastructure which would result in the removal of the expenditures
associated with the above- mentioned governmental
department.
Currently, t he Government’s plan to privatis e
the department would result in the loss of approx imately 86 jobs. Our vision allows for the current staff
to remain employed, a lbeit not by the government, but
directly by the Airport Authority. The creation of an
aviation quango provides the ability for the Authority to
seek i ndependent financing for a much- needed ai rport. That, in conjunction with t he revenue generated
from the expansion of our airspace, has the ability to generate $9 million for the Bermudian economy annually.
Mr. Speaker, w e note with disdain that , two
days after the Throne Speech the OBA decided to announce the redevelopment of th e L. F. Wade International Airport. Suffice it to say that the PLP reco gnises the need to have a first -class airport facility, and
it is for this reason that the concept was initiated and advanced under us when we were Go vernment. But ,
considering the reputation of the OBA in terms of a lack of transparency and accountability, especially in
terms of Jetgate and the Club Med site, we have
grave concerns. There are more questions than a nswers, questions that some in the media, in particular our daily newspaper, has, since December 2012, con-sciously determined not to ask.
Mr. Speaker, most important to the rebound of
our economy is our position that diversification i ncludes the expansion of air routes into new markets.
The lack of action from the OBA in this regard must
stem from a lack of willingness or ability. A future PLP
Government will actively engage airlines such as
Copa of Panama and Caribbean Airways to develop
routes direct to the Caribbean and Latin America. E xpanding further afield, new routes into Africa, Asia and
the Gulf region will also provide an opportunity for i ncreased economic growth.
Mr. Speaker, this Government seems intent
on rolling out policies and legislation that make it more and more difficult for Bermudians to make progress in
their own country. While there have been bold
changes to immigration policy, there is almost no
mention of it in the Throne Speech. We have a court
decision creating a pathway for a significant number
of people to be granted Bermuda status, we have a
problemati c new work permit policy set to come into
force December the 1
st, and we have created a set of
conditions for another group of long- term residents.
Mr. Speaker, what is the Government intending to do in this area? Their silence is a cause for
concern.
Much of the Government decisions in the area
of immigration demonstrate little concern for the disaffected Bermudians. As an example, the Government is seeking to amend the Vendors Act to allow work -
permit holders to apply for and receive licences. At a
time w hen thousands of Bermudians are out of work
and some have only their vendors licenses to generate an income, this Government now intends to give
people, who by virtue of their status (being work -
permit holders) already have a job, the ability to enter
this area of business. It is a typical idea from a Government that does not include Bermudians in their
plans.
Mr. Speaker, we need to undertake fundamental immigration reform, and the starting point is the Bermuda Immigration and Protection Act 1956.
This ref orm process will have as an essential component an extensive public consultation component. It
will address the issue of Bermuda status grants —how
they are to be granted going forward and what criteria
need to be met, what number of PRC’s should be i ssued on an annual basis. And it will create a policy of
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28 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

equal political status for individuals in a family, rather
than the current circumstance where one sibling could
hold Bermuda status and the other have no rights at
all to permanent residence.
Mr. Speaker, in order for our people to be
equipped to compete in Bermuda and not be margi nalised from our economy by an influx of foreign wor kers, but be prepared to fully function within our economy, a future PLP Government will embark on radical
education reform.
A reformed educational system must possess
rigour and provide the skill sets for all its attendees to operate successfully when moving to any tertiary education institute and/or directly into our workforce.
Today, faced with the constant challenge of
modern technology, the institution of public education,
though impacted largely in its delivery of instruction,
maintains its fundamental purpose of ensuring an
educated populace. So it is incumbent on us to shape
our system so that it is more responsive, compet itive,
and is the primary option and first choice for educating
our future generations and for retraining.
Mr. Speaker, our public education is based on
the internationally recognised Cambridge curriculum.
However, the structure is more geared to models us ed
in the US and Canada. This is a misalignment in the
system and must be fixed.
We have a pre- school system with the entry
level for age four years. The primary purpose is to prepare children for Primary 1 in numerate skills, literate skills and social sk ills. It is the equivalent of the
reception year in the United Kingdom. Pre- school pr ovides early opportunity to identify behavioural and/or
academic issues, and to apply appropriate counteractive measures at this level.
Mr. Speaker, a future PLP Government will
provide a national curriculum for pre- schools to ensure standardisation and a record of assessment for
entry into elementary school.
Mr. Speaker, elementary schools traditionally
begin at five years. Students remain at this level for
six years. They actively engage in the Cambridge sy stem, with the focus being mathematics, English and
science. Other courses are locally based, but mandatory (i.e., social studies, health, PE, art and music).
Mr. Speaker, retention at every level should
be implemented t o ensure that students who fail are
not advanced with significant deficits which will i mpede success at the next level. Before any student is
retained, they will be given an exam to assess performance; if successful, they will be promoted. In add ition, Pri mary 7 will be reinstituted. At the culmination
of seven years, standardised exams in mathematics
and English will be administered to assess mastery.
This, combined with a student’s seventh- year performance, will be used to determine promotion. If fai lure is significant, retention will be upheld.
Mr. Speaker, the middle school system will be
phased out. The middle school system will be phased out. Dr. Hopkins emphasised this in his report. This
model does not match the Cambridge system in structure. Statistics have repeatedly demonstrated the m ajor decline in students’ performances at this level.
Elimination of this level will create alignment with the
Cambridge system and promote more continuity. M2
and M3 will move to senior schools. Some middle
schools wi ll revert to senior schools. Clearwater,
Whitney Institute, Spice Valley, Sandys Secondary
and the Berkeley Institute are schools that will be converted into secondary schools. It must be made clear that students transitioning into high school will not be
placed according to where they reside; rather, it will
be determined by academic assessment and other
non-geographic factors.
Mr. Speaker, the BSR will be retained as a
transcript for local achievement. Every school can continue with Cambridge, GCSE, but are not limited to
such. Students will be able to elect to sit other exams,
such as the CXC of the Caribbean, the IB, the RSA,
City & Guild, trade exams, and the SAT. As was the
case in the past, if the standard of the curriculum is aligned internationally, many should have success.
Such a programme will readily allow for the transition
to the tertiary level.
Mr. Speaker, this currently takes place in our
local private schools and some home schools. All
schools can retain their internal graduating standards in conjunction with the BSR.
Mr. Speaker, the Bermuda College will work
to acquire accreditation for full bachelor programmes in multiple subjects, in particular those degrees that
our economy requires adequate and trained manpower, such as nursing, accounting, business admini-stration, and education and information technology,
whilst continuing its Associates [programmes]. This is
also an opportunity to provide training for those persons who are interested in working within these new
sectors resulting from diversification, as noted earlier
in this Reply.
In addition, our College must be utilised for
the purpose of providing opportunities to gain professional designations, as can found in the excellent
work of the Bermuda Insurance Institute. With an i nflux o f human capital into Bermuda, it is wise that we
as a country seek to harness and transfer this know ledge to our people by encouraging persons to teach
in these various institutes. This is especially important
for working adults and mature students who des ire to
retrain in order to either enter into the private sector or change careers.
Mr. Speaker, CedarBridge Academy will b ecome a part of the Bermuda College. CedarBridge, by
design, readily lends itself to a college- style curric ulum. With facilities such as AutoCAD rooms, hai rdressing rooms, music studio, film studio, auto m echanic studio, paint booth, woodwork studio, greenhouse and the more typical class settings, this facility,
under the umbrella of the Bermuda College, could
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become the science and technology campus for the
College, in addition to being available for those st udents who are academically enrolled in the precollege courses and introductory courses. The main
campus would primarily house those students in the Associates, Bachelor and full de gree or Master’s degree programmes.
The college/university college can also intr oduce Master’s programmes in the same areas as
Bachelor’s programmes and continue to offer degree
programmes with sister organisations overseas.
Mr. Speaker, as you would know from your
experience, Bermuda is blessed with first -class ed ucators who have now reached retirement age. One of
the major components of a quality education system is
quality teaching. For the purpose of teacher training
and classroom assistance, the PLP wi ll seek to engage our willing and able retired teachers to come out
and shadow classrooms and younger teachers. After
all, some techniques have always worked and never
grow old, and we would be wise to tap into this considerable experience.
This will require a reallocation of resources so
as to provide some remuneration for them. Combined
with a streamlining of the Department of Education,
thus reducing bureaucratic cost, shifting performance
outcomes to individual schools and their principals and creating a competitive environment within and
among the schools, we will place our education sy stem in a position to provide the tools for all of our people to compete and to become the masters of their
destiny. This realignment, Mr. Speaker, will ensure
that such reform will not require additional spending, but, more importantly, it will develop greater discipline
and higher standards. Mr. Speaker, if we care about
our country and all of our people, we have no choice
in the matter.
Mr. Speaker, another critical area that is in
need of reform is health care. It should be noted that
the commentary in the Throne Speech in reference to
the introduction of the Bermuda Health Plan, which
will also include universal access to basic health coverage based on need, mirrors one of the basic tenets of the National Health Plan that the PLP unveiled in
2011. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, our 2011 plan called for
“universal access to basic health coverage based on one’s ability to pay.”
Mr. Speaker, the overriding challenge that we,
as with other countries face, is the continued escal ation of the cost of health care provision. With both the
past and current Government advocating for a system
that provides “need- based universal access,” and with
health care costs continuing to rise, it is tim e for us,
both sides of the political divide, to engage in a critical discussion of health care reform. The starting point must be the identification of the main cost drivers and
their origin in the ideological argument of man’s right
to medical/health car e and whose responsibility it is to
pay for and provide man with such care. Mr. Speaker, during the twentieth century, the
majority of governments adhered to the premise that
continues to drive up costs, that the responsibility for
good health rest in the hands of others and not the individual himself. This led to the collectivisation of
medical cost. From that premise, state- controlled
health care systems were developed, which has led to
the following challenges that continue to see rising
costs and a progressively unhealthier population,
namely:
• the potential for a limitless rise in the price of
medical services;
• the potential for a practically limitless increase
in the quantity of medical care demanded;
• the perversion of technological progress into a source of higher cost rather than lower cost;
• the very high prices of patented prescription
drugs;
• hospitals wasting money in the purchase of unneeded, costly equipment;
• below -market rates and cost shifting for staterun insurance schemes; and
• bureaucratic int erference with medicine and
the rise of administrative costs.

Mr. Speaker, prevention is better than cure.
With these and other challenges facing us in terms of
health care provision, the need for a vigorous, honest and comprehensive debate by all of us i n Bermuda
must commence. While this occurs, there are some things that we can do now that will help bring a
greater awareness to our people of the need to take
personal responsibility for our individual health. After
all, it is one of the first steps towar ds our cultivating a
greater self -knowledge as a community in the phys ical, mental and spiritual realm of life.
Mr. Speaker, the PLP encourages the follo wing steps along the path towards real reform:
• Improve emphasis on health education in the
pre-schools, primary schools and high
schools.
• Open the market so that international insurance companies can compete in the Bermuda
health insurance market. Competition drives
down cost, so the consumer is the beneficiary.
• Legislate insurance companies to include
coverage for established complementary and
alternative medical services such as, but not
exclusive to, traditional Chinese medicine,
homoeopathy, mind/body stress manage-ment, kinesiology and naturopathy.
Mr. Speaker, a special mention must be made
on the iss ue of the Lamb- Foggo Urgent Care Centre
[UCC]. The Lamb- Foggo Urgent Care Centre has
proven to be an asset to Bermudians and/or visitors alike. In September 2014, we witnessed a commercial
airline divert to Bermuda, on which three passengers
had taken sick and were in need of immediate medical
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30 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

attention. Subsequently, the plane made an emergency landing, and those passengers were treated at
the UCC.
Mr. Speaker, the people of Bermuda have petitioned and marched on Parliament in support of keeping the UCC op en. The electorate understand the
need to have the facility opened regularly and fully
functional.
Much praise has been given to the heroic efforts of all those emergency workers, which seemingly
included those stationed at the UCC during the Se ptember storms. During the height of the hurricane, the
Lamb- Foggo Urgent Care Centre played an invaluable
service to the East End, which was cut off from the mainland. Without a doubt, had the UCC been closed
by the OBA Government as they had planned, East
Enders would have been left wanting.
Mr. Speaker, we note with surprise that there
was no mention in the Throne Speech by the OBA
Government as to increased manpower, usage or f acility upgrades to the UCC. What is the plan for the
UCC going forward? Does the blatant omission from
the Throne Speech paint a grim picture for the future of the UCC and the people of the east?
The Progressive Labour Party proposes that
laboratory and X -ray testing at the facility resume i mmediately. The reintroduction of laboratory functiona lity can create much- needed jobs, which is one of the
OBA Government’s many failed election promises.
We also demand that the OBA stop with the
negative rhetoric and find a way to enhance the operations at the UCC. If given the opportunity to operate at its full potential, the UCC could be transformed
into a revenue- generating facility.
Mr. Speaker, we now turn our attention to
public safety. We would first like to commend and
thank all those officers in the security services, who
consistently contributed to putting the Island back t ogether following the double blow of tropical storm Fay
and Hurricane Gonzolo. We particularly want to single
out the Bermuda Fire and Rescue Service for special
thanks. They are regularly the first line of defence in
many emergencies, but seem to be forgotten for acknowledgement or thanks.
Mr. Speaker, we note with some satisfaction
that overall crime is at its lowest point since 2001. These trends do not occur overnight, and in this case
reflect a downward trajectory since 2000. Clearly, the
efforts in strengthening the Bermuda Police Service
are bearing considerable fruit, as evidenced by the
speedy arrest of suspects, their prosecution and conviction in the courts.
The BPS modified its gang and violence r eduction strategy to include a common framework for
enabling partners and communities to engage directly with each other. The strategy aims to:
a) reduce gang crime and re- offending; b) address overlaps and gaps in existing a pproaches used by all agencies and identify s olutions;
c) align the work of partners more effectively by expanding or improving on established par tnerships;
d) tackle social exclusion of both offenders and
their families;
e) include wider social agencies to increase the
effort on targeted offenders and create an i ntegrated offender management regime; and
f) improve information- sharing across the task
force agencies.

Mr. Speaker, the current Government has initiated the Team Street Safe concept, but has not r eported on its success or whether the previously estab-lished Int er-Agency Gang Task Force remains in operation. It would not be surprising if some pundits
were ready to suggest that, within 20 months of the
last election, the scourge of gang- related violence is
finally looking like it had passed. As we all know, on
the evening of November the 11
th, 2014, Bermuda
once again faced multiple shootings in different parts
of the Island. It was nothing less than unprecedented
for Bermuda to have four victims in one incident —yet
no statement from the Premier.
Mr. Speaker, this is happening under the OBA
Government, whose Leader, our Premier and Minister
of National Security, pledged to stop the shootings!
The OBA and its predecessor, the UBP, were continuously critical of the previous administration’s role
with addressing gun vi olence. What these incidents
have shown us is violence and crime, especially gang violence activity, was never going to be easily cha llenged. The solutions were never going to be provided
by political slogans or promises! The OBA Gover nment has discovered this, Mr. Speaker, and now must
honestly acknowledge one of the most serious challenges that face Bermuda. Fratricide is not a political football!
Mr. Speaker, the horror of this recent act of
violence now requires some very direct questions to be asked to the photo- op Premier. What has been the
process and result of the gang and violence reduction strategy since it was revised?
Mr. Premier, are we still benefitting from the
Inter-Agency Gang Task Force? If so, are we witnes sing some failure on its part to reach its objectives?
Mr. Premier, what has been the extent of the
interaction with community organisations and stak eholders on the underlying issues of gang activity and violence?
Mr. Premier, has the Bermuda Police Service
advanced its intelligence and operational capability to be more proactive to anticipate where gang incidents might occur?
Mr. Premier, what are the additional strategies
that are going to be deployed to address the underl yBermuda House of Assembly


ing problems that contribute to the cultivation of gang
life and culture in Bermuda?
Mr. Premier, where are you? Where are you?
Mr. Speaker, we suggest that the underlying
reasons, amongst others . . . And one day, we might
use parliamentary privilege to talk about it; but the
Island knows. The reasons for the presence of gangs
and gang violence in the community have not been
honestly or directly addressed. It is for this reason we
have called for a report to be provided on the Team
Street Safe concept and to determine if the level of success desired has been ac hieved. We raise these
issues to not dismiss the work and progress made.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that an increasing
number of members of the public have decided that
enough is enough with regard to the general lawles sness in our country, by reporting crim e to the police.
Many are taking advantage of the anonymous Crime Stoppers phone number and the updated technology
of sending a text message from their cell phone to
report a crime, as well as the ability to report crime via
the World Wide Web. You will know that it is this par tnership, more than anything else, which will contribute
to a return to the peaceful way of life that we all
seek —that, and our Premier starting to stand up. Stop
pulling strings.
Mr. Speaker, we note the announcement in
this current Throne Speech on page 16 to once again
end conscription. This is a recurring pronouncement
by the OBA Government, and like many others, we
await real action by the Government to fulfil this promise. We repeat what we stated in August of this year:
“An orderly transition to a volunteer Regiment is sup-ported by the PLP, yet while the OBA drags their feet
without explanation, our young men continue to be
drafted and in some cases criminalised for their opp osition to being forced into military service against t heir
will. This must be addressed sooner, rather than later.”
Mr. Speaker, it is important that, as we trans ition to a volunteer and more professional Regiment,
that every step is made to smoothly transfer the com-mand of the Regiment back into Bermudian hands
throughout the top levels of the organisation. It will
also be constructive to use the accumulated exper ience of former commissioned and non- commissioned
officers to support the Regiment in every way during
this historic transition.
Mr. Speaker, the Bermuda Fire and Rescue
Service stand out as the lone standard- bearer of Bermudianisation amongst the uniformed services. They
have managed to successfully amalgamate three ser-vices into one unified service. Additionally, they r ecently transitioned from one Bermudian Fire Chief, Mr. Vincent Hollinsid, to another, Mr. Lloyd Burchall. By all accounts, the service has gone from strength to
strength, and Chief Burchall and his team are to be
commended for maintaining the efficiency and morale of the service whi le seeing their budgets continuously
decrease.
Mr. Speaker, the PLP wholeheartedly su pports the expansion of the service to include ambu-lances deployed at both the eastern and western ends
of the Island under the auspices of the Bermuda Fire
and Rescue Ser vice.
Mr. Speaker, the PLP’s focus of inclusion of
Bermudians, and not the marginalisation of our people, is the watchword that will shape our laws and policy. In order to achieve more inclusion in the social and economic affairs of Bermuda and to remove ba rriers to freedom and progress among historically under-represented groups in our society, the Ministry of
Justice will give priority in its future legislative agenda
to a number of economic and social justice laws, such
as:
• the Interest Rate Amendment Bi ll;
• the Debtors Amendment Bill;
• the Immigration Amendment Bill (Section 20B repealed);
• the Sexual Offences Amendment (No. 2) Act (to make provision for Sexual Offences Pr evention Orders);
• the Bermuda University College Incorporation
Act (to make provision for a four -year university in Bermuda); and
• the Land Injustices Compensation Act. Lord,
we need one of them!

[Desk thumping]

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: The Land Injustices Compensation Act.
Policies and laws that erect barriers to Bermudian achievement and advancement will be r eviewed by the Ministry of Justice, and Ministries will be advised on the most direct and effective legal basis
to repeal laws and discontinue policies that are ident ified as creating barriers to Bermudians. The light
touch extended to international business must be extended to local business and Bermudians. Less go vernment must be extended to all, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, prosecutors must be fair, independent and objective. They must not let any personal views about the ethnic or national origin, gender, di sability, age, religion or belief, political views, sexual
orientation or gender identity of the suspect, victim or
any witnesses to influence their decisions. Charging
decisions by prosecutors, as a general rule, follow standard, oft en unwritten protocol. A Code for Crown
Prosecutors will codify the protocols for the protection
of the public and add a level of accountability to this
important process. The PLP, in consultation with the
DPP, will institute a Code for Crown Prosecutors.
Mr. Speaker, the time is well past to address
with a response and resources the judiciary’s call for
adequate architecture and housing of the criminal
courts of Bermuda, and in so doing uphold the indeBermuda House of Assembly
32 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

pendence and impartiality of the courts. The PLP will
build on reforms of the Justice Review Commission
Report that we implemented in 2004 with additional
relevant reforms, recently called for to modernise
criminal procedure that will reduce the length of crim inal trials, including the deployment of video link s to
receive evidence from overseas witnesses. These and
other reforms will lower the cost of criminal trials in
Bermuda and lower the cost of justice to the taxpayer.

Yes.
Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: Mr. Speaker, with respect to
the public holiday known as Bermuda Day and cel ebrated on May 24th of each year, combined with the
history surrounding its development, there is, of necessity, the need to ch ange with the times. The PLP
believes that moving the Bermuda Day holiday to the
Friday of the last week of May every year will have a
positive impact on the socio- economic state of our
country. Our tourism product could benefit substa ntially if marketed c orrectly, and both the education
system and the business sector will subsequently
benefit from improved productivity due to the holiday
falling on the Friday.

Mr. Speaker, we also call for the reinstitution
of National Heroes Day. Considering the many Ber-mudians who have made and continue to make val uable contributions to the betterment of Bermuda, it is
important that we continue to celebrate these persons
so that a legacy can be established and future generations can appreciate their history.
Mr. Speaker , with respect to the Physical
Abuse Centre, it is imperative that we make the necessary allowances, financial or otherwise, to ensure
that this vital resource is maintained.
Mr. Speaker, we also call for the creation of a
Public Registry of Paedophiles.

[Desk thumping]
Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: This is long overdue, Mr.
Speaker, and with the prevalence of such heinous
acts, violating the innocence of many of our young people, it is time that the country as a whole is made
aware of who these perps are. This name- and-shame
is from the standpoint of safety and is to send a clear message that we know who they are and we will not
tolerate further attempts to defile the dignity of our
young people.
Mr. Speaker, we also call for the review of the
current regulations governing day - and child- care centres, therefore minimising the red tape that can delay the creation of new businesses and deter entrepr eneurs.
Mr. Speaker, given the noted decline in performance and results in some sports and the successes of others, it is the PLP’s view that the time is
right for the consideration of a sports academy. Here, notable and experienced sports men and women,
combined with a first -class educational component,
will work in tandem to improve our sports development here on Island and build a strong well -rounded
athlete on and off the field of play. This academy
should be for athletes who have been identified at the
school competition level of our reformed educational
system. One of the many negative effects of our current educational system is the lack of competitive i nter-school sports, as many of us can remember. The
time to adjust is now.
Mr. Speaker, of necessity, the physical educ ation and health standards for our primary and high
schools need to be revised to reflect a twenty -first
century model. Collaboration between the Ministries of
Community, Culture and Sport, Education and Health
would be paramount. Healthy children create healthy
adults and, therefore, a more sustainable society
which has less of a dependence on the heal th care
system.
Mr. Speaker, sport is seen by many as a more
cost-effective approach to dealing with social problems than correcting the consequences of aggression,
crime, violence and abuse through police, correctional
or social services. Therefore, the P LP believes that
we must invest in our Sporting and Workmen Clubs’
infrastructure. This can be achieved by direct Go vernment investment, a national lottery, a PPP or a
combination of all.
Mr. Speaker, the last two storms have made it
abundantly clear that we definitely need to develop a
formal policy about the use of Ministry of Public Works
resources for Ministers and others in regard to national disasters. We sure do.
Mr. Speaker, the PLP encourages the private
sector to fully participate in development of our mar itime resources, otherwise known as the Blue Econ-omy. We agree with BEST (Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Task Force) that the OBA must get on
with making a decision regarding the use of our EEZ.
The PLP stands on the economic side of the argument, as our EEZ is a key component of our economic
diversification, but we recognise that, without ad equate environmental safeguards, over the long term
there will not be any economic opportunities to be d erived from our EEZ. Balance is vital for such decisions
Mr. Speaker, the PLP continues to encourage
the use of alternative energy sources where possible, such as photo- voltaic and solar, wind, ocean, ethanol
and bio- fuels. We fully support BELCO and their strategy to transition to natural gas for power generation.
This strategy provides the best long- term opportunity
to reduce the cost of energy in Bermuda.
Bermuda House of Assembly


Mr. Speaker, we also suggest that the Go vernment commit to discussing a long- term partnership
with BELCO that achieves, over a 25- year period, the
submerging of overhead utility and power lines in exchange for a significant reduction in energy surcharges applied to commercial and Government buil dings.

[Desk thumping]

Hon. Marc A. R. Bean: Mr. Speaker, the PLP is also
in favour of less regulation in t erms of allowing for the
creation of aesthetically amenable facilities on public
beaches. This is in support of improving our tourism
product.
Also required, Mr. Speaker, is the reform of
the Bermuda plan guidelines that strikes a sustainable balance for t he twenty -first century and beyond, with a
focus on respecting the right to private property, the
hallmark of a free society.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, Bermuda stands
on the cusp of a dramatic change in our economy and
in our very way of life. Yet this s hould not be feared or
avoided, but embraced with all the vision, intellect and
courage we possess. We walk in the path of our for efathers, who overcame the collapse of various industries, survived the scourge of slavery and segregation, and who built this great Island we call home. Mr.
Speaker, we understand that it was not Government that allowed our people to survive; it was our collective will, our collective strength and our collective wil lingness to work.
Today we have identified solutions to get our
people back to work, expand Bermudian entrepr eneurship and protect our seniors. Yet ideas are not
enough, as even if we were to wave a magic wand,
this vision will accomplish little without Bermudians
pushing, striving and uniting to make it a reality.
All of the answers to our problems lie within
us. We can reinvent our economy, we can create our own businesses, and we can build a Bermuda that
works for Bermudians if we open our minds, reject
fear and bravely step into the future. We must no
longer go, Whi ther the fates carry us , but, Mr.
Speaker, we must seize control of our own destiny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[Desk thumping]

One stays in the precincts and
listens to what is being said, Mr. Speaker , so I know
what was said and I read it.
I would start the speech from Shakespeare’s
on apt to do and say, Mr. Speaker , “There is a tide in
the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on
to fortune.”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” It is the “taken”
that is the key there, Mr. Speaker . It is the action in
relation to what is transpiring in your country. It is the doing, and not the talking.
Mr. Speaker , the Reply from the Honourable
and Loyal Opposition (as they are) had some outstanding ideas. There are some excellent ideas con-tained right throughout the Throne Speech, some very
commendable things, which I, and, I am sure, my
Government support fully . . . support absolutely fully.
And there has been much mention of (not just here
but in other places as well) about the OBA finishing an
initiative that was started by the PLP. And, Mr.
Speaker , it is said almost like it is a criticism. It is said
like, We had an idea and this idea, and this good thing
that you are doing was our idea. Well, my response to
that is thank you for your idea. It is a shame that for
whatever reason you did not do it. It is a shame for
whatever reason you could not do it. And we were left
to come along and finish it.
Some of those ideas, Mr. Speaker , were
around for a long time. I heard the Honourable Member interpolate like, tim e ran out. Well, he was in a
different party when time started. And then went Independent and then ended up in the other party . . . it is
a lot of time. And some of those ideas went back a full
12 years.
Bermuda House of Assembly
34 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

We have heard today some of the ideas that a
PLP Government (heaven forbid) down the road
would implement, and they are the same ideas, when
I looked at it, that I heard from throne speeches 12
years ago.

