June 17, 2016

Minister.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Yes. Thank you once
again, Mr. Speaker.
The first part of this question we answered,
actually, and is in the public domain. But we did a nswer this question on February the 26
th in this Ho nourable House when a Parliamentary Question asked


Bermuda House of Assembly the exact same question. In regard t o what arrangements are in place to have IRC Sandys settle this
debt, BLDC is working with its attorneys, working with
IRC in getting a payment plan from them.

Yes.

SUPPLEMENTARY
Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Minister, you are correct. It
was put into the public domain in February. At that
time there was no real indication given as to what arrangements were being made to secure a settlement
of the debt. That is the reason for having the question
restated.
The question now would be, Are you comfor table with the actions that are being taken? Will we see a settlement of that debt?

Minister.
Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: It would be presumptuous
of me to say that we would see settlement, because I
cannot speak on behalf of IRC. But what I can speak
on behalf of is BLDC is in current discussions with its
attorneys and [I would] like to ensure that they do ev erything possible to retrieve this money.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Supplementary, Mr.
Speaker?

Minister.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: That is fair to say. We did
mention that before, that interest would be compounded. I do not know what those figures are right
now, but I can find out. We raised that before in our
answer, on February the 26
th.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I think the Minister mi sheard what I asked.

Go ahead. Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I asked y ou, Minister, b eing that the balance was the same today as it was in
February, are we not —can you confirm we are not
charging interest? You just said we are. So if we are,
the balance should be different. Therefore, we should
have an up- to-date answer, in my humble opinion.

All right.
MP De Silva, supplementary again?
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Supplementary, yes.
So, in other words, in other words, the balance is not the same as it was in February?
Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Yes. Yes. The principal
gain is the same. Now, the accrued interest has not
been tabulated. I mean, it is still being worked out.
The judgment has already been set on the principal
for the month.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: That is 101 Debt . We know
that part.

Minister.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Yes. Just as a point of
clarification, the interest is tabulated at 7 per cent,
based on the judgment date. So . . . (I have got water
dripping on my head.)

[Laughter and inaudible interjections ]
2110 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: At least it shows that the air -conditioner
is working.

[Laughter]

Minister.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Yes, I can confirm that.
The tenants were still there as of that date. As far as
their payment to IRC, that is not a part of what we are privy to. That is a relationship between the tenant and
IRC. What I can say is that it was not something that
was negotiated from the beginning with their contract, that they would be able to sublet. So it is in court. So
there is not too muc h that I can say at this point, but it
is in court.

Yes, MP Lister.

SUPPLEMENTARIES
Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Clarification, Mr. Speaker.
Could you clarify for me, Minister? Your statement just
now referenced to its still being in court. Is the court
matter . . . did the judgment that took place in December of 2015 give possession of the property and con-trol, responsibility for the day -to-day operations, et
cetera, back to BLDC (wh ich you confirmed earlier)?
Can you now clarify for me what is before the courts?

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Yes. I believe that the tenants now have gone before the courts with IRC. We
have given the liberty of . . . the folks are still in the
place. A court date has been set for this August. And
so, the tenants are still there.

Yes.

Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Minister, one would assume,
then, that those tenants are legitimately still paying
rent. The question then is, if IRC Sandys are no longer responsible for the property, they have been
ordered by the courts to vacate the property, and the
property was turned over to BLDC, Government, in
May of this year, who is collecting this rent? It should
not be IRC if they no longer are responsible for the
property. If any rent is being paid, can you confirm
that their rent is being paid to BLDC?

Minister.
Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: There are no rents being
paid at this time to BLDC. A court date has been set in
August, and so the tenants are still there, yes. But no
rents are being paid to BLDC at this present time.
IRC, as I mentioned already, vacated the premises as of May. We were not receiving any rent and have no
negotiations or any agreements in place for rentals
from the existing tenants.
As I said earlier, they are not allowed, IRC
should not have sublet these properties out for rent.
So, again, that was in contravention of the agreement. And so, there is no rent being paid at this present time
until it is cleared up in the courts.

Minister.

Hon. L. Cra ig Cannonier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I mentioned, really this is already before
the courts. And until we get that ruling [from] the
courts, I cannot give you any answers to that. I have
already repeated IRC was receiving rents. We are aware that they were receiving rents. That is by the
tenants themselves bringing that forth. But they are
not paying rent at this moment.

Honourable Member s, the way to have
discussion is through the Speaker. That is the way.
Yes, the Chair will recognise the Honourable
and Learned Member from constituency 36, MP Scott. SUPPLEMENTARY

Hon. Michael J. Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am
grateful.
To the Minister: Minister, to your knowledge,
are the parties who are in court currently the tenants,
as represented by an attorney, and who? Is it IRC? If
you have that information, can you tell us who is the
other party that the tenants are in court with?

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: What other party?

Hon. Michael J. Scott: Yes. Who are they seeking to
contest their occupation in those premises with?

It does not matter which Minister answers the question.
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that the answer to this
question lies with the fact that these matters are really matters for the investors themselves. But there are
other factors involved other than the model itself. I
think the question sort of is an oversimplification of the
situation.
There are many factors involved in the dec ision to make an investment and for that investment to
be successful. Yes, the model is part of it. But another
part of it, other factors, would be, I would say, the
power of the brand, in this case Ritz -Carlton and Ritz
Reserve. The valuation of the property —I think the
question cited examples of Bermuda properties in another era, where, you could say, Bermuda property
was topping out. And property was very expensive, so
it was very expensive to create the property in the first
place. Property is less expensive now. So there is an
opportunity to have a better economic model on that.
And the other thing, another important factor,
Mr. Speaker, is the actual marketing of the destina-tion. This Government has gone to great lengths to improve and re- engineer the marketing of Bermuda as
a destination. Of course, another factor is the actual training of staff. So there are many other factors i nvolved in the success of a property, other than the fact
that we are going to be part of the financing arrangement, which has to do with selling units.

Thank you very m uch, Mr.
Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his statement. But the
Minister did not answer the question. And I guess the question is, Why is the Government comfortable that
the Caroline Bay development will succeed, whereas
others have failed? And what was the reasoning behind the $165 million guarantee? There were written answers from the Junior Minister of Tourism, and he
also says that there is a risk in this approach and
model, but Government considers it manageable,
given the principles and management tools that we
are putting in place.
Maybe the Minister of Finance can enlighten
the House as to what management tools the Gover nment are putting in place to protect our $165 million
guarantee?

Minister.
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: We are not managing the
property, if that is what the Honourable Member is
implying. The statement I just gave gives the proper
perspective of this answer. So, you know, the question is, Is it the Government’s view that this model is
workable? I am saying that the j uxtaposition of that
question relative to the Reefs and Tucker’s Point is
the answer that I gave. It gives it perspective. Yes, we
would not be doing this if we did not think that this
would be successful.
And some of the reasons that I thought and
why I think it is going to be successful are what I have
already said. So I have answered the question, and
maybe not in the way that the Honourable Member
would prefer. But I have answered the question by
including all the other important factors that go into t he
success of an investment of this nature.

No problem. Just, you know, the
chirping is over there.
But, Mr. Speaker, the answer that was giv en
by the Junior Minister that was provided to me says,
There is a risk in this approach and model. But Government considers it is manageable, given the princ iBermuda House of Assembly ples and management tools “we” are putting in place.
In that case, it is the Government.
So if t he Minister does not want to answer the
question, I will ask the Junior Minister to whom the question was directed if he could please advise this Honourable House, what are the management tools
that “we” —that means the Bermuda Government —are
putting in place to secure our $165 million guarantee?

Minister.
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Those management tools
relate to the actual guarantee itself, for starters. Let me make that clear. As I mentioned before, the Bermuda Government is not managing t his project. We
are managing . . . the management that is referred to
in this statement, which incidentally, this is supposed to be oral questions, so . . .

No, but the question was answered to
the Honourable Member. So he already answered.

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: I am not criticising that. I
am just saying that there are other factors than the
ones . . . I have tried to explain this.
But let me answer the supplementary question the Honourable Member just asked.
The risk management tools that were referred
to in this are the standard risk management tools that
this Government uses when it guarantees debt. For
instance, all of the contractual i’s are dotted and t’s
are crossed; secondly, we never rent out the Gover nment’s balance sheet for free. That is a rule which I
have that is unbreakable. So, you know, the Gover nment of Bermuda is getting paid to do this, et cetera,
et cetera.
We have standard operating procedures to
make sure that any guarantee that the Government provides is properl y constructed in a legal sense so
that the Government’s exposure is very clearly ci rcumscribed. And that is what this is referring to.

Honourable Member Roban. I would
appreciate it.
Carry on.

SUPPLEMENTARY

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: If the Honourable One
Bermuda Alliance Ministers’ confidence is so high and
they believe that this is going to be undoubtedly a
success, why the need for a $165 million guarantee in
the first place?

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Mr. Speaker, if our conf idence was not high, we would not put a penny behind
it, a penny guarantee of any sort behind this. Ho wever, it is not our confidence that counts. It is the i nvestors’ confidence that is at play here. Right? We are
talking about a property that was polluted, t hat was
left by the American Armed Forces in a state that was
undevelopable. The Government has spent over $30
million remediating that property.
But in spite of that, we felt it was important to
put the Government’s support behind this to kick -start
this important project. The potential up there is enormous. But it needs to get started. And they needed
that support from the Government to give investors
the confidence to move forward. So it is not a question
of Government confidence. It is a question of inve stors’ confidence.

Minister.

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: I am saying that the Government guarantee has assisted in bringing this thing
to market. That is what I am saying. There are many
factors, and one of the factors that was required by
the marketplace to get this financing done was the
Government guarantee. But if the project itself was
farcical and had no hope of succeeding, that was not
going to work eith er.
You know, a successful investment is an i nvestment that pays for itself without resort to the sec urity. As a banker, you do not lend somebody money to
take somebody’s property. You lend somebody
money so that whatever project is involved pays for
itself. Security, which this is, is an underlying support in case it all hits the fan. All right? So most lenders
require it. Some lenders do not require security, b ecause the project is so good. But in this case, it was
made clear to us that this project required some sec urity, some additional collateral, and we provided it.

Yes. The Chair will recognise MP De
Silva.

SUPPLEMENTARY

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Supplementary. Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister, you said that the $165 [million] guarantee is to, amongst other things, encourage other
investors. And we know that at least one int ernational
company on the Island said that they would invest $5
million, or loan $5 million to the project. But of course,
we found out later that that was with another gover n-ment guarantee on that. And there may have been
one or two more.
Can you confirm how many other companies
have said that they will invest, but they have Gover nment guarantees?

All right. Thank you. Thank you, MP.
Thank you, Minister.
We now move to the Statements. There are
no questions on the Premier’s Statement.
On the second Statement by Dr. Gibbons, I
recognise the Honourable Member from constit uency 29.

QUESTION 1: LOUIS VUITTON AMERICA’S CUP
WORLD SERIES IN CHICAGO

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister, in your second page, third par agraph, you talked about Low Carbon and their pr oposal to install solar PV [photovoltaic] in Dockyard.
And you also . . . my question with that is . . . and you
do go on to say that the museum will benefit after the
completion of the AC35. My question to you is, Will
the Government be fin ancially supporting this venture
by Low Carbon?

Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
No, Mr. Speaker. The Government has not
been asked to provide any financial support for this.
And I think it is important to s tate this is a proposal at
this stage. Obviously, Planning and other agencies
would need to get involved to make sure that the pr oposal, when it formally comes through, meets Ber-muda’s standards as well.

Yes.

SUPPLEMENTARY

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Minister, you said you had
not been asked. But if you are asked, will you? And do you have any limits to assistance you might provide if you are asked?



Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
That is an entirely hypothetical question.

Second question.

QUESTION 2 : LOUIS VUITTON AMERICA’S CUP
WORLD SERIES IN CHICAGO
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Minister, in the penultimate
paragraph, where you had discussions with the De puty Mayor of Chicago, and you went on to say that
some of the topics of mutual interest included the f inancial services, transport, and tourism initiatives.
Can you tell us some of the tourism initiatives you discussed?

Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, what I found interesting was that
Chicago as a city is the second- most visited city after
New York City. So tourism, according to the Dep uty
Mayor, who actually was, I think, a former UBS or
Credit Suisse executive for a number of years and is
now responsible for economic development, indicated
that tourism is actually about 15 per cent of Chicago’s
gross domestic product. So it was interesting. There are some parallels there with Bermuda.
The conversation revolved around the fact,
and the Deputy Mayor Steve Koch, who actually is a
sailor, was very disappointed that Chicago did not,
was not successful . . . if you remember, Mr. Speaker,
Chicago at one stage was one of four venues, inclu ding Bermuda, that were being considered as the host venue. And he was quite disappointed because he felt
that the visibility of the America’s Cup and hosting it were very significant in terms of the attentio n that the
host country would get. They were looking to have more European visitors as well, in addition to domestic visitors. And he felt, because of the international
nature of the America’s Cup, Bermuda was quite for-tunate in the end in being able to host it. He wished
that Chicago had gotten that focus.
And if I may add, Mr. Speaker, had we known
when we were bidding at how (what I will call) attrac-tive and competitive Chicago was in terms of their f acilities, with the Navy pier and the rest of it, I t hink we
would have been a lot more concerned. I think proba-bly it was Chicago’s weather —and by that I mean
their winter —that I suspect probably made them sort
of a difficult applicant in this case. But anyway, I hope that answers the question.

Yes.

QUESTION 3 : LOUIS VUITTON AMERICA’S CUP
WORLD SERIES IN CHICAGO

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: The Minister, having said
that tourism plays such a vital part of Chicago’s GDP,
and I did notice in his Statement that he had invited
Shadow Minister Jamahl Simmons, which was very nice, was there any reason why the Junior Minister of
Tourism was not in attendance?

[Inaudible interjections and laughter ]

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
I think the answer to that is there may be f uture opportunities. The Minister of Tourism was also
not in attendance either. So I think the Honourable
Member is stirring the pot a little bit there. But I think
there will be opportunities, and I am sure we will see
how the future unfolds. Thank you.

One question, and maybe the
Honourable Minister has already answered this. And it does relate to the Land Rover Low Carbon project,
2116 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly which he mentioned, about the proposal to install the
solar PV system at Dockyard, which will ultimately
have some benefit to the National Museum.
[Is there] any indication as to the size, kil owatts or the cost of that at all revealed at this point, Mr. Speaker?

Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Minister.
I think, as I was saying earlier, we have not
received a former proposal yet. But informal discussions, they were looking . . . what is interesting is, at
the United Kingdom team, the Ben Ainslie [BAR] racing team in Portsmouth, the chairman of Low Carbon
is one of the trustees of the trust that sponsors the UK
team. Low Carbon have been involved in putting solar
panels on the roof of the Portsmouth facility. And they
want to do som ething very similar here to sort of try
and offset the energy draw that the UK team would
draw for everything from air -conditioning to appliances
and things of that sort. So it was going to be a complete offset.
The discussion revolved around something on
the order of about 60 kilowatts. But at this point, since we have not seen anything formally and it was simply
discussion, I think we will have to see what actually comes through.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When it comes to . . . on the first page, the
Minister mentioned that there was extensive international media coverage. I happened to watch the race
from Chicago and also the race in New York, and no-ticed that there was no mention of the finals here in
Bermuda. What guarantees or what systems are put
in place to make sure that we get the mentions and the media coverage for Bermuda when it com es to
America’s Cup?

Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Talking to my colleague here, who said that
he was watching it on NBC, and he said Bermuda was
mentioned all day. I did not watch the coverage. What
normally happens is that at a certain point, the America’s Cup Event Authority will do kind of a roundup of
what was covered, where, and for how long, and which various media channels. So at some point, we
will probably see something like that, both for New
York and Chicago. Thank you. The Speaker: Thank you.
The Chair will recognise . . . you have a su pplementary?

SUPPLEMENTARY

Minister.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
I do not know at this point what the viewership
was. But at some point, as I said, the America’s Cup
Event Authority does a roundup of what the actual
viewers were on both social media and on TV broadcasts. So at some point, I will probably have that i nformation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. S peaker.
My first question to the Minister is, last year in
February 2015, the Minister gave a Statement to the
effect of consolidating and closing schools. At that
time, he noted that the most important reason for clos-ing schools was the declining birth r ate, declining
population growth, emigration, and overall declining
school enrolment. In this Statement he gave today
about not closing schools, nothing about that was
mentioned.
My question to the Minister is, Have those
trends reversed and is that why w e are not consolidating the schools?

Minister.

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Yes, Mr. Speaker .
Certainly not. Our declining population trends
have been going on for a while. And so, when I outlined that I would not close the schools at this time, I
am not suggesting that that discussion be taken off
the table altogether. It is something that we may still
need to consider.
However, there are clearly other things that
need to be done first. And then, you know, we will have to look at it and see where w e are.



Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: Thank you.
Yes.

Minister.

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Mr. Speaker, I said neither. I
said there are things that we need to do first. And we
will do that. I have been very consistent in the dec isions and discussions that I have had on this matter. It
has been open to the public. I will continue to make any decision or any conversation I have open to the
public, because I do not believe that something like
education should be caught up in the winds of, you
know, who the Minister is, or what party is running the
country. This is a Bermuda issue, and we need to
[rise] above that for our children.

Second supplementary.
Again, referring to the Statement last year, the
main reason, one of the main reasons for considering
school closures was that there was no money and the
budget was reduced by 5 per cent. Again, we heard
this year there is no money. The budget was reduced
by 3 per cent. In the Statement, we talked about infr astructure and [things] like that are needed.
Is the Minister or the Finance Minister willing
to commit that we will be increasing school budgets this coming year to provide for the necessary infr astructure improvements that are needed?

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, indulge me for a minute to refer
to the Budget Book. And I am on page C -35. I need to
put this myth to rest that I think the Opposition likes to
talk about, that we are just cutting education and we do not have the money for it.
Look. I am looking at the Budget Book. And in
2009/10, $153,533,000 was given to the Ministry of Educat ion, the year before that, $150 million, $148
million a year after that. And then by the time we got it, it had significantly dropped down to about $137 mi llion, which is, you know, almost $20 million or $16
million taken out of education. Because I am sur e
even the previous Government saw that it was not a
problem that could be fixed just by throwing money at it.
Our outcomes back then were very poor. It is
about being efficient, and let us make sure we put our funds where they are [efficient]. So I just want to make
it clear. The amount of money that we have reduced the Education budget by, since we have been fully
responsible for the Education budget, has been about
$6 million. Between those years, it was cut by almost $20 million by the previous Governm ent.
So this is what I am talking about, about how
we have got to take the politics out of this. And this is about our children, not sitting here trying to play
games and poke fun across the floor of the House.

Since we are talking about
fiscal, what was glaringly missing from the school r eport was financial information, because they were unable to collect it from any of the schools. Will the school report be allowed to finish their report that i ncludes the financial information on all of the schools
so there can be a clear determination of what it is costing us to run our schools?

Minister.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for asking that question. I am very
glad that question was asked. There was much talk in
the school report about needing more detailed finan-cial information. Let me state for the record and to
clarify, I have said on multiple occasions that I do not
believe we should be making changes to schools just because of the financial implications or saving a cou-ple of dollars by closing a school.
So the financial review that the school report
or the school committee wanted to do on a school -byschool basis, this is not something that I support, or that granular type of information will not be used in any decision. If we refer to the Budget Book, which outlines the amount of funds that typically get sent to each school, that is as granular of information as I will use in making a decision. So I want to clarify that, b ecause getting into more granular detail than is avail-able in the Budget Book is not something that will be used in any decision that I make. So I would like to put that piece to rest.

Minister.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Thank you. The Berm uda Uni on of Teachers t o my
knowle dge has been invite d and has been present at
every public meetin g that I hav e had. They hav e representation on t he SCORE C ommittee, as well. S o
they have been a part of this process, from my perspective.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and
good morning, colleagues.
Mr. Speaker, in listening to the Honourable
Minister speak about the process of reform and reorganisation, he highlighted five different areas of pr ogress and reorganisation. It struck me that we seem to
be re- examining and re- examining.
So I am just wondering when the Government
will make an actual commitment to actually undertake
substantive reform rather than continue to develop
plans, further develop, and so forth. But it seems as if
not a lot of concrete work is being done.

Minister.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Mr. Speaker, I smile. There
have been a plethora of reports and everything done. I mean, I have a report from 1989. And I think I have said before on the floor of this House that I could
cross out the dates and put 2016 in and it would be
accurate.


Bermuda House of Assembly One of the things that I think is most important
when we look at the strategic plan, and that is why I
said in here, looking at the organisational structure of
the Department of Education as well, if memory
serves me correctly, the Hopkins Report came out
and made suggestions very specifically of what
needed to be done. And it was too much overhead.
And under the previous Government’s watch, their
solution to lowering the overhead and fixi ng the organisational structure was to put a completely brand- new
layer of management in place, because they were going to be the ones to oversee it. And a decade later,
now we have the same structure with that additional
layer of management.
So I take that Member’s point. And my commitment is to not continue to do the same thing. I ou tlined in my Statement that the Board of Education will
be spearheading looking at that piece. And that is one
of the things that I think will lead to greater efficiency
within the system.

My second question, Mr. Speaker
(which is a carryover from the first question), is, We
know that when principals have autonomy to run the schools, schools tend to run better and student performance increases because of the much more simpl ified approach.
Will the Minister make a commitment to ensure that principals are duly authorised to properly run
the schools and achieve the results that are set out for them to achieve on behalf of our students?

Minister.

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Yes. Mr. Speaker, I tend to
support that line of thinking. And let me just say that
the way that I communicated this to the senior team is
that I want to ensure that when we look at the structure of the Ministry, and there is a whole bunch of di fferent people down there, that every single person
should be able to draw a straight line to how their ac-tions are directly benefiting the student in the clas sroom. And if it is not, maybe we need to look at that
and see how we could do things better, because I do
believe that the closer people are to our children, the
more important they are in developing that child.
As all of us can sit back . . . and Mr. Speaker,
you were one of those educators who people will remember, I am sure [especially] when you were the
principal down at Warwick Sec, and [then] being in the
Ministry, for really changing students’ lives. So I do believe that we have to do a better job in ensuring that
people closer to our children have the ability to do
their job.

We now move to congratulatory and/or
obituary speeches.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Minister for Education. Minister Wayne Scot t, you
have the floor.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I figured being I was up, I might as well just
continue with it. And I would like to actually, while we are on education, just recognise the graduates of the
CARE Learning Centre, and of course, the former
Member, the Honourable Neletha Butterfield, who
runs that programme.
The Premier and I had the opportunity to attend this graduation. Of the 11 young people, and some not so young, who actually stuck to it to ensure
that they would hav e a high school diploma, or
equiv alent, and a lot of times, Mr. Speaker, we cannot
go through the normal track of things. Some of us just do not get that done at all. So I have a lot of time
when I see people sticking with it and getting things
done like t his. So I would like to commend all of them,
as well as Ms. Butterfield.
And, Mr. Speaker, also earlier this week, I had
the opportunity to welcome some new teachers who
have just finished their training at the Bermuda
Teacher Induction ceremony, Mr. Speaker. And we
actually had 11 new teachers coming into the system
who have finished that. I would like to commend them,
as well as all of the staff at the Ministry of Education, who actually helped to make that possible, Mr.
Speaker.

Thank you. Thank you, Minister.
The Chair will recognise the Honourable
Member from constituency 5, MP D. V. Burgess.

Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like for this House to
send condolences to the families of Charles “Sam”
Scott. He was a bartender for many years at the
Reefs Hotel. And I would like to include the Minister
Wayne Scott and Dennis Lister in these remarks.
Also, condolences sent to the family of Paul
Musson, from Harris Bay. In fact, Paul Musson was
the nephew of two great cricketers from Harris Bay,
Donald Musson and Morris Musson, big, big fellows.
And he leaves among his sisters, Deanna, Michelle,
and Andrea. And I want to associate the entire House.
Paul was also a long- serving employee of the telephone company. So I would like to associate the whole House.
Also, Mr. Speaker, condolences to the family
of Eleanor Hayward, also from Harris Bay. She died in her 97
th year. I thought she was never going away because she never even looked her age. S he looked
like she was 70. I was really shocked to hear that she had passed.
Mr. Speaker, and I know my cousin, the Mini ster Cole Simons, would probably get up and say some words, but I would like to congratulate the students
who have graduated from the programme that two
employees of the Parks Department have for young
men and women. On Thursday, 10 students grad uated, and one of them in particular, was named Tajae Williams, I was so impressed with him, with his speech. He gave a speech that lasted about 12 mi nutes or a little longer. But in his speech, he kept using
the phrase teamwork makes the dream work. This guy
was very positive. I mean, I was proud to know this
young male Bermudian, the way he handled his
speech in front of all of those people, you could not even detect any nervousness in him. But if I was
younger, I would go into that programme just from
hearing him.
But also, I would like to put in the Minister’s
ear that he should have an Employee of the Decade
Award, and Chris Furbert, the Presi dent of the BIU,
mentioned on Thursday, for Roger Parris and Sam
Santucci. These are the instructors. These guys do
this for free and have been doing it for years. And the
participants, the students, do not get paid. They do this for free. But I was pleased to know that some of
these young men at the ceremony were offered jobs.
And that is the intent of it, to get them jobs. Because I
was so proud of those fellows, in particular, [Tajae],
the one we heard [speak]. And he was first class.
But again, Mr. Speaker, I just want to put in
the Minister’s ear again, they need to have an E mployee of the Decade to go to Roger Parris and Sam
Santucci. Thank you.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Premier.

Hon. Mic hael H. Dunkley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I too would like to be associated
with those words of congratulations by the Honourable
Member from constituency 5 to all of the workers in
the Parks Department, and specifically to Mr. Parris
and Mr. Santucci, for the great work they have done. I
have had the opportunity to meet with them and talk to them about the work they do.
And if you look at, specifically Mr. Parris, the
grounds that he covers, the parks grounds that he covers with his crew, and go by anytime and look at
the arboretum and look at the condition of that pro perty, it is always immaculate. And that speaks vol-umes for not only the work that he does, but the trai ning that he has instilled in the young men and women
who work for him. So he should be applauded for it. I
am glad that this programme is continuing to move
forward.


Bermuda House of Assembly I would also like to be associated with the r emarks by the Honourable Minister of Education, to
CARE and Neletha Butterfield on another exceptional
graduating year. I was delighted to take some time out
of the Cabinet schedule earlier this week to go and support the young men and women.
Mr. Speaker, on a sadder note, I would like
this Honourable House to send condolences to the family of Mr. Ed Manuel, who died a couple of days
ago. He passed away on the operating table. As colleagues will know ––Honourable Members of the
House would all like to be associated, I am sure––Mr.
Manuel was Director of Agriculture, I believe, for a
number of years and worked very closely with Dr.
Hughes when he was in that department. I have
known the Manuel family for many, many years. So
condolences to his wife and children.
Also, Mr. Speaker, while at times we are very
disturbed and wonder what makes the world go round
and how some of our challenges impact our lives, I
would like this Honourable House— and I am sure I
can associate all colleagues with this —to send cond olences to the family of Labour MP Jo Cox, in the UK,
on the terrible tragedy that struck . . .

[Inaudible interjectio n]
Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: The whole House already
did, cousin; thanks.
It struck just yesterday. In spite of my views or
your views or anyone’s views, there is absolutely no
reason in the world to have such a hate crime as what
befell this wonderful young lady, who was just stand-ing up representing people, Mr. Speaker. So I think it
is appropriate that all Honourable Members of this
House are associated with and send condolences to
the Labour Party, and certainly to the Prime Minister
in the UK for that tragedy.
And as I conclude my comments, Mr.
Speaker, I will just reflect on the disaster that ha ppened in Orlando on Sunday morning and say that,
Mr. Speaker, hate has no place in our world. And we
all need to continue to represent people, stand up and show respect, love and tolerance and understanding.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you, Honourable Pr emier.
The Chair will recognise the Honourable
Member from constituency 6, MP Wayne Furbert.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like this House to send
condolences to the family of the late Muriel Joan
Forde, from Hamilton Parish. She was a former
teacher of Harrington Primary School. Of course, she is my cousin, because she is from Ha milton Parish.
And she was the sister of Mac and Laurie Furbert, Julia Durham, and Valerie Symonds, who is the wife of Cal “Bummy” Symonds. And I would like to assoc iate my good friends, of course, the Honourable Mem-bers from Somerset, Dennis Lister and Derrick Bu rgess, from, of course, Hamilton Parish; and all the Members of this side and —everybody in the House,
Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to send congratulations to another gentleman from Hamilton Par-ish, this time I am sure you would be i nterested to
know Mr. Kacy Milan Butterfield, who has just signed a one- year contract with Walsall Football Club in the
UK. He stays with somebody on Radnor Road there.
So I would like to send congratulations to him for his
hard work for achieving this great achievement. That
makes the second person this year f rom Hamilton
Parish who has signed a contract with a football team.
Also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to be assoc iated with the Honourable Premier in regard to the
tragedy in Orlando. I think that the whole House
should send a condolence to the [Mayor] of Orlando, Florida —

It has already been done.