And here we go. I mean how
long have we heard bandied about the blue economy?
How long have we heard that bandied about, Mr.
Speaker ? How long have we heard bandied about a
number of ideas that should have happened? How long ago did we hear something bandied about with
regard to domesti c violence and child abuse . . . going
back to 2003? So there are just a couple of exam-ples—yes, yes, yes. There are just a couple examples
of the ideas that the then Government had.
So for me there is no criticism in standing
there today, or any other t ime, and saying, Oh, you
are finishing a PLP idea, because the key word there
is “finishing.” In other words, Mr. Speaker , you are
making it right, you are getting it right; you are doing it right—that is what those words . . . that is what that
means. If you talk about us finishing something—
great! I give you all the comment, everything I could
commend to say, Well done, you had a great idea.
Well, the world is full of great ideas. I am sure
that people, Mr. Speaker , thought up ideas like the
iPhone and flat screens and hybrid cars and altern ative energy. I am sure that those ideas were thought
of by thousands of people. We often hear . . . you
know, things are actually done and somebody says,
That was my idea. Oh, I had that idea. Well, of course
you did. We are all humans. People come up with
ideas. And you know what, Mr. Speaker ? They are
nice to talk about. Some of those ideas are nice to talk
about. But do not stand there and throw stones when
somebody actually does them. That is the time to say,
Well done with my idea.
So, thank you, and we will press on. But more
importantly we, of course, have our own ideas. And those are the ones that are being implemented and that we are being people of energy, people of action
about.
Let us talk about some of these ideas, b ecause this is what I think that the problem is that the
Honourable and Loyal Opposition does not always
get, Mr. Speaker . Ideas are great until you have to put
a plan in place to implement them. And what this O ppositi on lacked—and they lacked it as Government as
well, is for all the ideas —having the ability to create a
plan and implement them and get them done. That is
why we are finishing things —[their] inability to have a
good action plan and implement it and get it done.
Also some of these ideas . . . one has to stop and say
that’s a great idea.
I will give you an idea I have. I think we should
start a lunar mining programme and launch rockets off from Bermuda to the moon and see what we can find up there. And I think that probably, from things that
have been said, there might be a whole bunch of neat
things there that we could bring back and that we can use to make a lot of money.
There is an idea, Mr. Premier. Can I sit down
because I think we should do that one, okay? Let us
build a rocket programme.
Well, sure, that is a great idea. It is also fantasy land. And while it is an extreme analogy, Mr.
Speaker , this is the point: These great ideas have to
be paid for. They have to be paid for by the Gover nment . So this is the . . . or let me say this. If they are
not paid for then you have to establish a relationship with private business, often international business, in
order to be able to do those things.
Now the previous Government showed a
complete inability to est ablish a working relationship
with international business. That is why so many of
them left under their watch. That is why they left under
their watch, because they could not establish those
businesses. And had they established them well, more would have c ome in and the ones that left would
not have left. They would be here singing their praises
about their good ideas. But it did not happen like that.
So, when we talk about the good ideas like
Blue Economy, one has to go . . . this is where you
start with a n idea like that. You go and look up, for
example, “deep sea mining.” Look up deep sea mi ning. Now I am sure that everybody does not think
there are a bunch of gold nuggets laying around just
off the reef line out there, gold and/or jewels, or pieces
of wh atever it is that we could just go scoop up, and
bring it in and sell it. Because heaven knows we
would have been doing that a long time ago.
Deep sea mining is a concept of extracting
minerals from the ocean floor —ocean mining. And it
does not happen in 1 0 feet of water. It is not going to
happen in Hamilton Harbour. First of all, you want to be sure that you have got something. So, if somebody jumped up and down now and said there was a scientific study that said Bermuda is sitting on top of one of
the bi ggest oil pots in the world next to Saudi Arabia, I
think that the Government may be all over running out
and finding an economic partner to come in and let us
get drilling some wells right off our shore here and
suck up that oil and make everybody in the country a
multi- millionaire. Do away with all of the problems.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker , we
do not know that. We have some neat conversations
and studies that say Bermuda may have some things
that are worth mining f rom the seabed. But the reason
that William Beebe did his great bathyspheric exper iment out here off of Nonsuch and the Castle Roads is
because it is some of the deepest ocean in the world,
Mr. Speaker , some of the deepest, most dangerous
oceans in the wor ld.
Bermuda House of Assembly


So, to do this seabed mining you have got to
get down there. But it is only the start when you get
down there. You have got to get studies and analyses
done that tell you that it is worth having a go. And I
can assure you that somebody has got to pay f or that.
So if you think you are just going to put up your hand
and say, Well, somebody come and do all of that for
us, we do not have a cheque to write. We cannot do
it. We are not going to go out in a fishing boat and
start throwing over some deep water lines and seeing
what we haul up. It does not work like that. You have got to get some multi -million dollar research pr ogramme in place to go out and say, Will you have a
look? And partner with the people of Bermuda in doing that because we do not —
[Inaudible interjection]

Two years ago? That is the
first that Blue Economy came up? We have been
hearing that forever and a day. Why didn’t they get
somebody to partner with and do it then?
And here is the bigger question: Would an ybody have been prepared to partner with them an yway? Because, contrary to certain philosophical
thoughts on that side, we recognise that being Go vernment is not the gravy train to contracts. We know
that, because that is not the way that we would conduct ourselves, which is probably why we are here.
So when you want to go out and hook up with
international business, international exploration, Mr.
Speaker , to see if they will partner with you in going
and doing seabed mining, they are not going to do it
with people that are making comments like, Gover nment is the gravy train to contracts . They would be
looking at you saying, What are they going to be up
to? That is the problem. It is how you market yourself.
And if you make statements like that as an Opposition Party, or as a Government , it is not going to happen.
You are not going to have that type of international
interest in what you are going to do.
So anyway, let us press on. Let us say we get
to that stage where there is something there. Well
who pays to go and get it? Who pays to go and get it?
Now I am not saying that these things cannot be
done, that those relationships cannot be formed. But
our needs (as the Opposition have pointed out) are
more immediate. And I am not saying we should not think about these things, look at them. I am not saying
we are not. But our needs are more immediate. We are not going to go out next June and be hauling up a bunch of oil or gold from seabed mining and saying,
There you go. Now we are going to fix the economy.
So those are valid things to be looked [at] in
tandem. But the process and the analysis and the
study that has to be done, Mr. Speaker , to have a look
at something like that is extensive. It is extensive. So
I do not know if we are going to hear that in the Reply
to the Throne Speech next year or the y ear after that,
but let me just say this: The idea is noted. And I would
encourage the Opposition, if they are really serious
about, it to come up with something of a plan to show exactly how they would begin to go about implementing that idea.
Now any ti me anybody comes in with an idea
to a businessman, it might be a Premier, it might be the Honourable Dr. Gibbons, the Honourable Glen
Smith, any number of business people on this side might have a young keen individual come to them and
say, I’ve got this great idea. They might come to the
Honourable Mr. Smith and say, I’ve got this great idea
for a car that runs on seaweed. You just put the se aweed in this car, you stuff it with seaweed (we have
got a lot of seaweed) and the car will run. And I see
him smiling, but you know, he would look at a young
person like that and probably say, Go away and come
back and show me your business plan, show me your research study, show me how you plan to do this because if we could do it . . . Mr. Smith is probably going
to say, I’m in!
But he wants to see, Mr. Speaker , how it is
going to work, how that young man is going to impl ement his great idea. What is his plan? What is his
study? What is his research? And if he just says, Well,
I don’t k now, I just thought seaweed would be a good
idea, his meeting is probably over and he is not going
to be seen again.
So that is a fair analogy. Next time you want
to come back and talk about seabed mining, let us go
out and see the rather voluminous plan t hat the O pposition party has, or its business people over there have (there are a few of them), that will actually make
that happen —not just talking about it. And there are a
few of those too, that were rife with great ideas.
Fishing, believe it or not is another one. I think
there is a ton of fish out there. I think there is. As I understand it, the Japanese trawlers probably come in
and nick fish from us all the time, right out there beyond the horizon, trawling for fish, and we are not. But
okay, how are we going to do that? Who are we going
to partner with? The Government does not have the
money to go out and buy a big swanky trawler for mi llions and millions of dollars. It would be great, but that
is not going to solve the problem. It is just not there to
be done.
When you are operating under a deficit and
you are dealing with $475,000 or $480,000 a day in
addressing those problems, you cannot be putting it
into that. So, you might go out and partner with private
industry and say, Will you come and do it ? Where is
Bermuda House of Assembly
36 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

the PLP’s plan for that? How do they plan to go about
this fishing? They have not said. They have not said
Government should invest in a fishing trawler and go
fishing. They have not said Government should seek
partnerships with international fi sherman—go call one
of those guys on Deadliest Catch or something —and
see if they are interested in coming to Bermuda, par tnering with us in going and catching all the fish we have got out there.
See? The Devil is in the details. And they a lways were a Gov ernment that were not really good on
details —that is why we have part of the problems that
we have. And then now in Opposition they clearly are
not good on details. [These are] ideas. It is always the voice of, You should do this; we would do this; we
would do this. And then when one asks . . . just
scratch the surface—and say Okay, how?
Question one: How are you going to pay for
it? Quiet. A lot of interpolation earlier, but like now it is
quiet, all right.
Who are you going to partner with? Give us a
list of some people that have gone and done projects
like that in other jurisdictions that have fishing indus-tries and have gone and supported and partnered with
them. Tell us about them. How are you going to do
that? No. Nothing there.
And then I have to . . . you know, it is just astounding sometimes. The Opposition heard the
Throne Speech last week and within 30 seconds had
a response that must have been written the day before saying it lacks bold vision; it lacks bold ideas.
Really? Really? Because we are going to talk facts in
a little while, and if you want to talk about lacking bold
vision, this is the point: There is no point in just having
vision. That is just like making up stories, unless you
have the ability and the team to implement them and
put them into place, Mr. Speaker .
So one of these lines that . . . I mean, this has
got to be a gem —even for the supporters of the O pposition that I know are still out there— where at page
6 they say, “We also encourage less red tape to allow a greater foreign i nvestment in the Bermudian marketplace . . .” And the only paragraph I have to say on
that is, Wow!
Wow! That is a PLP idea, an Opposition idea.
They want to encourage less red tape. And every five minutes they are turning around and talking about,
We’re giving this away; we’re doing more with foreign
people than we are with our own; we’re doing this and
we’re doing that. And seemingly either . . . it is either
one of two things, Mr. Speaker . Either they do not get
it—which is scary —or they do get it and they are being disingenuous about it. And both are unacceptable.
Both are unacceptable, Mr. Speaker .
Another great idea . . . and I knew this one; I
wrote this with the clairvoyance, you know, that one
tends to try to have at times with regard to what was
going to be said. I knew that cannabis marketing was going to come. I knew we were going to hear som e-thing from the shadow minister of cannabis, about
how we need to get into the market of recreational —
recreational —cannabis.
Now here you have a Government . . . and
now that is an idea they were bandying about before
for sure. That did not just come up, about recreational
cannabis. That has been around for a long time. What
did they do about it? What did they change about recreational cannabis over all those years? Nothing (is
the answer).
When we first came into office, and I know as
Attorney General at the time, I was the one that said
we need to have a debate on this; we need to have a
discussion on this. And we did it. They did not have a
debate. They did not do that. We did that. We right
away started that big conversation. And what has this Government —the former AG (that was me) the current AG, this Cabinet, our Premier —done? R esearched it, looked at it, had the conversations, and
now come up with the ability and the strategy to make
use of medical marijuana —and I mean real medical
marijuana, because that is what is being called for —
acknowledging the fact that science says, yes, there is potentially great value in the use of cannabitoids (did I
say that r ight, Premier?), that there is great value potentially in that.
But one thing I can tell you about that stuff
that has been researched. You can smoke it all day
long and it would not make you high, if that is what
people are thinking. Or mix it in your tea. It is not g oing to make you happy.

[Inaudible interjection]

Right. Exactly. I mean it might
take away asthma, I do not know. I am not going to try it on my kids. It might, but . . .
But Mr. Speaker , the point is this —the idea
was researched. The topic was looked into. The benefits were examined by this Government . It was di scussed at the highest levels with the most knowledg eable people here and overseas —and by that I mean
scientists and medical practitioners —that were able to
make a contribution to the direction that we are heading in. So when the Honourable Opposition jumps
from that in their Throne Speech [Reply] to say, Well
let’s get into recreational marijuana and bring in . . . you know, the tourists, and the dollars will flow I just
shake my head. We had that debate before. It does
not work like that. I know. I sat with Eric Holder the
former Attorney General of the United States and talked about those issues.
And let me say this: just because people in
their states are putting up their hands saying, We are
going to allow for recreational use of marijuana, that,
at a federal level, does not necessarily help us out with what we would need to do. Because one of tw o
things: We have either got to import it, or we have got
to grow it ourselves. And I, sometime ago, advocated
Bermuda House of Assembly


a position (and still do) that maybe a consideration
would be to allow for 25 square feet of cultivation, Mr.
Speaker , for personal use. My view.
Now, but with respect, and with all that it embodies aside, at least that is an idea. At least it is an
amendment to a law to do something. At least it is a
concept of action by that suggestion. It is not just sa ying let’s legalise marijuana for recreati onal use and we
will make lots of money off of tourists. Where is the Opposition’s plan for that? Where is their addressing
of the legislation? At least in one of those paragraphs,
Mr. Speaker , say, We would amend this section of the
Act to allow for that .
Take my idea if you like and say we will allow
for 25 square feet of cultivation. Cannot sell it. It has
to be licensed, raise money. Nothing. Nothing like
that. Just the big idea, that is a great sound bite,
about, We’d do this and we’d do that; and thi s was our
idea that you’re doing , but no plan, no blueprint, no
real in -depth analysis as to how it would be done, no
comparative analysis to where it has been done an ywhere else, just ideas.
So while I say it again, I support many of the
ideas that are in the Opposition’s Reply. I do, whol eheartedly. I think many of us do. I think we are all ad
idem on most of those things —like, yeah, this is a
great idea. But you have got to go further and show
that. And if you ever want to be the Government
again, Opposition, you are certainly going to have to show the people of this country that you can be pe ople of action.
And let me say this, “people of action” does
not mean that you are going to be allowed again to
come in and say. We’re going to have a bunch of
capital projects and dump a bunch of money into them
and create jobs that way. Nobody is going to buy that
anymore. There is no more building to be done for capital projects. Those days are over right now for
those types of big multi -million dollar capital projects
that Government pays for. So that is no longer a fair
idea to try and run. You’ve got to do something else
with a better blueprint than that, because that is not
going to do it.
The Opposition mentioned in its Reply, Mr.
Speaker , that it would agg ressively go after convention business. Okay. That is another great idea. But we are actually doing that. We are actually getting . . .
I was down most of the time at the ILS [Convergence]
conference. I did not see anybody from the Opposition down there. I am sure that probably some of them
went at some point. I was not looking for them all day, but I did not see anybody. And I do not know if they really got a good look at what that event was and said
to themselves, Mmm . . . we never had an event like
that. Why didn’t we do that? Here’s a good idea. Because I can tell you yesterday at that event the bus iness flowed. I know; I was part of it.
I know I had international colleagues and
partners of mine that were there looking at that, di s-cussing it, discussin g how we could advance Bermuda—real things going on with an open minded
Government to get it done —and feeling welcome doing it. No red tape.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Point of Order, Mr. Speaker .

I am obliged to my friend for
the water break.
The fact of the matter is this, Mr. Speaker , . . .
and let us just be honest today because it is the facts
that talk. Ask yourself this question, Bermudians, O pposition: Have you seen an increase in people, bus iness taking an increased interest in Bermuda since
this Government came into power . . . to do more?
Have you seen that happen?
And then ask yourselves, well, why is that?
Why is that? This is a rhetorical question, but why is
that?
The issue of public s afety arose. I had to
smile on that because I found it a little bit distasteful in a Reply to a Throne Speech to highlight recent events, one incident, and try and dump it on the Pr emier, when all we ever heard for years from the other
side about our burgeoning crime problem was, It’s the
Governor. It’s the Governor. It’s the Governor. Well,
this Government is not going to shirk away from its
responsibility and its involvement with regard to addressing, Mr. Speaker , the crime issue. But I had to
smile wryly when all we ever heard from the Oppos ition was, We can’t do anything about it, it’s the Governor. It’s the Governor, as crime got out of control on
their watch.

The Honourable Member is clearly
misleading the House and attempting to rewrite hi story.
The Progressive Labour Party never said
there was an issue . . . nothing that the Government
can do about crime. The issue was with the control of
the Bermuda Police Service, and that Honourable
Member knows that very clearly.
The Speake r: Thank you, thank you.

I do know that, Mr. Speaker ,
because I was here when it was repeated on a regular
basis and the Honourable Member, Mr. Burt, was not
here. I heard that said regularly up in this House, as
did my colleagues, about every time there was an i ssue raised with regard to crime the then Gover nment —the now Opposition —tried to pass it off on to
that was the Government’s remit —

Once again, Mr. Speaker , the
Honourable Member is misleading the House.
The Progressive Labour Party did not say
they could not do anything about crime. That is w hy
there were multiple measures that were passed to
increase police powers under their watch. It was about
the Bermuda Police Service when discussing issues
with the Governor. The Speaker: Thank you, thank you.

—you will get your speech.
Get on your computer and look some things up.
So Mr. Speaker , when I look at page 14 of the
Reply with regard to “The strategy aims to:” I had to
smile again because this is the OBA’s strategy. This
strategy on page 14 with regard to “Reduce gang crime and reoffending; Address overlaps and gaps in
existing approaches used by all agencies, and identify
solutions; Align the work of partners . . .” that is right
out of our doc ument —right out of it —with regard to
the strategic plan that is being put in place. That is not
their idea. That is our document, our plan that is being
implemented, and probably, Mr. Speaker , a large part
of the reason why crime is at its lowest point since the
year 2000.
And here is the point: Everybody knows it.
Everybody knows it. And that is why there is such a hue and cry when we have an event like last week. It
is more shocking than ever now. And let me tell you
this, Mr. Speaker , I would rather hav e it be more
shocking, I would rather have it be more of a heightened event because it was not a regular occurrence
than what was happening under this Government
when it seemed to be happening all the time, and it
was almost like we were getting used to it as a standard course.

That is what was going on. It
was going on all the time.
So now it is more shocking, it is more shoc king. Do you know why? Because now it is less prev alent. And that is just talking facts. It is less prevalent
because it is its lowest since 2000 . . . lowest in 14
years.
And the fact of the matter is that in the last
two years this Government through its plan, through
its involvement, and the Honourable Premier and his
ministry . . . yes! That is a fact. We did not inherit that.
Do you think we inherited the fix, Mr. Speaker , from
the Opposition? That is not what happened. We came
in saying that we would address crime, that we would
lower crime, and it happened, in 23 months. And I have got to say that I am pleasantly surprised we got
it done that fast. I was worried that we would not . . . I
was worried that we would not.
That is what happened. We addressed it. We
addressed it.

[Inaudible interjection]

Bermuda House of Assembly

Do you hear that interpolation?
It started before we came into power .
But here is the point: It started; well guess
who is getting it done. And how long did it take them
to get it started? It started as a . . . like so many thing s, Mr. Speaker , in this country the facts of the
matter are that the economy immediately started a
nose- dive within a very short period after 1998— that
is when the problems occurred and things started sli ding downhill, because of overspending. And as their
now member, Maxwell Burgess, used to say in the
Senate, Running around and spending like drunken
sailors . That is what their Member used to say regularly as a reflection of what was going on. And so now
we see trends changing, moving, Mr. Speaker , in a
different direction.
So when we talk about these things we should
talk about the facts. And some of these things, you
know, when you talk about consideration, I was
stunned to see at page 17 of their Reply this Oppos ition talking about a Code for Crown Prosecutors.
Really? There is already a test for prosecutions. Do
you have a prima facie case? Is there a reasonable
chance of success? And is it in the public interest? [That is, a] simple, age- old approach t o prosecution,
not for any Government to interfere with. The Const itution of this country makes it patently clear who is
responsible for the implementation of prosecutions; that constitutional independence is sacrosanct, and
the Honourable Opposition do not seem to get that.
Somebody did not look at the Constitution
when they came up with that plan. So the one thing in
here, Mr. Speaker , where I actually see here is an
idea . . . here is an idea, and this is what we will cr eate, has not been well thought t hrough, because they
would drive a truck through the Constitution to try and
do it. It just would not happen. What would happen is
you would have the judges, FCO, and everybody
stepping in and saying No, no, no, hold on a second,
you cannot do that, you cannot start dictating to direct
the public prosecution about what to do, that is a constitutional provision that is sacrosanct. And, by the
way, it umbrellas all the other laws.
I am pretty confident that the former Attorney
General, Ms. Wilson, did not ha ve a hand in writing
that. I am pretty confident she did not have a hand in
writing that, because anybody would have spotted that
one. So whoever did [go] about trying to create some political mischief, saying, We are going to create a
Code for Crown Prosecutors . . . fundamentally dangerous . . . a Government going to interfere in an a bsolutely imperative constitutional provision for the i ndependence of prosecutions, the independence of the judiciary.
And all of the protections that they talk about
there, which someone did not look at it, are all contained in section 6 of this wonderful document called
the Bermuda Constitution Order. And I would encour-age them to look at it when it comes to the “Provisions
to secure the protection of law.”
So here we have a Throne Speech reflecting
on a Code for the Crown Prosecutors, and we already
have it in the constitution, clearly set out, age- old pr ovisions. So I do not see the point of having that in
there or where that was going to go or how that was
going to assis t one iota. But if it was a plan, it was an
ill-thought -out one that can never, ever, ever be i mplemented. It cannot happen.
So what lacks, as I said before, Mr. Speaker ,
with those—some great ideas —is any sensible meaning, even a summary of a plan. The t wo things that got
highlighted are: they very nicely wrote out our plan
with regard to crime. I do not know why they did that,
but they did. And I am not saying that they took credit
for it they just said this is the plan. But, yes, it is our
plan. And the other one is relation to prosecutions
they came up with something that can never ever be
done. So that was the extent of the planning.
But let us talk facts. Let us talk facts, because
when we talk about 23 months —bearing in mind that
they had 14 years t o do these things —I think you just
have to examine the facts of what has occurred during
this Government ’s tenure with regard to righting the
ship, with regard to getting us going in the right direction. I already commented on crime being it’s lowest since 2000. The Gross Domestic Product, economic
activity on the island, increased by almost 1 per cent in 2013—the first growth in five years —turning the
corner after only 23 months in power.
New insurance company registrations in 2013
showed a remarkable 72 per cent increase over 2012
reflecting strong increases in both traditional and a lternative risk transfer sectors. A 72 per cent increase.
This is a rhetorical question: Would that have happened under a Progressive Labour Party Gover nment ?

And we could talk about that
all day, Mr. Speaker , because what happened is they
implemented the UBP plan, and then changed it to
their own, and then things went down after that. That
is just a fact as well. So let us talk facts, and now we had to step in and begin the mend, which is what we
have been doing.
So let’s talk facts. Let’s talk facts.
Also in the first half of 2012 the value of new
construction start -ups was more than 25 per cent. And
let us be clear about that. It did not involve Gover nment capital projects, where you are running around
boasting about how everybody is getting employed
because Government is spending money on building
buildings . . . and Government is going to dig another
hole and do this and do that and all of the problems that circled around that that we know about. With follow on increases in construction work, income of 9.4
per cent. The number of building permit applications in
2014 to date is 30 per cent more than 2013.
So those are the facts about what is actually
being done. These are the things that are occurring. And when you want to talk about initiatives, who act ually, after RFPs and extensive stuff, has a developer
for the east end? We do. We do. How many years before and after implosion of the Club Med site did we
hear about Oh, we’re gonna get there. We’re gonna
do this, we’re gonna do that? Nobody was coming.
Nobody was coming; nobody came. We had people lining up to do it, Mr. Speaker . People lining up to do
it. Ariel Sands broke ground this week, prepared to
now, under this Government , implement a project to
actually do something.
The America’s Cup—

[Inaudible interjection]

The America’s Cup . . . and I
do not want to get ahead of myself, or wish it done.
We have already taken a very pos itive step in the direction with regard to the America’s Cup because we
have those initial races, which is going to be signif icant. But if we get to the Promised Land (and I am
very optimistic that we will), that is something that
happened because of this Government working handin-hand with key initiatives and key people in business
that saw the benefit and the ability to do that in Ber-muda, and have it organised under a Government that
could deliver.
It has involved planning. It has involved strategy. It has involved meetings with the right people.
And that is part of it, Mr. Speaker. You have got to have the right team in place. And I have seen me mbers of our team dealing with international leaders and
international business leaders. And the country just
has to be honest about that —whatever party you support. Who do you want sitting down at those meetings around the world, or here, on your behalf? A Michael
Dunkley? An Honourable Grant Gibbons? A Tourism
Minister like Shawn Crockwell? A businessman like
Glen Smith? Those are the people that you want to
have sitting around the table, by the way, that actually produce the goods and get things done. Not some fiction that the Opposition made up and can bang on
about for a year and all the rest of it, about thi ngs that
are actually being done, Mr. Speaker .
And this is the key, let’s talk facts. These are
just the facts I am laying out. I am not here saying we
have got an idea to do this, and we have got a fantasy about this, and we have got a pipe dream about t his,
and we are going to make this up. These are just the
facts. And the facts speak for themselves, in my view.
And the plan speaks for itself. It absolutely speaks for
itself.
So the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker , that
with the right qualifications and the right plan this
Government has demonstrated that it can get the job
done. And I hope . . . and I want the Opposition to
keep coming up with ideas. Come up with the best ideas possible. Let us know about them, we will get
them done. We will get them done. Give us your
ideas. And we will even give you credit.
I am happy to say on any day —on any day —if
we take an idea from the Honourable Member Burt with regard to fixing the economy that he propagates and we then take that, I will be the first to jum p up and
down and say, Boy! What a great idea that we impl emented that the Honourable Member Burt had. If anyBermuda House of Assembly


thing like that . . . that is what we are going to do. I
mean, if we do, we are going to do it. By the way, that
is what good governance is about. The essence of
wisdom is to recognise your own ignorance, to be able
to say, I got that wrong; to be able to apologise when
you get it wrong; to be able to look at your own conduct with some self analysis and say, Could have
done that better; could have said that better; shouldn’t
have said that, forgive me. I got it wrong. That is what
leadership is about.
I heard from a very wise man once. He said,
Mark, I learned a lot more from what I got wrong than
from what I did right. And I think that the Honourable
Opposition can probably take a page out of that book.
Have a look and say, You know what? We didn’t get
all that right. That is why we are sitting over here now
and we would like to, at least in part, work hand in
hand with you. Not try to undermine you because we
think that it is the gravy train to contracts so we can be
the Government again. Like we actually want to be
part of the solutions. And when it comes time to it . . .
and this is what Government should be about, Mr.
Speaker .
You know what? We all live, and we are all
part of the same system. And, if we are honest, we all
want the same thing, I would hope, which is the best for our people. So we really should be working hand-in-hand to accomplish that goal. I fully agree with that.
And when it c omes time for elections (and
elections not too far away and whatever) what it
should be about is who can do the best job. Who is
the best qualified? Who has the best plan? It should
not be about sitting around and saying, How can we
undermine this particul ar thing and make somebody
look bad, or, even worse, What can we make up? Or,
What can we keep talking about? What can we make
up—do not worry about the facts. That is where we
have to look at ourselves and say, How do we co nduct ourselves with regard to the way that we go
about our business?
So Mr. Speaker , the position is this, for the
people of this country —and be honest —who do you
have confidence in as a team to get the job done? And nobody said it was going to happen in 23 months.
What I am saying is it is starting to happen. Nobody
said it could be done in 23 months, or 2 years, or
maybe even a term. But it is starting to happen, and
the facts speak to that.
So when I say, in closing, “There is a tide in
the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads us
on to fortune,” this is a Government that is not just
talking about, Wouldn’t it be nice if a tide came along,
wouldn’t it be nice if there is a ship. This is a Gover nment that is saying, There it is. Let’s have a plan. Let’s
get on the ship. We’v e got the right team, we’ve got
the right leader, we can get the job done and we are
doing it. And that is the truth.
And the facts speak to that. And you can pontificate all day long and then criticise about, You ha-ven’t done this and you promised this an d you broke
this promise, you didn’t do that . Let’s go to the facts
and see who is getting it done. It is this Government. We are taking the tide. We are a Government of ac-tion. I am proud of that and long may it continue.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker .
Mr. Speaker , thank you for the opportunity to
contribute to this particular debate on the Throne
Speech which was delivered last week, and the Reply
that was delivered today.
I took note of the eloquence of the first
speaker from the Government . He had a lot to say,
Mr. Speaker . But what I found very interesting is that
of the 45, 50 minutes that the Honourable Member
took to speak, the Honourable Member actually spoke very little about his own Government ’s plan or agenda
for the calendar year.
The Honourable Member spent a whole lot of
energy and time in actually talking about what was
wrong with our Reply, or what he thought about our
Reply. I find that very interesting. I am quite i mpressed with the energy and exuberance of the Ho nourable Member because you know he did have a
hard summer, we understand that. But he seems to
have come back with great energy and exuberance.
Perhaps that will be the tenor of his presentation going forth, because he did have a hard time of it, and
we understand that, prior to the House going down in
July.

That could be interpreted as
where the time goes. So I do appreciate your clarific ation, Mr. Speaker .
Well Mr. Speaker , last week we did hear the
Speech from the Throne given by His Excellency —29
pages of words about what the Government ’s agenda
is to be for the upcoming year. And I took note of a
few things in it, Mr. Speaker , if you will oblige me.
I took note of their reference to history —the
innovation, energy and optimism mentioned about the United States. I noted also the reference to John F.
Kennedy. That was referenced on page 4, Mr.
Speaker . And one usually makes reference to those
types of comments when they are looking for correl ation and association with boldness, with imagination,
with vision, with charting a course for the future so clear that people run to be a part of it and are proud to
be associated with it. You know, when you mention
Kennedy or you mention about the United States and
its transcending the depression, that is usually what
you are trying to latch on to.
But I must say that I did not see much of that
in this particular speech. I did not see much vision. I did not see much imagin ation. I did not see much
boldness. And it was very interesting hearing the Honourable Member who just sat down because he spent a lot of time talking about what was wrong with
our particular presentation today. He seemed at some
point to have [made] a cal l for us to work together for
the goodness of Bermuda. But it is very difficult to do
that when basically you stand up in this House and
then you make somewhat sarcastic and undermining comments about fishing and about other interesting
proposals that we h ave made, and kind of basically
say that the PLP’s ideas are not that far -reaching,
they are not that interesting, and they did not really
get anything done and will not be able to get it done.
They should come with a plan for things like seabed
mining. So it is our responsibility, Mr. Speaker , to come forth with plans for everything that we mention
in the Throne Speech— blueprints.
Well, let me just mention, because the Honourable Member basically just bashed the possibility
of any offshore fishing as one of the diversification ideas, and he also bashed the possibility of exploring
seabed mining (he called it deep- sea mining, but I
think the proper term is seabed mining). Well I will just make a reference to a few things, Mr. Speaker , that
might bring clari ty, because the Honourable Member
said, Well, where’s the studies? Where’s the invest igation? How is this applicable to Bermuda? basically
saying they are pie- in-the-sky types of proposals.
Well let me just make reference to a few
things, but I am not goi ng to go into detail, because
Honourable Members on this side do their research
and will perhaps expand upon these particular issues
later, Mr. Speaker . I will just mention the UN Intern ational Seabed Authority report entitled “Marine Mineral
Resources Sci entific Advances and Economic Perspectives.” I will also make reference to a Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute report on 2003 research
cruise into the Muir Seamount. I will also make reference to the 1975 Deepsea Drill Project paper entitled
“Site 386: Fr acture Valley Sedimentation on the Central Bermuda Rise.”
I am not going to go into detail about those
things, but this perhaps answers a part of the Honourable Member’s questions. And he gave quite a good
performance, perhaps reminiscent of some of his pe rformances at BMDS [ Bermuda Musical & Dramatic
Society ]. But that is not going to get past in this House
all the time —the theatrics and the disparaging comments —whether you want to refer to us as “Kool -Aid
drinkers” or something else in this House, or wit h the
people of Bermuda. People know what the possibil ities are and they propose them with genuine interest in the future of Bermuda.
Dr. David Saul is just one of the people who
have become champions for activities in the sea as to ways to deal with Berm uda’s economy. And he is no
friend of anybody on this side, at least not politically.
So the calls to have these things looked at are
not just our ideas. And we have never taken that sort
of ownership licence of them. But perhaps the Honourable Member needs to do his own research be-cause he has previously in this House disparaged
things like fishing, but as other people have said, fis hing has put some people in this House through college
and through schooling. But I have heard the Honour-able Member’s comm ents before in that tone and he
needs to—

Mr. Speaker , I know what I
have heard, and I am just making reference to it. But I am moving on.
Again, it is very interesting that the Honourable Member spent 40 minutes of the 50 or so mi nutes that he spent really just disparaging our own
presentation. It is very interesting, because one would
have thought, with the exuberance that he has shown
today, that he wo uld have been spending most of that
time talking about his own ideas within his Gover nment ’s own speech. We heard very little about it.
There are a number of legislative initiatives
that are in this speech. There are things that I would
refer to as resurrection proposals, because they are
basically continuation of work that the previous administration —the PLP administration— was already
doing. In some cases this Government shelved them
when they came into power. But then perhaps in the wisdom of having prett y much an 18 to 20 month slog
of not getting it right all the time and basically pissing
most of Bermuda off —

[Inaudible interjection]

—or those two words, begi nning with the “p” and the “s” —but essentially making a
whole lot of people in Berm uda not too happy from the
very beginning. They went after our children, they
went after our seniors, and they have gone after, right now, the jobs of thousands of people. And they seem
to have in the process, Mr. Speaker , not gotten it.
So one would have thought that their prese ntation, Mr. Speaker , would have been a little bit more
full of things that the Bermudian public might be happy
about. But it seemed to be weighted mostly, Mr. Speaker , on what we are going to do —in the usual
OBA/UBP mode —what they are going to do for bus iness, and maybe the rest of you might pick up on the crumbs.
But there are some things that I would call
resurrection proposals, such as something referred to as the Bermuda Health Plan. Huh, interesting. The
Bermuda Health Plan—th at is one of the resurrection
proposals. A speech that was absent of vision, a
speech absent of anything, really, that was interesting.
They had a few interesting things, but what is more interesting, Mr. Speaker , is the fact that they [are
things that are ] probably not even going to happen—
things like reverse mortgages. That is one thing that
one would have thought, since, you know, they are so
much the great financiers, and people who have the
economy moulding in their fingers, and they associate
themselv es with people who know how to get the job
done with the economy.
One would have thought that they would have
come already with the plan for how they were going to run a reverse [mortgage] programme, since that is supposed to help our seniors —after they h ave already
taken away some of their benefits, right? They are
now going to bring a programme that would really just
increase the amount of private debt that we have accumulated and really not provide any real long-standing relief for our seniors. And that is about the
only provision that has been in here that even relates
to seniors, despite that the seniors and our families
and our children and our students and our workers
have been getting the brunt of what has not been right
about the last three to four years with the economy.
This has very little to talk about them.
They talk about a lot things to do with bus iness, but, like I said, they have what I call resurrection provisions, like the Bermuda Health Plan. Mmm, that
sounds very interesting. And I am sure my Honour-able Member, Mr. Zane De Silva, and the Honourable
Member, Kim Wilson, will have a lot to say about this,
because it is almost like what they did, Mr. Speaker .
They inherited the sheep. They killed the sheep; they
ate the sheep, and now they have created a wooden
sheep and put the sheep’s clothing back over [it] and
are trying to tell us that that is the same sheep that
they inherited.
They killed the National Health Plan, Mr.
Speaker , and now they are trying to resurrect it with a
new brand and cherry pick what they are going to deal with. That is what this is.
So where are the new ideas, Mr. Speaker ?
I read what is here, and I do have some understanding of what the health plan was because it
Bermuda House of Assembly
44 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

had its embryonic stages while I was Minister. The
Honourable former Minister of Health, Mr. Zane De
Silva, took the ball and ran with it and virtually got it all
done —credit to him in his period as Health Minister —
and he was trying to get it done for this country and it
got shelved, torpedoed, sabotaged, destroyed by the
OBA.
And what happened? Nothing. All they did
was increase the health cost for the very people that we were trying to help. That is what we have seen
over the past two years. The seniors are paying more for basic health care packages, F utureCare. Insurance premiums have gone up multiple percent. Where
is the reduction or the relief in healthcare for those
who need it in this country in the past two years? It
has not been seen. But the insurance companies are
doing quite well.
The other r esurrection provision I saw in this,
Mr. Speaker . . . well there are a couple. I will touch on
them. One was the energy policy, this new energy policy. Another one of those interesting programmes
that . . . we had a National Energy Policy that had
worked over a number of years prior to December
2012 that was approved by this House. It was brought
to this House, it was debated. It was in place and it
charted our Energy Plan to try and get the country to
begin to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, its carbon outputs, and beginning to change the behaviour of
how we as a community use energy. It set out a plan
for that. It was approved by this Legislature.
The pieces were there to be put in place. It
got shelved, again. Another one shelved, gone. No mention of it, not until now. And now the Government
is trying to creep back in under the darkness of night.
They do so many things under the darkness of night.
They fly away on jets, Mr. Speaker . They sign deals to
sign away major assets of the country. They do a lot
in the darkness of night. Their problem is that they are scared to do anything in the front of the rest of us in the [light of] day. Lack of transparency —

They are the Government of
darkness, that is what they are. They love the dar kness. They cannot seem to do anything in the light . . .
anything that is worth doing for this country in the
light. Sign away our airport —everything in the dar kness of night —come out of nowhere. We signed away
your most valuable assets of the country. But I do not want to digress. T hat is another issue and I am sure
one of my other very talented Members, Mr. Speaker ,
is going to touch on that. But here, like David Copperfield’s magic tricks, reappears the energy policy. Like a magic trick out of nowhere; resurrected from death. So it was very interesting that the Honourable
Member who just sat down did not talk about these
things. Since this is such a bold visionary and innov ative speech, one would have thought the Honourable
Member would have spoken about it.
Mr. Speaker , one of the other interesting resurrection provisions that I saw in this was with the
Caution Policy, another effort to try and bring some
relief around the issue of crime and drug use and how
many citizens of this country are confronted with the criminal justice system. [This was] put in place prior to December 2012, but seemingly disappeared thereafter, now being resurrected by the OBA, as [if] to say . .
. and I will read it if you will allow, Mr. Speaker , in this
Speech. “The Caution Policy will be amended to permit greater discretion on the part of the police officers
when dealing with first time offenders.” That was in place prior to them becoming
Government . I just do not understand why they got rid
of it and created these problems. Now they are just
slowly creeping back, bringing back ideas that they
shelved, that they threw cold water on because they were not theirs, so they figured they would just shut
them down. And now they are creeping them back
over successive Throne Speeches, over successive
budgets. It is just extraordinary, Mr. Speaker , when I
look at these things.
The whole idea of the issue that, on page 20,
“Bermuda has a long a nd distinguished history of
vegetable and flower production. As our population
has grown, less land has been available for food pr oduction . . .” And it seems they are going to create a
sort of national food policy or agricultural policy, I
guess, is what they are looking at.

Page 20 at the bottom.
Anyway that was in trail under the PLP. Why it
was stopped, I do not know. But, again, they are
creeping back these things that they had promptly
shut the door on because they were not the authors of
them. And they found a way back into their Throne
Speech.
Another resurrection provision: the Orange
Valley [Centre] and the Opportunity Workshop (also on page 20). Having made great strides, and the
paragraph reads, Mr. Speaker , “Orange Valley [Centre] and the Opportunity Workshop have made great
strides in improving the services provided for a segment of Bermuda’s cognitively and physically disabled population.” There is an effort to consolidate and “ . . .
the consolidated programme, located at Roberts Av enue, will be able to provide a wider range of services
[to a] greater [number of] clients.”
So that is the consolidation of Opportunity
Workshop and the Orange Valley. That was in trail under the PLP. The Honourable former Minister of
Health Zane De Silva was working on this with the
Bermuda House of Assembly


Ministry of Education to make better use of the land
over at Orange Valley on Roberts Avenue. I know,
because I sat with him in Cabinet and I saw the effort
that he made to do this. Again, resurrected stuff that
they put the brakes on, right? They are just rebranding
it and renaming it, right?
Again, they like killed the sheep, ate the
sheep and now they have a wooden frame and are throwing the sheep’s wool over it and tell ing us it is
the same sheep that they inherited. No, Mr. Speaker !
We are not going to sit here and just let them try and . . . and this is the sheep that they have tried to paint as
being full of innovation, boldness, imagination and
ideas.
So many of the things in here are basically r etreads and resurrections of policies that were generally good policies that they shelved, and now they are trying to bring them back as their ideas, and they took
29 pages to do it. They could have done it in less
time, in m y view. But, hey, I do not write for the Government and I am sure they have great writers who
write for them.
Mr. Speaker , we certainly await to see what
they are going to do about the issue of conscription with the Regiment —another thing that has popped up
once again on page 16. And I am now pivoting to N ational Security and Public Safety. We have heard r epeatedly —prior to them becoming Government and
now—what they are going to do about conscription.
We know, again, this past year was not a good one for the OBA, because it seemed like their friends in the
community, who they rallied against the previous
[PLP] administration and how terrible we were in ha ndling conscription, they made them mad too. But that
is because they have spent the last three Throne
Speeches telling people that they were going to do the
same thing. They were going to end conscription.
Now, the Honourable Minister of National S ecurity over the past year has said, Well, we are going
to take this approach. But I can understand if people
who have this issue at heart, frankly, are feeling a little frustrated because they have seen, in particular, the
Premier be front and centre with his support initially for the elimination of conscription, and then take a
totally different posture when he became the Minister,
and certainly as the Premier. And here we have again, going from page 16 to 17 about the elimination of
conscription and the p lan to do all these things.
Well, forgive me, Mr. Speaker , if some of
those out there in the community are not interested
and, frankly, are tired of hearing it. But we will see
what the Government can come up with this year, b ecause we did see the Premier have to sort of do some
gymnastics around his own comments in the media
about this when he said, Well, there are a number of
issues in your past Throne Speech that you did not
complete. How are you going to handle them? Well, I
guess we have heard here what they are going to do. Mr. Speaker , I do find it very interesting how
we have gone through this session today, in partic ular, having had within a wake of 48 to 72 hours some very traumatic experiences that this country with gun violence. Now, it is very i nteresting . . . again, I am just
going to slightly digress to the previous speaker. Muddled somewhere in his message was this effort to
work together. But when it came to the issue of public
safety and crime the Honourable Member quite disi ngenuously tried to suggest that for the last two years it is the OBA Government ’s initiative that has brought
down crime.
Mr. Speaker , I was shocked to hear the Honourable Member say what he said, because even if you look at the facts —and the Honourable Member
seemed to make great reference to the facts around
these things —what actual pieces of legislation has
this Government brought in the past 18 months as we
have been sitting in this House that has actually been
directed at reducing crime?

That is the part of the factual
book that one can look at. Now let us even look at the
factual book a little bit more carefully here from a fi scal standpoint.
This Government came into power in December 2012. That means that the budget that the police
were using and had been vested with up until April of
2013, was the PLP budget. That means that, really,
the only real fiscal contribution or resources this Government has made to the police has been between
April 2013 and April 2014. That is only really one year.
And they would have passed a budget in April 2014.
So, one budget and a bit has been their actual pract ical contribution to the resources and efforts of the police. Are you trying to tell me that the trend, that even
the Police Commissioner has reported on, started
many years ago, somehow only came about because of a budget and a half of the OBA Government ? That
is what that Honourable Member is saying. Those are
the facts.
Now I do not know, perhaps the Honourable
Member has diff erent facts than I do. But it is basically
impossible for the OBA to have made the impact on
crime that that Honourable Member reports has been
made. Not only that, those who are the professionals
in criminal reduction in this country have already said
that they do not agree with that statement.
So taking responsibility for the total reduction
in crime, which has been factually stated to have started around 2000 and steadily gone from there, let
us not bring any less attention to the concerns about
gun cri me and the danger and the traumatic exper ience it has brought to this country. That does not omit that. But overall crime has been going down.
But the Honourable Member is reporting t otally something else. And that has been a part of a
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46 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

number of initiativ es that have gone on over a number
of years that has brought this situation to where it is.
And we congratulate and give credit to all those parties that have contributed to that. Yes, it was r esources that the former administration gave to the p olice to a ssist in what they wanted to do. It certainly is
partially [a result of] what this Government has done
in recent years. But the overall picture extends way far
back before they were even in power.
And to say what the Honourable Member said
takes away from the contribution of all of those other
people (other than the Government ) who have been
working towards this. It is an insult to them. You know,
they can insult us all they like, because they do it
every day, and we take it. But it is those other persons
who are working hard to address the issue, that are
the heart of some of what we are going through, whether it be with gun violence or other types of
crime, and the work they do 24 hours a day. That is
where the contribution has truly been seen; not from
anything that the OBA has done within the past 20
months. So it is an insult to all those people that the Honourable Member would get up and even have said that.
Certainly the community that I represent, the
community in Sandys, has seen unfortunate actions —
as happened in Pembroke just yesterday. Those are the people who are feeling the brunt of what is happening. Ironically, we had no statement from the N ational Security Minister at all today on it in this House,
which is where the Honourable Minister shoul d have
brought a report. Perhaps the Minister will run up to
Mount Hill and get a picture done perhaps today or tomorrow. Perhaps that is what he will do.
Mr. Speaker , again, some of the very interes ting things I saw in this speech by the Government ,
such as (and I am just going to digress a bit here), the
National Cultural Heritage Policy. I do not know there
seems to be an effort by this Government to do what
seems to be totally against its nature. They are trying
to, one might say, divest Government ’s involvement in
the community, whittle down the size of the Gover nment , but they keep announcing programmes and
policies that basically tie Government into having
more of a role in things that . . . whether these policies
will come into play or not, like a National Cultural Pol-icy.
Well, a lot of work has been done in culture
over the decades. We had one of the pinnacles of Bermuda’s cultural expression when we participated
in the Smithsonian programme some years ago where
we basically took aspects of Bermuda’ s country and
they were exhibited right on the Mall in Washington
D.C.—our stone cutting, our cedar work, all types and
aspects of Bermuda culture. There has been a lot of
work done around the expansion and appreciation of
Bermuda culture and history. That is why things were
done to celebrate our heroes, our sports heroes, our
national heroes —the Sports Hall of Fame, renaming certain streets and buildings —all as a way to enhance
the appreciation of culture.
So I see this mention of a National Cultural
Polic y, but I am just wondering what exactly this is
supposed to do any more than there is an announc ement of a National Sports Policy. You know, these things get mentioned, Mr. Speaker , but what do they
actually do? Does it mean the Government is going to
be p utting more money into these sorts of things?
Well, this is the Government that is not providing more
money for much of anything. So are these going to just be “shell” programmes and reports? Are they actually going to see the light of day? Frankly, the Government needs to explain how a National Cultural Po licy is going to operate.
I mean, I am still waiting for more clarity on
where the Government is on the National Tourism
Plan. When is the last time we heard anybody in Tour-ism talk about that?

An Hon. M ember: They have a new one now.

Well, I believe we do have
Tourism Minister, but are they still following the Plan?
We have the Bermuda Tourism Authority that
has a substanti al amount of money to actually impl ement, to research tourism. Today I heard something from that particular body, Mr. Speaker , which su ggested that some of their frustration is, Oh, you know,
the old contracts that we have signed seem to be i nhibiting our ability to do what we need to do. Really,
Mr. Speaker ? Really? Really?
They are blaming any lack of progress in tourism on being tangled by contracts. When is the last
time we heard of a new airline signing for Bermuda,
creating more airlift? I hear the t hings about . . . I
mean this speech was full of it, particularly in the first
part, they spent half of the speech talking about stuff
that I guess they are trying to suggest that they have
done, and then spent the other latter part of the
speech talking a bout things that they plan to do, bas ically, as I said, resurrecting old policies that the PLP
was doing that they rebranded.
But I heard something about all of the hotel
development that is supposed to be on line. Well,
there are things happening, but I do not think it is an ything that is moving most of the people out there look-ing for work, Mr. Speaker . There is a whole lot of talk,
and I am very pleased, like many in the community, to
hear about what has happened over at Ariel Sands. It
appears as if, yo u know, something is going to happen around there. Well it was very visible that som ething was happening because there were cameras
there, and the Premier was there. It looked like he had a shovel or something, I do not know. And it looks like
Mr. Douglas of the Dill family, who have had that
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property for centuries, has another commitment to do
something there.
But Mr. Speaker , I actually remember, since
that place was closed, we have seen about four of
those particular events happen with that property —
three or four. So I think it is very nice that the OBA
seems to have gotten behind what is happening at
Ariel Sands. Maybe that will help it happen. But we
have seen this particular scene before with Ariel
Sands. I hope it happens, because I think it is wonde rful if something could happen around there. I remember going to that property when it was in its original
state and it was very nice. If they can advance it, that
is good. But we have seen this before.
Actually, I caution the Government (if I can do
this at least once, Mr. Speaker , during my speech)
about getting too bubbly about those sort of photo
ops, okay? Because we had them too. We had about
two or three with Ariel Sands. And I can tell you there
were some projects that were way further on in the
process than Ariel Sands is, and never happened. Not
because of anything that we did.
And I heard some talk by the Honourable
Member who was speaking earlier, Mr. Speaker ,
about St. George’s. Well I can tell you, because I was
the Minister involv ed, when it came to a certain deve loper and approval of all of their plans for the St.
George’s site. They had the planning approval, not
just the building demolition permit or to clear the
land—that was done. They had the approval for their
plan. They cou ld have broken ground in October
2011. They had the plans. The plans were approved. But other things were not in place that had nothing to do with the Bermuda Government . We moved stone,
rock, tree and everything imaginable to make sure that they had their plans approved because, like the
rest of the country, we desired to see some development in this country.
The Ariel Sands plan is nowhere near where
that plan was. There has not even been a plan filed with the Planning Department with Ariel Sands. There
have just been talks. I have been through the process,
so I know how it works, with a major developer, be-cause I took a personal interest in making sure that
the development that was planned for St. George’s
would get through the planning process. I had no control of anything else as the Minister responsible for
Planning, but I could make sure that happened. I had
the support of my colleagues and we moved . . . if we could have moved the sky and a couple of banks we
would have moved them too. But we did not have control over that, we only had control over what is on the
ground in Bermuda to make sure that that developer
could do what they desired to do.
It did not happen . . . way further than an ything that has happened over at Ariel Sands. So I caution you all: Do not get too bubbly and happy, because the Ariel Sands project has been through that
same little scene that you all manufactured over there, about three times already, and it did not happen. And I
do not doubt Mr. Douglas has got a lot of money, personal wealth, so he could probably finance it himself
outside of the rest of his family. So we will see. I wish you all the best, but we shall see. You could find yourself with nothing but dust over there in like a year’s
time because that is what happened two or three
times already.
I say this not to discourage you in your efforts
to get development. Press on, the country needs it.
People want the work. But do not use these efforts solely for political gain, because all you do is disa ppoint a whole lot of people who are really genuinely
looking forward to something to get us back on track, Mr. Speaker .
It is a form of . . . it is almost like (and I am not
suggesting that they are this), but it is almost like you are feeding off of the aspirations and hopes of the
people in an unfair way just to get political points on
your opponents at a time when people are delicate,
extremely delicate, especially after your meeting down
there on Front Street. They need to be very careful, Mr. Speaker , very careful as the Government .
Mr. Speaker , when it comes to law and order,
public safety, as a party we have outlined in our Throne Speech [Reply] how we think the question of
crime has been appropriately dealt with, the efforts
that have been put in place over the years that have
contributed to trying to address the issue of gang vi olence, and some of the strategies which we said we
felt would have helped. And we made reference to the
modification by the Police Service of its gang and vi olence reduction strategy and its i nclusion of a common
framework for enabling partners and the community to engage directly with each other.
The strategy, as is outlined here, Mr. Speaker ,
aimed to reduce . . . if you will give me permission to read, Mr. Speaker , on page 14 of our statement: “R educe gang crime and reoffending; Address overlaps and gaps in existing approaches . . . ; Align the work of partners more effectively by expanding and improving on established partnerships; Tackle social excl usion of both offenders and their families.”
I suspect that the mention about the alignment
with the Mirrors by the Government is an effort to try
and address a gap like was mentioned, “Include wider
social agencies to increase the effort on targeted offenders and create an integrated offender m anagement regime; Improve information sharing across the
Task Force agencies.”
But Mr. Speaker , we took note of the success
that has been achieved. We do not doubt that the OBA Government has been, perhaps, committed to
seeing some level of success. But let us face it, we
have not heard that much in recent months about
what actually is happening in this particular area, and
that does concern us.
And what happened up in Mount Hill and in
Somerset does make it very clear to everyone, Mr.
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48 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

Speaker , that violenc e—whether it be gang violence
or any other type of violence against others —is not a
simple issue for anyone to deal with. Government s
around the world are trying to deal with these issues. I
am not trying to belittle what we are facing, but you know, we ha ve governments that are dealing with
their own members . . . people who have been born
and bred in their community and have lived there all
their lives embracing fundamentalist Islam and committing acts of violence in their own countries. Not
people coming from outside, which is what traditionally has been what we have all been prepared to deal
with. But from within they are facing Jihadism being
cultivated amongst their youth, amongst persons who
are citizens of their own country. Some of these people go o verseas and then return and commit acts of
violence within their own communities.
We are not faced with that. I pray that nothing
like that ever reaches the shores of our country. And I
applaud the efforts of our own security services and
their partners ar ound the world to ensure that we have
that level of protection. So I hope that we are never confronted with those sorts of things. But we have our own challenges with our own youth and their own pr opensity for violence, or even not so young people.
So the issue of violence (and gang violence is
the issue at hand) is not simple issue. We can all go back and review the history about when, and who
tried to raise the flag about this scourge, and who i gnored it or who did not. But the reality is that we are
here now. And this is not an OBA problem; it is not a
PLP problem. It never was exclusively a problem for
any organisation, it is a community problem. And we must be honest and open about how we are going to
deploy the resources we have available to us.
Wher ever we may choose to extract r esources . . . from work with our partners —whether it
be agencies in the US Government , the British Go vernment , our Caribbean partners, and even locally —
we must be prepared to deploy whatever is in place as necessary, Mr. Spe aker, to deal with this particular
issue. And we must not do it with a level of arrogance
or a belief that certain jurisdictions have more an-swers than others. We must look internationally for
solutions that we can tailor to our own situation and
make them work.
That is why I believe that the Inter -Agency
Gang Task Force was put together with cooperation and assistance from our US friends. Team Street Safe was a more localised programme which was taken out
of the Boston area and [we] worked to tailor it for
Bermuda. We even have local stakeholders who are
specifically focusing their energies on this issue and
have been for many years.
We need to give all of these partners and
these agencies the undivided attention, as the Pr emier has mentioned, and make ref erence to reports
that have tried to bring clarity —like the one that you
orchestrated on crime, Mr. Speaker —and any other resources that we can deploy so that we can go into
the community and give our own people the tools and
we can deploy our resources, over time, to bring this
to a level where it is minimally impacting our environ-ment.
Now I am not going to stand here, and certainly there was nothing in our Throne Speech [Reply]
that said that we are going to get rid of it. We did hear
from the Government (when they were Opposition)
that they would stop the shooting. That is what they said. And perhaps now they have learned that stop-ping certain things is not so simple. Many of us do not
even understand how it got turned on, so how are we
going to stop it?
I am not suggesting that we on this side are
better equipped than the OBA Government to do it. I
am suggesting that the community must be better
equipped to deal with it, and all of the resources d eployed to begin to deal with the underlying issues,
whet her it be the issue of behaviour of our children in
schools, family relations, poverty, lack of education . .
. it would seem that all these areas are areas that we are going to have to take a serious look at, over time,
to ensure that the question of viol ence in our comm unity is properly addressed, Mr. Speaker .
So we must defer from making the drive to
solve crime a political issue in the whole. It cannot be,
because it is never going to be solved that way. And I would hope that the OBA understands that. I know we
have come to understand that through our experience
in Government, because this issue did come to its
fruition during the PLP period. So we know. Not only
do we know it as a Government , but many of us know
it personally, having had family members on both
sides of the coin in this particular issue. So there is no illusion on this side of the House as to the impact that
we will have, or have had, with the question of vi olence.
But we do have questions, Mr. Speaker . And
we present those questions on page 15 of our speech.
And those questions are as follows, Mr. Speaker :
“What has been the process and result of the Gang
and Violence Reduction Strategy since it was r evised?” And my Leader put those questions pointedly
to the Honourable Premier, Minister of National Sec urity.
The fact that the Honourable Minister did not
have a statement for this House on the recent events brings to question how deep the commitment is. I do
not doubt that there is a commitment; but how deep is
it? Because there should hav e been a statement
made here in this House. My colleagues and I from
the Sandys and Pembroke communities did make a
statement today in this House, at the lunch period,
because we feel strongly enough that we will try our
best to have a message for the comm unity to try and
ensure calm, and advise the people on the best a pproach they can take to deal with this issue in the i mmediate.
Bermuda House of Assembly


We are serious about that, Mr. Speaker , and I
am not going to stand in this House and not try and be
genuine with how we desir e to approach this. And we
welcome working with the Government in any way.
We have always said that. But we have questions.
“Are we still benefitting from the Inter -Agency
Gang Task Force?” If so, are we witnessing in the r ecent events a failure on its par t to reach the objectives
that have been set?
“What has been the extent of the interaction
with the community organisations and stake holders on the underlying issues of gang activity and vi olence? Has the Bermuda Police Service advanced its
intelligence and operational capability to be more pr oactive . . . ?”
Part of the frustration, Mr. Speaker , because I
am just going to delve a bit into the area of sport and
community, which my honourable colleague Mr. Michael Weeks, I suspect, will have something to say
on. We saw actions (and I witnessed one myself . . .
not witnessed it eye- to-eye but I was within a close
vicinity) when I was Minister, at the St. George’s
Cricket Club when certain things happened around
the Cup Match period a number of years ago. An d
myself and other Ministers were escorted by the sec urity services to our vehicles so that we could leave, because there was concern about the safety of not only us but also the people in the area, and the police
were everywhere.
One of the other inciden ts that brought rise to
the severity of the gang problem was, I believe, an incident shown on somebody’s camera where a gentleman was holding a machete, or some sort of weapon, and running around St. George’s cricket
field, I believe it was, a number of years ago. That is
when it crystallised to all of us in the community that
there was something really serious going on, and
many of us had not witnessed it. I do know that there
were . . . I do not know if, Honourable Speaker, you were there at that event when it happened. That is
what I am talking about. That is what we saw.
What happened this weekend was remini scent of when it all beg an. So people are afraid that we
are back where we started. Are we back where we
started? After all the work that has been supposedly
done, are we back where we started? Are we going to have tit -for-tat shootings at different parts of the I sland? We have never had four people injured in one incident —even at the worst of it years ago. But here
we are. It seems like we are back where we started.
And yes, it is at the beginning of the OBA period of
Government.
So people are wondering, what is your commitment to dealing with this issue? And you do not have to hear it from me, because you do not have to listen to me. What about the people out there? What
about the innocent people who were wounded by that incident? They and their families are asking the ques-tion. It is important that we hear more from the Go vernment on these issues.
Have the police advanced their capability?
Because it would seem as if with certain events there
is a more likely risk of certain things happening. I am
not going to be critical of the police directly here because perhaps they were there in the level that they
should have been, but things happen. And you do not
have any control if people are going to do what they
are going to do, and particularly if it happens outside
of the stadium in Devonshire and outside of some of the cricket clubs. Clearly, the people within the club
had control of their grounds. But they do not necessarily control what happens on the street. And the
same thing applies with the National Sports Centre.
There is total security within, but once you get out on
the street it is an open field.
But I think people want to know that the Police
Service does have in place the intelligence capability
better than they had many years ago to know or to
assess the proper risk, because we do not need to
have wonderful events like the W -Cup or other FA
Cup events with nobody there. What would that say
for our sporting community, where they will have
games of such importance and nobody attends because people are afraid to come to even the most s ecure spaces, Mr. Speaker ? So that is why it is important.
Let us face it, Somerset Cricket Club and the
Nationa l Sports Centre are probably some of the best
equipped grounds in the country together. So for something to happen outside of their grounds . . .
people probably expected it somewhere else. I am not
going to mention where they might have expected it, but t hey might have expected that to happen some
other place that they do not go. Not at the National
Sports Centre and not at the Somerset Cricket Club.
So what does that say? Are we back where
we started, Mr. Speaker ? And this is why these questions are being asked.
“What are the additional strategies that are
going to be deployed to address the underlying pro blems that contribute to the cultivation of gang life and
culture in Bermuda?”
I have not heard that much [from] the Go vernment about what they are doing in this area. They
now have an opportunity to be a lot more informative.
In the wake of what has happened, I believe that the
public will be keenly interested in what needs to be
said or what the plans are to begin to take another
approach to addressing t his. We do not need to feel
like we are back where we started, Mr. Speaker . And
that is utterly important.
Mr. Speaker , how much time do I have left?

I just want the people to know
what the Honourable Member said. That is what I
want to know, and that is not a waste of time.
Again, very smug, very arrogant comments,
Mr. Speaker . It is sad.
Mr. Speaker , as the Opposition we desire to
see the trends that currently . . . irrespective of what
has happened in the last couple of days, when it
comes to public safety, continue. We wish to see the
continued reduction in all types of cr ime. We wish to
see what resources are going to be deployed to address some of the underlying causes of violence. We wish to see more relaxed policies —yes—with the
whole area of the handling of, like, cannabis as it r elates to the criminal justice system and other ways,
because it does appear, based on accumulated ev idence in recent years, that governments are taking a
much more enlightened approach (if I can call it that) to how they are dealing with their citizens around the
question of the use of certain stimulants. I will just say
stimulants generally, particularly cannabis.
I do think that in light of this country’s exper ience and the amount of money, if everything is about our fiscal commitment, that the amount of money that
has been deployed and even arguably the amount of money that we have often given our online security
services has been based on a belief that we neede d
to give them a lot of money to address this.
Well, perhaps if we have a more enlightened
approach that money can be deployed in other
ways —to providing quality medical treatment to pe ople who have addictions, to proper education in the
schools, Mr. Speaker , around the use of stimulants to
our children—these are the things that we can deploy. If we begin to have a more enlightened approach to the use of certain substances, we can deploy those
moneys to areas that can be proactive and have better education for our young people so that they understand that they can have a stimulant -free life, and that
they can live a life free from the scourge of addictive
drugs, and they can live positive lives and very good lives without finding themselves in these areas.
I say that with a hope that the Government will
take this on and I thank you for —

I cannot remember.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Well, my memory, Mr.
Speaker , serves me pretty well and I remember a
couple of years ago the recovery that we are now
starting to see signs of was denied ever existed until
December 18
th and all of a sudden that changed. But I
am going to resist the urge of going back and forth in
banter and I am going to speak to what we are act ually doing as a Government .