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: It has been done? Okay, I
understand that the Premier has done that. And I am
hoping that it went from the whole House from the
people of Bermuda. So there was a tragic situation. And so, I mean, Florida had two tragic situations this
week regarding . . . or three.

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Well, the alligator situation
and the tragedy at the club.

First, I would like to send co ngratulations to Detective Sergeant Gary Douglas
Staines, who was [awarded] the Queen’s Police Medal. He has been a member of the Bermuda Police
Service for the past 26 years, during which time he
has made a significant and special contribution to the
local and international law enforcement effort.
Second, retiree Sergeant Gregory MacArthur
Grimes, who is an Overseas Territories Pol ice Medal
Awardee. Sergeant Grimes has served with the police
service since 1978. During such time, he held a var iety of posts within the service, most recently as a
Custody Sergeant at the Island’s main police station.
With the introduction of the Police and Criminal Ev idence Act and the associated codes of practice, Ser-geant Grimes managed the operation and implementation of the project within the custody facilities.
And finally, Chief Inspector Calvin Lee Smith,
who was also awarded an Overseas Territor ies Police
Medal, and who has been with the police service for the past 32 years. He has held a variety of both un iformed and detective posts. Right now he is heading
up the Patrol Department and is responsible for deli vering uniformed police services from the Island’s p olice stations.
I would like to congratulate these gentlemen
for their service to Bermuda and wish them well in
their retirement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

And good morning, colleagues, and good morning, B ermuda.
I rise today on a sad note, to pay condolences
to the family of Ms. Renee Burrows, the daughter of
Junius Burrows and the stepdaughter of my Branch
Chair, Candace Burrows. This is a great loss to the
community, a great loss to the family. And we h ope
that the family is comforted at this time.
I would also like to give congratulations to Mr.
Roger Lambert, of the Scaur Hill community. Mr.
Lambert and the Scaur Hill community have over the
past few years been involved in charity fundraisers to
assist various causes in the Island. At this last event,
they had a Soup Night supported by the community that raised a couple of hundred dollars for the Age
Concern cause. And I commend them for their efforts.
I hope that they continue, and I look forward to s eeing them contributing more to the betterment of our soc iety. And the MP Leah Scott would like to be assoc iated as well.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to send congratulations to the graduating class of West End Pr imary. My colleague, the Honourable Member Dennis
Lister, and I were able to attend the graduation yesterday. And it is heart -warming not just to see children
as they prepare to make this next step into the next
stage of life, but the family support and the encouragement and the environment at t he West End Pr imary that I think will give this next generation the tools
to provide our country in good stead long after we are
gone.
And finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ass ociate myself with the Premier on the remarks made
about the assassination of Labour MP Jo Cox. She was murdered at a political surgery in her constit uency, attempting to meet with her constituents. And as
a sister in the labour movement, as a member of this
fraternity of parliamentarians around the world, we
mourn. We feel for t he family, and we hope that this
incident receives the justice and the resolution that it
deserves. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Member, the Minister of Economic Development. You
have the floor.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a sad note this morning
to ask that the House send condolences to the family
of the late Gretchen Aguiar. Most Honourable Members will know Gr etchen as the spouse of Anthony
Aguiar, who runs Harrington Hundreds Grocery Store.
And while both of them were constituents of mine, I have known Gretchen ever since she and my sister
and I used to ride the school bus many, many years
ago.

[Inaudible int erjection]

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Gretchen [née] Van
Slois, exactly.
She, as those who know her will be aware,
was challenged by poor health in recent years, but in
spite of that was certainly very much a devoted
mother and a partner; was very, very interested in animals; and also was very good with children as well.
So I would ask that the House send condolences to
Anthony; her four children, Nadia, Nathan, Anson, and
Megan. And I know that a number of Honourable
Members, Suzann Roberts -Holshous er, Jeff Sousa,
Leah Scott, would also like to be associated with
those comments.


Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I would
also like to be associated with the condolences to the
family of the late Dr. Ed Manuel. It was a very tragic
way to go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would definitely like to be associated with the
congratulatory message given by the Honourable
Member from constituency 5 to Mr. Roger Parris. He
is a constituent of mine. And I remember, as I am sure
does the Honourable Member from constituency 5,
Roger expressing his vision for this programme before
it got set up. And he was very passionate about hort iculture, very passionate about what he felt he could do in training the young people. And that has been
realised. And the awards ceremony, which I believe
was recent, is testimony to the impact that he and others of his team have been able to bring about with
this programme. So, very much, congratulations are well deserved.
I would also like to be associated with the
condolences to [the family of] Ms. Muriel Joan Forde and definitely associated with the condolence mes-sages th at have been already sent to the City of O rlando and the State of Florida, as well as those pr oposed to send to the UK to the family and colleagues
of Jo Cox, as well —clearly a tragedy for the Commonwealth parliamentary community, as she was a
part of that . And as the Honourable Member from
constituency 33 has said, that member was busy d oing her job when this happened. And one does not
believe that there are certain levels of risk associated
with representing the people. And actually, that has
not happened in almost 20 years in the UK, I think,
since a conservative member was hit by the IRA in the UK—and we have also seen, actually, this taking
place in other jurisdictions against representative
members serving their people.
So, we must all take this to he art and ensure
and support that justice is being served ultimately in
this sad occasion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask that this Honourable
House send congratulations to Mr. Nahki Wells on his
fantastic season he had this year with Huddersfield, where he scored 18 goals. Nahki has also been
named to the Yorkshire Post’s Team of 2015/16 and
is now being scouted by premier league teams. Who knows, Mr. Speaker? Maybe Chelsea would snatch
him up.

So I would like to just co ngratulate Nahki and tell him to keep up the good work.
We as Bermudians support him and are very proud of him.
While on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I would also
like to send congratulations to 15- year-old Kenni
Thompson, who plays football with the Catalan Under -
16 team. They have recently won the Spanish Championship title over Madrid. So, congratulations to Kenni Thompson. I wish her the best as well. I would
like to associate the whole House with all of my r emarks, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you very much, Ho nourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Learned
Member from constituency 36. MP Michael Scott, you
have the floor.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of the 400
th Anniversary of the convening of the f irst session of
courts, may I ask that this Honourable House, if we
think it is appropriate, to send congratulations from this branch of our constitutional arrangements to the
Judicial Branch on this important milestone. And I am
sure that my colleague and the incumbent Shadow
Attorney General , who has been giving remarks all
week on these occasions, will be happy to be assoc iated with these remarks of congratulations to the
Honourable Chief Justice, who heads up that branch.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

This morning I rise to, firstly, co ngratulate the students of Heron Bay Primary School,
P6, who graduated yesterday. It was a very special
occasion, where the 13 of them graduated. And you
clearly saw that Bermuda was in good hands. It is a lovely little school that is close to my business in
Southampton.
I also would like to congratulate Bermudian
Taylor Rankin, who just recently has put on a produc-tion called Leroyfest that is taking place throughout
Bermuda in June, at the Aquarium; there was going to
be one at the Town Gardens, and there was a lovely
one that myself and former Minister Shawn Crockwell
2124 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly attended in the Caves at Grotto Bay. And it is so great
to see Taylor involving so many Bermudians, young,
very talented Bermudians. And I salute him f or this. I
also would like to associate Walton Brown and also Minister Pat Gordon- Pamplin, and MP Susan Jackson
as well.
I also would like to take the time to congrat ulate Patrina O’Connor -Paynter from Big Brothers Big
Sisters for a fundraiser that took place in Hamilton at
Harbour Nights this past Wednesday, How Much
Would You Pay to See Me? And this was a major
fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Many of us
know her as “Power Girl,” and I would like to certainly
congratulate anybody who was involved with that
fundraiser for this great charity.
I also would like to be associated with the
condolences for Gretchen Aguiar. I did know she
passed. I do know her husband; I know many of the
children very well.
And lastly, Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to be
associated with the condolences for Ed Manuel,
whom I have known since I did my apprenticeship
scheme at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1976, when, I believe, at the time he was the
Assistant Director there. Ed loved to garden at home.
And many might not know this, but he produced a
book that I personally use to this day on how to keep
your own vegetable garden. So I certainly want to
send condolences to his family. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Member from constituency 35. MP Dennis Lister, you
have the floor.

Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague next to me was on
his feet and associated me with his remarks to the
family of the late Renee Burrows, but I felt I needed to
get on my feet as well, Mr. Speaker. Having attended
her funeral yesterday, Mr. Speaker, you really felt the
loss not only to her family, but to her community, her work community, her church community, Mr. Speaker,
where she played active roles in both of those. The
shock of her passing has definitely touched many, Mr. Speaker, in and outside of her family. And I just felt it
important that I join my colleague in extending the
condolences to her family, to her father, Mr. Junius
Burrows; her mother, Mrs. Louise Moore; to her sister;
her daughter; and the entire Burrows family, Mr.
Speaker, who really have been touched in a real way in this sudden loss.
Renee was a quiet person, but in her own way
a very effective person in bringing joy and comfort to those whom she served. You know, Mr. Speaker, she was a nurse and spent many years in that field. And
her presence in the hospital is truly going to be
missed, Mr. Speaker. And you felt the presence of the hospit al yesterday, the numerous members of her co lleagues who came out in support, and the wonderful tributes that were given in regard to her, Mr. Speaker,
surely spoke to the impact that she has had on many
lives. The Honourable Member, Minister Pat Gordon -
Pamplin, would like to be associated with these r emarks as well. But I just felt that it was important that I
stand on my feet and add my words, Mr. Speaker.
But also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to be ass ociated with the remarks to that programme that Mr.
Sam Santucci and Mr. Parris run in the Parks D epartment. I have known both of those gentlemen for a
long time, Mr. Speaker, and know their commitment to
community and just helping to promote the importance
of what is done for horticulture, et cetera. And I t hink
they do need to be commended for the efforts that they bring. Thank you.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair now will recognise the Junior Mini ster, from constituency 1. Junior Minister Kenneth Bascome, you have the floor.

Hon. Ken neth (Kenny) Bascome: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
I would like to be associated with the condolences for Mrs. Aguiar. I knew Mrs. Aguiar personally.
My wife used to work for them every winter after we closed at that illustrious little area that we had the o pportunity to manage in St. George's. Every Christmas,
we went to parties at the Aguiars’ residence.
I would like to be associated with the condolences to Ms. Renee Burrows. You will be aware that
her cousin lives upstairs, or her uncle lives upstairs in
my homestead, Mr. Speaker. So I knew Renee quite
well.
And I would like congrats to be sent to the
Dowling family of the Dowling’s Marina in St. George's, particularly now with the Newport Bermuda Yacht Race on its way. Every day I am stopped, and
basically I have compliments passed on to me about
the outstanding service that the yachtsmen receive at
the Dowling’s Marina. And I would like for this Honourable House to be aware that they are ambass adors for our country and particularly for the illustrious
little town, the World Heritage site, the UNESCO town
of St. George's. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Minister, the Minister for Social Development and
Sports. Minister Sylvan Richards, you have the floor.

Hon. Sylvan D. Richards, Jr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate ev eryone down at the Bermuda National Library. They
were recently awarded the Best of Bermuda 2016


Bermuda House of Assembly Award by t he Bermudian magazine in the category of
Best Government Service. I would like to thank the
Director, Ms. Joanne Brangman, and her dedicated
staff at the Bermuda National Library. I had the pleasure of touring the library yesterday. And I must say I had not been in the library in many, many years. And I
was very impressed with the services that they offer
there, not only to Bermudians, but to our visitors. And
they have managed to update their services to compete in the digital age. So I just want to thank them for
their hard work and dedication. They are very pas-sionate about what they do on a day -to-day basis.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to congratulate
our own triathlete, Ms. Flora Duffy, who recently won a silver medal in the 2016 ATU Columbia Threadnee-dle World Triathlon, which was held in Leeds, En gland, on June the 12
th. I would like to associate my
colleagues, perhaps the entire House, with her ama zing achievements that she is attaining in the World
Triathlon circuit. Apparently, she was leading that race
for the majority of the race against the lady, I guess,
who is ranked number one in the world. And som ehow, she came in second. But they are going to go
head- to-head at the Rio Olympics, so I would encourage everyone to watch out for that. It is going to be a
very interesting battle between those two. So I just
want to offer her my congratulations.

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to
send condolences or ask that condolences be sent to
the family of Mr. Wilfred Eldon Norman Dill, who
passed away recently, last week . Mr. Dill was a co nstituent of mine in the Cox’s Hill area, and he will be
missed by his family, his friends, and his neighbours as well.
On my second item, Mr. Speaker, I would like
to be associated with the— I would like, of course, the
entire House, the Premier has associated the entire
House with the condolences to be sent to the Speaker
of the House in the United Kingdom on the passing or the murder of Ms. Jo Cox, the Labour MP, for Batley
and Spen. Her constituency is a very diverse constit uency, one of the most diverse constituencies in the
United Kingdom. And the apparent circumstances
over her murder and the circumstances around it
speak to the challenges which we have in our modern day, of making sure that we are tolerant of [diverse]
views and ma king sure that we understand how we
can live and learn to co- exist together. It cannot be
something that can be taken lightly. But I think that when we look at the circu mstances which are going on in the United Kingdom right now, as they face a referendum, just like here in
our country we face a referendum, and other tragedies which exist around the world, the tensions that
may be related to such things, I think it is important
that we learn from these lessons and try to make sure
that we are less disagreeable when we disagree so
we can do our best to come to a common point.
She was only in Parliament for 13 months.
She was a very young Parliamentarian. And I am sure
that she had a lifetime of service that she could have
given. But I hope that her memory, especially for the
work which she did in her short time in Parliament, will
certainly be noted and remembered. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Would any other Honourable Member care to
speak?
The C hair will recognise the Minister for the
Environment. Minister Cole Simons, you have the
floor.

Hon. N. H. Cole Simons: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself
with the comments made in regards to the Park Service skills dev elopment programme. A lot has been
said this morning, and I also would like to give Roger
Parris and Sam Santucci the accolades that they deserve for sticking to it and ensuring the programme is
a success.
I would like to also raise the issue in regards
to other partnerships which support that programme.
We have been working with the BIU, the Garden Club,
and the Bermuda Courts Services. Mr. Speaker, I do
not know if you know this. This programme basically
takes in high school students and young people who
are on parole or are unlicensed. And the programmes
are used to help them turn their lives around. In add ition, they have taken on functional mentally cha llenged people. And so, we have all types in the pr ogramme. And in fact, there is such a long waiting list,
they are thinking about possibly extending it if they
can get more resources.
So again, to the team at the Park Service, I
would like to commend them for their contributions. I
would like to also salute Tokio Millennium for their
support and contri bution.
I would like to also associate myself with the
comments made with [relation to] Gretchen Aguiar,
Paul Musson, Jo Cox, and Ed Manuel. Thank you.