[Mrs. Suz ann Roberts -Holshouser, Deputy Speaker,
in the Chair ]

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: And you know since the
Throne Speech, Madam Deputy Speaker , I have had
so many com ments from people who are just pleased
that we have actually recognised the need to address our social recovery.
And Madam Deputy Speaker , we are making
the difficult decisions but at the same time being passionate about what needs to happen and simultane-ously being responsible.
Now, if you listen to a lot of the dialogue and
sound bites that you hear coming from other areas you would question that, but let us look at what is ac-tually being done and what we are doing.
And we recognise, Madam Deputy Speak er,
that you cannot have a sustainable recovery without a
social recovery. But at the same time, you cannot
have the necessary and required social programmes
as effective as you would like them to be without ec onomic recovery as well. We get it. We underst and that
balance.
But what we have here is an action plan. And
there is a distinct difference between talking about
issues and social issues and actually doing something
about it. As a matter of fact most plans and strategies
fail not from a lack of ideas , because there are a lot of
wonderful ideas that go around and a lot of recycled
ideas that have been talked about. Most things fail not
Bermuda House of Assembly


because of a lack of ideas or a lack of strategy, but
[from a failure to implement] that strategy. It is actually
doing something about it. It is actually where the rubber hits the road.
So the tangible actions that we are taking . . .
you are seeing those green shoots of recovery and seeing that new life. And there is no question that
there has been some difficult times in the last several
years from an economic perspective and, you know,
we keep hearing the words “Government” that just
does not care, and it would be very easy to focus on just those economic . . . fixing those economic issues
in our finances and ignore our social issues. But that
has actually not happened. We are very focused on
making sure that we provide the services necessary to
take care of our people. You know, we are sorting out
our financial problems, but we must absolutely mai ntain our social programmes to improve the day -to-day
life for all of us.
You know, as the Premier put it (from the
Throne Speech) we have an overriding determination
to improve the lives of the people we serve. So this is
a caring Government , Madam Deputy Speaker . We
care about the less fortunate and improving their lot.
Our youth, which are our most valuable asset that we
have and their education, and even though we act ually look at what needs to be done from this Hopkins
Report a little bit differently, there is no question that
we have work to do with regard to this. Of course, from a sports perspective, I would like to see us have
the structured sports back into our schools from an
elementary school age, with that discipline, that structure, that teaching kids how to get along is absolutely critical. And we see what has happened as those
things have been removed from our elementary
schools over the last decade or decade and a half.
And, certainly, I was not even involved in politics when
that started, Madam Deputy Speaker , so I am . . . we
are working on it. We are working on it.
We have talked in our Throne Speech about
the elderly and the quality of their lives, family and the
stability that that brings to society, and the workforce
and opportunities available. You know o ne of the
things that I was pleased to see with the unfortunate
back -to-back storms with Fay and Gonzalo was just
how Bermudians actually work together. I mean, I
came out of my house after the first storm and started
cleaning up the street which borders a main throughway so that traffic could get by in that section.
Neighbours from all up and down the street were doing the same thing so we cleared that road up in my
constituency, which the border is 100 metres away from where I live. And we are doing the s ame thing up
there in helping some of the elderly constituents move . . . get debris out of their driveway so that they can
actually get out. And you just saw the community
coming together. We have the ability to come t ogether —

He is not the former Leader of the
Opposition.

Hon. R. Wayne S cott: Well, the former Leader of the
United Bermuda Party, which was the Opposition at
the time he was the Leader, so actually that was tec hnically correct. As a matter of fact, you have the former Leader of the United Bermuda Party, the other
former Leader of the United Bermuda Party and it is
funny that you refer to us as the United Bermuda
Party. But, anyway, I digress.
Madam Deputy Speaker , I said I am not going
to go there. I am focusing on what we are doing and
Government ’s role in our Throne Speech is to improve
society as well as rebalancing the economy. Certainly
these go hand in hand. And when we are outlining a
broad range of common sense progressive measures
which, you know, is aiming . . . and you can see that
we have gotten . . . we have start ed to get some st ability to our economy and stabilising the Government
finances, which again allow us to continue to help
serve our people.
So this Throne Speech is evidence of a caring
Government. You know, when I was walking out of the reading of the Throne Speech I was even hearing the
commentators talk about, Wow! This is actually . . .
you know, how socially oriented our Throne Speech
was. You know, it sets out an agenda that focuses on
people’s social issues. That was coming from the
commentators. Which without calling names, I think
that, you know, it is consistent with some of the feedback that I have gotten with regards to our agenda,
which is set out in the Throne Speech.
We do talk about a National Youth Policy recognising that the youth are our future and they need to
have a voice. And when I am in my constituency tal king to the kids up there these guys get it. They under-stand what is going on. As a matter of fact, you know,
someone reminded me when I was up on the corner
of Hillview and Cedar H ill last weekend that it has
been 10 years since I have been standing up there on that corner on a regular basis. I remember having
conversations with some of the youth who are now in
their early 20s and their mid- 20s talking to me about
some of the conduc t of our leaders and how that is
going to transcend to the anti -social behaviour that
happens in our community. So it is interesting, very interesting. So that was something that certainly I had
to give pause to.
And when we look at the Children’s Amendment Act, which I am not going to get into because it
was laid and the plan is for that to be debated next
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52 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

week, but as it is in the Throne Speech and some of
the conversations that I was hearing in the aftermath
of that where, you know, there is a call for co -
parenting orders and I know in the States (certainly in Florida where I resided at one point) called “joint physical custody,” I do not believe it is our job as legislators to dictate that level of compliance by the jud iciary. But making a legal purpose, a starting point that
recognises the importance of having both parents in a
child’s life is certainly the way to go. And if it is not the
ultimate step, it is definitely a first step.
I look forward to support on the other side
when we do this, because this is something that affects our families, this is something that is overdue.
Mediation right now, if Members are aware, is som ething that is allowed within the current legal structure after non- compliance of a court order, which comes
after a lengthy court trial which has already got ever yone’s nerves frazzled, and then you can mediate.
Well, that seems a little bit backwards to me.
I would think that most people that you talk to,
especially early on— whether it is a divorce or just custody matters in general —recognise the importance of
that child. Let us get those matters sorted out with mediation up front and have those orders be relevant
throughout the process as opposed to after noncompliance, because maybe we are actually going to benefit those fami lies by taking care of those children.
Now, that is a caring Government that recognises the
issues that are affecting us, and we are doing som ething about.
Again, my focus is on what we are doing as a
Government and resisting the urge with the banter
because this is a perfect example of where we can
work together. And let us show the people of Bermuda
that when it comes to our social issues and dealing
with our families that we are going to do what we need
to do.
I am sure everyone in this House agrees that
family and domestic violence have a significant impact on the lives of our children. And we recognise this and
you know domestic violence not only affects the surv ivor, the survivor’s children, the person who is abusive,
the health system, the criminal justice system, bus inesses, families, friends. I mean, you —I have got a
report here that was presented to the former Gover nment in 2003 linking domestic violence, child abuse,
sex offenders and such to the anti -social behaviour
that we are experiencing in our country now. As a matter of fact, reports show that in excess of 70 per
cent or so of these young men who are caught up in this anti -social behaviour come from families where
they have been physically abused, sexually abused,
or someone within that hou sehold has been.
It even talks about reports going back to the
1800s, Madam Deputy Speaker , that show the link of
how uncontrolled domestic violence and violence on
our youth perpetuates generation after generation af-ter generation after generation. It ha ppened with a father, it happened with that father’s son, it happened
with that father’s daughter, and on and on and on
back to the 1800s. So, certainly, when you look at a
report from 2003 that links these things together, we would expect a Government that cares about its pe ople to do something about this. And we have and we are. So I think we will be putting that committee in the
first instance as we talk about on page 18 of our
Throne Speech that examine domestic violence,
strengthening education and protection, support po wers and intervention for victims and perpetrators.
Madam Deputy Speaker , I have been at the
helm of the social programmes of this country for the
last two years and I can tell you from what I have seen
first-hand, that direct link —that direct connection—
between abuse against children and women as it r elates to anti -social behaviour. It is talked about in the
Reply. The one thing that I will mention—actually, two
things I will mention from the Opposition’s Reply and it
was talking specif ically about the Physical Abuse Centre and “it is imperative that we make the necessary
allowances [financial or otherwise], to ensure that this vital resource is maintained.” And as the Opposition
would know, we have already made those “otherwise”
allowan ces because there are places where victims
can go to today.
But what this speaks of, and I am sure the
Opposition recognises, is the critical problem that we
have in this country with abuse to children and
women, and especially our women. Abuse takes all
forms and all forms are equally abusive, whether it is
physical or verbal, and most physical abuse ends ultimately . . . or most verbal abuse ends ultimately in
physical abuse. Youth who are most vulnerable . . .
our youth, our seniors, and again I just have to talk about abuse against women. And the verbal abuse
against women, especially our sisters, and as leaders
of this country we should not stand for that under any
circumstances—any of us on either side of this floor.
But I will leave it at that, Madam Deputy Speaker .
I have to just assure you that I will do ever ything in my remit to ensure that we have a safe harbour and we smoke out where those types of abuses
are allowed to happen. And not saying anything about it and being silent is acceptance, and we are all
equally guilty if we sit back and allow this to happen.
It has been talked about, Madam Deputy
Speaker , over the past few days where we have been
reminded that gang violence is still prevalent in our
society and it continues to demand our undi vided attention. And again, if we go back and connect the
dots, dysfunctional families produce dysfunctional
children. If you have a child that is in an environment
where they are sexually abused, physically abused, or
watching their parent be sexually abused or physically
abused, watching their mother or any other women for
that matter be physically abused or verbally abused and it is acceptable by society, what do you think
Bermuda House of Assembly


these children are going to think is acceptable? Vi olence begets violence. Violenc e begets violence.
Verbal abuse has been the cause of more destruction in our societies than physical abuse, or it has
certainly led to it. I mean, you have . . . you know,
wars are started because two people have an issue
and then it becomes the nations that have an issue.
And over here we banter back and forth and one person says something that is a little bit off and the next
thing you know, we are almost throwing things back
and forth over here. So certainly, certainly, as leaders of this country we cannot accept this type of behaviour
or tolerate it from anyone —anyone!
So as I said, Madam Deputy Speaker , I will be
brief. One of the things that Pastor Gary talked about was being precise and not running on too much. And I
plan on doing that. I plan on doing that today because, again, just to highlight the fact that our social pr ogrammes are just as important, and in my opinion,
even more important than our economic programmes,
and economic programmes are critical to turn this
country around. But we canno t have sustainable r ecovery, as I said before, without social recovery. And
certainly I am passionate about this, and rest assured
I am doing my best within this Government to ensure
that we pay proper homage to that.
So we will focus on the development of co ntinuous community youth communication, support to
counter this influence of the gang- related culture and
such.
I will mention something else that is interes ting in their Reply to the Throne Speech where “we
also call for the reinstitution of ‘National Heroes Day.’”
We seem to have a short memory in this House
sometimes, Madam Deputy Speaker , but just this
summer it was said on the floor of the House from this
spot by myself that we will be announcing a National
Hero for next year. And the intention, as the previous
Government would know because this was one of
their initiatives, it was never meant to be every year. We will continue to function under that same premise
that this is not something that is going to be done
every year. But we believe it is im portant. We believe
it is critical. We believe that our culture is a represe ntation of who we are. And if we are not honouring our heroes or ourselves as a people and we respect i nstead of our national heroes people who may beget
violence—I digress.
This T hrone Speech contains a host of other
initiatives, Madam Deputy Speaker . You look at r everse mortgage programmes for seniors, if it is avai lable. Is it going to work for everyone? Absolutely not.
Is it going to work for some people? Absolutely. I can
tell you right now, if my mother wanted to get a r everse mortgage because she wanted to do some
things that I cannot afford to help her do right now —
go for it! Go for it because I can tell you I am not si tting around waiting for my parents to die so I can run and take everything that they have. I would hope that
they spend every cent they have living it up.

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: And I just may.
So I think that having an option available does
not mean that everyone should jump to it, but there
are many people in this Island that have the means
with property and multiple properties and unfort unately, unfortunately, because of the society that we
live in, have other family members who refuse to help,
allowing our seniors in some cases to live in deplorable conditions. Why not use some of your asset to
take care of yourself because when you are gone ev erybody is running with their hand out.
Now I know that there are cases where we
need to be cautious because in any type of pr ogramme you c an have abuses, you can have dec isions that are made that will not have the best interests of an entire family in mind and that does impact
future generations, having the option there is a bene-fit. Let us use it appropriately, let us make sure that
we hav e the proper safeguards so that if it is necessary, great, if it is not, great. But we have got to look
at these options.
The elimination of conscription, again, som ething else that has been talked about for a while, ac-tion plan, done. It will be happenin g.
Specific forms of cannabis -containing products. There is no question that it has been proven that certain cannabinoid drugs help. That does not mean
. . . that does not mean that —well, there is a big di fference, Madam Deputy Speaker (let us put it this
way) of making those available immediately while we continue to do research and you know everybody go
and sit out on the porch of the House of Parliament
and lighting up—two completely different things. So
we are addressing the pieces that are necessary now
to help our people and let us see where this goes.
We talk about naming and shaming emplo yers who do not provide health insurance for emplo yees.
Public Access to Information, again, an initi ative from the previous Government that was talked
about when my cousin was the Premier, the Honourable former Premier Alex Scott, whose son sits in this
Chamber, started that initiative if memory serves me
correctly. That was a decade ago. I am getting fuzzy.
But in any event, April 1 this will be operational. So
yes, it has been worked on but I can tell you that it has
not taken a decade for us to implement it.
So there are a lot of —again, as I said, Madam
Deputy Speaker , there are good ideas on both sides.
As a matter of fact, there are some great ideas that we have, there are some great ideas that the Oppos ition have— implement and strategy is where rubber
hits the road. And we are producing these results.
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54 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

We talk about opening Government boards to
broader public participation. Again, let us . . . I mean,
there are some boards that need to be revamped.
There are some boards underneath my Ministry that I
think need to be revamped for a different focus so that we can get some more relevant information. Times
change, the remit of boards should change as well.
As I w rap up, Madam Deputy Speaker , we
heard from Pastor Gary Simons this morning and one
thing that he said stood out. When there is success
and accomplishments, we tend to forget how and/or why this happened. And we have to —you know,
things do not just happen by default. And we talk
about it, it is kind of funny, I listened to the Member
who just sat down talk about how, you know, the p olice statistics in reality were the PLP’s because that was their budget. So effectively then everything that was done was actually your plan is what he was sa ying that we were doing, but yet every week we are up
here there are complaints about what we are doing.
Were we doing our own thing? Were we doing
your thing? Are you then complaining about the plans
that you put in place? Nonsense. Let us just focus on
what needs to be done for our country. Let’s get it
done. Let’s not just talk about it —action, action plans.
This action plan that we have set out is a balance between addressing the social issues. It is a balance between co ntinuing to get our economy on track. We
are seeing signs of recovery which did not exist a couple of years ago and this is something that benefits us all.
And I think I will end with two quotes here.
One on page 4 of our Throne Speech which just says,
“Progress is being made, but it is going to take community -wide effort to achieve a level of recovery that
reaches into the lives of those who are suffering.” Madam Deputy Speaker , that takes more than just
good ideas. That takes action and in an ideal world
help and collaboration from both sides of the floor.
And let us try that on for size instead of just idle banter
back and forth. You know, we can expect social pr ogrammes, social support programmes, to continue,
new protections for the vulnerable, reforms to
strengthen Government accountability, worker training
initiatives and a continued commitment from this Government to work for all Bermudians.
Madam Deputy Speaker , I suggest that this is
representative of a Government that cares.
Thank you.

The Depu ty Speaker: Thank you, Member. Thank
you very much.
The Chair now recognises the Member from
Pembroke Central, constituency 17 Mr. C. Walton D.
Brown.
You have the floor, again, 30 minutes.

Thank you, Madam Deputy
Speaker . Madam Deputy Speaker , I would like to begin
my remarks with the concluding remarks of the
Throne Speech. These were the personal comments
by the Governor and I quote, Madam Deputy Speaker ,
“I would urge everyone to avoid stirring unnecessary
division.” Unnecessary division. “Bermuda’s size and
intimacy give us advantages.” The Governor goes on
to say (his personal words), “But they also give a particular obligation to exercise these rights responsibly.”
Madam Deputy Speaker , those are fairly a udacious comments c oming from the Governor, that we
should exercise the rights that we have worked for,
the rights that we fought for, responsibly. I recall this
House approving without objection the establishment
of a Commission of Inquiry to provide for a measure of
justic e for those multiple victims of land grabs. The
Governor rejected that decision by Parliament. So for
someone to call for us to act responsibly you would
think that one should lead by example. This clearly is
not leading by example. If the Governor wants t o
meddle in our affairs, he needs to do so responsibly.
Madam Deputy Speaker , I now will move on
to my more substantial comments.
When I listened to the Throne Speech, I had
to keep pinching myself because I thought I was li stening to the Budget Statement because much of what
was in the Throne Speech was about the economy
and about economic policy. I know we are going to get a Budget Statement in February. My idea, my understanding of the Throne Speech is that it is meant to
represent a comprehensive assessment of what Government intends to do on a variety of fronts, inclusive
of the economic component, but also a largely social
component as well. People are hurting out there, Madam Deputy
Speaker . There is a lot of pain; there is a lot of suffering. And, yes, it is absolutely important to provide for economic recovery. We do need some fundamental
injections into our economy, but people also want to
hear that this Government actually has as a priority
the . . . alleviating the hardship that so many people
are experiencing and enduring. And what we do not
find in this Throne Speech is any real demonstrated
understanding and commitment to this. I think part of the problem, Madam Deputy Speaker , may relate to
the extent to which the Government understands the
nature and extent of the problems we face.
And it is instructive, Madam Deputy Speaker ,
that the opening remarks give some insight to how the
Government goes about understanding challenges,
because the Government refers to the challenges that
America faced during the Depression and created this notion of how Americans came together and with the
American determination they overcame the hardship
of the Depression. That is not true, Madam Deputy
Speaker . That is not how America got out of the D epression.
America was a deeply desolate country in the
1930s. Anyone who has read John Steinbeck’s The
Bermuda House of Assembly


Grapes of Wrath, I am sure many of you have read
that, would know that 1930s America was a de-pressed place to be in. America got out of the war, out
of the Depression, by going to war. It was the gener ation of armaments and weapons and other things that
led to the economic conditions for America to get out
of the war. So it was the exact opposite of austerity
measures to address the issue. It was an injection of
money, a taking on of debt, to get out of the crisis that
America was in.
And then the Government , Madam Deputy
Speaker , refers to the transition in South Africa.
Again, a profound misunderstanding of what Nelson
Mandela did as leader. He did not turn the other cheek. He did not turn the other cheek and say, Let’s
come together and go forward. He created a Truth
and Reconciliation Commission to have a measure of
honest understanding, an atonement, if you will, of the
problems that afflicted South Africa under whi te supremacy. There was no turning of the other cheek. So again, when you misunderstand the nature of a problem, how can you come up with the appropriate and viable solutions? And that is one of the challenges
that the Government faces today and it is refl ected in
the Throne Speech.
I am going to refer, Madam Deputy Speaker ,
to what I found to be a very important underlying
component of the challenge that the Government
faces today. I am going to quote from page 4, the third
paragraph from the bottom, “The Government understands that trust will be a big step for many, but the
seriousness of the challenges confronting the Island is such that it will be necessary for Bermudians to exercise the benefit of the doubt, to trust in the process,
trust in each other and make headway towards a bet-ter way of life.”
So trust seems to—

Trust seems to underpin a large
part of what we are meant to demonstrate in order for us to come together to address these challenges. And
I will get back in more detail later to the issue of trust
when we look at immigrat ion policy, Madam Deputy
Speaker . But if trust is meant to be a cornerstone of
what the Government intends to build on, then I think
that there is a shortage of trust. And the fact that you
have seen some massive demonstrations around the
Island with respect to Government policy on a number
of key issues, speaks to the issue of trust and the lack
thereof.
Now, all of us know that we need to find ways
to bring about an economic revitalisation of this coun-try. This side of Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker ,
has always expressed its commitment to support any
programme or policy that will put money into this country and will create jobs. We remain committed to
that. And we will support the Government in its undertaking.
What is surprising, though, is that when you
read the Throne Speech and you look at what the
Government has on its radar in terms of economic
revitalisation, it seems remarkably meagre in its a pproach, Madam Deputy Speaker . There are three
components identified: a revitalisation of tourism, the
expansion of what we have currently on offer with r espect to international business, and the hope that we
get the substantial America’s Cup . . . is it a tournament? I am not sure what it is. The America’s Cup
Sailing Regatta in the Island. That is what is contained
in the Throne Speech. There is nothing else really that is in there.
We have our challenges with tourism. We do
not really know what tourism is doing because we do not get full disclosure about what they are intending to
do. For $28 million a year I think —

[Inaudible interjection]

I am sorry. For whatever the
amount of money is that we are paying a year, we
need to know much more so what is being done.
I am disappointed with the focus that we have
currently on international business because we have the Business Development Agency [BDA] which has .
. . I have spoken with the leadership in the BDA, I
know that in the BDA organisation —not the old BDA
political party, Madam Deputy Speaker —their focus is
to look at the existing lines of business and try to grow those existing lines of business. There is no concept
that we should be looking beyond our existing lines of
business and look at new opportunities.
In a world that is fraught with challenge and
insecurity I would have thought that we would want to
have the BDA look much more broadly at what our economic opportunities could in fact be. So, yes, we
have some core components. They continue to inject
money into the country. But I would have thought an
organisation that is solely tasked with growing the
economy would want to broaden its approach to look
at a much greater set of issues in that regard, and we
do not see that in place.

[Inaudible interjection]

Yes, thank you.
Now, Madam Deputy Speaker , there are a
number of points . . . of issues addressed in the
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56 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

Throne Speech. Clearly, the amount of time that you
have decided to allocate to me today will not allow me
to give full coverage t o all the issues. So I am going to
touch on a couple of points and then zero in on the issue that I speak on more formally, and that is imm igration.
But I note that there is a comment in the
Throne Speech about revitalising the curriculum to ensure that there is an approach that covers a wider
set of issues. I would encourage this Government to
really emphasize the importance of Bermuda’s history.
Local issues —it is absolutely central that we get
global perspectives, there is no doubt about that. But
it is very difficult for any young person to have a
grounding in their own society and in their own culture
if they know little about themselves. I remember when
I was teaching at the college, I was doing a course on Africa and the Middle East, and one of my students
said to me, Why are we learning about Africa and the
Middle East when we don’t even know about Bermuda? And so I altered the curriculum, the course,
and we did a six -week segment on Bermuda. They
loved it.
So we need to have that more firmly entrenched. I know that there is a very comprehensive
curriculum created by a former employee at the Mini stry, Ms. Leona Scott, and that curriculum exists. It is not being fully taught in the schools, Mr. Speaker .

[Hon. K. H. Randolph Horton, Speaker, in the Chair]

And so we need to have that in
place if our young people are to have a proper
groun ding in their own society. So I would encourage
the Government to yes consider emphasizing world
history and other issues, but give some focus —real
demonstrated focus —on helping our young people to
better understand Bermuda, their place within it, and our history.
You know, we seem to celebrate m ore histor ical buildings than we do our actual history. Yes, buil dings are fine but people are more important than buil dings and understanding our history is much more i mportant. If we understood our history a lot better, Mr.
Speaker , maybe you would not have had that crazy
diatribe going on about the installation of a statue to
honour one of our —who should be a national hero—
Sally Bassett, the only demonstrated example of someone who challenged her enslaved condition. But there are those who consider her t o be criminal, so
that is a real failing in us understanding our history, Mr. Speaker , if we can see her as something other
than a national hero.
Mr. Speaker , I have to touch on . . . it is just a
minor point —

But I have to say, Mr. Speaker ,
there was a comment in the Throne Speech that
speaks to young people and cigarette use. You know,
it is frustrating to have to say this yet again, Mr.
Speaker , because I have spoken with the Minister
responsible on it on more than one occasion. All of
this data is based on faulty data sets. It is a survey
that surveyed only public school students. It did not
include the private school students. And when half the
population go to private s chools, you cannot produce
a set of figures about public school students only and
speak as if it represents the totality of the student
population—that is the first point. Secondly, it is . . .
and the data will show that it is incorrect to say that
students start smoking at the age of 7.

It is just not true. What I think was
meant to be said is that the survey shows that st udents have started as early as 7, but not that students
started at 7. There may be 2 per cent, 5 per cent, or
10 per cent who may have started at 7. But to say that
in a Throne Speech, which is now an official Gover nment document, is just sending out misinformation.
And we should be careful about doing that, Mr.
Speaker .
Now, I want to spend the rest of my time, Mr.
Speaker , talking about immigration policy and trust.
Immigration policy has been controversial since the
day the OBA were elected. There were a series of
solemn election promises made, one fundamental one
of wh ich was ignored within, I think, a month of the
OBA being elected.

Bermuda House of Assembly


[Inaudible interjection]

I said within a month, so that i ncludes within a week.
So the other issues that came out saw massive discontent within the population, Mr. Speaker . But
what do we have in the Throne Speech about imm igration policy? I thought I must have dozed off during
the Throne Speech. I did not, but if you look at the
comment about —the closest thing you can get to i mmigration policy in the Throne Speech, Mr. Speaker , is
on page 12, the second paragraph from the bottom.

Page 12, Mr. Speaker .
“The Ministry of Home Affairs will oversee
new opportunities for Bermudian workers when the
new work permit policy comes i nto effect on
1 December, requiring all employers seeking work
permits to advertise on its online jobs board.” That is
it! Nothing about immigration policy; nothing substan-tive whatsoever. One of the most controversial issues
in our country —nothing! Nothing whatsoever. And so,
yes, we have a Junior Minister who can speak on the
issue, Mr. Speaker , but nothing substantive whats oever. Is that contempt for the people because you i ntend to do exactly what you wish under cover without
articulating your policy in advance? Was it an acc ident? I doubt it because every Minister has to make
submissions to the Premier about what is to be i ncluded in the Throne Speech, but we get nothing, so
one can reasonably conclude that the Government
has no intention of having seri ous discussion and debate about issues that relate to immigration.
I have reached out to the Immigration Minister
on more than one occasion expressing my desire to
work together to try to find an approach to immigration
policy that meets a number of needs —not just desires —but a number of needs. Because businesses
need to have some flexibility to bring the talent they
need into this Island to get things done. You cannot
tell a guy or a woman who is investing $10 million in a
company that they cannot have the ir key executives. It
just does not make sense.
But you have to have a policy that says employers should be able and should be willing or should
be made to ensure that Bermudians get fair treatment
in their own country. We do not have that in place.
The m ost recent egregious act is with the musicians.
For more than 50 years, Mr. Speaker , we had a policy
that said that if you are bringing in a foreign act you have to have equal time or thereabouts for a local
musician, a local act. We have an abundance of v ery
talented people in this country, Mr. Speaker —
comedians, we have musicians, we have singers. Go
to Chewstick many nights, go to a number of places
on Front Street, you will see a plethora of talented
people. But what is this Government doing? December 1 they will change the policy. A company can apply for a work permit and if the Minister decides to give it to that business that business will get it. There
is no concomitant obligation to ensure that Bermudi-ans get hired. But this is a Government that sa ys they
care about people. If you care about people, have it
reflected in your policy.

[Inaudible interjection]

Okay.
But Mr. Speaker , the policy has now changed
at a time when work is more and more difficult to get. I
do not know who was complaining about the policy
because normally a policy change comes about be-cause there is some lobbying going on. Who lobbied
the Minister? It was not in the pub lic domain. So you
are having private meetings with people and that
forms a basis for policy? You have no discussions
with the Musicians Union so you have a one- sided
discussion to change policy? What kind of a Bermuda
are we trying to create? When you say you want to
revitalise the economy, does it mean economic growth without consideration of the impact of that growth?
Because economic growth can come at the expense
of Bermudians you know. Economic growth can come
with the increased marginalisation of Ber mudians. So
what kind of growth do you want to see?
Christine Lagarde who is the Head of the IMF
(the International Monetary Fund) made a . . . I b elieve it was February, she made a speech. This is a,
as my colleague, the Honourable Mr. Commissiong,
would say, the IMF is not known for its left of centre
policies, but the IMF had said that when you create
economic growth and you increase the inequality b etween the people you foment the seeds of dissent,
you foment the seeds of discontent, you foment the
seeds of rebellion and unrest. So be careful how we
talk about economic growth.
The immigration policy has to be created in
such a way that it ensures that the people who live
here, the people who vote, have a place of priority.
You cannot just say economic gr owth at any and all
cost because it is guaranteed.
We may not have a strong and viable society
going forward. Learn the lessons of the past —1968,
1977 —everyone here should know what they mean. If
you do not know what they mean, you need to catch up on your reading because 1968 and 1977 were pi votal years, and the Royal Commissioners who came
here said the causes of these rebellions, these riots,
were extensive problematic structures in our country,
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58 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

lack of opportunity, lack of identity, lack of connection
with the people.
So try not to repeat the errors of the past. We
study history so we can learn from history. History is
not just meant to be an intellectual exercise; it is meant to be a place where you learn. All of you have
your family histories. Your f amily histories are relevant
but the history of our country is even more so when it
comes to creating the right framework for governance.
Mr. Speaker , this Government has presided
over an immigration policy that provides privileges and a path to PRC [ Permanent Residents' Certificate] for
one group and one group only —rich white men. It is
as simple as that. Look at the wording of the PRC —I
am sorry, the Job Makers Act version 2. That is exactly what it does. It gives privileged position and access to PR C to senior executives of international
companies.
Who are they? Look at the Board of Directors,
look at the CEOs who are all work permit [holders] and see what they look like.
What are their demographics? So why would you do that? Why would you
create such a policy against the backdrop of the div isive racial history that we have? We had a racialised
immigration policy in the 1960s, everyone knows that. Everyone knows that.
So to create a new immigration policy today
which has that same kind of bias, and to hear Hon-ourable Members on the other side —the Honourable
Minister Pat Gordon- Pamplin, the Honourable Finance
Minister Bob Richards —say they do not care who
comes in . . . You cannot create policy and not care
what the impact is, because then you will feel the consequences. You cannot say that as long as we get
money coming in I don’t care where it comes from.
Learn the lessons from 1968 and 1977. Listen to what
people are saying. People are hurting. They want to
know where jobs are coming from.
I spoke to two of my constituents —a couple—
one has not had work since 2010. She said, Mr.
Brown I would do anything . . . I would do anything to
find work. I am calling around trying to find something
for her. The husband, he stopped working when the
hospital was finished, a qualified drywall installer,
been working for 25 years. A proud couple, a proud
family. They do not want to go on social assistance.
They want work. She has been around to many Government departments looking for work, looking for opportunity.
And we say we are going to create an imm igration policy December 1 which says if you are star ting a new company you can bring whoever you want to for the first year before the company gets set up.
Nothing that says, Well, maybe you need to hire one
or two Bermudian understudies. Maybe you need to do something that has your support staff as locals ,
because there are scores of admin assistants, there are scores of office assistants, who can do work along those lines who would be excluded December 1 when
this new policy kicks in.
I have written to the Minister and said, Come
on, Minister Fahy, have a heart. Now maybe it was
instructive that when [tropical storm] Fay hit us, like a
hurricane, the immigration gates at the airport were
flooded —symbolic perhaps —but it sounds to me like
the comment that Freddie Wade made in 1995 when hurricane —what was the hurricane that delayed the
referendum on Independence? He said, Even God
doesn’t want the referendum. So you might take some
insight from these sort of indirect m essages we are
getting.
But how can you create a policy which says
we want to create 2,000 jobs for Bermudians and
then, on the other hand, say, If you are setting up a
company you can bring in whoever you want to for the first year ? A Government which is committed to a ddressing the interests of its people needs to have ba lance. I am not saying you cannot bring in people.
Bring in the critical staff, of course.
If I am investing $10 million, if I had access to
that, I would not want Government telling me w ho I
can and cannot hire as my key staff. But being . . .
having a company is not just about making a profit.
Right? The modern way of thinking for key manag ement with responsible companies is that you have a connection to your community, you are involved in your community, you have an obligation to your community, and that is what the Government needs to
instil in those who are their partners.
If you have a company as your partner, if you
have an organisation that is your partner, there is a
level of reci procity —a give and take—it is not just a
one-sided approach where the company gets ever ything and the people who the Government represents
get next to nothing. If you are concerned about the people, why would you have an immigration policy
which says we ar e going to allow for 20 per cent of
your employees to be beyond work permit control?
Why?
Why would you do that? Why would you say
. . . you have got a company of a hundred employees,
your top 20 people no longer need to have work per-mits? Those jobs will be permanently off limits to Bermudians with one snap of the finger. So why would a Government do that? Is it because they are in sy mbolic bed with business and are so seduced by the, the . . . whatever, that they are not thinking logically?
Because your obligation is to the people.
Your obligation is not first and foremost to
companies. And let no one try to spin this to being
anti-business. Trust me. I want to see companies
coming here, but you cannot just give away ever ything. If you give away a countr y you end up having
nothing.
Look at . . . there are a lot countries that are
very good examples of giving everything away —the
Guyanese Government gave away all its rights to
Bermuda House of Assembly


some Canadian company —did not care about Gu yana, destroyed the rivers, poisoned the rivers, they
were interested in making money. A Government has
to strike the balance between the interests of a co mpany, the interests of its people and the appropriate policy to put in place. We do not see that here , and it
is very disconcerting, Mr. Speaker .
So we need to have a sensible approach as to
how we look at this immigration policy. It is stunning
that there is no mention of a vision for the coming year
with regard to immigration policy —one of the most
controversial issues to afflict us —I do not know, in
easily 15 years, Mr. Speaker .
Now, we have called for a comprehensive set
of immigration reforms. We said that last year. We say
it yet again today. It is not political rhetoric. It is a si ncere, principled position. The 1956 Act is outdated.

Okay. Mr. Speaker , two minutes.
The Government has predicated its position
on the issue of trust. If w e are to work with Gover nment , and there are many of us who want to work with
Government to ensure that the appropriate policies
are put in place, if we have to work with Government ,
there has to be good faith demonstrated. Minister
Fahy, you may be listen ing or you should be listening,
I am available to sit down so that we can come up
with a collaborative approach to addressing immigr ation issues. We have created a whole new category of people who would now be PRCs, what is the long -
term plan for that? What legislative amendment is going to be made to address that? We need to do it. We
need to do it for the sake of this country, for our par-ents, our grandparents, but most importantly for the
children and those yet unborn.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker .

Thank you very
much, Mr. Speaker , and thank you for allowing us to
take off our jackets. Mr. Speaker, I am the first OBA woman to
speak to the Throne Speech as well as the Reply from
the Opposition. I want to basically voice my concern
and the reason and explain myself as to why I took
the opportunity to leave the House, for it was basically
out of respect for myself and for the respect of all
women. And out of respect for my electorates I can
assure everyone that I did listen to everything that
was being said but it was important for me to establish
that.
And I must say while I sat back there, I have
to confess there was at one point that I actually thought was I listening to, perhaps, the party platform
of the Progressive Labour Party, or was I listening to
their Reply to our Throne Speech.
Mr. Speaker , the One Bermuda Alliance is
moving forward, and while there were, perhaps, a lot of suggestions that will help us move forward, we
must all move forward together.
So taking a look at the Throne Speech for
2014, I have to say I saw a lot of exciting things in here. So for someone to say they did not see things for the society, I am not quite sure what they were
reading or what they were reading into.
And I am going to start off with . . . and we
have heard comments pertaining to . . . in fact, not comments. In the Reply to the Throne Speech, there
was a line put in there pertaining . . . it was page 5,
Mr. Speaker . It [stated it] “is a diabolical scheme of
disinheritance.” Now, that is speaking to the oping, or
the suggestion, of reverse mortgages —“diabolical
scheme of disinheritance.”
Now if that does not sound like a spoiled child
to me, Mr. Speaker , I am not sure what it sounds like.
And let me explain why I say that. I was raised by very
strong people as I am sure most Members in the
House were, and it was always the opinion of every
sibling (and there were five of us) that whatever my
parents [had] they worked hard for. And as they got
older it was not my money, it was not the money that belonged to my siblings, it was theirs. It was a constant reminder that we had to give. Don’t do this for
us; this is for you. If you would like to go out and buy a
new car rather than constantly repairing a 20- year-old
car, do that. Do not worry about us.
Well, Mr. Speaker , I have to say I do know
that there is a mindset —not with everybody, but with
some —that would take a look at it as being a diabol ical plan. But Mr. Speaker , all this speaks to is enabling more financial security to maintain a quality of life that I believe our seniors deserve. It is a personal opinion, but I feel that if a senior feels —and I have to
say there does have to be controls i n there, it does
have to be monitored, it should not be to an extent that they cannot control, and I know that there are i ssues from my research in other parts of the world where it has caused challenges —but this is a potential. This is a possibility. And if one chooses, hopefully
the opportunity will be there. It is not for us to say, You
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60 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

have to take it. But, Mr. Speaker , if a senior wants to
replace his living room furniture, then shouldn’t he? If
a senior wants to go on an around the world trip,
shouldn’t he be allowed to? Doesn’t he deserve it?
Now, Mr. Speaker , there is that old saying
again which I have heard my parents say many times, there are many people on the Island that are property
rich and cash poor. And this is who that speaks to, to
a portion of it.
So I would like to think that what we are doing
is we are being progressive. I will tell you, Mr.
Speaker , a couple of years ago I was canvassing and
believe this to be a true story. I was in a home and
there was a senior, and in his kitchen, whic h I had to
walk through, there were very few floorboards. It was
a wooden floor. You know how they actually stand off
the ground? He had to aim his footing properly in or-der to go from one floor panel to the next one or else
he would have fallen through.
One of my comments to him was, What ha ppens at night? How do you see, because this could
break your hip? And we know what that would do to
seniors. Well, Mr. Speaker , I actually said, Well, you
know what? This is a case in point where it would be
beneficial if there was such a thing as a reverse mor tgage. And he said, Well, what would that mean for
me? And I said, It would mean that you could replace
your floor, that your life, your health would be safer
because you do not have to worry about breaking
your hip.
Mr. Speaker , his son overheard me and there
was a barrage of words which I choose not to repeat, but I can say this, the point that he was making was,
Don’t tell him that. That is my money you are taking
from me. Mr. Speaker , it was not. But that is just the
way I look at it. It will be beneficial for us to take a look
and have an opportunity. So that is my perspective on
“a diabolical plan.”
Mr. Speaker , I would also like to take the opportunity to talk briefly —and I mean briefly —on
page 16 we have highlighted that “the Bermuda Hospitals Board Ambulance Service and the Bermuda
Fire and Rescue Service will partner to ensure an i mproved emergency response across the island.” And this includes the West End and the East End.
Now what I did was to find out , Well, what
does that mean? Because I was not sure what act ually that would mean to me. Well, I did find out that in actual fact it takes . . . and I am afraid that I was only
looking for the East End, not the West End. It takes
approximately 15 minutes t o get from Paget to St.
George’s to St. David’s. So what you are looking at by
having an ambulance that is actually on location is a
reduction in time that it will take to get that patient to a
hospital where it might mean life [or] death.
Now what does th at mean in numbers, Mr.
Speaker ? So, again, I asked for another report. In
January 2013 there were 56 calls . . . I am sorry, I
think that was there were 86 calls. In August there were 89, in September 67, October 86, 77 the next
month, 57 and then 61. Thi s shows that what the One
Bermuda Alliance has been able to organise with the
helping hand of the Bermuda Hospitals Board and the
Bermuda Fire and Rescue Service has gone to aid all those individuals or all those numbers. They will now
have an extra 15 minutes of life saving. So, Mr.
Speaker , I could not help but have to mention that in
my response today.
On the next portion that I would like to address is from page 17 of our Throne Speech and that
pertains to [the] “Interpol Specialist Group on Crimes
Against Children.” Now, the Interpol Specialist Group
actually meet annually and they are responsible to
work together with the law enforcement entities and
ensure that our children and all the systems are put into place for the betterment and health of our chi ldren.
Now I have to say when I saw that, that the
whole idea was that we would be amending the Criminal Code Act 1907 to outlaw simple possession of child pornography. I thought, you know, my memory
is pretty bad but I do remember being in the House in
2006 and talking in great detail about pornography
and having access.
So I went and pulled that piece of legislation
out. I throw very little out, I am not a hoarder, but I throw very little out when it comes to the House. I
pulled out the Criminal Code Am endment (No. 2) Act
200[7] and I briefed through it. And (and I will be very
quick) under 182C it was pertaining to any person
who knowingly shows a child abusive material. In
182D any individual who “allows the child to be used
for the production of child abusive material” and so on
and so on.
But what the legislation did not —and of
course, I thought I got caught here —under 182H “Any
person who knowingly accesses child abusive mat erial.” And I thought, Well, aha! It has already been done. And I read a little further “or child pornography
is guilty of an offence and is liable.” So it is access but
not possession, and there is a difference.
So what we have decided to do because it is
necessary and because [the] Interpol Specialist Group
(who came to Bermuda) have made the recommendation. So what we are now planning to do is to include
“the possession of.”
Mr. Speaker , I know for years I have been
talking about situations that most people would like not to talk about. And one of the cases was of a gentleman who was charged for a sexual exploitation of a
child. He also had graphic images —in fact, not just
one or two images but 3,500 child pornography i mages. He was jailed for 10 years. Now the prosec ution, Mr. Speaker , said, Choose to charge him with
specimen charges rather than for every incident of
abuse and every pornographic image. Can you imagine what his fine might have been had this piece of legislation been put into place?
Bermuda House of Assembly


So I congratulate the team for actually seeing
that that one step needed to go forward with the assi stance of Interpol. Mr. Speaker , that makes me extremely pleased.
Now I am going to turn to page 18, again, not
a lot of difference, but we have heard the topic of domestic violence. And on page 18 we support the vi ctims a nd the perpetrators of domestic violence or the
intervention of. “To that end, the Government will form a committee to review domestic violence in Bermuda
with an initial focus on protective legislation.” I for one would like to volunteer to sit on that Committee, Mr.
Speaker . But one of the things I wanted to identify for
the purposes of this House and, again, I have done it several years ago, was there are generally six types
of abuse that fall under the realm of domestic vi olence. And this is for women and for men by the way. I do not want to say that it should be only for one cat egory. But it is physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal
abuse, economic abuse, mental abuse —all of these
categories fall into making an individual feel less s uperior. The whole idea of abuse is to show control, to
show dominance. It is not acceptable in any shape or
form—physical; emotional; verbal; economic (wit hholding of individual’s money) and that happens a lot,
especially when we wonder why individuals (women
and men) stayi ng in environments that are not cond ucive to a healthy environment. Well, the reality of it is
in a lot of cases there is nowhere for them to go. They
cannot afford—that economic hold for a lot of hous eholds —and I can speak to yet another constituent of
mine. A man who was held within the environment of
his household economically —but that is abusive, Mr.
Speaker , and that is not acceptable. It is not acceptable in any shape or form. And no one in this room or no one in Bermuda should accept any form of abus e,
especially domestic violence.
Mr. Speaker , the next topic I would like to
touch on . . . and, again, I heard the Member from I
believe it was constituency 15 mentioning he was not
quite sure what the point of cultural tourism was and
how we would develo p on that. So I thought I would
bring to the forefront what cultural tourism means to
me, if you do not mind, Mr. Speaker .
In the year 2002 was the first Reconnection
Festival —these were survivors from the 1673 Eur opean massacre of Pequot Indians, Mr. Speaker . The
whole intent of this massacre was to do away with all Pequot Indians. And for the most part they did so. There was a group that moved over to another area
and stayed in Boston and in Connecticut, while there
are recorded Colonial records of surviv ors that were
sold into Bermudian slavery. They came to Bermuda,
Mr. Speaker . We know the history; I have talked about
that before. But what the reconnection group did in
2002 was bring those families together. What an organisation did, what the people of St. David’s (like
Jeannie, my cousin, [and] Brinky today), they helped to coordinate with the help of Government funding (because it was with the help of Government funding)
what we would consider [to be] cultural tourism.
Now, Mr. Speaker , I say that to a lso add as
part of that relationship of us being able to reconnect with our relatives, with our cousins, the National Geographic [Society] came to Bermuda, and part of their
journey here was to do some testing. They wanted to
see who these Bermudians were, who were these St.
David’s islanders, how do they relate? So they did
DNA testing, Mr. Speaker . And one of the reports I
brought with me today was how the National Geographic did testing on Bermudians across the board
here in various racial diversities. T hey have broken it
down to what Bermudians are— 15 per cent from the
Mediterranean —in their blood system. So it is not
15 per cent of Bermudians are from the Mediterr anean. Three per cent from Southern Africa, 7 per cent
Southwest Asia, 4 per cent are Nativ e American,
20 per cent Northern European, and 48 per cent from
sub-Saharan Africa (which is an area just sub- Sahara,
which lies just from the Sahara Desert, but they are
African).
The reason I brought this forward is all those
entities play a part in who we are. All those entities
have potential for cultural tourism —all of them —
because they are who we are as Bermudians.
So Mr. Speaker , again, we must not dismiss
something because we do not understand where it is going. But hopefully as Nevis and the commit tee who
have diligently worked hard over the years to continue
to develop and evolve the Indian Reconnection with
Bermuda and our connections, I hope to see similar or
other nationalities for other groups here in Bermuda
as time progresses. And Bermuda wil l continue to
benefit because every time they come down to Bermuda, Mr. Speaker , yes, for the most part they are
staying in homes with their relatives, but they go to
restaurants, they experience Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker , I wanted to speak . . . and just
one line basically before I close. It is on page 25, the
opening of boards. I am going to read it:
“In the past, Department Heads, Permanent
Secretaries and Ministers would recommend persons
they thought would be good candidates to serve. The
process will be now opened to the general public, with
access to the Government website where they can
complete an application . . . .”
What does that do, Mr. Speaker ? I can tell
you I have heard many a Minister [say] at times —
Does anyone know of anyone that might fit the bill, who might be prepared to serve on a board? Because
when your pool is just who you know (a) it becomes
sometimes incestuous, (b) sometimes it becomes not
as efficient or effective as you would like to see your board. But what we are doing— what the One Bermuda Alliance have recognised that we will do in the
next year —is by opening that board we enable all
Bermudians who have something to bring to the table
to bring it to the table. Because that is how we grow,
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62 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

that is how we expand, that is how we becom e the
Bermuda that we need and should be.
And with that, Mr. Speaker , I thank you for the
time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker , and
good evening to the listening audience.
Mr. Speaker , it has been interesting what I
have heard thus far about the Throne Speech and the
Throne Speech Reply. Rather than jump all over the
place I will be going specifically to certain topics and
pages, Mr. Speaker .
Over this last week I have had the opportunity
to see and hear from a lot of constituents, Mr.
Speaker . And they have their concerns. They have
their concerns about the economy. And this particular
week, Mr. Speaker , more so than ever, [the concern]
has been our young men and this crime situation.

[Crosstalk]

I see combating crime and a
sense of disenfranchisement because when I have
been talking and listening to my constituents this
year—this week —most of them are concerned. Now
they ar e interested in what the Government has to say
about the Throne Speech, interested in what the O pposition has in reply, but right now what is on a lot of people’s minds —Mr. and Mrs. Bermuda—is what is
happening with our young black men who are taking
part in all this crime. And I say this honestly because
we have to be clear. What we see are not young white
men. We do not see young Portuguese men. So it is
us young black men. So we as a community have to
be clear on it and see what we can do to come back together and combat it.
So having said that, Mr. Speaker , I decided to
go right to page 22 where it talks about community
culture—

I see in the Throne Speech,
Mr. Speaker , that the Government had three little se ntences on youth and sport and about restoring a
sense of belonging and purpose to our young people. So let me quote some, Mr. Speaker .
Socially we know that there are no quick -fix
solutions, Mr. Speaker . But research has shown, Mr.
Speaker , that a means which can facilitate the process and contribute to a community development and
peace building is sport. So I do not want to minimise
anything else, but sport is my purview and that is the way I will be taking my view of the Throne Speech and
what we need to do.
Mr. Speaker , all over the globe we see spor ting clubs that play a vital role in highlighting the at hleticism of our youngsters at a y oung age. More i mportantly, Mr. Speaker , these clubs teach our youn gsters leadership skills, how to participate— winning
and losing —and the like, and working with others —
other cultures, other neighbourhoods, other ethnic ities. They provide a member with a t rue sense of belonging.
But Mr. Speaker , I am just giving you a little
overview before I get right into the meat of it, so stay
with me. So it also teaches non- violence, Mr.
Speaker . These sporting clubs teach non- violence,
they teach resilience, they teach a peaceful coexistence.
So, Mr. Speaker , while I can applaud our
Government for wanting to partner with some account ing firms in adopting some sporting clubs and
helping them with their accounting, and also I see on
page 22 some talk about the Sports Hall of Fame. And
I must say that that was one of the things that were
put forward by us as the Opposition, so I am glad that
they are fulfilling that initiative we started.
But Mr. Speaker , there is no reference—this is
where I need to get into it —there is no reference, Mr.
Speaker , to improving our current sporting facilities, or
more importantly, investing in our youth by allocating
the necessary funds to build vital programmes in our
communities. Now you may ask me where I am going
with this. These yo ung men, Mr. Speaker , a lot of
these young men they remind of what I was a while
back, 25 or 30 years ago. When we come up in a s ociety, especially like a lot of these young guys are coming up in single parent homes —no fathers in
these homes . . . a lot of my nurturing came from
these sporting clubs and the youth centres. So some
of us may not see the importance of putting that focus
on our sporting and workmen clubs, but if you bear with me I will show you why we should and I think we
must, Mr. Speaker .
I have said on more than one occasion, Mr.
Speaker , that if we invest in our sporting and workmen
clubs . . . I threw a figure out, Mr. Speaker , just $30
million. Some say where does that come from? Well,
from the time this Government , Mr. Speaker , early i n
2013 told us that they . . . told the country that they
Bermuda House of Assembly


had invested or borrowed $800 million I suggested [to]
use some of that for our sporting infrastructure. Look
at what has happened, Mr. Speaker . We talk about a
lot of different programmes, we talk about the prob-lems. What I propose today, Mr. Speaker , are some
solutions.
Mr. Speaker , if we had that kind of money
invested in our sporting infrastructure, a lot of these sporting and workmen clubs that need refurbishing
could be refurbished. How do we do that, Mr.
Speaker ? A lot of these young men that are out of
work can travel, can go from one parish to another —
you have heard me say it before— we could have
them work within their parishes. Now this is a start,
this could take two . . . maybe two to thr ee years, Mr.
Speaker . But on a more serious note other than the
rich history of clubs like . . . let us start from the west,
White Hill Field, North Village social club, Boulevard —
these people need buildings, Mr. Speaker . And other
clubs like my illustrio us club, Western Stars, need r efurbishing, especially as places to store all the tr ophies that we win. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker .
Mr. Speaker , I think that this initiative can cr eate many, many jobs and put a segment of our population [to work] —at least som e of them —Mr. Speaker ,
because as much as talk about the violence in our
communities, it is really not the majority, it is the few.
And in saying that, Mr. Speaker , another sol ution that I would like to put forward and my Opposition Leader in our Reply sai d on page 20, or 18 and 19,
mentioned a ‘Sports Academy.’ Mr. Speaker , we have
to try to arrest the issue that we are facing and a lot of them are our youngsters. If we could try to identify a lot of our athletic youngsters early and we could develop a Sports Academy because a lot of our athletes
are leaving the Island, or going away to sports academies overseas. Again, I am trying to say ways that
. . . and be innovative and we can arrest this problem.
We have an issue right now of young men
who are fight ing each other, our neighbourhoods and
what not. But we have to look at it in more than one
way. We need the attention, we need the involvement
of our whole community —our churches, our sporting
clubs, the police —to do it now. But we have to look at
how did we get here and how do we make sure that it
does not happen again. So when I speak of things like the sporting club approach, the Sports Academy a pproach, it is to deal with a lot of our struggling males that may have behaviour problems early. That, Mr.
Speaker , would help us to reduce . . . and, again, it is
research I am dealing with to help us to reduce gang activity, increase our education options for our youth —particularly our young black males —reduce
our truancy. Better education equals better adults . A
lot of these men if we look at . . . not necessarily come
from single parent homes, but they have divorced
themselves from the education system at a young
age. So, Mr. Speaker , talking about this, about the
Sporting Academy and what sports can do to our d evelopment is just one of the things that I am looking at to help or to put forward into addressing the current crisis we find ourselves in.
Mr. Speaker , moving right along on page 2 of
the Throne Speech I see no more than about two or
three lines about financial assistance. We are in a cr isis, Mr. Speaker , so I ask does our Government recognise this? Our Government in the last Throne
Speech of the last year, Mr. Speaker , they said they
would launch a pilot project to help people transition
from needing financial assistance to becoming self -
sufficient. Since then we have heard no update. What
is the update on this, Mr. Speaker ? What is the update? Because unemployment is on the increase.
More and more of our people are looking for any ways to retrain and retool themselves. I am simply saying
this pilot programme . . . was it just a ploy from the
last Throne Speech? And if it is in place, what is the update? Where are the results of it?
This is also the premise behind their wor kshops —work shadowing and volunteer —in prepar ation for a business plan programme. And that, too,
came out of last year’s Throne Speech. And while this
is great for those who find themselves in perhaps the
lower quadrant, Mr. Speaker , of our socio- economic
scale, more and more, a lot of the persons that we are
dealing with are not only the low income. There are a lot of middle income people now, Mr. Speaker . So one
of my . . . and we have to include them in this equ ation. And if I may tell a story, Mr. Speaker . I am a part
of a fraternit y. One of my sister organisations, what
they are doing is they have a pantry programme, Mr.
Speaker , the Delta Sigma Betas, if I may say. They
have a pantry programme and they focus because
they recognise the need is to focus on the working
middle class because there are a lot of two parent,
two-income homes, who are also struggling for var ious reasons, from loss of hours, from loss of job, and
a lot of people who work for Government [are] in the
furlough programme, Mr. Speaker .
So I cannot tell you how many middle -class
persons have been serviced by Delta, but I know the list is long and they definitely gear toward the middle
income. So when I say that when we revisit, I have
spoken on it before, about financial assistance reform,
and the more and more that we talk, and I talk to my
constituents, we have to recognise that it is more than
one segment of our society that is in need of financial
assistance.
So, Mr. Speaker , a lot of the middle class,
they feel like our Government has chosen to overlook
that soc ial economic portion of our society. And if we
do not address it we will find that that too is a real d ilemma because a lot of these persons, Mr. Speaker ,
are unable to apply for social assistance because of their status —being married and what not and havi ng
two incomes —but the furlough day has put them right
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64 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

above the poverty line so to speak. So we have to do
our financial assistance reform sooner rather than
later.
Mr. Speaker , so I would encourage the Go vernment to suspend the current financial assistance
rules. We need to take a look at it today. A lot of these
things need to be suspended. So I implore the Go vernment to look at the financial assistance programme
as it applies to Bermuda today.
Mr. Speaker , let me tell you a story. I have a
constituent, she is a senior and has a house in a d eplorable condition. And I know my story may sound like a lot of other stories that we have heard about
other constituents. She has a son that lives with her;
he does not work. The house is falling down but they
cannot afford to fix it up because they do not qualify
(as it currently is) for financial assistance. Why, Mr.
Speaker ? The son lives with her and because he lives
with her —the older lady —financial assistance as it
currently stands says that the lady is not eligible. So in
order for her to get financial assistance the son has
got to move out and he is not working, where is he
going to go? So these are the rules that we put in place years ago when our economy was in a different
state. All I am saying now is that w e have to look at it
for what it is now.
Mr. Speaker , I am going to move on to public
safety. I would like to commend the Police Service
because they say that crime is down from 2000, but
there is a lot of work to be done because gun crime is
steady. Because [when] there is a lull at any given
time, that is the time that we must really stay on board
and stay on top of what we have got to deal with.
Mr. Speaker , a lot of times I have gotten up in
this House and I have talked about things like CCTV and street lights. On Tuesday when I inquired about
the shootings up in Somerset, one of the first things
one of the residents told me was that the CCTV
probably was not working —not at Somerset, but on
different parts of the Island between Somerset and
certain parts of the Island that catch people coming
and going. So they asked me, Is that a farce? But
what I am saying is when we do not have any activity,
that is the time when we have to make sure that we
have things in order and in place because the lull
does not m ean that it is over, the lull just means it is a
lull. But we as leaders of the country must make sure
that we do what we say we are going to do.
And in saying that I heard . . . I saw in the
Throne Speech, I cannot remember what page it was,
it talked about [Team] Street Safe. I had the page earlier but I cannot pick it up now, but they were talking about [Team] Street Safe and I contend in the past
and I contend again that CARTEL is that organisation
that has been dealing with gangs for the last 10 to 15
years. And what we need to do is recognise that this
is not a political situation, but we need to reach out —

Page 15. Mr. Michael A. Weeks: Page 15 of the Throne
Speech.
At this point in time, Mr. Speaker , we have to
realise that this is not a political situation. We need to
use all the resources that we have. And CARTEL is
about the premier organisation now dealing with
gangs that go into the prisons, they are dealing in
schools, so not only are they deal ing with those that
have already been convicted, they are dealing to the
primary, middle and high schools dealing with the
gang issue and the potential gang members. So I stress, Mr. Speaker , that we have to use our r esources that we have right here on our Island.
Mr. Speaker , I now want to speak on the issue
of conscription as noted on page 16 in the Throne
Speech.
Mr. Speaker , on page 3, first, the Government
has promised that during this legislative session co nscription will be eliminated. If I recall, the same thing
was written in last year’s Throne Speech.