I just would like to end on a
lighter note today and congratulate the winners of the
Best of Bermuda Awards by The Bermudian magazine. There are a number of people who have worked
very hard over the years. The award has become
quite well known Island- wide and adds a level of prestige, in particular to those entrepreneurs out there who
are working very hard. And I would like to just quietly
recognise a couple of entrepreneurs who are in the
House today who have also won the Best Awards,
and certainly would suggest that anyone interested go
on Facebook. If you search “auto solutions,” there is a
celebration of the mechanics at Auto Solutions for a
job well done. I have been having my car serviced
there for a number of years, and I appreciate the hard
work, the service, the attention to detail —well d eserved.
And also to my colleague, Sousa’s Landscape
Management, for their hard work in making sure that our horticultural sector is maintained and remains with
high integrity.
So, congratulations to all the winners! There
were tons of them in many categories. And a ll of them
are providing a high quality of service and products to
Bermuda. So, all the best to them all.

The Chair will recognise the Minister of
Finance . . . who is not here. It looks like the Premier
will take his place.

FIRST READING

INVESTMENT FUNDS AMENDMENT ACT 2016
Hon. Michael H. Dunkley: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am introducing the following
Bill for its first reading so that it may be placed on the
Order Paper for the next day of meeting: Investment
Funds Amendment Act 2016.

Orders No. 1 and 2 are carried over.
So we move now to Order No. 3, which is in
the name of the Minister of Public Works. Minister
Craig Cannonier, you have the floor.

SALE AND PURCHASE AGREEMENT OF THE
HARRINGTON SOUND POST OFFICE

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I now move that this Honourable House, in
accordanc e with section 8(1) of the Public Lands Act
1984, approve and authorise the Minister responsible for Public Lands to execute a sale and purchase
agreement on the terms of the attached draft for the purposes of selling the Harrington Sound Post Office,
in accordance with section 8(1) of the Public Lands
Act 1984.

Thank you, Honourable Minister.
Any objections?
Carry on, sir.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Mr. Speaker, I rise to pr esent Honourable Members the proposed sale of the
former Harrington Sound Post Office. The Gover nment -owned property consists of a part [one story]


Bermuda House of Assembly and part two story building situated on a sloping w aterfront lot with an adjoining detached store, located
on Harrington Sound Road in Hamilton Parish.
Honourable Members may recall in January of
this year, the Ministry of Public Works announced that it had identified 30 Government -owned properties that
could be offered for sale in the future. The initiative,
which was initially unveiled in the Throne Speech, is a
part of the property asset management plan for the
government estate that the Department of Public
Lands and Buildings is currently creating.
It is estimated that the Government will raise
approximately $10 million from the sale of real estate
over the next three year s, and for this fiscal year, eight
properties, including the Hamilton Sound Post Office,
have been identified for sale. And the intent is to pr esent these properties before this Honourable House in accordance with Part III, section 8 of the Public Lands
Act 1984, which provides the authority for the Minister
to sell or acquire land.
The property asset management plan i ncludes strategic review of the public sector property assets to ensure that assets are aligned with policies
and the operational needs of t he Government. The
plan has not been completed in its entirety, and it is
likely that further properties will be identified for potential sale as the plan develops.
Mr. Speaker, the Ministry is very cognisant of
the concerns that some members of the publi c may
have over the sale of public land to non- Bermudians.
And these concerns are being taken into consider ation. I know Part VI of the Bermuda Immigration and Protection Act 1956 contains provisions aimed at pr otecting land in Bermuda for Bermudians, and these
properties are not exempted from that legislation.
The former Harrington Sound Post Office was
offered for sale freehold with vacant possession on
the open, unrestricted market, as a whole. As mentioned, the property consists of a part [one story], part
two story building situated on a sloping waterfront lot, with an adjoining detached store. The main building
measures approximately 864 square feet internally
and consists of an open planned space —a kitchenette, a toilet, and a secure storeroom. To the rear of
the main building at a lower level is another toilet and
detached store. The total site is approximately 0.2036 hectares. In acres, that would be 0.503.
Mr. Speaker, marketing of the tender commenced on Monday, the 11
th of May, 2015, and closed
six weeks later, on Friday, the 19th of June 2015. A set
of marketing particulars including a planning zone map, tender conditions, instructions, and a draft sales
agreement was produced and made available on the
Government website, as well as made availab le for
collection at the Offices of the Estates Department in
the Government Administration Building.
The specific tendering marketing details are
as follows: The invitation to tender consisted of a s eries of advertisements placed in the Royal Gazette on the 8
th, 15th and 22nd of May 2015. The tender was
also advertised on the Government website under
Procurement Notices. Advert boards were affixed to
the front and side of the building, indicating that it was
available for sale. Non- mandatory viewing dates were
held on the 11th, 19th and 27th of May, and on the 4th
and 12th of June 2015. Press releases were placed in
the Royal Gazette on the 7th of May and 9th of June
2015.
Tenders were due on 19th of June 2015 at
noon. Mr. Speaker, tenderers were invited to make both conditional and unconditional offers, with the
former being where planning consent or other matters
were to be settled or required prior to the completion
of the purchase, and the latt er being where compl etion would not be dependent on any planning consent or any other matters for the freehold interest in the
property with vacant possession.
Tenderers were also asked to provide details
of their proposed scheme and their funding arrang ements, together with any other additional details or
information they considered important or appropriate
to assist in the consideration of their offer. An evalua-tion of each tender was carried out to determine if all
required documents were submitted. The bids were
received, representing a wide range of interest and
varied age groups. In total, eight financial bids were received, with offers ranging from $250,000 to
$755,000. And it was decided that the top three bids
were to be shortlisted for further consideration.
After further consideration, the second- highest
financial bid was submitted on an unconditional basis, with the acceptance of which meant that Government, the Government being in receipt of funds in the shor test possible time with no risk and unknown delays, was recommended as the best offer.
The Office of the Estates Department of Government have undertaken full due diligence through-out the tender process and feel that the recommended bid does reflect their market value for the property at
the lower end of the price spectrum, bearing in mind
current market conditions. The Ministry of Public
Works, therefore, recommends that the freehold of the former Harrington Sound Post Office be sold for the
total sum of $700,000. A non- refundable deposit o f
10 per cent of the agreed offer will be payable upon
signing the sales agreement, and once legislative approval is obtained, the balance is payable upon completion.
I will ensure that Honourable Members, Mr.
Speaker, will be kept well informed on the pr ocess of
this initiative. Therefore, in conclusion, I am seeking approval of the House for sale of the former Harrington Sound Post Office located in Hamilton Parish.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mini ster.
2128 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Chair will now recognise the Shadow
Minister for Public Works. The Honourable Member
from constituency 35, MP Dennis Lister, you have the
floor.

Hon. Dennis P. Lister: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, on the matter that is before us
today, let me start by saying, in principle, we have no
real problem with the process of Government wanting
to put some of the government assets out to market
for the general public to purchase. I think we have had that conversation prior around this table, Mr. Speaker,
and we understand where we are on that matter.
In regard to this particular sale, Mr. Speaker,
again the Minister has walked through the process
and walked through the tendering exercise that took
place, which you all are well aware of how that exercise was followed. Mr. Speaker, the Minister and I
have actually had recent private conversation in r egard to a couple of concerns that I did have. And ba-sically, the main concern, Mr. Speaker, was that the property was a government -owned property bordering
the road, the main road. And my concern was whether or not in the sale of the property we have taken into
consideration, or Government has taken into consi deration holding a slice back, so to speak, so that in
future, if there was a need for sidewalks to be buil t, we
are not going back to a private person to negotiate for
a piece of property that we had at one time owned as
Government to put in a side road.
In the conversation we had, the Minister has
indicated that, yes, that was taken into consideration and agrees that a stretch of the roadside has been retained so that in the future sidewalks could be
added if the need ever comes. Not to say that they
have to build it tomorrow, but down the road as we
expand our side roads system throughout the Island,
we own that strip so that we are not repurchasing
what we had had for so long.
There was another encroachment about
which I had a conversation with the Minister as well,
and he said that was taken under consideration as
well. So the concerns that I had, firstly in regard to the
property, and it was purely from the real estate perspective of the land itself and those two issues, the
Minister has given me some comfort in our personal conversation that we had.
So, in principle, Mr. Speaker, we are in support of it. We understand the process that Gover nment is going through to take some of the unused
properties off of the Government books and put them
out there for private purchase. And the concern that we had and that was raised last week in questions,
Mr. Speaker, we are trying to ensure that such properties are sold to Bermudians. And that was addressed,
again, in the questions that were brought up here last week.
So, in principle, Mr. Speaker, I am okay with
this matter. And we stand to support it. The Speaker: Yes, thank you, MP Dennis Lister.
Would any other Member care to speak?
Therefore, I will go back to the Minister.

Hon. L. Craig Cannonier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I will concur that we have had discussions of
past, and I am obliged to thank the Honourable Mem-bers across the floor for their support as we move
forward with this here. You know, I am not a real estate agent, and I recognise that the Honourable Member Lister, being well versed in real estate, was doing his homework, and I am grateful that he has come
and brought to my attention some of the concerns that
he has had.
I must also say thank you to our Estates team,
because they had already provided the solution to
some of the concerns the Honourable Member had. We will be seeking out a sidewalk in that area, as he
mentioned. And so, with that in mind, Mr. Speaker,
recognising the time as well, I am obliged and thankful
for the support we have been given here to proceed.
And I move that the resolution be approved and that a suitable message be sent to His Excellency the Go vernor.

Okay, Members. We should be moving
now to Order No. 4 on the Order Paper, which is in
the name of the Honourable and Learned Attorney
General and Minister of Legal Affairs, T. G. Moniz.
You have the floor.

DRAFT ORDER

MAINTENANCE ORDERS (RECIPROCAL E NFORCEMENT) (DESIGNATION) AMENDMENT O RDER 2016
Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Thank you, Mr. Speaker .
I move that consideration be given to the Draft
Order entitled the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal
Enforcement) (Designation) Amendment Order 2016
proposed to be made by His Excellency the Governor under the provisions of section 15 of the Maintenance
Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1974.

Thank you.
Any objections to that ?
Please carry on, Attorney General .

Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Thank you. Thank you , Mr.
Speaker .
Mr. Speaker , I am pleased to present to this
Honourable House this Order pursuant to section 15
of the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement)
Act 1974 for Bermuda to designate the Province of
Ontario in Canada as a reciprocating country.
The Act makes provision for Bermuda to enter
into agreements with other jurisdictions to become
reciprocating countries for purposes of mutually enforcing judicial maintenance orders or provisional orders as defined by the Act.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker , the Maintenance
Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) (Designation) Order
1975 shows that there are currently 19 reciprocating
countries with the state of Minnesota in the United
States of America being the most recent designation
as of April last year, most immediately preceded by
the state of Ohio in January 1998. So you see these
do not come altogether that frequently.
Per the Act and subject to section 6 of the
Statutory Inst ruments Act 1977, it falls to His Excellency the Governor to make orders to designate reci procating countries after such orders have been subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
Mr. Speaker , in accordance with these prov isions the process started with the province of Ontario
making a request to enter into a mutual enforcement
agreement with Bermuda dated 10 March 2016. This
request was subsequently vetted by Crown Counsel
who had no objections. It is also important to note that Bermuda is already added to Ontario’s list of recipr ocating jurisdictions. I can confirm that the Governor,
as a person authorised to designate reciprocating
countries under the Act, has been kept abreast of de-velopments in this matter, including by correspondence with the M inistry of Legal Affairs to which he
responded with authorisation to proceed to gazette
the requisite order. Hence this Order is hereby laid in
this Honourable House for affirmative resolution pending the Governor’s signature and subsequent gazetting.
We are thus pleased to partner with Ontario in
this regard to ensure that going forward maintenance
and support orders issued by our courts pertaining to
Bermudians will be honoured within that jurisdiction.
Mr. Speaker , I have here, in case there is any
curiosity, I have a list of the countries and territories
which are reciprocating jurisdictions, if I might just go
through them quickly. I imagine there might be some
curiosity by persons within the House and persons in
the listening audience.

Yes, carry on.

Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Reciprocating countries and
territories are: Barbados, Guernsey, Hong Kong, J amaica, Jersey (that is the Island of Jersey), New
South Wales and Australia, St. Vincent, the Isle of
Man, the Leeward Islands, the state of California, the
state of Connecticut, the state of Florida, the state of
Hawaii, the state of Maryland, the state of Missouri,
the state of New Jersey, the state of Ohio, and the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,
and of course Minnesot a as we had previously said
was the most recent one that had been done.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker .

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Any other Honourable Member that would
care to speak? The Chair will recognise the Shadow Attorney
General , the Learned Member from constituency 36,
MP Michael Scott.
You have the floor.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: Mr. Speaker , thank you so
much.
We are entirely pleased to support this Order
that has the effect, as the Learned Attorney has indicated, of addi ng to the list of reciprocating countries
Ontario, the province of Ontario, so that this regime,
Mr. Speaker , of finding Bermudians residing in juri sdictions can also be reached or touched. The long
arm of the law will reach them in connection with carrying out their obligations to their . . . in this case, to
the maintenance requirements, affiliation requir ements, and duties and responsibilities that they have.
2130 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly It is an item on our legislative agenda that,
surprisingly, always would enjoy the support of the
House as we seek to ensure that citizens, largely parents and largely men, who have undertaken the . . . or
put themselves in the position of paternity, discharge
their obligations to ensure that children’s necessities
are met and needs are met. And it is a shame that we
have to keep extending beyond the 13 that are listed,
a shame. At the same time, I understand the necessity. But the more that our citizens begin to emigrate,
Mr. Speaker , today the popular choice is the United
Kingdom, but the more that we are found to be moving across out of these borders into other borders
without having met our obligations we will have to
continue to add to this list to ensure that we still ensure that our children’s needs are met and that they
are maintained.
And so one day I hope that we get to a pos ition where emigration is not flourishing and that they
are here and we do not have to enter into these kinds
of requirements to have the arm of the law reach them.
It is of interest too that in the parent Act we
have a validating provision so that things . . . so that
there is a reflexive or retroactive impact of validation
of these orders that is taking place. I took the time to
remind myself of how the Act works before taking to my feet, so the Act works well and I want to commend
the Parliamentary Counsel, and I see Madam Chief is
here with another member of Parliamentary Counsel,
for their continuing good work. And as I say, we completely support this obvious initiative to ensure that our
system works well for the care of our kids.
Thank you, sir.