And, again, I ask is this just
empty rhetoric or a political ploy? As a matter of fact, I
could have just cut and pasted from then until now.
Mr. Speaker , I would like to commend our
Government —our party, the Opposition PLP —for putting the mechanisms in place to address conscription
and bringing it into the 21
st century because that was
one of our platform points back on December 17,
2000. What we had r ecommended then and I think we
still contend, Mr. Speaker , is that we make the current
Regiment 21st century and make it, as the Gover nment had contended in this Throne Speech and the
last Throne Speech, to make it like a maritime force.
We have always sai d that, but we have to do this
sooner rather than later because, again, there is a
segment of our society that gets the short end of the
stick.
Right now there are a lot of young men, again,
a lot of young black men who become criminalised for
either not going to the Regiment, trying to duck their
service. So sooner rather than later we have to make
some moves and it cannot be just rhetoric because in
the meantime some of our young men who are not
necessarily criminals or law breakers are finding
themselves in court and some of them even up at
Westgate because they are refusing to go into the
Army.
So I would like to encourage the Government
let us not have the same sentence in next year’s Throne Speech. We need to go ahead and end co nscription and start a volunteer force that we can use in Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker , let us move on to education. It is
page 22 of the Throne Speech, Mr. Speaker , where it
talks about education. I see, Mr. Speaker , where they
are talking about world history and other kinds of
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things that they are looking to do. And I think one of
my colleagues mentioned we need to have some
Bermuda history. We need to have a history to give
people a knowledge and pride in themselves because
all of these things, Mr. Speaker , are all part of trying to
get to the root of what this problem is that we are facing with our youngsters.
I heard a colleague talk about a few reports.
The most recent report, Mr. Speaker , was the Mincy
Report. And another colleague of mine refers to it
every chance he gets, but he talks about the margina lised young black men in Bermuda. And we have r eport after report. We table them. We talk about them.
We put it on these shelves and it gets dust. And when
these things that we are finding that manifest themselves now, i.e.,, the s erious crimes that are going on,
we scramble and say, What’s happening? But if we
look at these reports and more noticeably this last r eport—the Mincy Report —a lot of the flags were in
there saying that if we do not do (a), (b), and (c) we
would end up her e.
So again, let us not commission another r eport. Let us take our reports off the shelf, especially that last Mincy Report, and let us start to put some of
those things into place.
Mr. Speaker , one of the recommendations in
the Mincy Report was the Job Corps. That was som ething I championed over and over along with one of
my colleagues. We have a lot of young men that are
marginalised not getting any education, dropping out
of school, finding things [are] not for them. What do
we do? We cannot keep locking them up, Mr.
Speaker . We cannot keep locking them up and we
cannot keep acting after the fact. We have to start using our resources that we have sooner rather later.
We are either going to pay now or we are going to pay
later, but we are going to pay. So why not pay early in
the education and the retraining and retooling of a lot
of these young men, especially our young black men, who feel that society has nothing for them?
Mr. Speaker , I want to move on to culture. In
the Reply to the Throne Speech on page 18 our O pposition Leader talked about the Public Holidays Amendment.
Mr. Speaker , when we talk about the social
responsibility that we have, there are certain things that should happen as we mature as a community.
And one of the things that, again, we ha ve to look at —
and it goes beyond economics and whether or not it
fits somebody’s agenda—there are certain things that
from a social perspective we have to be mature
enough to recognise that we have to address it.
Now, this Public Holidays Amendment Act
that was in the Reply to the Throne Speech —I co mmend the Leader for that because what we need to do is to come into the 21
st century even on that, Mr.
Speaker . If we have the Bermuda Day on the last Fr iday of May, that in a lot of ways can address issues of
students being absent after the 20th of May if it is through the week and employees do not have to duck
and hide and lie and cheat.
Everybody is expected to come together for
Bermuda Day. But if we put our all into a Monday or a
Tuesday, who gets up on the Wednesday, Mr.
Speaker ? I am not making excuses, I am just thinking
about reality and us moving forward as a country. So
what I said when I got up —that my approach was g oing to be social —socially of how we are going to address some of the social things that we need to a ddress, Mr. Speaker . And that, to me, is a major one
and I commend our Leader for putting that in.
Mr. Speaker , and actually on that before I sit
down if we change . . . if we could change this holiday
to the Friday, that could even increase our tourism
product because we could market . . . if we market it
correctly that could be a revenue building event.
Right? And some may not understand it now but if we look at it, take a think on it, we have it on a Friday that
creates a long weekend and we could market on the
East Coast. We are talking about things . . . how to
increase our tourism product, we have to think outside
the box. That is another way that we could help to i ncrease our tourism product.
Mr. Speaker , we talked earlier and heard the
Minister of Sport talk about National Heroes Day. I
take my hat off to him for implementing that or brin ging that back, but I really feel that it is important that
we continue to celebrate our persons so that we have
a legacy —not only . . . it is not enou gh that every time
we talk, all we talk about is the negative part of our
young men. There are a lot of things that we need to
promote and implement. And one of the things we can use is to highlight our history and teach that too in our
schools so our youn g people, our young men, could
have something that they could identify with, Mr.
Speaker .
So I touched on a few things, Mr. Speaker ,
and with that I will take my seat.
So thank you, Mr. Speaker .

Thank you, Mr. Speaker .
I would like to begin my thoughts on the
Throne Speech by reflecting on a quote that I have
heard many times before and I have never quite understood it. And that is listening to people say, The real music is not in the notes, it is the space between
the notes that really makes the music. And I have
been wondering for years what that really meant. And
as I was reading the Throne Speech for the first time I
saw what my interpretation of this quote might mean.
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So I see the Throne Speech as the notes. It is
laying a strong foundation for us to build on and establish a prosperous economic foundation for this I sland. It gives us the opportunity to work together so that this community can collaborate and succeed and really work together so that we can all live happy,
healthy lives. That is the goal.
So if the Throne Speech are the notes, that is
that the various projects that have been laid out in the Throne Speech which I have full confidence will act ually become a reality —projects such as the Ariel
Sands, we are hopeful for Morgan’s Point —we all
know the projects that are out there—the airport.
So then I think of the space between the
notes. The space between the notes for me is the op-portunity for us to be able to create what we would like
to have as our standard of li ving and our way of living
in order to be successful and prosperous members of
this society.
So I am going to step back a minute and just
kind of paint a picture of what I think it might look like. And this scenario that I am going to paint is not necessar ily something . . . I mean, I believe that the city
actually exists, but think of a city where Government
has put in place projects and policies to create an e nvironment that attracts the creation of new businesses for entrepreneurs and encourages inward i nvestment.
So let us say we have got a Government and
they decide that they are going to create policies that allow for artists [from] all around the world to come
and live in their community and they can live there
with very little red tape. And so the ar tists all flock
there because that would be an attractive place to
live. Well, they all get there and they start painting and
they start their pottery and they start their music, et
cetera. Well, with the success of all that they are pr oducing in this envi ronment (because it is easy to live
there, the Government has made it very attractive to
be there, so they are fine) but all of a sudden they r ealise that they want to have art shows. And so to have
art shows they are going to have to rent space. So
they g o out and they start to engage with people who
own properties in the city so that they can then have
their openings and create galleries, et cetera.
And so there we have it, now tourists and vis itors and family members are coming in to this society so that they can go to the art gallery and they can enjoy the art and how wonderful it is. Well, this is becom-ing very successful and very exciting, but it is missing something. And so somebody comes up with a creative idea that says, Hey, why don’t we have some catering at these art shows and galleries? So here come
the restaurants and the food and beverage and all of the specialty items that will come along with having
food and beverage at openings of galleries and art shows, et cetera.
So there are more busines ses that are
brought into this community because they are there now to support the artists who are in the galleries who are having the art shows that want to have a little wine
and entertainment while they are there. Ah! I have
mentioned entertainment, so we need to have some
music. So here come the musicians, they are now
invited to go to the art shows, et cetera. And so now
we are building on these creative ideas of what we
should be doing in a community to fill in the spaces of
what Government would put in place to make it attractive to encourage entrepreneurs to succeed and be
creative.
So I am going to come back again to the
Throne Speech. To me the Throne Speech —this is
the notes —these are the notes that are on the paper,
but what is going to make the real music is the space
between the notes. And so I think about what we here in Bermuda can do in between the spaces in between
the projects that are being realised on the Island.
And I am going to just digress for a minute
because I think my mother and sh e was a huge entr epreneur in my eyes. Let us begin with her dancing. So
she comes to Bermuda as a young person and she
has the skills to dance and she realises that there is space in the community for dance and she gathers a
few girls together and off they go. And before they
know it there are young men and women and they are
dancing and we all know that that developed then into
a small school, which became a bigger school and to this day many decades later it is still thriving and is a prosperous business.
She did not stop there. At some point along
the way she realised that all of her crackers were ge tting soft and mildewy in the summer and that she
wanted to go to the beach and not have sand in her
sandwiches and so she created the idea of wouldn’t it
be great if we could put something in plastic? And so
she had the courage to go out and find something that would fill that void. And through her creativity she was
able to establish Tupperware. And I believe that there
are few people—maybe those who are in t heir 20s
may have missed it —but certainly those that are m ature will have remembered Tupperware in Bermuda. I
believe that just about every house had at least one
piece of Tupperware.
So I am using these two examples —the
dance and the Tupperware —as creativ e ideas. Now I
am going to refer back to my learned colleague, MP
Mark Pettingill, who talked about the doing. And there
. . . it takes a lot of courage to pick up the phone or to
go online and to explore your creative ideas and to
make that phone call, pl ace that order, take that
chance and see what happens. And I know that
throughout this community there are people who are
doing that all the time. We spoke about it earlier today
that there were people like Mr. Rei d, who you know,
just came up with creativ e ideas all the time and was
very successful with that and lived a very happy and
prosperous life being creative and being an entrepr eneur and living very successfully within this comm unity.
Bermuda House of Assembly


And it is this space between the notes that I
speak to today that we have an opportunity as people
to think about what might inter est us most and what
we might like to do to support the major projects that will take place on this Island.
There are a number of ways in which I see us
developing in this support system. And that is if I take
a look . . . you know, Southside is ripe for development. So it is a wonderful place to be creative and
dream. So I am going to use Southside as my pla tform, as my drawing board right now for creativity. If
we have a major project in the Southside area and we
can use the redevelopment of the airport as an example, there is going to be plenty of room for opportunity
to create businesses or to pursue our own talents in
order to support ourselves in that area and to support our neighbours and our friends and family.
But we have to have the courage to put in action and make the phone call and to get up every day
and do what needs to be done to actually develop into
a business. And when I think about young people like Ashley with Ashley’s Lemonade, I do not think that
she necessarily had any huge plan when she started.
I believe she had a lemon and some sugar and some
water and a cup and she started creating. And she
maybe made some mistakes along the way and
maybe she stumbled, maybe she had to ask for sup-port. But now she seems to be very successful. I see
them everywhere. Everybody knows them and I am
very hopeful that she is meeting her goals and exceeding them on a daily basis. Because she is setting
a perfect example of how young people in Bermuda
and anyone can create and get to doing and have the courage to keep doing and to reach those goals and
to become successful and prosperous on this Island.
Sometimes we will have to look to family and
friends to support us, but the Government has also
put in place some very strong programmes that are designed to help support us as we create new ideas
and look for places in which we can prosper and generate business.
I think of the young people and the Career
Pathways Programme and my colleague, MP Weeks,
was talking about how do we draw attention to the
athletics in Bermuda. Well, when we look at som ething like the Career Pathways Programme that looks
at a whole range of opportunities and exposure for our
M3 students in particular, this is a time when the su pport is there, that the potential can be seen, where a
child can excel to their greatest ability and be reco gnised and find the support to move on and become the next Flora Duffy. But we have to have that cour-age to do it. And we have to be willing to step into that
space of creativity in order to manifest and create and
really bring to life what it is we would like to do in life.
And I do not think that there are, honestly in
my gut, a whole lot of businesses out there in the world . . . I do not even know if there are people an ymore that really want to work in a large organisation. Certainly, I know this does not apply to Bermuda but
large manufacturing establishments, you know, even
large (let us say) financial institutions and all kinds of
organisations. You know, having a thousand, two
thousand employees has . . . we have kind of lost our
appetite for that to a certain extent. One, it may not be
particularly efficient for an organisation. And you know
what? Power to that, we got that.
But there are also a lot of people out there
that do not necessarily want t o do the nine to five and
they do not want to do the tie and the suit or the un iform every day. They would like to find the support to
do what it is they want to do so that they can get up
every morning and feel like they are going to work and
doing something that they love and earning something
for it.
The Bermuda Government is putting in place
lots of programmes to support that. We have the
Workforce Development and the National Training
Plan where people can go in and explore what is
available —see what they may be good at, ask questions. We have programmes such as the Bermuda
Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) which is
a quango that is working very hard to support entr epreneurs that are willing to help people to plan and
find the financial support that they need in order to
succeed. I think that we need to keep feeling open
and creative so that we can take the step forward on our own faith and fill in the space so that when pr ojects do come to fruition (to real life here in Bermuda)
that we are read y and prepared to take our space so
that we can support the community and build a bus iness for ourselves and build a life for ourselves.
For me, that is the one piece about the
Throne Speech where I see such huge opportunity for
all of us here in Bermuda. I would very much like (if
nothing else) for people to think about that. If we had
large companies or large projects that came here, they are going to need support. It would be necessary
to think about, Well, maybe I do not have to be the
one-to-five employee of that project, but maybe they
are going to need a coffee shop. Maybe they are going to be down in the East End and maybe that would
be a really good place to have a mechanic so that
employees of the project can drop their cars off and get a tune up, get the tires changed, be able to co nveniently pick their car up at the end of the day and
drive home. What if they need some day care and
there is not a day care in the area —this might be an
opportunity for us to start a business that is closer to
where the population is working.
I just want to reiterate that this Throne
Speech—for me, these are the notes, but the real m usic is going to be filling the space in between the notes. I look forward to the creativity of all of us to
come up with that which i s going to make us happy
and prosperous and that we will look to the pr ogrammes that Government is putting in place for the support and the guidance that we need, and please
Bermuda House of Assembly
68 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

have the courage and ask the questions and step up
and find what is your life's am bition and participate
and be a part of what is a very successful Bermuda
moving forward.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Mrs. Suzann Roberts -Holshouser, Deputy Speaker,
in the Chair]

Thank you, Member.
The Chair now recognises the Member from
Hamilton West, constituency 6, the Honourable
Wayne L. Furbert, Shadow Minister of Economic D evelopment.
You have the floor.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Madam Deputy
Speaker. I have been waiting patiently to reply and
talk about our Reply and also the Throne Speech by
the Government.
I must admit for a while I was not sure if I was
in church or if I was in Parliament. But let us get on
and get to some real lively —I know the Minister of
Economic Development has been waiting for me patiently to stand up. I see the strategy that they have by
sending all of their Backbenchers up front and hoping
that we will stand up —we used to do it. We understand how it is played and so—

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, I used t o do it. So I
understand how the initiatives work so we expect a
few more Backbenchers over the next couple lines
after me unless the Honourable Member Grant Gi bbons wants to respond. But he is waiting for Education
from our side to respond and then he wil l stand up.
Anyway, let me get on, Madam Deputy
Speaker —I have heard a lot of Throne Speeches over
the years and, Madam Deputy Speaker, you must
admit this is the most boring Throne Speech that we
have heard over the last 30 years or more.
The Deputy Spe aker: Member, I am supposed to be
non-biased as I sit in this Chair.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, Madam Deputy
Speaker, I did not ask you to answer. I just said that —
[Inaudible interjections and laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: —I just said that I am sure
you understand that. Is has been —what is it? It is a
visionless Throne Speech. There is no inspiration. It
does not build hope for our people. It is a bunch of words that mean very little. I unfortunately was off the
Island last Friday and I tuned in online —watching on
my colleagues streaming in and some of you getting
wet—I tried my hardest, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was yawning and drinking coffee trying to stay awake
over the Throne Speech.
Let me go through what I believe we h ave
here. First of all, there is nothing new in the Throne
Speech. If someone on that side can —I mean, I was
waiting for the Honourable Member Mark Pettingill to stand up in his most —where he was ready to pounce
on us —I was waiting for him to say something . He
attacked us the whole time. I would do very little to
attack the Government because there is nothing much
to speak about. There is really not. But what he said, Madam Deputy Speaker, was that, particularly, that
we have laid out some ideas but no details.
Well, that is what Throne Speeches do—that
is what the Throne Speech Reply —you do not give
the full details as you can see in the Government's
Throne Speech, Madam Deputy Speaker. There is no detail. So unless —I know he has been on the Cabinet
for a while and maybe he is expecting some more i nformation coming out —but he understands that the
Government lays out some principles by which the Government will go throu gh and then they hope a
technical officer will also work up things and it paints a
vision. Can you imagine when— and I will read Pres ident Kennedy —he says "I believe that this nation
should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this
decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and r eturning himself to the earth." Can you imagine the
peopl e standing up saying, Can you give me some
detail about how this is going to happen?
[Laughter]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The people got caught onto
a vision that the President said that we will land a man
on the moon, and then the scientists and everybody
else—the policymakers —put funding behind it to
make it happen. That is what you call a vision. And for
that reason, that they do not understand a vision, that
is why there is nothing in their document. There is nothing visionary about it. I understand that the Member said that most of the stuff are things that we left
behind two years ago. I would expect that by now,
Madam Deputy Speaker, something would have come out much more inspiriting. Something! I mean, we
have been laying out —our Shadow Minister of F inance and our Leader of the last two years have been
laying out nuggets. Little things they are hoping they
will catch on to. They caught on to the conscription —
Yes, okay, let us do that . The drug deal —we caught
on to that. What is new? What is new from t heir side?
Madam Deputy Speaker, you know, it is a
shame. Let us talk about vision. Myles Munroe —the
Honourable Member Dr. Myles Munroe who just passed and his funeral (I understand) is December 4
th—if the Honourable Members of this House
want to send me down there I will go down there. I really liked Dr. Myles Munroe—but he said (if you do
not mind me reading):
Bermuda House of Assembly


"I think that the greatest gift God ever gave
man is not the gift of sight but the gift of vision. Sight
is a function of the eyes but vision is a function of the
heart. When a person doesn’t have a vision, they live by their eyes. That means we live by what we see. That’s one of the reasons why people are so depressed, and that’s why the future never becomes a
reality."

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: What are we saying here,
Madam Deputy Speaker? Where there is no vision the people perish! For the last two years our people have
been hurting and they have been ploughing away,
ploughing away, without any vision. Who can stand
up—I must admit. You laid it out when you got into
Government and said, We will do this, that was some
kind of vision. But everything that you said that would
cause hope for the people has now fallen apart. That
was a vision —we are going to create 2,000 jobs. We
are going to do this —there is a vision. We are going to
have a referendum on a casino— a vision! We are going to hold off on term limits and review —that is a v ision! But you have broken every promise of what
people really wanted to see going forward.
Because you are acting on impulse and by
what you see—not vision —this is causing people to
come into this —What is the word I am looking for? I
am a mathematician. They are dissatisfied. They are
dissatisfied by what is happening because every two
minutes a Minister is going towards Cabinet because I
see something, and then Michael Fahy —you know
that hurricane that came by —the Honourable Member
Michael Fahy, the hurricane that just came by —it
causes destruction. It causes destruction!
What people are concerned about is that
there is no vision coming from the Government's side. I must admit I live on this beautiful Island called Ber-muda and I was hoping that under the Honourable
Member, Premier Michael Dunkley, that something
new would have come up this year. I do not know who
wrote it. I know how it works —it is the Ministers or the
PSs write something, the Ministers take a little few
things and they write things, it goes to the Premier
and then someone sits down there and puts the whole thing together.

[Inau dible interjections]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Unless the Premier did not
show his Cabinet colleagues and the new fellow that
you hired from the former DCI [Department of Communication and Information] —

[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: The [$]12,000 man— you
should never have had him write this report. It is v isionless. Visionless!
Here we have the Opposition. We have one
side and then we have the other side. Here is what
the Progressive Labour Party's vision is —and it is just
very brief. O ur vision is based on new revenue
streams for Government. Our vision grants opport unity for our people. Our vision removes long- term m onopoly policies. Our vision is the restructuring of ed ucation. Our vision is the restructuring of our health
care system. Our vision is improving our energy
source. Our vision is to create new entrepreneurs —
and that is some of them.
It disturbs me, Madam Deputy Speaker, that
the Government could not —and they said they liked—
I was very happy to hear the Honourable Member say
he liked what he heard. His concern was that what he
heard was what we could not achieve. Let us look at
the sea mining that we have been talking about. I
said, You guys, what are you talking about? There are
no reports . So you will not be tricked by what he heard
and, you know, going back to your caucus —the Members on that side. I am not talking about you, Deputy
Speaker. I am talking about the Members on the Go vernment's side. My honourable colleague started
this—the United Nations International Seabed A uthority report entitled Marine Mineral Resources: Scientific
Advances and Economic Perspectives (that is the
name of the report) shows a manganese nodule field
running through the south western portion of our E xclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). It shows it! That is what
they said. Manganese nodules contain rare earth
elements: cobalt, nickel, and other economically i mportant metals. This is what this report said.
Now, here is another report. Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institu te report on a 2003 research
cruise t o the seamount which is within our EEZ, 160
miles northeast of Bermuda. It states [that] video i mages from the submersible and towed camera r evealed that the most common bottom features on the
seamount s (excluding sediment beds) were manganese covered igne ous outcrops. Also they described
in this report as thick manganese coatings. So this is
another report.
Here is another report, Madam Deputy
Speaker, the 1975 Deep Sea Drill Project paper titled,
Site 386. Fractured valley sediments on the central
Bermuda rise, the shipboard scientific party, reports
the findings of the drill core taken 120 miles to the
southeast of Bermuda through a highly reflective layer [which] showed an early US Navy survey of the se abed proves that the layer [is comprised of ] excell ent
heavy mineral [silt] . These heavy minerals are what
remains of the original volcanic island which has
eroded into the sea 25 miles here. So there are other
things. The minerals are there. What we are saying is, Madam Deputy Speaker, in our century we w ant to
put a man on the moon. That is all we are saying. So
Bermuda House of Assembly
70 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

the research is available for everyone to read. The
Honourable Member Grant Gibbons can read it. Do
they represent an economically viable resource? The
answer to that very important question is, W e do not
know. We do not know. But the question is do we stop
dreaming about our vision? The possibilities of what is
out there is what —not necessarily reflected on us —
there are companies out there that have the ability —
and Dr. David Saul who was a former Premier who led
a former Minister of F inance, and I know he is very
tight when it comes to money, so he is not going to be
of foolish heart i n saying let us go up and do some
research. Not by the Bermuda money —but giving
them a licence to look into somethi ng. That is what we
are talking about. No cost to us, maybe very little. But we have 200 miles —200 miles —surrounding this
beautiful Island, and what is out there we do not know.
But if an individual, if we think —and based on the sc ientific information that has been presented to us —if
they believe that there is something out there and based on some evidence, we should look at it.
I will tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, when
the United Bermuda Party was in power —

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: That is right, that is right.
You are right. When they were in power and if the
Honourable Member David Saul was Premier and
knew the information that he has now I am sure he
would encourage us to do it. But he did not.
We are saying that we have the information. I
am sure that they have been presented the inform ation, but they lack vision. They lack the whole idea of
going beyond where they are now. Let us not rock the
boat, let us just hold on. So we are saying that when
we get back into Governm ent—it will not be long. It
will not be long now, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are
two years closer than we were in 2012. But you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, two years closer.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Madam Deputy Speaker, let
me just say, I know that there are a few people on that
side that does not want to sit on that side and watch the sun go down again. So they will be running for
cover before the next election. But we will be back on
that side. There is no doubt about it. The signal will be sent very clearly on this November 18
th. That is the
beginning. That is the beginning of the end of the OBA. Now what name they change themselves after
that I do not know and I do not care. But that is the
beginning.

What name will you be using after
that?
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I will be using Wayne Furbert.

[Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: That is what I used in Hami lton parish all this time. That is why I beat you last
time.
So, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am saying to
you it is about vision. I am glad to see that the Go vernment is looking at the banks and possibilities of
opening up the bank institutions. Something that we
had been pushing, the same organisation, the Bermuda—I forgot what it is called now —the Bermuda
Development Agency (I think that is what the name is)
that we approached when we were the Minister of
Economic Development. Two things we tried to push.
The banks —we always felt there was a possibility of
allowing more banks to come to this Island. I will
never forget. I met with one particular large law firm (I am not going to mention the name) and they had a certain bank coming from a large— that wanted to
come here from a particular island—200 people they employed down there. They did not realise it was g oing to move so quickly. We knew we had to change
some of the banking acts. They said, Hold on, hold
on, hold on . So we were ready. We were ready to
move on that. Well, things changed—2012 went by so fast but we were full steam ahead on making some
real improvements on the economy and opening up
the system in Bermuda.
As you know, we removed the 60/40 on some
of the high- capitalised companies such as BELCO
and some of the tech companies and certain things.
These are some of the things that we worked on. We
believe that should go further. Maybe— particularly on
the banks. We support —and you saw us —I do not
see it in your document yet but I know that the BDA
supported it. But when I was there (I am not sure
where their minds are now) we support the opening
up and inviting some of the large law firms in Bermuda. Why, Madam Deputy Speaker? Because they
bring with them the possibility of new business. When I started working for Gray & Kempe [in] 1979, it was
Gray & Kempe. But then Gra y & Kempe merged with
Pricewaterhouse. The partners of Gray & Kempe still
became partners of Pricewaterhouse, the international
accounting firm, because large international business
would come here and we felt that we needed some of the big eight or the bi g six or whatever they are now to
come here and work in Bermuda, and they came. Can you imagine if we had only the local law
firms as we had then? There would be people be
coming and flying in to do some of the work. Now,
some of the large law firms do c ome here. I met one
just two days ago. He always has tremendous ideas.
Why cannot —and I am not a lawyer so I do not know
all the big names but let us say Clifford Chance came here, some law firm, and my honourable friends,
Bermuda House of Assembly


Shawn Crockwell and Mark, became a partner of that
law firm. Do you know that they will benefit the company, that Bermuda would benefit? Because now they
are saying instead of sending the business to wherever they may be sending it now, we have an obliga-tion to send the business to Bermuda. So we cannot
close our minds to opening up the economy for some
larger professional firms. It allows certain moms and
pops (I call them mom and pop law firms) to work with
some of the international law firms. I do not want to
call them mom and pop, but let us say my honourable friend, Michael Scott, was able to get involved with
Sullivan & Cromwell . Right now my honourable friend
cannot compete with Conyers, Dill and Pearman,
AS&K [Appleby Spurling & Kempe] (Appleby that is)
but if he was to hook up with that particular law firm,
guess what he could do? And you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have worked for law firms before.
Let me just make it very clear, that predominately
black firms —I should say that —have not done well in
international business over the years.
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: They have not. In those days
they circled from one bank to one accounting firm to
law firm. It was like all brothers and sisters —the same
thing. I worked for the Honourable Sir Edward Ric hards—the Honourable Member Bob Richards’ father.
And I will never forget I was part of the business development side and I said to a person, I said, Why do
you not send us some trust work? [He s aid,] We have
a lot of trust work we can send you. He was a little
darker than I was, Madam Deputy Speaker. After that
I saw him ducking on the other side of the street. I
said, What is wrong with this man?
So one day I cor nered him and said, Why are
you trying to avoid me? He said, Because they said
we cannot send you any business your way. I am not
going to say what bank it was but there were only two
banks —well, two large banks. We cannot send bus iness your way . We had the Honourable Member A rnold Francis who has paid a significant contribution to
this country. The Honour able Sir Edward Richards,
Mr. Morris —the names were there— Ed Bail ey was
there in those days. But yet , even they , Madam Deputy Speaker, could not break the bondage. So what
they need to do is join Co nyers, Dill and Pearman and
Appleby to make any head away .
I remember a young gentleman who started
an accounting firm. He was wiped out in a hurry.
Wiped out in a hurry because he did not join one of the significant accounting firms. Conyers, Dill and
Pearman and Appleby used to be onl y in Bermuda.
We received a lot of business. They used to go out
there and market and bring the business in. Now they
are in Hong Kong, now they are in Cayman Islands.
They are all over the world. They are in China—one of them, I cannot remember which one it is—one of them is in China. If they can go there, why cannot we encourage other large law firms to come here? We are
proposing that we open up the banking system and I
am sure the Minister will —we wait to see what they
bring forward. There are benefits for banks to come
here—not maybe for retail. Maybe not for retail. We
are too small. But there are other means —trusts,
business, whatever —that they can possibly do here—
asset management —whatever it is. Hence, it creates
job opportunities for Bermudians and others. My honourable colleague said that we are not saying that they come in here and they have to hire Bermudians
right to the top. We understand the structural importance of bringing key men in. That is why our immigr ation policy kind of worked because we supported a llowing key individuals to come into the Island.
At banks —we are talking about law firms —
asset management. We also talked about in our
Throne Speech [Reply], as far as vision is concerned,
we are talking about —and I mentioned about seabed
mining and we talked enough about off -shore fishing
and we can do that. We also talked about the ec onomic free zone. When I was in another group, I r emember the Honourable Member Grant Gibbons had talked about bringing tech companies down at Bermuda Land D evelopment Corporation. I remember
that. We have not achieved that yet. In my short term in Government there was not a great initiative to work on that. We were working with Bermuda Land Deve lopment Corporation on a few things. But we need to
say something about the Cayman Islands, it is a good
example.
The Cayman Islands set up a similar zone.
Guess which law firm was first to hire some people
down there? Appleby. Appleby was the first [firm] that
placed clients in their zone. What? So why can’t we?
We al l get behind it. I know the Honourable Member
Grant Gibbons supports that. There are benefits for
them setting up a key zone, we can set up a key area
down on the BLDC property. You can call it the 53
rd
state, the 54th—I do not care what you call it. But a s
long as they are here and the tax benefits that they can derive by sitting down there, bringing their private
planes and everything else, I think is significant. We
need intellectual capital down in that thing. We do not manufacture—light manufacture may be, very light
manufacture, but we definitely need intellectual capital. So we support that.
I am hoping—and whatever the Government
does in that direction —I am hoping that they will have
our support. It brings in new revenue for the Gover nment and, of course, it brings in job opportunities —
tech, computers, all those sorts of things. I am not a big gambling person, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you
know. I pushed that button once in my life— you know
the slot machine when I was down in Vegas one day
sitting wait ing for my plane to leave because it was
late afternoon and I was just putting money in, turning
Bermuda House of Assembly
72 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

my head and all of a sudden the thing goes ding, ding,
ding, ding, ding.

[Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I thought I broke the m achine! The man ca me runni ng to me, talk ing about,
You won some money . I said, How much? (I will tell
you in a few minutes) , and he said, Well, where are
you from? I said, I am from Bermuda. I said, Why are
you asking the question? Because, he said, if you are
from the United States you will pay taxes. He said,
Well, where is Bermuda? He did not know where
Bermuda is. I said, We are a British territory. Well, by
saying that he knew that they do not pay taxes either.
They do not pay taxes. So I received—I think it was
about $2,500.
I said I could open a business. I could go
around to everybody who goes ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding and say I won it.
No, I am just joking. But the point is I am not a
big casino gambler but I do support online gaming. I do support it. So why can we not do it? Why can we
not set up something that is clean and workable for
this Island that can bring in significant amounts of
revenue for this jurisdiction? Why not?