Thank you , Mr. Speaker .
Mr. Speaker , I did not intend to speak on this
very simple and straightforward matter until I heard
the Attorney General explain the process by which it is
approved. So we have an entirely legitimate measure
before us today that will be approved, yet we once
again have to have this approved by the Governor.
This is not a matter that the Governor has responsibi lity for under our Constitution, right? His powers are
very clearly defined in our Constitution, yet once
again, we are devolving power to an unelected pers on
who represents the British Government . So I have a
concern with that. I am sure the Attorney General will
address it when he replies. And some may roll their eyes and consider it a pedantic point, but it is impor-tant that we retain as much power as poss ible under
our Constitution to carry out our constitutionally d efined remit. The second point is, having looked at the list
of countries —well, not really countries, but list of
places and jurisdictions that are covered under this
Order, this seems a terri bly inefficient way to ensure
that parents carry out their responsibility to their chi ldren when they decide to live somewhere else. And this cries out for a convention akin to the Hague Convention on the adoption of children where every country can adopt that convention and it would apply
wholly and fully to other jurisdictions.
Of course, Mr. Speaker , as a British Overseas
Territory we cannot act to initiate this endeavour, but perhaps the Attorney General can use his powers of
influence to persuade thos e who are duly authorized
to consider discussing this issue at an international
level so that we could have an international conve ntion on these matters so that countries could just
adopt it and we would not have to go through this
process every single tim e to add one American state
versus another state, or a Canadian province in a nother country. It is inefficient and there is a remedy
available internationally, and perhaps this is som ething that could be pursued.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker .

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Any other Members care to speak?
Then now I revert back to the Attorney Ge neral.
You have the floor.
Hon. Trevor G. Moniz: Thank you . Thank you, Mr.
Speaker .
With respect to the last speaker who spoke,
the Honourable Member Walton Brown, just to point
out, Mr. Speaker , that these are matters related to
international relations and that even though this is
subsidiary legislation it still devolves under the British Government ’s representative.
However, the point he ma kes about it being
an archaic methodology and a slow process which we have adopted here, I completely accept. And we are
lucky enough to be graced with the presence in the
Speaker’s Gallery today of the eminent Chief Parli amentary Counsel Cathryn Balfour -Swain and with Ms.
Tannock from the drafting section. And I have taken
the opportunity of taking advice from t hem and, you
know, it is agreed that this is too slow a process and I
think the Shadow Attorney General made the same
point, and we were speaking of ways to speed it up. And the first way I thought of was by negative resol ution so we would not have to debate each one of
these items as they come through, or even not having
to come through the House at all, since I cannot imagine anyone disagreeing wit h adding a country or a
territory to this list. And it can cause hardship by delay
to the individuals involved, as Members have noted.


Bermuda House of Assembly So we will look at streamlining this process to
the extent that we are able. And I hope Members are
satisfied with that undertaking.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker , I move that the
Draft Order be approved, and that a message be sent from this House to His Excellency the Governor.

We now move to Order No. 5, which is
the Marriage Amendment Act 2016 in the name of the
Minister of Home Affairs.
Minister of Home Affair s Gordon- Pamplin, you
have the floor.

BILL

SECOND READING

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT ACT 2016
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker , and good afternoon colleagues.
Mr. Speaker , today I rise to introduce for the
second reading the Bill entitl ed Marriage Amendment
Act 2016. The Bill seeks to support the Government ’s
commitment to rebuilding Bermuda’s tourism industry and to generating new revenue by expanding the l ocations at which marriage ceremonies performed by
the Registrar General can be c onducted.
Do we have to ask if there is any objection? I
am just saying I am introducing for the second rea ding, and I just want to make sure that it is okay, that nobody objects.

Sorry, Honourable Member , there is no
objection to that.
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Okay, thank you,
Mr. Speaker .
Mr. Speaker , section 24(1) of the Marriage Act
1944, which I will refer to hereinafter as “the Act,” pr ovides that persons who obtain a certificate for marriage from the Registrar General or a special licence from the Minister, may contract marriage at the office
of the Registrar. Marriages before the Registrar are considered civil marriage ceremonies, which have
become increasingly popular in recent years, partic ularly among persons visiting Bermuda for the purposes of getting married.
Mr. Speaker , Honourable Member s are a dvised that for the year 2015 118 marriages, representing 23.2 per cent of all marriages conducted in Bermuda, were civil ceremonies performed at the Regi strar’s office. Many couples prefer to have civil cer emonies rather than religious ceremonies for various reasons; therefore, Bermuda might be viewed as a more attractive wedding destination for tourists if there
were more options for venues at which civil cerem onies could be per formed.
Mr. Speaker , the Bill amends section 24 of the
Act by deleting the words “ at the office of the Regi strar” in subsection (1), and by inserting a dash and the
following after subsection (1)(a) “(i) at the office of the Registrar; or (ii) at an appro ved location.”
Also there will be new subsections (3) and (4)
being inserted to grant the Minister responsible for the
Registry General the power to make regulations sub-ject to the negative resolution procedure to prescribe
the approved alternative locati ons. The Minister is
also being empowered to approve an additional loc ation on application by the parties.
Mr. Speaker , Honourable Member s should
note that there is a housekeeping amendment as well
in the repealing of section 21 of the Marriage Act. And
I will speak to that more in Committee, but the intent is
that commonwealth citizens . . . section 21 says that
“commonwealth citizens intending marriage; one in Bermuda and the other in the UK,” is no longer of any
utility. There has been no practical appl ication of this
section and there is no record of anyone ever applying
for a certificate of marriage to be recognised in such
manner.
Mr. Speaker , the amendments enable marriages to be contracted before the Registrar at approved alternative locations since the office of the
Registrar General is currently the only permitted
venue for such marriages. However, the Bill does not
affect marriages celebrated by marriage officers which
may continue to be performed in a place of worship or
in any other place i n Bermuda subject to the prov isions of the Act.
Mr. Speaker , it is proposed to expand the
venues of civil ceremonies beyond the Registrar’s office subject to permission being granted by the pro perty owner to have access to the property with the approval of the Registrar. It is envisaged that this will allow civil ceremonies to be performed in venues such
as buildings owned by government and national parks
and beaches, as examples. It is also proposed that
the Registrar set policies as to the type of venues that
might be appropriate.
Mr. Speaker , it is recommended that the fee
for weddings performed before the Registrar, outside
2132 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly of the Registrar’s office, would be set in the Gover nment Fees Regulations 1976 at $450—

[Gavel]
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin : —which repr esents a $205, or 83.7 per cent increase over the $245
fee currently charged when ceremonies are performed
at the office of the Registry General. Honourable
Member s will agree that the fee increase is reasonable and necessary to absorb any add itional costs
incurred by the Registrar General to perform an out of office wedding, i.e., for travel time and expense to perform a wedding in St. George’s or Dockyard. Also the
new fee is comparable to the fees charged by various local churches for religi ous wedding ceremonies.
In closing, Mr. Speaker , the Marriage
Amendment Act 2016 contributes to the Government ’s
efforts to rebuild Bermuda’s tourism industry by expanding the venues for civil marriage ceremonies beyond the Registrar’s office, providing m ore options so
that Bermuda might be viewed as a more attractive
wedding destination for tourists, and to generate new
revenue by setting a fee of $450 in the Government
Fees Regulations Act for civil ceremonies conducted
outside the Registrar General’s of fice.
So, Mr. Speaker , I now move that this Bill . . .
having been read the second time, I invite other Members to participate.
Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let me first of all congratulate the Gover nment for taking this initiative. I do not want to antic ipate a debate th at we are going to have in due course
regarding civil unions, so I will not speak about civil
unions. But I do congratulate the Government for taking the initiative to allow for marriages to take place at venues outside of the Registrar ’s office . Clearly t here
is an interest in having it outside of the office .
I have been made to understand that there
may be a level of concern by some Members in Go vernment about performing the wide range of marriage options that might become available in due course and I am just wondering if the Minister has a . . . well
no, I guess she is not going to respond to that because that is anticipating a debate.

I will leave that part alone.
All I will say is that it is a good move. It is an
anticipatory move and we are moving in the right di-rection.
The only thing I do not understand is when
you spoke about the need for the Registry General to
specif y certain types of conditions at venues , I am not
quite sure what was meant by that because if people
can hold civil ceremonies on the beach or elsewhere, I
am not quite sure what is meant by the Registry General being empowered to establish . . . identify specific
conditions for that ceremony to take place, and if the
Minister could address that I would be most grateful.
Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I will also contribute to the debate very briefly. I also will try not to reflect on a debate to c ome, but I would like to just highlight on the
second page of the Act just the characterisation of the
marriage that will be before the Registrar under section 24, et cetera, as the “contracting marriage,” Mr. Speaker. And I say this because you will note that in
recent times there has been much debate over the pending referendum and much of that debate is
steeped in religious views and the like, Mr. Speaker.
But a marriage is primarily a legal contract. That is what it is. It is a legal contract between tw o individuals—that is a marriage.
And as my honourable and learned colleague ,
Mr. Pettingill, always says, you go to a church to get
married, but you have to go to a court to get divorced,
Mr. Speaker, because it is a contract. And it is a contract that h as certain conditions. It is a contract that
has various obligations that need to be fulfilled. And if
those conditions are breached, Mr. Speaker, and the
contract needs to be voided or dissolved, then you go
to court and you get it dissolved because it is a contract. And we have become sidetracked . . . and I understand that people have their views, I have my own
religious views, Mr. Speaker, but on this issue we are
talking about a legal contract forming a partnership,
no different than what I have had to do with my bus iness partner recently —enter into a contract —forming
a partnership with conditions. And if you fulfil those conditions, Mr. Speaker, then that contract will be
successful, that partnership will be successful. And if things go awry, then the partnership may be di ssolved. But that is what we are talking about. We are


Bermuda House of Assembly talking about a contractual arrangement. And I think
that it is unfortunate that there are those who think
that individuals should not be entitled to that legal
construct for their lives, Mr. Speaker.
Now, it would appear to me, and the Minister
could elaborate in her response, that this particular . . . the motivation of this Bill (and I am being pr esumptuous, Mr. Speaker) is to provide accommodation for the proposed, or the potential approval of , civil
unions to allow for these types of ceremonies to take place in various alternative places. And so I am hop-ing that the passage of this Bill before the House t oday will serve as a good omen, Mr. Speaker, for
things to come.
Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Honourable and
Learned Member.
The Chair now recognises the Honourable
Member from constituency 6, MP Wayne Furbert.
Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I
was wondering what we were debating just now. I
heard my two good friends stand up and I became a
bit confused.
When I first read the Bill I wondered where the
Government was going and I think that is where my honourable colleagues were referring to. But I think it
makes sense to allow . . . I do not know why we have
not done it all these years and we have just been
stuck up there in that Registrar ’s office where people
who want to get married get stuck up there in that
dismal place where there is no real warm feeling . It is
an office. So it is important for us to expand the whole
idea of allowing marriage to take place outside on
people’s property or wherever , and so I totally support
it.
But let us not jump to conclusions, we still
have a referendum to go through and th en we still
have got to report back to this House on where we go
on the next step. We are not there yet . We are not
there yet and I am not going to jump on that because
my colleagues have already anticipated some debate. Have I missed something? Has a Bill been laid that I
missed that is coming up about . . . because I do not
know that . I missed it. So we cannot anticipate . . .
anticipation, I guess.
So I support what the Minister is doing and I
think it just makes common sense and I . . . of course,
one of the best places to get married is , as I am normally seeing ministers do, is to go on the beach and
marry people there . I have had a couple being married
at my house, but the Registrar cannot do it, and I think
it just makes sense. I do not why at the end of the day
. . . I do not know what the reasoning was behind the
Registrar just being up there all the time. Maybe they
did not want to walk a long distance. But I know they
are charging a fee now, and that got their attention .
So maybe that is where the encouragement is so we can get some money in the coffer up there in the
Government.
No, I support it and . . . I will until the next di scussion takes place after the 23
rd.