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Why not? Why can we not
start with at least a study? Let us not close our minds
just because of what somebody said like Bob Ric hards said that it would be considered dirty. Bermuda
cannot be dirty! We are too conservative. If we were
we would have had independence a long time ago. We are not —is the Honourable Member Grant Gi bbons going to change tomorrow because we have
online gaming? I doubt it. Is the Honourable Member
Michael Dunkley going to change tomorrow? He is still going to sell his milk.
He is n ot going to change. Honourable Members on this side are not going to change. So why can we not look at additional revenue earnings for this
country? You are too busy trying to cut the Gover nment out and now look at it. That is why there is no
hope! Are you missing the point? We are going to cut
you, we are going to cut you, we are going to cut you
and cut you, but where is the revenue that you wanted
raised for the country?
That is what they are saying. So they are losing hope in this country and people ar e leaving this
country —I do not know. I am not saying daily or
weekly but they are leaving. They are leaving because they have lost hope. But if you start painting a clear
vision on your Throne Speech— which as I said was
the weakest Throne Speech I have ev er read. You do
not create that inspiration to say this is what your Government is going to do. And the Opposition is sa ying yes! Let us create this because we want our pe o-ple back to work. Yes, because many of us cannot
leave. Unless we are going to the U K and get on the
socialist system. But we cannot. Where am I going?
Nobody wants me anyway, so I might as well stay
here.
I am telling you if the Honourable Member
Grant Gibbons leaves I am going to move right down
to his house in Tucker’s Town. I am movi ng right
down. I know where he stays. I am moving right down
to his house. And the Honourable Michael down in
Devonshire next to the Ariel Sands.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: That is right; he is not going
anywhere.
So let us build hope. If not, the things that we
see happening around the Island are going to get worse. You must agree to that. When the people are
boxed in a corner, Honourable Michael Dunkley and
they have nowhere else to go, they have nothing to lose. They have nothin g else to lose. You are going to
feed them fine meals up in Dockyard and they exer-cise. What else are they going to lose?
So sometime the mind goes off, they are under stress because they cannot feed their children. All
these years they have been feeding their children, mothers crying. I do not know if that happens in De vonshire South but I know it happens in Hamilton Par-ish. I have a young lady that has not worked for three
years in Hamilton Parish. So what hope in this Throne
Speech did you give her that things are going to get
better.
What we are saying is that these things —what
we will do . . . and so what I will say is hold on. Just
hold . . . and we understand that in church. Hold on a
little while longer. Hold on a little while longer because things are going to get better. Unfortunately, I am not
sure if they are going to get better under the OBA Government because what they want to do is cut your jobs. The public service cut your jobs. Everything is
being cut but what we need to do —last year we recommended in our Throne Speech I think it was called
the RAGE Committee, set up a revenue—that is what
people want to hear. Just be wild and know that —at a
certain class I have been to at university we had a
board. Write down any idea that you want. Just wr ite
them down.

That is how you wrote the Reply.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Maybe, yeah, we have done
it in our issue, too, Honourable Grant Gibbons. You know how I said it means we wrote down little things.
You remember? You remember?
Yes, you do. You wrote down and we just
throw them out. Remember the time that we wrote down as far as who should be Leader of the Gover nBermuda House of Assembly


ment of the UBP? You remember that one. Do not
forget to remember that.

[Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Remember? You had to be
black, you had to be, you know —remember that?
[Laughter]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, yes, you do not want
to—

[Gavel]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: A whole year we did it, Ho nourable Grant Gibbons. There was a whole year. R emember?

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: No, I got a call saying,
Wayne, we are taking them out tonight. You got to
come with us .

[Laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Oh, yes, I remember that.
Michael Dunkley remembers, too. He was there. The
Deputy Speaker . . . I remember you. I think you were
there, too! You remember sitting over there in those
law firms. We sat every Saturday. Let us write on this
board. Waste of my time. And then you come down that the person be black. What a terrible mistake. I
understa nd drawing on boards.
Yes, we are getting into what they call “committees” and writing down ideas on what should be going forward and some are absurd. Some are very
ridiculous, some are too expensive. We cannot take space shuttles in Bermuda. That is abso lutely right.
Somebody said space sh uttle—let us say they did.
They say one person's vote. They are not getting it. But when we come down to consensus , they do not
understand consensus is building (that is probably
why they have a problem). They underst and about
going into committee and going into our communities
and talking to our average Bermudian saying, What do you want? Instead of saying, Here is what you are
getting. Here is the public service reform act. Here is
the airport. Here is the casino. Here, here, here. That
is why you are running into trouble. I thought I left you with one common sense before they left. I said, Listen, listen.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we face many cha llenges and so our party has said . . . and these key
words was this —just give me one minute, Madam
Deputy Speaker, I thought I circled it. It was talking about —
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: We as a people cannot co ntinue to hold on to our motto, Quo Fata Ferunt . That is
what we hold for too long. Whether the faith carry us it
may have been good for Sir George Somers when we
put the Sea Venture on the reefs of Bermuda in 1609,
but it is not good enough for us in 2014. So you need
men and women of vision to carry t his country forward, and the OBA Government does not have it.
Thank you.

Thank you, Member.
The Chair now recognises the Member from
Paget East, constituency 22, Dr. the Honourable E.
Grant Gibbons, Minister of Education and Economic
Development.
You have the floor.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Madam
Deputy Speaker.
The last Honourable Member who just took
his seat spent an awful lot of time talking about vision
and talking about nothing new. The problem, Madam
Deputy Speaker, very simply stated, is you cannot eat
vision. You need substance. We had 14 years of v ision from the Progressive Labour Party culminating in
four years of unprecedented economic decline. Now what we need is substance.
Let me tackle very quickly this issue of the
manganese nodules. The Honourable Member kept saying we need something new. You may not reme mber it —but that Honourable Member certainly should
remember. I remember as far back as the late ’80s and early ’90s in every Progressive Labour P arty pla tform (or a good number of them) there was this issue
of manganese nodules.
There was vision there but we have come an
awful long way and people are still not collecting
manganese nodules off the bottom of the ocean. The fact of the matter is actually manganese is not all that
uncommon. It is used all the time in making stainless
steel and other things. It is easily mined on shore. The
issue with these things is practicality.
The Honourable Member should also reme mber that back in late ’90s the then -Government (the
United Bermuda Party Government) actually licensed
an individual, it was Nick Hutchings (and I cannot r emember the name of his company) to do ocean expl oration. That licence is actually still in effect. I think it is
still under negotiat ion. But I think (without getting into
this in too much detail) the Premier, the Honourable
Member Michael Dunkley, has made it very clear that
what we are looking for with respect to deep sea mi ning is that we have to find a balance between what is
right environmentally and what is right economically. I
think that is something the Government has very
much taken on board and will certainly look at that
going forward.
Bermuda House of Assembly
74 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

But when you look at the issue of ocean mi ning, we are still quite a few years away. This is not
going to solve our problems tomorrow. This is som ething that is still very much out in the future. There are
some efforts going on off Java right now, I think. There is a company that has put a fair amount of
money into it. David Saul, obviously, has been a big
proponent of it. David has done very well on the issue
of recovering artefacts like silver and getting some
things of that sort. I think all of us recognise that there
may be potential there. In fact, there is evidence that there may be potential around Bermuda as well. But,
again, it is an issue of practicality, cost, and finding
someone who is prepared to put some serious money
into developing that particular issue.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what I would like to
do is spend roughly half of my time talking about ec onomic development and the other half talking about
education.
Let me start by saying from my perspective
that, unequivocally, Bermuda is now starting to move in the right direction. I think we have cited in the
Throne Speech enough e vidence to suggest, at least
from an economic perspective, that that clearly has
started already.
I think we all understand that economic r ecovery and job creation is not necessarily a quick
process particularly when you follow four years of
what (for Ber muda) has been I would say unprec edented economic decline and a severe loss of conf idence in the economy under the former Government. To expect an instant turnaround in 2013 is not som ething that certainly this Government expected, and I
think not something that the majority of people expected. I have to say that I am confident with some of
the policies and things we have already put into
place —particularly the policy changes —we are
headed certainly in a much better direction. I think we
have cited that in the Throne Speech.
We looked in 2013 at the first sign of turning
the corner in that measure of the economic activity
which is gross domestic product. That was about a
0.7 per cent increase at least in nominal terms. We
have also seen an extraordinary inc rease in new i nsurance registrations in 2013— 72 per cent is a r emarkable increase. And that comes after years of very little growth in that area. There has been growth but
nowhere near the 72 per cent. I think as the Throne
Speech indicates those are both traditional companies
and those are the sort of new alternative risk companies as well —special purpose companies. I think that
is (and I will say a little bit more about that in a few
minutes), certainly, a very healthy direction.
I think all of us would like to see faster job
growth. I think that goes without saying. And I reiterate
again in that the 2,000 jobs that this Government has
talked about was over a five- year period. When you
have the kind of downward spiral that we were seeing
in 2011 and 2012, you cannot expect it to change that immediately overnight. I think it is fair to say (and the
facts show this) that there was a loss of jobs accor ding to the Stats Department in 2013. But it was half
the 1,000 jobs that were lost between 2012 and 2013. We are down to about 500 jobs lost in 2013 as of A ugust, according to the Stats Department. Those were Bermudian jobs that I am talking about.
In the area that we have been working on we
were losing roughly 200 jobs a year in that international business s ector in 2011 and 2012. That went
down to about 110 lost in 2013. Is it where we would
like it to be? No. But it is certainly a shift and a change
in the direction we saw before that. And that is the
way these things work. It takes time to start to rebuild
that confidence and I think to kind of create the buzz
and to look at areas where you can essentially get
people encouraged about Bermuda again.
I mentioned in the House, I think before the
last session ended, that I had talked to a number of
HR directors in some of the larger companies. And up
until about 2013 in the beginning Bermuda was not
even on the radar screen as a consequence of pol icies by the former Government. It was just too difficult
and problematic to place jobs here. They placed them
in the Cayman [Islands], they placed them in Canada,
they placed them in Switzerland and they placed them
in Ireland. They simply were not interested in Bermuda.
As a consequence, through Job Makers and
other kinds of efforts and changes in Immigration, r emoval of term limits, we had to start to restore some
confidence. Everybody likes to say, Well, it is about international business and you are just doing things
for business. The reason is because businesses are
the job creators. They are the ones that produc e the
jobs. We have had too much time where Government
produced the jobs and we are paying the price for that
right now. We need to look at what is going to work to
get companies to come here to invest and for those
companies that are here to expand their job plac ement. Part of that is making it more attractive.
We also know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that
for every one non- Bermudian job in this sector there
are two Bermudian jobs created. It is not as though this is one -sided at all. It is one- sided in terms of job
creation for Bermudians.
I think it is clear from our perspective that
even though we have had a good increase, a very healthy increase in the 16 per cent growth in international business in 2013, what we continue to focus on is companies that have a physical presence, companies where they have boots on the ground. That takes
a little while to turn that ship and to get things moving.
Even as little as a week or so ago, we saw the incorporation of another Class 4 company. It was actually
QBE Re (Euro pe). I think we have seen from the
Throne Speech Reply that there is great scepticism on
that side as to what they call maturing companies
here and the emphasis that we are putting on them.
Bermuda House of Assembly


I am going to touch a little bit on some of the
comments in the Reply here. On page 2, there is this
comment (this is the Reply), "And neither will we see a
return to the economic boom times, driven by the exponential growth of international business and con-struction on island that existed during the early to late
2,000’s of the last decade."
In point of fact, we have seen a real change in
a number of areas. In 2013, we saw an extraordinary increase in the ILS sector. Before that, Cayman had
dominated. There was a lot of Irish business as well. In 2013, the whole paradigm shifted. Bermuda was
taking almost two- thirds of the new ILS formations
here. By the way, that increase in international bus iness did not start in 2000. It started way back in the 1990s. From the mid- 1990s after Hurricane Andrew it
was growing at about 16 per cent a year here. That
was the real start of the huge growth curve in interna-tional business in Bermuda.
I think there is this issue that we keep hearing
about here and which is that we are focused on I think . . . how do they put it? On page 5 there is this:
"OBA’s myopic focus on maturing industries . . ." I do
not think the Honourable Members on that side seem
to get it yet. What you are seeing is those maturing
industries —and I think they are referring to insurance
and reinsurance—are actually evolving. A lot of these
companies have set up subsidiaries that are getting
into collateralised insurance and getting into this
space. They do not stand still; they move.
I think all of us understand that business is
dynamic and Bermuda is dynamic as well. They are working on the principle there that if you cannot beat them, join them. So, yes, we have a slow market right
now—a soft market in reinsurance. Yes, there is a lot
of capital coming in but (I assure you) a lot of these
companies are starting to shift and move.
Why is it important to focus on some of these
mature companies? For the very simple reason they
constitute an extraordinarily large part of our overall
economic sector in Bermuda. International business is
some 26 per cent of our gross domestic product according to the 2013 GDP. If you add in associated
businesses like legal, accounting, banking and that
sort it takes it almost to 50 per cent. If you want to get
change in an area and you want to focus on job creators you look, first of all , at those that are here and
those that form a substantial part —almost
50 per cent—of our market. That is why our initial year
to two years has been spent trying to instil confidence,
restore a sense of attractiveness about Bermuda and
get those companies to continue to invest here.
Have they laid some of them off? Do they r estructure? Absolutely.
Are we getting new companies in? Absolutely.
It is a shifting dynamic. And I think, from my perspective, particularly based on the buzz I was hearing at
that IL S conference . . . and yes, Mr. Burt, was there. The Opposition Member who speaks for Finance was
there. There was a clear buzz about Bermuda.
We are also shifting our attention as well to try
and diversify in areas which are close and where we
were successful in the past. We lost a lot of that in the
last 10 or 15 years —a good example being asset
management and fund and hedge management practise. So we spent a good part of 2013 trying to understand what we need to do to do a better job in that
area.
It is very synergistic with insurance and rei nsurance. The word at the ILS thing was “conver-gence.” There was a lot of overlap between the fund
and asset management area and insurance as well.
So we have put a fair amount of effort there and I
think what we ar e starting to see . . . so far this year
we have had 60 (as of October) new funds that have
been set up here, and we are starting to see mov ement by some very serious players in the fund bus iness as well. As a consequence of my honourable
colleague's visit , that is the Premier, to New York, we
are seeing some household names that are now star ting to look at Bermuda as opposed to the Cayman Islands as a place to start to put new funds. We are
probably never going to be able to get them to shift
funds away fr om Cayman or away from Ireland but we
will be able to get them to shift new funds here.
We had the CEO of RCA here this week, the
Regulatory Compliance Association, very keen on
Bermuda, wants to work with us to basically upgrade
our skills and training here for young Bermudians.
There will be more to come on that as we get further
into the year, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We pointed out in the Throne Speech that
there is going to be an initiative to set up a limited l iability company structure in Bermuda. This is new. It
is innovative. It is not new in other places. There were
700,000 LLCs set up in Delaware last year. Other of fshore centres are starting to look at LLCs. We are very much moving forward on that. It is a great struc-ture. It is a hybrid between a company and a partnership. It provides lots of flexibility, and the House
should be starting to see some new legislation coming
on that over the course of this Parliamentary session.
I think it is fair to say also that we are looking
at a number of other areas. I notice on page 6 of the
Opposition Reply the idea of an economic free zone.
The Honourable Member is quite right. We talked
about it in the mid- 1990s —a business technology park
down there. We have been looking at that. There are challenges with that in terms of tech companies. But —
and those who have looked into this will know —
Mexico and Canada have done very well in essentially
the development of technology parks outside the
United States because of the labour availability and
other issues. It is something we have been looking at
for the last year or so and we would like to make
some progress there.
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76 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

A lot of people have commented on Cayman
Enterprise City. The Honourable Member who just
took his seat did. The problem with Cayman Enterprise City is that they had to give an awful lot away in
terms of Government fees and revenues. In fact, they
gave almost everything away to get that. So the ec onomic model does not work terribly well for Cayman
right now. Yes, it will bring business there. But we
think there are better ways to do that kind of thing.
Yes, there certainly are issues in looking at what I think is sometimes broadly referred to as an “ec onomic free zone.” We have been looking at that and I
think, hopefully, we will make some traction ther e as
well.
With regard to law firms and banks . . . I am
going to let my honourable colleague, Mr. Richards,
speak on the bank issue. If the Honourable Member had been paying attention they will know that a new
law firm was set up in the last month or so —a Can adian law firm. It is called Bennett Jones. It has a Bermuda partner set up here. There is another gentleman
who set up a subsidiary of Sedgwick a year or so ago
I think it was. So maybe they are under the radar
screen but these firms start small and then they start
to build. I think there is increasing competition in that
area, but it takes a long time to build an Appleby or a Conyers or Mello Jones —those firms take a little while
to get going. But I think we are certainly seeing some
movement in thos e areas as well.
Just a small point . . . the Opposition took
seemingly great glee at the bottom of page 4 in looking at what they thought was inconsistency between
the comment that "Bermuda’s Gross Domestic Prod-uct—the measure of economic activity on the Island —
increased by almost one per cent in 2013, the first
growth in five years.” On the next page they say . . .
actually it is not the next page. They need a better fact
checker over there. It is actually page 3 not 5. And on
the next page (which was [page] 6) we said that, “If
current trajectories hold, the Financial Year 2014/15
will be the year in which the Island, after years of r ecession, finally moves from decline to real growth.”
The operative word there is "real." In economics terms that means adjusted for inflation, and act ually in 2013 there was negative growth in terms of
when adjusted for inflation. So it depends on whether you take a nominal look at it or a current dollar look or
whether you look at it in whatever.
Some people would read that as real. I do not
consider 0.7 per cent significant growth. I think what
we are looking for is something that gets into at least
single digits and we are not quite there yet. But hope-fully with some of the policy we have put in place we
see this as a wa y forward to try and get some of the
growth we are looking for, and we are very optimistic.
I am just going to say very quickly on the i ssue of America's Cup—contrary to what the Honourable Member said—that the America's Cup did not exist before March of this year. Obviously we are cer-tainly optimistic. We have made what I think is r emarkable progress in going from one of nine different
venues that they were looking at down to one of two.
As a number of us have said, even without getting the America's Cup (and we are still optimistic and we will
know probably in the next couple of weeks that we will get a formal reply or a formal decision by the America's Cup event authority), even without that we have
a world series event that will take place in Hamilton on
the Hamilton waterfront next year (probably October
2015 if I remember —and that by itself will start to
generate significant activity.
The World's Cup is not just a one- off event or
a couple of events. It is going to spread over three years and should not only produce the kind of visibility
that I know the Minister of Tourism is very interested
in but also will start to produce jobs across a multitude of areas as well. We have our fingers crossed. We are
extremely optimistic and we think we have put a v ery
good bid in and we will wait for the America's Cup event authority to give us a sense of how that is going.
I would like to switch over very quickly —how
much time do I have left, Madam Deputy Speaker?

[You have] 10 minutes and 47
seconds.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, perfect.
I would like to switch over to education now, if
I may, and say that there are a number of points that I would like to touch on here.
Unfortunately, you cannot do education in 10
minutes. But I think what was interesting about the
Reply is it shows a very clear difference between how
the Government thinks about education reform and
how the Opposition thinks about education reform.
That much is clear in terms of the comments about
the middle school system, CedarBridge and others.
Where the Opposition is taking what I will call a “structural” approach —and by structural I mean, rearranging the system so that you have one senior school or
three senior schools or no middle schools or whatever
else—the Government is taking very much a systemic
approach.
They seem to have a very short memory in
terms of what Professor [David] Hopkins and his colleagues Rhonda Woods -Smith and Dr. Lou Matthews
actually recommended. The first two issues that came
across lo ud and clear were the quality of teaching and
the leadership. If you look at any education system around the world, those are the two issues that you focus on. You do not go running around changing
structures and moving people from this building to that
building because that does not get at the core of what
you need to do to improve learning performance and
student performance. And that is, frankly, the clear
difference between where they are going, which is
simply trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic —and yes, they did leave us a Titantic —and
Bermuda House of Assembly


where Hopkins and others in other school systems,
really good school systems, go. That is going after the
quality of teaching and that is why we have spent an
extraordinary amount of effort in professional deve lopment investing in teachers.
I hear the Opposition in terms of getting former, retired, teachers in there. I think that is an interesting idea. But what we need to focus on is making
sure (as it has often been put that we get the best
teachers) we get the best out of our teachers. And the
other issue of that aphorism is that we step in when
students fall behind. That is exactly what the middle school transformation plan is doing.
Just in case it is not clear, the OBA is not tr ying to defend the middle school system. I think Pr ofessor Hopkins in his report said it was a mistake. But
what he said very clearly was it would be a mistake to make the kinds of structural changes to get rid of the
middle school system until you start to fix some of
these far more important issues: leadership, quality of
teaching and those sorts of things that are very much
a part of the Hopkins Report.
The OBA said in its platform that we would
review the middle school system. But we have more
important work to do here firs t.
I would like to just touch on a couple of the
other areas and I will throw the former Government a
bone here as well. One of the things that we inherited,
and we have certainly developed a lot more, is the
whole Career Pathways. I think somebody was ta lking
about it earlier. That came out of the Mincy Report as
a way to get students more involved in sort of career
planning, understanding the vision (maybe it is a v ision issue) of where they might like to go. So currently
we have something like 260 S3 st udents, 23 S4 st udents enrolled in the Career Pathways Programme.
They are involved in the employability of the schools
course.
We have two career coordinators, one up at
Berkeley and the other up at CedarBridge and they plan to place all 260 students —not only in the course,
but into work -study stuff over the next 12 weeks beginning in February. In the last academic year (in
2013) over 96 per cent of the S2s and S3s who were
doing Career Pathways were actually placed as well with work experience.
We have some 22 students in the nurse's aide
certification. We have students in the automotive cert ification. We have students in the Bermuda Insurance Institute, which we have just launched at the begi nning of this year. They will actually end up with an as-sociat e's in General Insurance upon the completion of
passing a series of exams by the end of this school
year. So we are making very good progress there.
In terms of the issue of the middle schools,
one of the things that the Reply sort of comments on
is this issue of social promotion—that is advancing
somebody when they are not ready. We made it very
clear a couple of weeks ago or a month or so ago in the middle school transformation plan that one of the
clear issues —the 10 points —is to establish a mandatory standard which defines readiness for transition
out and into middle school. That was one of the things
the Hopkins Report talked about were the transitions.
It was not so much the middle school itself. It was the
transitions that were really important.
I have already talked about this issue of jum ping in when children get behind. We are going to e nsure that any students that have academic intervention—if they fail classes when they are in the first
quarter —have an IEP [Individualised Education Pr ogramme] which goes in and starts to try and fix why
they are behind so that we do not have them getting further behind and getting into this issue that has been
around for a long time—long before the former Government as well —but they had the problem of social
promotion.
One other thing that I wou ld like to comment
on as well , and I think there is a certain amount of
time that was spent in the Reply on this issue of pr eschools . . . they will be happy to know that the Go vernment is very much on top of the issue of preschool curriculum, working that in with primary school.
They may not remember this, but I spent
many years on that side of the floor talking about school readiness and making sure that when children
got to P1, they were ready for school and making sur e
that the pre- school curriculum was essentially int egrated with the primary school curriculum.
That is what we are starting to do. We have a
very capable director in the form of Dr. Speir, an expert in early childhood education. We are working with
the c hild development programme as well, to try and
get those early childhood issues sorted out. The
screening that we talked about in the last Throne
Speech, we are actually making some progress there
as well. Last year . . . well, these children were born in
2010, but they entered pre -school essentially in September 2014. The numbers are not as high as I would
like, but they reached out to 97 per cent of them. They
only managed to get hold of 57 per cent, because
they were working from birth records. But of the 57 per cent, about 28 per cent of those were actually
referred to one or more services.
We need to increase the proportion of st udents that we are seeing. As you know, we are taking
on additional staff to be able to do year -round screening. And that is really important in terms of making
sure these children, these young students are ready
and are screened and are given the appropriate help for entry into primary school, as well.
How much time do I have left?

Three minutes.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Three minutes, okay.
In three minutes, let me just also touch on this
issue of the Bermuda College issue (here it is) on
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78 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

page 11 of the Reply. This issue of creating a four -
year Bermuda College, this is a very old idea, as well.
I was on the Bermuda College Board in the late 1980s
and the early 1990s. It was discussed at that point.
What has happened since then is the college
has figured out a better way to do this. What they do
is they work out arrangements with Queen’s, Mount
Saint Vincent, and others, because creating a four -
year institution . . . And the college has had plenty of
time to make that proposal. Their strategic plans do
not do that. Part of the reason for that is the cost and expense when you can probably do it a diff erent way.
Now, it is not for me to tell the college that
they should not have a four -year programme. But so
far, it has been discussed a lot, and they have never
gotten to that point because there are better ways to
do that which give Bermudians not only a Bermuda
College degree, but also one from a very credible
overseas institution as well. So maybe that will
change over time. But it is certainly not a new idea.
What we are working on with the college right
now is to work with other groups in different sectors to
try and work on cooperative programmes so that we
have the whole ability of being able to use the web,
the Internet, and online and distance learning to be
able to create those kinds of opportunities for —they
may be mature students, they may be younger st udents who cannot leave Bermuda or who cannot afford to pay for an overseas institution as well.
So, I think, Madam Deputy Speaker, those are
the main points that I wanted to touch on. And I think, with that, there is, obviously, a lot more to talk about,
but I am going to stop there.
Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.
The Chair now recognises the Shadow Attorney General. The Honourable Michael J. Scott, you
have the floor.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: [Madam Deputy] Speaker,
good evening and thank you.
[Madam Deputy] Speaker, to the Minister,
now that the front bench has begun to seek to try and
explain to the country and this House, and breathe life
into this unprecedentedly long Throne Speech, one of the longest in our most recent history, to breathe life
into it, I will briefly deal with the comments that were
just expounded by the Honourable Minister for Ec onomic Development.
He indicated in his brief reference under education to the automotive entrance RA policy th at they
are proposing to continue to maintain. The question to
be asked, having regard to the current wide- ranging
far-reaching immigration policies that are focused on
preferential treatment and recognition of foreigners in
our country coming into the wor k pool is, How will that
automotive industry entrant fare? Have the policies
been aligned? Have they been thought through? The Honourable Member, Dr. Gibbons, spent
from 6:30 until now making an analysis of the former
Government, our PLP Government’s perf ormance that
left, he says, us in an economic mess. That was his
analysis, Madam [Deputy] Speaker, and it was the
same old diatribe that we continue to hear. Madam
[Deputy] Speaker, he actually referred to the international business green shoots that are giving the country cause for hope, with the ILS references. ILS has
been developed by a very committed resident and
friend of myself and of many others in this House, as you meet Don Kramer.
And addressing this analysis, and I heard
Members say that we caused the problem, when ACE left Bermuda, under the decision- making of Mr. Evan
Greenberg, and headed for Switzerland, this is what Mr. Greenberg’s public statement, his press statement for doing so, was, and this is how he placed the r ationale for leaving B ermuda. If I could.

Just a public statement?

Hon. Michael J. Scot t: Public statement in the media.
I think it was the Bermuda Sun of those days.
“In describing the move, Mr. Greenberg said
that the move was a natural progression that would
provide ACE with a better strategic flexibility and a
solid legal an d regulatory environment,” referencing
Switzerland, the new home.
Now, that is a bit of corporate gobbledygook,
and I say that with complete r espect. It is code language and gentle and diplomatic language used by
Mr. Greenberg. Can I then refer you, Madam Deputy
Speaker, and Members of this House, to Mr. Don
Kramer’s response on the very same subjec t as to
why there was movement? There were some other
companies moving. This is what Don Kramer said.
He made the point very clearly for the basis of
companies seeking to move to Switzerland when he says, “. . . insurance firms have been obliged to co nsider such a move. The reason is increasing ‘aggression’ from lawmakers and tax inspectors in the U.S.’”
The context of the ACE departure was
Spitzer, the AG of New York, directing fierce fire at Mr. Greenberg’s company and its leadership. So, these
pronounc ements go to giving deeper context for the
reason for the departures. Bermuda is a tiny jurisdi ction. Switzerland has more muscle as a country to deal with the large tax -mighty United States.
And I would just ask us to stop the nonsense,
really, of burdening the PLP with the reasons for these departures. We heard that there were decisions taken
in the context of the United States, the financial sy stem of the United States, 2008, very much into the
second term of President Obama. The financial sy sBermuda House of Assembly


tem was on fire and collapsing because of decisions
being taken by bankers in that country.
The impact on the global economy played
significantly across the entire global financial system.
But we never hear these introduced into the analysis. But, you know, I only start there because the Honourable front bench Minister has begun to now breathe
rationale and expansion into the Government’s vision,
purported vision, for its year 2014/15, and we have all
been waiting for it. Can I commend my colleague, the
Honourable Member, Mr. Furbert? I adopt his anal ysis.
We have been waiting. If we as legislators,
Madam [Deputy] Speaker, are finding it difficult and are struggling to apprehend the vision in the context
and in the time when, as people, as the Honourable
Member and Public Works Minister often used to say,
on this side of the House, People are hurting. Now, if
we are having difficulty apprehending the vision, a pprehending the boldness that was advocated that the Government pursue by Sir John, where is the aud acious hope in your statements? We may hear it from front bench Ministers. But Sir John called for bol dness.
The country, and certainly all of us in the O pposition, is calling for a social agenda that offers hope in this context. We know that employment, unem-ploym ent, long- term unemployment in our country is
at unprecedented levels. Women, accounts exec utives in the international sector living in my constit uency, to the ordinary low -income worker who has
been out of employment and who has arrears of rent stretching over and into $11,000—this is common.
So, if as legislators, we have to struggle to
apprehend the response, as Pastor Simons, a gen-tleman I was trying to introduce this morning as
someone totally different from Simons . . . As Pastor
Simons said, meaningful, relevant policymaking is
what I am asking for and all Members of the Oppos ition benches are asking for. And this translates into
what members in the listening audience and people
across our country, our Island, are looking for and
asking for. And it i s missing.
Let me show you how it is missing. Of course,
now I take this opportunity to quickly speak to the a dministration of justice. The Throne Speech of some nearly 32 pages, when the expectation for statements
of vision or statements of hope, statements of meaningful policy, one would have expected to have seen laid out there for the Ministry of Justice and Legal A ffairs, where the Honourable and Learned Member (who is, I think, away from the House today) had this to say, with your permission, Madam [ Deputy]
Speaker.

Please proceed.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: “Bermuda needs a criminal
justice system that is efficient, effective and fair; a sy s-tem that addresses the needs of criminal defendants, the victims of crime and the public in general. All of us
have an interest in a system that acquits the innocent
and convicts the guilty expeditiously.
“To these ends, with the view that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, the Government is reviewing Criminal Procedure for the purpose of modernising the
administration of justice to make it more efficient and
effective.”
And I listened, and I watched the members of
the judiciary as these words were laid out. And I was waiting for the expansion on the administration of justice. But, to five line s, this was, in this very long 28page document, the top and bottom of the administr ation of justice.
In contrast, and it is here for all of us, we set
out . . . And it was my authorship, as the Shadow Mi nister of Justice. We set out a meaningful, we hope, relevant response to lowering, removing policy barr iers to economic entry and entry and participation in the economy. We find that on any analysis, often pol icies . . . And we heard the Honourable first front
bench speaker say that the immigration polici es are
the ones that he says are turning the corner and setting the right direction for our country.
But are they? Can we actually place any co nfidence in the analysis of the Honourable Member, Dr.
Gibbons, today? Can we? When the analysis on jus-tice and, as the Honourable Member, Mr. Furbert, has
noted, the analysis of the entire Throne Speech of the
Government is quite puerile. Why do the analysis and
statement by the Honourable Minister of Economic
Development give us cause for confidence that we are
in fact turning around, when we see so little offers of
hope or statements of hope to a waiting population in
this awfully trying context that we now find ourselves
in in Bermuda? I mean, why should we put store in his
analysis? That is the question that we ask in the
House and that I am sure that people in Bermuda are asking.
But returning to justice matters, the spokesman who first spoke for the Government, former Mi nister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Pettingill, latched onto the
prosecutor’s code as something which he characterised as impossible, wrong and unconstitutional . And it
is this kind of analysis, that has no legal basis, that
makes us pause, gives us cause for pause. That
statement is entirely erroneous. It might surprise the
Honourable Member, former Legal Affairs Minister, to
know that the DPP’s office of this country is considering a prosecutor’s code. In my practice experience, the general principle of the prosecutor under the
prosecutor’s code is a standard general principle. It
should be there to achieve the very principles —these
were just general statements that I was minded to i nclude. But these were general principles amongst
several general principles
And then it sets out a code about making decisions for prosecutions, which it is a very serious d eBermuda House of Assembly
80 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

cision to prosecute someone, because it involves
freedom. So you want an independent and objective,
fair-minded prosecution decision. It is here for Members to read.
The reason for this need for a code . . . And I
repeat, a code for prosecutors is bei ng considered,
and that is why I am endorsing it. For the Minister to
say, for the Honourable former Attorney General to
say that it breaches independence and interference
with the DPP’s office is absolute nonsense.
We knew, and in previous (not reflecting too
deeply on) debates, we have experienced in our coun-try, Madam [Deputy] Speaker, decisions in prosec utions which have been identified as targeting one
group of the society over another when it comes to
extending cautions. We all remember that debate.
These are the kinds of considerations that lead to and merit a prosecutor’s code. It is there for accountability.
I mean, obviously, a solid prosecutor and the
DPP will be aware of these principles, generally; they are fairly rote. But the model, the Crow n Prosecution
Service in the UK, a jurisdiction as deeply recognised and respected as the United Kingdom, has had crown prosecuting services follow a prosecutor’s code. H uman frailties often will result in professional men and
women making decisions, on some occasions falling into these breaches of principle.
So, it is a very positive recommendation that
can be made. And there is nothing in our statement today that suggests that this is going to be imposed.
The articulation was that consideration would be given
to, in consultation with the DPP, introducing a code,
for good reason, for all of those good general princ ipled reasons.
But we wanted our justice policy to reflect, as
we stated in our speech, a relevant response to marginalisation that is taking p lace in our country, so that
we introduce policies that remove barriers to entry
(and I am on page 16, Madam [Deputy] Speaker). Our focus of the PLP is the inclusion of Bermudians and
not marginalisation of our people. The watchword that
will shape our law s and policies will be that, in order to
achieve more inclusion in the social and economic
affairs of Bermuda and to remove barriers to freedom
and progress amongst historically unrepresented
groups in our society, the Ministry of Justice will give priorit y in our legislative agenda, to a number of ec onomic and social justice laws.
The list is not exhaustive. But these speak to
increasing access for folks in our country in the context that these are times when, worryingly, immigr ation policies that are rel axing access to the economy
by others, starting with the Finance Minister’s basic,
and indeed the entire Government’s basic thrust, foreign inward investment, hotel development, removal of immigration barriers, and the third one recently now
is the America’s Cup. There is a great deal of store
being placed on it. This is the Government’s trilogy of hope. What we have noticed is that, who in the b yways and highways of our country, who are out of
work over long terms, are going to be able to say,
Well, this has given me a real line of hope that things
will improve for my position, just from the point of view
of creating a job for my husband —or a job for my wife
or my uncle or people in my family. So that is where our focus has been.
Of course, under the Mini stry of Justice, we
consulted public statements as to what are the needs of our criminal justice system. And of course, the cost of criminal justice has been noted to be ever -
mounting, even caused the Legal Aid Fund to become
unfunded. So we have addressed that. We have addressed a call by the judiciary for our criminal courts
and the housing of our criminal courts to be improved.
That prospect is not only enhancing the independence of the courts; work to improve them creates work and
jobs. So, there is an opportunity there.
Instead of the policy of reducing public service
officialdom and the private sector loss of jobs, this is a
proposal that creates jobs. It is a construction pr ogramme being recommended by the Opposition. And
throughout this Reply, we see this theme of a deeper
responsiveness to the human conditions of our cou ntry, the relevant on- the-ground on- the-doorstep cond itions in our country.
Madam [Deputy] Speaker, the stress lines in
our country —the stress lines in our country repeat
themselves . From 1968 to 1977, the things that bring
our country the deepest stress and then produce s ocial disruption are always the same. They are similar if
you study our history. Poverty, lack of access to the
economy. Immigration policies that bring, as it did in
1977, the English policemen into conflict with the cit izenry of this Island was one of the causes of the Pitt
Report’s findings, was one of the causes of the riots.
We do not have to reinvent this analysis. The
stress lines are well known to us. The development
most recently, Madam [Deputy] Speaker . . . Not the
development, the concerning incident of the shooting
outside of the Somerset Cricket Club following within
minutes, or within several minutes, of the earlier
shooting in Devonshire is a developi ng stress line for
which we should all be concerned. We should all be
extremely concerned.
Somerset Members of Parliament, from Ms.
Wilson to Mr. Dennis Lister, and the candidate Mr.
Simmons and I, we converged out of concern, once
this matter had taken place. It is a matter of urgent
public importance that we address this stress line de-veloping in our community. It is important, it is vitally
important, and it is urgently, publicly important because of the potential for there to be serious retali ation for a . . . It was a bold and brandishing act to
shoot bullets randomly into members of the public si tting on the Somerset Cricket Club wall. It is a serious
departure of security, not only breach, but security
collapse.
Bermuda House of Assembly


Earlier today, very early in the morning, it
came to my attention, it was brought to my attention
by my colleagues, that the security camera features at
the Somerset Bridge, a gateway of security . . . Wh oever came to our parish and conducted, carried out
that offence would have been observed going in and
going out. That is on the basis that they did not arrive
by air or sea.
But it is a question of urgent public importance
that the Minister of National Security and our Premier
must answer: Is that surveillance camera facility in operation? And was it, certainly, in operation several
nights ago, particularly given that that entire infrastructure was recently replaced by a new contract provider,
with some controversy? And now that we have had
this incident, this serious incident, the police, c ertainly
members of the community, would rely on the full o peration of that surveillance system. That is the ques-tion. It is one of urgent public importance and should
be addressed.
Yet, the Premier and Minister of National S ecurity has yet to rise on the floor of this House to address the general question of this very disturbing ser ious criminal incident taking place in Sandys.
I think those are the matters under my r esponsibility as the Shadow for Justice that I wanted to
generally deal with. How much t ime do I have, Madam
Deputy Speaker?

Five minutes and 20 seconds.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: All right. Thank you so much.
[Pause]

Hon. Michael J. Scott: You know, I will end where I
began. We look for opportunities within the PLP’s R eply to the Throne Speech that sets out our alternative
vision as a Government -in-waiting. We set it out by
referencing the Honourable Shadow Finance Minister,
Mr. Burt’s, alternatives and vision he offered for the
recovery of the economy and the stimulation of it. We
deal with it by setting out a number of visions in the
Reply that we think, that we know in our hearts speak
to hope for people who are needing to have jobs.
When the Honourable Minister of Economic
Development says that an assessment, an analy sis of
the ocean bed potentialities, has been led or r esponded to by Mr. Premier as having a pause placed
on it or a gloss placed on it that it should be approached with the concern for both the economy, yes,
and the environment, if that has the sum effect of retarding the pursuit of this major kind of project, then it
shows where the Premier’s mind is at. It is not a priority.
I have listened only now to one front bench
Member, Minister, seek to breathe life into this Throne Speech, this long, rambling Throne Speech, which on critical— which on critical issues, justice, Minister Scott, Wayne Scott on the vulnerable, you could find
but three lines dedicated to these policy imperatives. It
gives us real pause, cause for pause.
A project on ocean floor mining, this is a very
old seabed floor. No wonder you are having geol ogists thus far make the assessments of the potentials
that lie in the bed, and Dr. Saul for his being a champion of this. The country does need to, as my co lleague Mr. Wayne Furbert said, tak e a shot at the
moon. It is a good metaphor for the kinds of things
that would stimulate, in a fairly barren recovery trajec-tory that has been driven by world economic systemic
failures and not because of the Progressive Labour
Party.
This is where we should be going. But this
constant default into blaming the PLP for a global
slowdown in the economy is no longer being regarded
as credible by anyone. But the opportunity for the
Government to be credible comes with its Throne
Speech, its agenda for the year. And I submit that this
particular speech, and the first one of our Premier Michael Dunkley, has fallen far short of the mark. This was not their finest hour.

Thank you, and good evening,
Madam Deputy [Speaker].
You know, we have heard this buzzword all
afternoon of “vision,” which really intrigues me. I sit
here, and I have list ened. But more importantly, at the
end of the day, we should probably ask our constit uents what their vision would be if we were out there
and asked them tonight. And I bet the vision would be, Gosh, why can’t you guys work together and build a
better Berm uda for all? That is what the vision is. It is
about building a better Bermuda. The vision for the One Bermuda Alliance has
been and is to create jobs. We are continuing to do
that. It is a tough economic time, as we all know. But
we are doing our best.
I think what summed it up for me this morning
was with Pastor Simons at the Prayer Breakfast, when he used the analogy of a see- saw, which truly struck
me, particularly in the children’s playground. A see-saw only works well when you have two people on it ,
not one. Perhaps we should take that to heart and get on the see- saw together and work together to build a
better Bermuda.
But moving forward, this Government conti nues to work on the recovery plan. We have seen in the last year growth in the real estat e industry. That is
normally the first sign of recovery. Real estate today is on the up and up. Is it where we want it to be? No. But it is going, and it is a long process. The other key factor, and I must declare my interest, is the car industry.
Bermuda House of Assembly
82 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

If you l ook at the retail sales for September that just
came out, if I may read it, because it just came out
this afternoon?

“ Retail sales in September 2014
were 4.2 per cent higher than the $78.8 million r ecorded in Sept ember 2013. All retail sales sectors r ecorded increased sales with motor vehicles retailers
recording the strongest increased sales of 19.3 per
cent.”
Well, to me, this is a clear indicator, it is in
black and white, that things are moving in the right direction. And, yes, there are green shoots, and no, it
is not moving as quickly as we would like.

[Hon. K. H. Randolph Horton, Speaker, in the Chair]

Good evening, Mr. Speaker.
As we all know, it takes time to build relationships, and building relationships in any market, particularly if you are working with the Asians, they take a long time, and it is about building trust. That is what
this Government is doing. No, it is not going to happen
overnight. But as I said earlier, it does tak e time.
One of the things that we consistently hear is
that all we care about is the businesses on Front
Street and not the man in the street or the man and
lady in my constituency that do not have a job. That is
far from the truth. I did not get elected by doing that.
We are working very hard to put hope into the people
that, yes, there is good news coming down the pike. Can I give you an exact time? Absolutely not. But I
can tell you that we are going in the right direction.
If you look, confidence is r ising. Ariel Sands
was announced two days ago, which is an $85 million project. We have Pink Beach that is on the go. We
have had Hamilton Princess, phase one, phase two, and phase three will be taking place after that. And
they are also going to be developing the Hamilton
Princess Beach Club up at the old Sonesta for their
guests to go and use the facilities. They are also g oing to have, my understanding is, water sports and so
forth. Then there is the talk of Morgan’s Point.
So, we are doing our best to regenerate and
get Bermuda moving. And I can honestly feel the
smell of concrete is on its way. What does that mean?
It means that it will create jobs, because at the end of the day, a lot of these places have to be built. We
have to excavate. We have to h ire Bermudians to fulfil
those roles, which we are doing our best to continue
to do.
One of the areas talked about this evening
was the America’s Cup. And what does the America’s Cup mean for Mr. and Mrs. Constituent? If we are
successful at scoring the w hole bid for the America’s
Cup, it would be like taking us out of the ICU depar tment and giving us an adrenaline shot or a good kick -start to get going. This will probably be the best Bermuda job creator that we have seen in perhaps my
lifetime, because it will be that immediate.
You say, Well! Well, how can that be? I have
looked and done some research from different juri sdictions where the America’s Cup has been held, and
I have looked at what Bermuda . . . There could be a
possibility of a $200 million injection, just like that, over three years. Because what will happen is you
could have six teams that would be competing. And I
do not know much about sailing, Mr. Speaker, at all. However, with those six teams, you could also have
six racing teams or 100 members for that crew. Well,
they all have to have places to live.
So, what will happen when we are successful
at winning this is it will have a demand in the rental
business for people to go and fix up their apartments. It will also assist people in pay ing their mortgages.
And hopefully, it will stop people who, unfortunately,
could be on the verge of losing their homes.
When I talked to my constituents, they said,
Well, Mr. Smith, what does that mean? And I said (no
pun intended), Mr. Smith from Happy Valley who has
a painting business but has not had the work that he
had prior to the recession, I said, Mr. Smith, you will
be able to go out and paint homes and fix them up so
they will be ready for these people, the participants, to
rent these places.
Then I also spoke to Mr. Lovell, who is an
electrician from First Avenue. I said, You’ll have the
opportunity to go and rewire and put up ceiling fans in
people’s homes, or they might need to be wired for air conditioning and so forth.
Then when you boil i t down further, at the end
of the day, I have Mrs. Augustus, who looks after chi ldren up in Prospect. Her business is dried up. She
looks after three children because people do not have
jobs. They have to stay at home; they are looking after
their own chil dren while they are there. This will give
the opportunity for Mrs. Augustus so that she can start
to look after kids, because the parents of those chi ldren will be going back to work.
At the end of the day, people will need to be
transported around. And y ou look at the taxi industry. I
looked at Mr. Lewis, from Cavendish [Heights] , as I
spoke to him the other day, and Mr. Simmons from
Roberts Avenue. You’re going to have an increased business. You’re not going to be sitting around five or
six hours looking for a job. Your taxis could be going
24/7.
That is how big the America’s Cup can be for
Bermuda.
Then of course, there is the cycle livery bus iness that these crews will be renting bikes. Once again, this creates jobs because somebody has to go
back out and start to help get the cycle livery business
going. Then of course, the easy thing in the day is the grocery and liquor store business, which will be i ncreased in sales.
Bermuda House of Assembly


Mr. Speaker, you have seen the yacht down
on Front Street, as the Eclipse. Well, that is the most
amazing- looking vessel I have ever seen; that is for
sure.

[Inaudible interjection]

Well, we could probably do that.
At the end of the day, Bermuda, if we are successful at scoring the America’s Cup, it will be the
Monte Carlo of the Atlantic Ocean. And that is the way it works. I was recently down in Saint -Tropez about
two years ago for a sailing regatta. And all you had
were these massive mega- yachts, not as big as the
Eclipse, but similar in size and stature. That would be
in Bermuda for the duration of the races, which could
be, for some people, it could be two or three years that those yachts [and their crews] would be sitting
here in Bermuda that would eat in our restaurants,
use our taxi drivers, use our public tr ansportation and
so forth.
You know, at the end of the day, the exposure
that we are going to get worldwide through national
television is unreal. So, to me, to Bermuda, it should
be at the end of the day, this is going to be wonderful,
because what will be shown is what has never been
shown before to the whole world at one time. As we
all know, Bermuda is a wonderful place.
Then, Mr. Speaker, we will have to create a
village for this event. Can you imagine? With this vi llage you will have different music al entertainers, could
be playing calypso, could be playing, having the won-derful Collie Buddz playing his reggae and so forth. So that they will be able to listen to what Bermuda has
to offer in regards to the music.
So, to me, at the end of the day, it is quite
simple and should be, that the America’s Cup is going to be the best opportunity Bermuda has had in a long
time to develop. At this time, I would like to thank the Honourable Member from Economic Development,
Grant Gibbons, for spearheading this, along with the
Bermuda Tourism Authority, and of course, the Mini ster Crockwell, and of course, the Finance Minister i nvolved, as we will hear as we get further down to
some of the tax concessions we will have to give.
But once again, Mr. Speaker, thank y ou for
your time.

Thank you very much, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take too much
time talking about it, much other than the transport ation side of the Throne Speech. Actually, there was not much in the Throne Speech about transportation, so I guess I will be referring more to the Reply to the
Throne Speech, which actually outlined a very viable
plan and vision for our transportation industry.
But, Mr. Speaker, like most Members in this
Honourable House, the way that I would like to sort of start off by exp laining the vision and the origins of the
vision for our Throne Speech on transportation goes is that most Members know that I am a certified pilot.
And most pilots, if not all pilots, know that there is a
golden rule. And that rule would be . . . It is ac tually a
regulation. It is a Federal Aviation regulation. That rule
basically states that a pilot should know everything
and all aspects about that flight prior to taking off.
So, that means they would have to know the
fuel requirements, the routing, the weather, the N OTAMs (and a NOTAM is a notice to airmen), so just
everything about that flight. And it is proven that those
pilots who do not adhere to that rule, unfortunately,
they end up with an incident, and in more cases than
not, end up in a tragic ac cident. For example, John F.
Kennedy, Jr., took off. He was a private pilot. He took
off, but he did not take the time—he was in a rush to
get back home. He did not take the time to look at the
weather conditions at his destination airport. Got into
some w eather that he was not trained for and, unfortunately, was not able to walk away from the crash.
You have the Malaysian airline that did not
read the NOTAMs, where the route that they were
planning on taking went through a recently categ orised act -of-war zone and ended up being shot down.
You then have the Asiana flight 214, which the pilots were unfamiliar with the landing patterns or the landing regulations and procedure for the San Francisco area. And unfortunately, two people lost their lives in
that.
So you see how important it is to make sure
that, when you come up with a plan, when you go fl ying . . . And I will transition from that, from flying to just
having a plan. When you come up with a plan, when
you come up with a vision, to have it fully thought
through, to make sure that you know every aspect of
that vision, of that idea that you are about to go and
embark on. And for us, what we believe, and this is where there are some symmetries and some symbiotic relationships between us on this side of the aisle
and the Government in the OBA, we both agree that
we need a new airport facility. There is no disagre ement about that.
But now, this is where it differs, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we feel that the airport should be a Bermudian project. It is a B ermudian landmark. It is bas ically one of our most lucrative and important assets
that this Government has. And we should not be gi ving that airport away to anybody, to any entity, to any
other government.
But the argument could be made that we ca nnot aff ord to do it. And once again, this is where we
both agree. We cannot afford the $200 million to come
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84 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

out of the Government purse. But what we can do and
what we can afford to do is to combine the civil avi ation and Department of Airport Operations, combine
them together, we make them a quango, turn that
quango into the Port Authority. The Port Authority is now a separate entity. And all expenses come off of
the Government books. And that entity, the Port A uthority, can then go, let us say for this scenario, to the
Bank of Butterfield and say, Hey, here is our business plan. This is how we plan on repaying the money.
Boom shablam and Bob’s your uncle, we now get our
own facility.

[Inaudible interjection and laughter]

No pun intended.
But we then get our own airport facility. The
Government has not paid for it. It does not come out
of the taxpayers’ money. The 86 jobs that are currently between civil aviation and the Department of
Airport Operations, they are saved, plus the construction jobs that are created on top of that. So that is the
economic boom that the construction phase brings.
But also, there is the revenue that comes afterwards, Mr. Speaker. The revenue that comes after
that is what really is the icing on the cake. You the n
have approximately $8.89 million that would go back
into our economy every year, year in and year out,
and has the potential to grow all the way up to $13
million in revenue going back into the airport and g oing back into our economy.
But outside of the financial, it is the social and
the other business aspect where airports tend to drive business. They tend to drive entrepreneurship more
so than anything, because they open up trade routes.
Back in Christopher Columbus’s days, we needed
wind and all of t hat for trade routes. But nowadays,
you do not need wind; you just need air routes.
So what we could do with this new airport, it
would bring us up to the twenty -first century. It would
allow for us to then start looking at bigger aircraft, longer -range a ircraft so we could look at going east
instead of west for our tourism. So we could go to I ndia. We could go to Dubai, maybe not direct, but with
connections through Dubai and India and China. And
now these open up trade routes, Mr. Speaker.
These trade r outes would then open up and
provide us with an opportunity for new business ven-tures to meet and greet and sign contracts with new people or businesses that we would have never
signed with before.
But, Mr. Speaker, one thing that I can say is
that, with all this opportunity, all that glitters is not
gold. There is some risk, Mr. Speaker. There is the
risk that one of these business owners, one of these businesses that try to come in and do business in
Bermuda, Mr. Speaker, through our new trade routes
with our new airport, might not be the most suitable
person, to put it politely. They might not meet the quality criteria that one would be looking for to do
business in Bermuda, or reputable business.
I can guarantee you that, through our vision,
we do not run into that problem, Mr. Speaker. We would not be signing any contracts, Mr. Speaker, with
a company that the World Bank recently slapped a 10 -
year ban on due to corrupt practices. Now, a 10- year
ban, Mr. Speaker, happens to be the longest penalty
that has been ever handed out by the World Bank. We
would not have signed a contract with that type of
company, Mr. Speaker. We would not sign. And the fact that the World Bank slaps a ban on you, Mr.
Speaker, that sends ripples, I would say, through the
aid cap ital of the lending world, which means that
other governments might not want to do business with
you.
It seems as though, after the World Bank
slapped a ban on a company, that the Canadian Gov-ernment followed suit and declared that they, too,
would not do any business with such a company, r egardless of whether or not they are an engineering
giant or not.
Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, I would
just like to read from the Huffington Post, Canada. On
September 25
th, 2013, it reports that, “After weeks of
maneuvering by the Canadian government to secure
a lucrative contract in Trinidad and Tobago for graft -
tainted engineering giant SNC -Lavalin, the gover nment of that Caribbean nation” —which is talking about
Trinidad and Tobago—“has announced that it isn’t
interested in dealing with a company that has ‘diff iculty in passing the test of confidence.’”
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me explain just a little
something that goes on, is that when it comes to developing airports, you can go the Airport Authority
way, or yo u can go the public/private partnership way.
You can sign contracts. And usually what happens,
that means you sign contracts with a big engineering
firm, or a big firm that will go out and find other companies that can do the business, that can do the buil ding and the infrastructure for you.
So it seems as though the OBA Government
has signed a deal with CCC, the Canadian Commer-cial Company, corporation and company, and they are the ones that actually select what is going to be
done —who does the work. So w e signed . . . I will just
use you as an example. I, as the Member of the Bermuda Government, would sign with you. And then you
go out, and you find . . .

[Inaudible interjection and laughter]

I would sign with you, and
then you w ould be responsible for finding somebody
to fill the project and to be able to do that project.
But, Mr. Speaker, I have no control personally
over who you pick. So I have to trust your discretion,
Mr. Speaker. And it seems as though that the report
Bermuda House of Assembly


goes on to say that the . . . How can I say this? You
know what, Mr. Speaker? I will do it this way.
I did some digging after I found out about C anadian Commercial Corporation. And it so happens
that the Planning Minister in Trinidad and Tobago, the Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie, is recorded in the media as
saying and explaining (and I quote), “The recommendation for the SNC Lavalin came directly from the C anadian Commercial Corporation.” “‘He added that,’
when entering into government -to-government contracts lik e this one, ‘the decision about the [selected]
companies does not reside in your hands,’” meaning exactly what I just explained earlier. The Trinidadian
Government did not have control over who built their
facility. But yet, they had signed a contract with CC C,
the Canadian Commercial Corporation.
So, Mr. Speaker, there is an old Chinese
proverb which says, There are three kinds of people in the world. There are those who learn from others’ mi stakes, which makes them wise. There are those (and I will say, lik e myself) who learn from their own mi stakes; that makes them happy. But then there are
those who do not learn from either. And that makes
them foolish.
It would seem that, after some brief research
on the Canadian Commercial Corporation, for me, I would n ot sign with them. That would make me almost
. . . That would not make me wise, because I did not
learn from other people’s mistakes, other people who signed $163 million contract with them who had to
take it back. So I have a feeling that the signing of t his
contract proves that the OBA Government is not wise.
All right?
With your indulgence, I would like to go on to
read an excerpt out of the Trinidad and Tobago
Guardian newspaper: “The government announced
yesterday” (which would be September 24
th, 2013)
“that it was pulling out of a planned arrangement with
the Canadian Commercial Company (CCC) to have
SNC -Lavalin build a $163- million hospital.”
Now, the report goes on to say, Mr. Speaker,
“The Trinidadians have good reason for not wanting to
deal with SNC -Lavalin. The company is being invest igated for bribery and corruption scandals in half a
dozen countries.”
Now, Mr. Speaker, I am flabbergasted. You
know what? What makes it very worrying is that it
seems as though the persons which were charged
with bribery were the politicians in the countries that
they were trying to have contracts in.

Mr. Speaker, this is troubling. Because, I mean, let me just go on and continue
to read the report.
“The recent media reports and a civil suit filed
against the company by a former employee, also charged with corruption, indicate that the company routinely used code letters to conceal alleged bribery
payments. The civil suit —filed in Toronto—alleges
that upper management was made aware of bribes
being paid, but failed to take action to stop the practice.”
Now, it then goes on to talk about that the
World Bank slaps a 10- year ban on the company and
more than 100 of its affiliates in an unprecedented move. “Because of that decision, Canada is now
home to more debarred companies than any other
country.”
Mr. Speaker, what is even more troubling is
what comes next in this report.

More troubling.
The report also incl udes that contracts . . . “It
was untendered, secret, and guaranteed by Canadian
taxpayers. And therein lies the root of the problem
. . .” Mr. Speaker, that sounds very, very, very similar
to something that just happened here in Bermuda.
Ah! It seems as though we just had a Government official sign an untendered, secret contract
with this same company that is being charged with
and has a reputation of corruption, bribery and I do
not want to go any further than just the fact that it has been reported that they bribed government officials.
Mr. Speaker, I will go on to read the rest of the
report. It says, “Secret sole -sourced, subsidised deals
arranged by the Canadian government for any company can’t help but create an environment in which
bribery, corruption and conspiracy to defraud taxpa yers and ratepayers thrives.”
Now, Mr. Speaker, we may not be taxpayers
to the Canadian Government, but we would be, if this
contract was signed, ratepayers. So that means that
we would be directly affected by bribery, corruption
and conspiracy. And the only person, the only people, the only entity that could put us in such a position
would be the Dunkley administration. But would they
do such a thing, Mr. Speaker?
It is funny that it goes on to say in the report,
“The Trinidad and Tobago lawmakers had good sense
to see that.” It was not a good idea to do business
with them.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the best way to summarise
what we on this side think about the signing of a s ecretive, untendered contract to give away the most valued assets that this country has (all right?) is bas ically summarised in the Huffington Post of September 25, 2013, where [it says], “Lawmakers in Trinidad
and Tobago tell the Canadian government SNC -
Lavalin is too tainted by corruption to risk awarding a
multi- million dollar -hospital contract to.” Now, Mr.
Speaker, if this company is too corrupt for another
government to do business with, how can it be sui table for us to do business with it?
Bermuda House of Assembly
86 14 November 2014 Official Hansard Report

My grandfather used to say that birds of a
feather flock together. But also, I think that it is ironic
and even coincidental that the Canadian Government
lost a $163 million contract last year and now [they
have] signed a $200 million contract with the Dunkley administration less than a year later. I have a feeling
that somebody is making out like a bandit right now —
and it is not the Bermuda Government. It is not the
Bermudian people. I think it is CCC.
But, Mr. Speaker, what boggles my mind—
and I hope to get some clarification on this tonight —is
how do we have, arguably, the biggest announcement
in recent history made, the building of a new airport?
This is something that I know the PLP tried to do, was
working on doing. But, as other Members have said,
we ran out of time. So, the thing is that . . . And the
Honourable Finance Minister says we could not do it
at the PLP because we did not want to deal with corrupt companies, Mr. Speaker!

And then, Mr. Speaker, it is
ironic that the same person that signed the PPP was
an advocate against them not too long ago! But, Mr.
Speaker, what is even . . . This is the gift that keeps
on giving right now, Mr. Speaker, because what really
gets me (and I have had questions on the street about
it) is that this is, as I said, the biggest announcement. I mean, congratulations for announcing that there is a
new airport going to be built. But why would it not be
included in your Throne Speech?
What is going on? You have secret signings
of a contract. It is not in your Throne Speech. It is with a corrupt company that is known to bribe our political
officials. Mr. Speaker, this does not look too good.

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Mr. Speaker, point of order.

On your seat . . . on your own . . .
[Inaudible interjections and laughter]
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I was
just in that seat for so long, I forgot my seat. Mr. Speaker, I have travelled 3,500 miles to hear a few announcements.
I just think that one thing I want to say is that
the Honourable Member is mis leading the House on a
number of fronts. I intend to clear up a lot of that in
due course.
But I want to say one thing, that —