Mr. Speaker, I
thought I would take this opportunity as I will not have
one in a moment when we go into Committee, to congratulate the Minister for an outstanding job of looking
outside the window and seeing what potentials there
are, not only for those i ndividuals who . . . some of
them are atheists for whatever reason, and their options have always been minimal.
But Mr. Speaker, this is not only . . . and we
have heard the Member who just took his seat, an
opportunity for a revenue earner for the Gover nment.
Mr. Speaker, I see this as a revenue earner for those
individuals who have gotten into the wedding industry.
It happens to be one of the biggest industries that
continue to evolve and grow , and by that I mean for
wedding coordinators.
When you have a wedding, and we have just
heard from the Minister when she made her present ation, 118 weddings within the Registrar’s office, it does
not enable individuals to have the elaborate weddings
they would like to have without having the Minister
present. So, f or example, Mr. Speaker, if I wanted to
have a beautiful outside wedding at the unfinished
church in St. George’s , I can now have a wedding c oordinator organise my wedding and have a member
from the Registrar marry me.
Mr. Speaker, I think we are just continuing to
not only help to increase our revenue, but also looking
outside that box and outside that window and seeing
other avenues where other members in our comm unity can increase their profit s, increase their opportun ities to develop and evolve. And, again, I congratulate
the Minister for seeing outside the window and moving
forward.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
2134 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly I have a speech for later so I am not going to
segue too much into that speech, but I will say this, I
am glad that we are making amendments that move
us in a modern direction, like the rest of the modern
world, that we are not clapped in some I ron Age thinking when it comes to this type of advancement. So the
Government certainly is to be congratulated for moving this along.
It is good business sense too. People want to
come here. To my honourable colleague who just took
her seat, you know, atheists for the reason that they
do not believe in God, are entitled to do that, and they
do not want to have a religious ceremony but they
would like to get married under a tree or on a beach or
wherever , and we should make it that there are pe ople that can perform these types of civil unions, these
marriages. It is the way to go.
Now, to my good friend, Honourable Wayne
Furbert , who made the comment of he was not sure
what my honourable and learned colleague, Mr.
Crockwell , was talking about, if there had been som e
Bill that was coming up and will lay my cards here, we
do not need a Bill to legalise same- sex marriage. It is
already legal under this Act. It is just that people do
not seem to get it . But they will.
But there is no question in my mind, in my
assessment that , you know , same- sex couples should
be able to get married under this Act. That is why I
acted for people and we wrote to the Registrar and
said, Here’s our marriage application, our licence.
Well, it got a bit held up because of a few things that
are going on, but all will be revealed in time because
the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that that human
right is trumps . And I will talk to that a bit later.
So we do not need to be bringing any Bill to
amend the Marriage Act . It is fine just the way it is with
regard to that particular issue. But on this point, this is smart, this is good. It is good for tourism, it is good for
business, it is good for equality ., I certainly join the
Honourable Member , Mr. Furbert , with regard to who
wants to go up and, you know, get married in a place
where they . . . I think they used to have a big picture
of a beach up there, which I found kind of crazy. I was
sitting there saying they have got thi s big, quite tacky,
picture of a beach in Bermuda with all these things, why can ’t I just go down to the beach and get married
down there with the Registrar and not have to have,
you know, a religious ceremony? Because what pe ople have had to do is there are certain right -thinking
ministers that have been prepared to marry people of
mixed denominations. I have been at many of those
weddings. There are even m inisters prepared to marry
people who openly say , I am an atheist , because they
are the ones that, you know, are able to do it. And
they bless them and even atheists are happy to have
a blessing, I mean, it is all good stuff . Right?
So luck ily we have Ministers that perform
these ceremonies in different places and do not have to be in a church, and we ha ve been lucky to have those for a few years. And you know I think that we
have been lucky to have that, but I think it is also i mportant that other people that are not of any religious
denomination are able to perform a legal marriage—a
legal marriage.
Marriage is not a religious thing. That is why
my learned friend, Mr. Crockwell , and I have said
many times , it is a contract. It is written in law. It b ecame that many, many years ago . . . many years
ago. A church might marry you, not always, the Regi strar does it. Now other people might be able to do it .
The court divorces you. It is a legal thing. And we
need to get people on that mindset . I am going to talk
about that later on.
But at least this, I always like, even if it is baby
steps, that we move things in the right direction. We
tend to take far too long in this country with a lot of these things. Look at the aeons it took for “two words
and a comma,” by way of example. And other things
they drag, they get kicked around, there is a debate,
you know, everybody weighs in, and we do not get
stuff done. And all Governments here have a history
of that because everything drags along and we do not
make things happen. So it is good to see something
happen that is moving in the right direction, and I certainly applaud and support this move.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable and Learned
Member.
The Chair now recognises the Learned Member from constituency 36, MP Michael Scott.
You have the floor.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: Thanks, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, really , on behalf of the Shadow
Minister for Immigration, Mr. Roban, I certainly stand
and indicate formally for the record that we support
the Bill as has been indicated in most of the speeches. And I like to regard it as a modernising step
as well. The Marriage Act is 1944 and it has, like
many Acts that have been in place since that date, it
is certainly in need of modernisation.
And I would like to very much adopt the pr onouncements and contribut ion by the Deputy
Spea ker. It really will and should, more so than just
sponsoring or engaging tourism, it really should help
local businesses engaged in tourism through wedding
planning. I am familiar with some who are making this
a business in our I sland and I am sure it is going to be
a value -add to their businesses. So it is a good thing
that the Minister is leading this clear amendment and simple amendment to extend the modernising equiv alency to the Registrar as it extends to ministers of the
cloth.
And so formally, on behalf of Shadow Minister
Roban, we support the item. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.



Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Are there any other Honourable Members
who care to speak?
Since there are none, the Chair will revert
back to the Minister r esponsible for the Bill.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am deeply appreciative of the
contributions made this afternoon and certainly the
support for this Marriage Amendment Act 2016.
I do wish to address some of the questions
that have been raised and hopefully provide clarity.
The Honourable Member from constituency 17 asked
what kind of regulations the Registrar would need to
make. Well, the only thing I can think of, because it
has not been specifically outlined, but I know that as
individuals we have some weird foibles and idiosy ncrasies at times, and let us say that somebody decides that it is important to them to have their mar-riage ceremony take place in a civil setting, but they
want it to take place, let us say, in a bathroom stall.
Well, the Registrar might deem that to be inappropr iate, so you might make some regulations as to the
propriety of a venue. And I say that only . . . it sounds,
perhaps, extreme but we at times get extreme r equests coming in. S o we just want to make sure that
the dignity of a ceremony is not usurped in the process. But there have been some places that have been
identified and I am sure that there will be more. But
just as an example, the victualing yard or the Cloc ktower over in Dockyard, in Somerset you have got the
Long Bay, you have got Scaur Hill Fort —just beautiful
places —Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse, Church Bay, Astwood
Park, Elbow Beach— go down the list all the way down
to Shelly Bay Beach, John Smith’s Bay, Devonshire
Bay, all the way down to St. David’s Lighthouse Park,
Tobacco Bay, Fort St. Catherine, and the like.
Now, while those are venues that might already be used by wedding officials, they have not, up
to this point, been made available to the Registrar.
The legislation as it stands permits the Registrar to
perform a ceremony at the office of the Registry Ge neral. So hence this will now give couples the option of not just having their ceremony performed in what
might be deemed, as Members have said today, to be
perhaps a sterile environment with a big picture on the
wall pretending that you are somewhere where you
are not. You can actually have the opportunity to be in
that location. So it gives the Registry a better opport unity to serve the needs that people have.
And to the extent that we have visitors who
want to come to Bermuda to be able to have their nuptials conducted, this is an ideal opportunity and an
added plus that they can still have the civil ceremony
that they wish in a non- religious environment, a civil
ceremony, as they wish and that they would have it conducted in a place that is authorised by the Regi strar for them to conduct such a marriage.
Let me say that while we have had comments
made by honourable colleagues asking whether this is something that is taking a step forward with respect to civil unions and what might come later on down the
road, let me just say that we are progressive as a
Government, but I do not believe that certainly I am,
as a Minister, so progressive as to pre- empt and to
pre-suppos e something that might come as a result of
an event that is yet to happen. If that were the case,
Mr. Speaker, I would be in a different business , you
can be assured.
But with that said, this is not about civil unions
or gay marriage in terms of those thi ngs that are the
topics of the upcoming referendum next week. What this does is to expand the existing capacity of the Registrar to give him the authority to come outside of
the office of the Registrar General and to conduct
marriages outside of that offic e.
So, you know, Members have said is this just
a good omen? We will not introduce anything by a backdoor, Mr. Speaker. So no, what the intent is to
take the Marriage Act as it presently exists, take the
Registrar’s powers as they presently exist, and to expand those to allow the Registrar to perform a cer emony for a couple outside of the o ffice of the Registrar
General at certain approved other locations. There will be another time that a further discussion may be had
and that is all dependent on what we have to look at
under another matter , and I will not refer to that at this
point in time.
I think the only other thing that I wanted to
highlight that I brought up was that there will be an
additional fee. And that basically just helps to take
care of . . . just, you know, extra charges if the Regi strar has to go from Hamilton to Dockyard or to St. David’s or whatever to perform a ceremony, they do it
and they have to be compensated accordingly. There are additional charges that will be incurred and we
may h ave to make sure that those additional charges
have been defrayed.
So there is nothing sinister about this for an ybody who is listening. Knowing that we have a big
event coming up next week, I just do not want an ybody to be upset that, you know, the Gover nment and
certainly this Minister is trying to do something that
they did not anticipate. No, this has got nothing to do
with gay marriage. This simply —

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: —this is simply an
amendment to the Marriag e Act to expand and pr ovide more venue options for civil marriage ceremonies
to be performed by the Registrar General. That is as
simple and as straightforward as I know how to make it.
2136 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly I think I may have responded to all questions
or observations that required a response. So with that,
Mr. Speaker, I move that the Bill be committed.

Members, we are now in Committee
of the whole House for further consideration of the Bill
entitled Marriage Amendment Act 2016.
I call on t he Minister in charge to proceed.
Minister, you have the floor.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, I would like to move . . .
there are only three clauses, I think.

It has been proposed that we move
all four clauses.
Are there any objections to that motion?
No objections.
Please proceed.
Hon. Patricia J. Gordo n-Pamplin: Thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, as was mentioned in . . .
while we were in the whole, we . . . this Bill seeks to
amend the Marriage Act 1944 to allow marriages to be
contracted before the Registrar General at approved alternative locations, to introduce a fee for such marriages, and to repeal section 21 of the Act. This Bill
does not affect marriages that are being celebrated by
marriage officers, which may continue to be cel ebrated in a place of worship or in any other place in
Berm uda, subject to the provisions of the Act.
Clause 1 is self -explanatory. Clause 1 is the
citation.
Clause 2 amends section 24(1) of the Marriage Act 1944 to enable marriages to be contracted
before the Registrar General at approved alternative
locations, since the office of the Registrar General is
currently the only permitted venue for such marriages. New subsections (3) and (5) are inserted to grant the
Minister responsible for the Registry General the
power to make regulations, subject to the negative resolution procedure, to prescribe the approved alternative locations. The Minister is also empowered to
approve an additional location on application by the parties. A new subsection (4) is inserted to require
that the interested parties obtain permission from the
owner or occupier of the proposed venue and requires
the parties to follow any terms and conditions issued for such permission.
Clause 3 repeals section 21 of the Marriage
Act 1944 and this is with respect to Commonwealth
citizens intending marriage; one in Bermuda and the
other in the United Kingdom , which is no longer of any
practical utility.
Clause 4 revokes and replaces paragraph (5)
of Head 39 of the Schedule to the Government Fees Regulations 1976, to confirm $245 as the fee for a
marriage contracted at the office of the Registrar
General (as per the Government Fees Amendment Regulations 2016), and $450 as the fee for a marriage
contracted at an alternative approved location.

Thank you, Minister.
Are there any other Members that would like
to speak to clauses 1 through 4?
The Chair recognises the Member from constituency 36.
Hon. Michael J. Scott: Thank you, Mad am Chairman.
Madam Chairman, again, those very simple
explanations of the four clauses raise no difficulties or
major questions with us. As a matter of history , I cannot understand, I do not know whether the Chief Parliamentary Counsel is able to assist her Minister with
this, I could not understand the requirement for that
Commonwealth provision or its historical requirement
way back in 1944. But just as a passing historical
footnote, that would be the only question that I would
have and I do not expect the Minister to deal with that
on the floor. Perhaps, the Parliamentary Counsel or
someone else can tell us all about it . . . but if the Mi nister can, thank you. But otherwise we have no objections to clauses 1 through 4.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Just one question for the Minister , under the
current legislation, if the Minister can just confirm whether this is the case, my understanding is that the
Registrar’s office . . . if an application for a marriage
licence meets all the legal criteria, then there is no
discretion from the office as to whether or not that
marriage would be performed. Can you confirm that
that is, in fact, the case? That it is not a discretionary


Bermuda House of Assembly matter. Because you are going to have it in many di fferent venues , and you raised the issue that some
may choose [places which] perhaps are not ideal venues for whatever reason, is there any discretion at all
as to whether or not a marr iage will be or is to be performed by the Registrar’s office?

Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Just a question on clause 4, the Honourable
Minister did allude to it in her brief but did not explain
why there is a $205 difference between the ceremony
taking place at the office of the Registrar General or at
an alternative approved location. I would assume the
only difference is travel and $205 for travel costs
seems to be a bit high.

Thank you, Member.
The Chair recognises the Minister.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, I will just deal with the last
question first —price of gas —is built in. But, no, let me
just say that there would be additional hours that
would be required, presumably if somebody has to
travel from central [Bermuda] to the extremities of the
Island. You know, it might be that they would want
things done at a certain time that might not be within
the normally prescribed nine to five, could be on a
Saturday, could be overtime involved and the likes, so
there would be, you know, things of that nature where those costs would have to be defrayed. I do not think
that there is anything more to that. I do not think that it
is exorbitant. So I think that, hopefully, the Honourable
Member will be able to accept that.
I am not sure that I quite understand the question by the Member from [constituency] 17 as to
whether an application meets all the legal criteria, whether it is non- discretionary for the ceremony to be
performed. I think that was the gist of the question and I think the answer is yes because a licence will still be required and the licence and i ts application would
have to ensure that all of the terms and conditions and
criteria are met. And then once that is done then obv iously the ceremony will have to be performed. So I am not sure if the Honourable Member has any specific examples of what mis chief he is mentioning that
might need to be considered, but I certainly could not
see any based on the question. So if he could help me
out with that I would be happy.

The Chair recognises the Minister.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Oh, sorry.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Now I understand where the Honourable
Member is going. No, this is for the purposes of li fe as
we know it, the status quo in terms of the terms and
conditions of the licence and the terms and conditions that would be required of an applicant and that is according to the law as it presently stands , and that is
under the Marriage Act 1944. So, n o, this is not . . .
there would be, as we stand, there would be a r equirement for that marriage to occur if all the terms and conditions on the licence application are met,
then the licence will be granted and the ceremony will be conducted as a matter of course.
And I think it might be important to mention
that . . . no, I will not. I will not . . . it is probably preemptory and perhaps a little premature, so I will deal
with that issue at another time.
But Honourable Members were asking about
section 21 that is now being repealed. And what section 21 provided was that if a couple wanting to marry
were both Commonwealth citizens but one was a
resident in Bermuda and the other was a resident in
the United Kingdom and the intended marriage was to
take place in either Bermuda or the UK, the certificate for marriage lawfully issued in any part of the UK to
the party resident in the UK or to a party resident in
Bermuda by the Registrar, shall have the same effect
as if it were a certificate for marriage issue d by the
Registrar to be celebrated or contracted in Bermuda and both parties were resident in Bermuda. So really, as I said, there had been no applications for that. It is
a lot of gobbledygook, I think, at times what happens
2138 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly in this H onourable House is t hat when legislation is
being done . . . way back when, you will see this is
1944, it might have been that somebody did this on a
Friday night when they needed to fill the time of the
day. So it is not appropriate. There have been no ap-plications and therefore because it has been inappl icable, then we need to just delete it , to repeal it.

It has been moved that the Bill be
reported to the House as printed.
Are there any objections to that motion?
No objections.
Agreed to.
[Gavel]

[Motion carried: The Marriage Amendment Act 2016
was considered by a Committee of the whole House and passed without amendment.]

House resumed at 3 :09 pm [Hon. K. H. Randolph Horton, Speaker, in the Chair]

REPORT OF COMMITTEE

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT ACT 2016

Thank you, Honourable Members.
The second reading of the Marriage Amendment Act 2016 has been approved.
Any objections to that?
There are none.
Orders [No.] 6 through 12 are carried over.
We move now to Order No. 13 in the name of the
Member from constituency 21, MP Rolfe Commi ssiong.
You have the floor.

MOTION

JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE ESTABLISHING A LIVING WAGE FOR BERMUDIANS

—with your indulgence.
In February of 2016 I brought this motion before this House. It is as follows:
WHEREAS, it is acknowledged that unemployment and the underemployment of Bermudians
and in particular that of black Bermudians continues to
persist;
AND WHEREAS due to the widespread use
of foreign sourced low cost labour over the last two
decades, real wages , once inflation has been factored
in, have seen little or no growth;
AND WHEREAS incipient poverty, the erosion
of the middle class and growing despair have led to charities and assistance programmes of various types
being overwhelmed as growing numbers of Bermudi-ans, including children, do without the economic necessities required to lead productive and fulfilling lives;
AND WHEREAS growing evidence indicates
that along with rising property related crimes hundreds of Bermudians have become economic migrants and have relocated to the United Kingdom;
BE IT RESOLVED that this Honourable
House call for a Joint Select Committee to examine
the efficacy of establishing a liveable wage for Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, with your further indulgence I will
proceed with the following three quotes:
Firstly, “No business which depends for exi stence on paying less than living wages to its workers
has any right to continue in this country. By . . . living


Bermuda House of Assembly wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level —I
mean the wages of a decent living.” That quote is from
former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.
Secondly, “ No one should be working 40
hours a week and be living in poverty” —that from Se cretary of Labour Thomas E. Perez of the United
States of America.
Thirdly, “Bermuda should introduce a living
wage law” —that from Lord Michael Hastings, global
head of corporate citizenship KPMG addressing a
business conference in Bermuda only recently.
Mr. Speaker, as legislators we are often called
to address wrongs and correct omissions that undermine and, at times, damage our social and legal fabric. Certainly our C onstitution is a living one, therefore,
it is our duty to offer remedies to those threats that
constitute a challenge to our cohesion as a community
and to our most cherished values as a country.
This debate and subject matter under discussion on whether this Honourable House will affirm my
request to form a joint select committee to consider the efficacy and implementation of a living wage r egime for Bermuda, in my view, is long overdue.
Mr. Speaker, approximately one year ago, I
commenced debate on a previous motion that called
for this Honoura ble House to examine the various i mpacts that technological advances and disruptions,
such as artificial intelligence, various forms of autom ation, robotics , and the ubiquitous spread of software
generated algorithms are having on our labour market, our ec onomy, and our society. Certainly , since
that time there has been a growing awareness that
these impacts or disruptions, particularly as it relates to western style political economies, have had a gro wing effect and have transformed our societies in ways
that could scarcely have been imagined even three
decades ago. But the role and growth of technology and outsourcing, while key, has been but one aspect
of the monumental changes that have occurred.
Mr. Speaker, importantly, we cannot ignore
other profound ly disruptive game- changing impacts
over the last quarter century that have negatively i mpacted Bermuda and Bermudians, some of which are:
the growth of globalisation; the increasing financialis ation of the economies of most developed nations, i ncluding our own; the decline in collective bargaining and thus organised labour; the growth of outsourcing
and offshoring as alluded; and particularly in the Bermuda context, the movement of unprecedented numbers of low -cost migrant labour between countries
across w hat John Kerry, Secretary of State for the
United States of America, only recently described as a
borderless world.
Mr. Speaker, all of the above has resulted in
an ongoing challenge to western economies such as
ours. We have witnessed a hollowing out of the
vaunted middle class that was such a feature of the
western and/or developed world as wages have sta gnated and in real time terms declined over the course of the last decade or more. We have also witnessed
levels of income and wealth inequality increas e to le vels not seen since the late 1920s.
Mr. Speaker, even now as a sign of perhaps
things to come negotiations are taking place between
our largest trade union, the Bermuda Industrial Union,
and the new service provider at the airport, Menzies
Aviation , over issues of pay and benefits for their employees. They are at an impasse because Menzies
Aviation, who only recently took over the service contract there, is seeking to impose a wage level below the mechanic grade of $17 per hour. This will repr esent a significant reduction in pay for the Bermudian
employees who work there. For many of the older workers this will result in a pay cut back to levels not
seen since the 1990s.
Mr. Speaker, one can contend that $17 per
hour or $28,560 per annum does not ev en constitute a
living wage in the Bermuda of today. Neither do
wages of $5 or $8 per hour, but there are employers
in Bermuda who for certain occupations will offer no
more. Imagine earning $200 or even $320 per week and this is before taxes and benefits, if any, are deducted.
Mr. Speaker, if earning approximately $28,000
places you below the poverty line, then how does one
begin to contextualise $5 or $8 per hour being earned by some workers in Bermuda today? How would you characterise the above? And as depressed wages
and benefits become commonplace, poverty will only
increase and the horizons of our people will continue to diminish. Is this the new normal? Mr. Speaker, are we at an inflection point in
Bermuda whereby a decent and equitable wage or a
living wage may amount to no less than $20 to $25
per hour or higher? That is for the proposed joint select committee to determine. Even the IMF has now
questioned the rightness of policies that they, too,
once considered sacrosanct. A recent paper entitled
Neoliberalism: Oversold?, published by the IMF and
produced by Fund researchers Jonathan D. Ostry,
Prakash Loungani , and Davide Furceri, offers a sobering view of the acute challenges that increasing i ncome inequality has produced. They write that “the
economic damage from inequality suggests that pol icymakers should be more open to redistribution than
they are.”
Mr. Speaker, we shall now turn to the concept
of a minimum wage. Many countries, particularly in Europe and North America, have long established the
concept of a minimum wage even though the actual amount may vary from country to country and, indeed,
within countries. The concept behind a minimum wage
is simply to raise those at the lower end of the ec onomic spectrum out of poverty to a level of dignified
living. But the setting of a minimum wage in and of
itself, while being beneficial, is not sufficient enough to raise people out of poverty. Wages in a capitalist sy stem are set by market forces and can assert dow n2140 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly ward pressure on the incomes of those at the lower
end, while those at the higher end reap benefits vastly
disproportionate to the workers reporting to them. On
November 25, 2014 in an article in the Wall Street
Journal , a $15 an hour employee at a bank wrote to
the $19.3 million a year CEO asking for a $10,000
increase across the board for all low -paid workers.
The CEO earned more than 700 times what the low
income worker was making while the $27,300 a year
earned by the hourly paid worker was barely above
the then minimum wage. The work er would have had
to have been conservative in his spending habits just
to keep his head above the poverty line. He was one
of the lucky ones; other workers did not fare as well.
Mr. Speaker, governments in many countries
have introduced a minimum wage to ameliorate this
downward pressure on wages. A national minimum
wage, according to research on the London Living
Wage conducted by Jane Wills of the University of
London, is set at the level that the market will bear
before jobs are lost or prices will ris e. This formula
only serves to ensure that many at the lower end of
the wage scale will remain there.
Mr. Speaker, in contrast, a living wage is
based on the actual cost of living—rent, food, travel, taxes , and clothing—and/or meets the threshold or
represents at least two- thirds of the average medium
income of a respective locale or jurisdiction. This con-cept ensures workers remain at least several steps
ahead of poverty, providing a level of dignified living.
The voluntary living wage established by the Living
Wage Foundation and advocacy group in the UK has
achieved a living wage that companies have agreed to participate of £9.40, approximately $14.00 , in the City
of London , and £8.25, approximately $12.40, outside
of London. Clearly , while hundreds of c ompanies now
voluntarily comply with the Foundation’s guidelines, a mandatory legally imposed increase to the minimum
wage, as the Government of Great Britain has undertaken at levels that at least come close to a living
wage minimum , is far preferable for millions of low -
paid British workers.
Mr. Speaker, in other words, the difference
between a standalone minimum wage and a living
wage is like the difference between night and day,
between being a member of the working poor or hav-ing a decent basic standard of living. It can be the di fference between despair and hope for the young
mother with two children or the young man or woman
seeking to build a future for themselves. But here in
Bermuda, a country with one of the highest GDPs in
the world, there is ne ither a minimum wage nor a li ving wage. It is not unheard of for workers at the lower
end of the wage scale to earn under $8 an hour, as
indicated, in a full -time job, which was recently hig hlighted in published statements in support of the adoption of a l iving wage in Bermuda by the Bermuda
Trade Union Congress. This amounts to an annual
income of approximately $15,000. Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that the cost of
living in Bermuda is some 40 per cent higher than in
the UK. What does that mean in realit y? It means
this—the low end worker in the UK is better off. Does
this explain the migration patterns we have seen since 2010 as more Bermudians increasingly become ec onomic migrants, principally to the United Kingdom?
Mr. Speaker, we should not lose sight of the
fact that not only have we seen the migration of gro wing numbers of the working poor, but also the college
educated and highly skilled as well. We have seen in
effect a brain drain, the likes of which is more characteristic of a developing cou ntry than the Bermuda we
have known. The loss of human capital in this regard has been significant.
But note that while living in the UK a Bermudian earns the equivalent of about $9.75 per hour, however, the purchasing power of their earnings is far
great er. [Comparing] w hat the Bermudian worker gets
for his $5.00, $8 .00, or even $15 .00 per hour, to the
UK worker, even when taxes are taken into consider ation, the UK worker is better off because he would
only need $3.10 to buy the same goods that $5.00
would buy in Bermuda. For instance, a loaf of bread
can be bought in the UK for 50p ($0. 75), while in
Bermuda it is $5.00.

I stand corrected, $6.00
according to my colleague. One hour of a lower -end
worker’ s wage. It should come as no surprise that
hundreds of Bermudians in desperate need to support
their families have been left essentially with no choice
than to take advantage of a right to live in the UK and
reluctantly have left the I sland.
Mr. Speaker, in effect, these Bermudians
have joined the millions globally who can now be
classed as economic migrants. The above graphically illustrates the economic realities that are driving an
increase in poverty and creating the types of perverse
incentives that are resulting in the ever -increasing
numbers emigrating out of Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, for too many who have r emained, as the BTUC statement articulated, and who
work as cashiers, air freight/passenger agents, nannies, bar porters, chambermaids, waiters, child care
workers, cleaners , and pump persons, their median
income falls within the $20 ,000 to $30,000 range per
annum. The BTUC stated, “This statistic is particularly
concerning as it reveals that half of the workers in these occupational categories make below that
range.”
Mr. Speaker, these are now the new working
poor in Bermuda. As I said before on the floor of this Honourable House , would any proud Bermudian, especially those over 40 years of age, imagine that in
the 21
st century you would have Bermudians, essentially forced by economic conditions, to leave their IsBermuda House of Assembly land home to seek greener pastures in the UK? Or
that we would have hundreds of Bermudians who,
while working full time, literally do not earn enough to
support themselves or their families? But paying more
costs businesses more, and thus jobs are lost ; right?
Mr. Speaker, this has been the biggest co ncern about a living/minimum wage. Recent evidence,
however, now indicates that jobs may not have been lost as indicated by the report in the Financial Times.
We are just continuing our own work in this area.
What we do know is that in the short run costs do rise
marginally, but so does workers’ pay, standard of li ving, work ethic, morale, and loyalty to their employers.
Absenteeism, staff traini ng, and turnover costs are
reduced. What is sometimes lost in this debate is that
higher wages equal higher tax revenue for gover nment and, in the case of Bermuda, less expenditure on financial assistance.
Mr. Speaker, in this regard the numbers are
startling. Since 2011 and 2012 to the present , the cl ient base at the Financial Assistance Department as it relates to the adult able- bodied clients who are now
unemployed and those categorised as earnings low, who are those who are working but not earning
enou gh to meet all of their household obligations, the
numbers have literally tripled in only five years. In
2011/12 the total for both categories combined was 310 clients. The figures have increased threefold as
indicated and dramatically since then. The year ly average for 2016, for example, was 917 clients.
Mr. Speaker, Ms. Jane Wills of the University
of London believes, as to other supporters of a living
wage, that when employers see these benefits, more will come on board and support the drive for a livin g
wage as opposed to the minimum wage.
With respect to immigration and the conu ndrum it represents, Mr. Speaker, as the wealth gap between western nations and developing nations i ncreases there has been an increasing movement of low-skilled workers to thos e wealthy nations, as has
been the case in Bermuda. The question arises as to
what impact large numbers of workers, particularly
those of low or no skills, have on the wages and m obility in an economic sense of similar workers. The
vast majority of the wor k done in this area focuses on
large countries. The general consensus is that while
there is some downward pressure on the wages of the
lower scale, the net impact to the economy is positive
if the economy overall is growing. A study conducted
on the impac t of UK immigrants by the Centre for R esearch and Analysis of Migration found that “Their empirical evidence does, in line with where imm igrants are in the native wage distribution, illustrate a
negative wage effect at the low end of the distribution,
but a positive wage effect further up the distribution.”
In other words, these immigration trends i mpact workers at the low incomes . . . low and middle
income strata far more than they do at the higher end
occupational levels. The study clarified its finding this way, “Who
gains and who loses from immigration depends on the skill mix of immigrants relative to native workers.
Thus, immigration will lead to a re- distribution, har ming some, but leading to gains for others.”
In a Bermuda scenario a large influx of lowand semi - skilled workers has harmed not only those
at the lower end of skill sets, but many in the skilled
blue-collar sectors as well. The compression of wages
has led to some Bermudians withdrawing their labour altogether rather than work for the wages offered to immigrant workers. This has only created more of a
demand for such workers.
Mr. Speaker, as of April 2016, there are 460
persons receiving financial assistance who are in the able- bodied unemployed category and 360 persons in
the category earnings low; a total of 830 persons. The
total expenditure in terms of grants paid out to those
in the above categories in total is just over $1 million
per month and, of course, over $12 million per year at
current rates. With regard to race, the ratio i s est imated at 13: 1, black to white.
Mr. Speaker, we are starting to see the same
trends in Bermuda that have become fairly prevalent
in the United States where low -earning workers who
are making near poverty level wages at the big box
mega stores such as Walm art and some manufacturing jobs or in the fast food industry are essentially
forced to have their employment subsidised by their
government in the form of food stamps and other
benefits in order to afford to work. A report from
Berkeley Centre for Labo ur Research and Education
stated “that over a third of manufacturing workers rely
on safety -net programs such as Medicaid, food
stamps, or household- income assistance.” These
workers in this sector receive just over $10 billion in
federal and local public assistance.
We are seeing in Bermuda an environment
where it is becoming more practical for some Bermudians, particularly those with low skill levels, to rely
on financial assistance to: (a) meet their monthly expenses; and (b) if they are working, to use financial
assistance as a means to subsidise their earnings because they cannot earn enough in the private sector in our economy to meet their household obliga-tions.
Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, we are all
paying for this with our taxes. The failure of co mpanies to pay a living wage, as was pointed out by
CURB in a recently published research paper, means
that Government and the people of Bermuda end up subsidising these companies one way or the other.
I happen to know a Bermudian who is on f inancial assis tance, a mother with three children. She
was kind enough to provide me with the level of financial support that is afforded to her by the department.
The following is paid out on her behalf monthly: rent ,
$2,800 per month; electricity bill , $420 per month;
food, $925 per month; phone bill , approximately $45
2142 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly per month; HIP , $450 per month; social insurance,
$120 per month; for a total, Mr. Speaker, of $4,540
per month.
Mr. Speaker, if we drill down into the numbers, the mother —let us call her Jolene for the purpose of this discussion —would have to make at least
$32.40 per hour, although it could actually be more
than that as I have not calculated the required pension
of 5.5 per cent. Essentially what this means is that for
Jolene it would take at least a wage of $34 .00 an hour
to sustain even the most basic needs in the context of her basic household requirements.
Mr. Speaker, in the above calculation you will
know that there has been no provision made for transport, clothing , or the cost of day care.
Mr. Speaker, in discussions with Ms. Sheelagh Cooper of the Coalition for the Protection of Chi ldren, an organisation that has been doing an excellent
and necessary job filling the gaps in our fraying social
safety net, along with other non- governmental organ isations and charities, she indicates that the above is
not uncommon. So at any time we have anywhere
from 800 to 1,000 persons who, because they have
been marginalised in this labour market and economy,
have to rely or depend on the Financial Assistance
Department to one extent or another.
Mr. Speaker, is this the ongoing price of glo balisation in Bermuda, with the widespread adoption of foreign- sourced, low -cost labour that has become the
norm and has been for some time? The unprec edented growth of low -cost foreign- sourced labour in
Bermuda and its impact should not be minimised. It
has had the effect of inhibiting the ability of Bermudi-ans, skilled and unskilled, many with less than a college degree, to find good paying jobs that would afford
them what is, in essence, a living wage in their own
country.
Mr. Speaker, has the viability and profitability
of many Bermudian businesses of various sizes been
at the expense of a significant number of Bermudian
workers during this period? Returning to the Berkeley
Centre study on how governments are increasingly
subsidising low -wage employees in the private sector,
they found that the gains to the economy are captured
by the owners of capital, in other words, the bus inesses. It is entirely likely that if such studies were to
focus on smaller countries, such as ourselves, the
harm to the local or host worker would be even more
pronounced.
Mr. Speaker, there are clear benefits in i mplementing the concept of a living wage. The global
capitalist economy has resulted in th e migration of
cheap labour benefiting businesses, but as we stated
earlier, driving down local wages as these workers,
some earning as little as $5 a day in their home countries, would be happy to work for $5 to $8 an hour in a host country such as Bermuda.
The implementation of a living wage would
obviate the current huge demand for imported workers and result in less foreign- sourced, low -cost labour i nundating our labour market. Other possible benefits, as outlined, are as follows:
In terms of the benef its for workers, they will
receive fair or fairer compensation, they will see their spending power increase, it will lift persons out of
poverty, it will provide a better quality of life and i mproved health, and greater opportunities for education
and skil ls training.
As to the benefits for the community, it would
jumpstart greater consumer demand, increasing spending in the local economy, [and] increase civic
participation.
In terms of benefits for employers, it would reduce absenteeism, decrease turnover rates, lower recruitment and training costs, increase morale, pr oductivity and loyalty and recognition for responsible
employers.
Mr. Speaker, we should note that the conservative and progressive governments worldwide, such
as in the UK, are recoiling from the overwhelming ev idence of growing income inequality and are now touting the efficacy of the minimum wage or more substantially, a living wage, as a necessary wage floor to
assist the working poor and to bring people out of
poverty.
Mr. Speaker, even the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom , David Cameron, in 2010 pronounced
a living wage as an idea whose time has come. Honourable Members will also note that six years later the
Government, which he heads, is seeking to deliver on that promise, as outlined recently in the Financial
Times , the March 29, 2016 edition, under the heading
“World watches Britain’s ‘living wage’ experiment.”
The British Government, heretofore, committed to
austerity policies, a Conservative Government, is now
one that has begun t he process of implementing what
Nick Boles, the Skills Minister, characterised as “one
of the biggest increases in the legal minimum wage that any government has done in the western world in
living memory.”
And what has the British Government now l egally m andated? Mr. Speaker, the so- called new national living wage, and there is some contention act ually as to whether this is truly a living wage and I will
get to that presently, is one which was legally established to start at £7.20 upon implementation this year
and will reach approximately £9.00 , approximately
$13.00 an hour, by 2020.
As to the claim that this is a living wage, it is a
claim that is open to contention. A living wage ideally,
Mr. Speaker, should be set at no less than two- thirds
of the respec tive jurisdiction’s median wage to truly be
considered a living wage. The UK proposal, while a vast improvement and good for the working poor and
low skilled, does not meet that benchmark, representing as it does about 60 per cent of the British median
or average wage. However, it is a start, and instructive


Bermuda House of Assembly for us as it is an issue that, unlike in previous eras,
now results in bipartisan buy -in.
But the above is not exceptional as Germany
and Australia have already established their respective minimum wages at the 60 per cent threshold, and
at the state level in the US the calls to do the same
are growing. As to the British Government, the Financial Times article also outlined that the conservatives
are recent converts as they, along with most conservative parties and their business allies, were adamantly opposed to the introduction of a minimum
wage when it was initially mandated in the UK in
1998.
Mr. Speaker, the job losses that were pr edicted as a consequence of the introduction of that
minimum wage in t he UK never occurred. In fact, job
growth in the UK has been far more robust during this
period than it has been in most countries within the
European Union. Most mainstream economists, except for one or two in Bermuda I might add, no longer
advance the vi ew that the introduction of a minimum
wage or a living wage will invariably lead to job losses.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps our Premier and the
former Minister of Home Affairs , Michael Fahy, who
sits in another place, are of the same view as David
Cameron’s Gover nment is now on the subject at
hand. After all, in the March 11th edition of the daily
and in the midst of the social and political turmoil
unleashed in the aftermath of the introduction of the
Pathways to Status legislation in this H onourable
House, both Premier Dunkley and then- Minister of
Home Affairs, Michael Fahy, who sits in another
place, appeared to back its consideration, holding out
hope that the Pathways legislation would be accepted by the House. Prior to the protest that ensued and
engulfed thi s House , the Premier was quoted as sa ying that, “if the legislation were approved” (and I quote
with your permission) “by MPs, its implementation
would be held off until ‘later in the summer’ to enable
a dialogue on matters including the use of low -income
foreign workers over Bermudian staff.” [
Royal Gazette
11 March 2016]
Mr. Speaker, then- Minister of Home Affairs ,
[Michael] Fahy, in the same article, is quoted as sa ying in reference to the Premier’s comments , “Those
talks could include but not be restricted to a living
wage.” And much like the Premier, he too expressed
concern over the use of low paid guest workers over
Bermudian workers. What was not said by either the
Premier or Minister Fahy was that as of February 15,
2016 , I had tabled the motion that called for the Honourable House to essentially examine the same issue and affirm the establishment of a joint select commi ttee to return a report to this House with its recommendations.
Mr. Speaker, I am not here to throw recriminations. Clearly , the record speaks for itself. What is
vastly more important for those Bermudians who are facing growing economic insecurity is that we act to address the demonstrable need on behalf of the
common good. And there is a growing consensus in
favour of adopting a living wage regime, not just globally but locally as well. We in this Honourable House
are far from being the first to consider this issue in
Bermuda. May I remind Members of this H onourable
House that in May 2014 the Bermuda Trade Union
Congress and the People’s Campaign joined forces in
their campaign for equality, jobs , and justice. Their
manifesto made the call for a living wage. Citizens
Uprooting Racism in Bermuda along with the Coalition
for the Protection of Children have also similarly pu blicly endorsed and campaigned for the establishment
of a living wage for Bermuda along with statistician
and researc her, Mr. Cordell Riley, who has personally
assisted me on this issue.
CURB out lined its support succinctly in a published position paper in favour of the adoption of a
living wage for Bermuda. They characterised it as a
racial and social justice issue and one that was urgently in need of consideration. They noted in their widely dis tributed paper on the subject that the 2013
Bermuda Employment Survey shows that the bottom 5 per cent of job holders, numbering some 22,540
jobs, who work 35 hours or more per week earn
$21,000 per annum or less, the bottom 10 per cent
earn $33,000 or les s, and the bottom 20 per cent —in
Bermuda—earn less than $42,000.
Mr. Speaker, the same paper put forth the
poverty line at the household level for Bermuda by
using simple, yet effective, methodology of renowned
international economist , Timothy Smeeding. Us ing the
Smeeding methodology , the CURB report asserted
that those households earning 50 per cent or less of
the total median household income were effectively
below the poverty line in their respective jurisdictions.
Meanwhile they highlighted the fact that the 2000
Bermuda Census showed that over 19 per cent of
Bermudian households were living below the poverty
line and were earning less than $35,831 per annum. Eight years later the 2008 Low Income Thresholds
Report , A study of Bermuda Households in Need ,
cited in the submission by CURB the relative low i ncome threshold or poverty line was $41,132 per annum.
The CURB report continued by noting that a
decade later the 2010 Census showed that hous eholds earning less than $52,000 per annum were be-low the poverty line in Bermuda. And based on the
inflation rate since 2010, these figures translate into a
likely poverty line now of $56,000 per annum. It is a
sobering thought, Mr. Speaker.
Based upon the available information and st atistics, including the Smeedi ng methodology, CURB
advanced the view that approximately 20 per cent of
Bermudians are now living in poverty.
It also stated the following, which should
make us all pause, “Rather than one well -paying, full -
time job with benefits, many Bermudians are cobbling
2144 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly together a patchwork of low -paying, part -time pos itions, often being provided with no benefits, and wor king themselves in the grave to do it.”
And I quote, “Three generations of a family li ving together are becoming commonplace, and often
only one ind ividual has work, with families reduced to
deciding between electricity, food, or medicine.”
As we all canvass throughout Bermuda we
know that the above does exist. Mr. Speaker, I would
ask the Members of this House to listen closely to the
following concl uding remarks as taken from the CURB
position paper, which states that, “As long as an adult
in Bermuda is working a full -time job, yet can’t eat,
pay the rent or utilities , and clothe themselves, we are
failing as a society and our government is failing us.”
Mr. Speaker, now is the time for us as legisl ators to send a message to Bermuda that not only is
this the politically right thing to do, but also the morally
right thing to do. At the conclusion of the protest in
March the Government agreed to send the living wage
issue to its Labour Advisory Council. Unlike the efforts
of the consultative Immigration Reform Working
Group to date, we have been provided no update as
to when the examination of the issue will take place,
nor, more importantly, its frame of reference. I hope
that the Labour Advisory Council will begin its work soon and that the Government will provide this House and the Bermudian people with regular updates in line
with the spirit of that agreement reached in March.
Mr. Speaker, clearly , I am not deterred. I believe this H onourable House can and should, in co nsideration of this issue, affirm the establishment of a
joint select committee as called for by my motion. On
a complex and critical issue such as this , the more
minds and shoulders to t he wheel the better.
Mr. Speaker, as occurs in the United States
Congress between the Senate and the House of Representatives, both reports can be viewed in tandem
and eventually reconciled so as to serve and inform
deliberations of the Cabinet, this H onourable House,
and the Bermudian people in due course.
Mr. Speaker, you will also recall that in my
presentation before this Honourable House in 2015, I
noted that even during the greatest economic expansion or boom in Bermuda’s history, under the prior
Progressive Labour Party Government, jobs were be-ing lost. Between 2000 and 2008 with the onset of the
so-called Great Recession, over 3,000 jobs in our
economy disappeared, largely to technological disruption and by way of outsourcing. We lost literally hu ndreds of jobs in the banking sector alone during this period, going from around 3,000 persons in that sector to approximately 1,200 to 1,300 today.
Mr. Speaker, the so- called Great Recession
has only exacerbated these trends. And much like the
proverbial retreating tide, exposed the great decades
long erosion of what was once the foundation of Bermuda’s and even America’s prosperity, which was the
broad- base prevalence of good, well -paying jobs, and economic opportunity no matter one’s level of educ ation.
Mr. Speaker, in other words, between 1960
and virtually until the late 1990s even those without a
college education in Bermuda, despite the structure of
racism that so characterised the society, could obtain
work that would afford them a middle income standard
of living and provide for their families if they were wil ling to work hard. For many that may have required
working at two jobs or more, but it was achievable.
Many of those jobs were tied to Bermuda’s burgeoning hotel sector during its post World War II golden
period, along with jobs and other opportunities ass ociated with the construction sector. It was also reflective of the strength of Bermuda’s Trade Union mov ement that secured solid wages and benefits through collective bargaining for generations of Bermudian workers who had less than a college education. But all
of that began to unravel with what is called the “financialisation” of our economy, as mentioned, and the
growth of Bermuda as an offshore centre with the
concomitant decline in the tour ism industry beginning
in the mid to late 1980s.
Professor Ronald B. Mincy of Columbia Un iversity in his final report, which is the study on young
black males, characterised this trend as I previously
mentioned in 2015, as representing a change to the
industrial composition of our labour market and, ther efore, our economy. I believe that the pendulum must
now swing the other wa y, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there is a growing angst that is
now gripping our community as job and wage growth
remains stagnant and, in real terms, has declined.
Mr. Speaker, too many within our nonunionised private sector have not had pay rises for
over a decade. Government workers, all of whom are
unionised, have gone a full five years without any wage or salary increases. Look to our west, as the
United States of America has also experienced the same disruption, note the impact it is having on their
politics and the rise of disquiet among largely white
blue-collar workers , without college degrees , who in
their desperation have flocked to the siren song of-fered by the now presumptive nominee of the Repu blican Party, Donald Trump.
The British campaign to leave the European
Union is also fuelled in part by the same factors, such
as gross levels of income inequality in the area of
globalisation, driven by massive waves of low cost
labour into the UK. And look how corrosive both of
these debates are becoming—destructive, even. The decision as to whether to stay or leave the union will
be ultimately decided by a r eferendum shortly after
this presentation is made, but with implications for us all, even in Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, globalisation has certainly had
its successes as millions have climbed out of abject
poverty around the world. We cannot be blind to that
fact. For the last 30- odd years global elites have cel eBermuda House of Assembly brated these successes and all of us , to one degree or
another, have bought into this narrative a nd its key
assumptions. However, we now live in a world
whereby 1 per cent of the global population have now
captured more wealth than the remaining 9 9 per cent
combined.
Mr. Speaker, is Bermuda any different in the
context of these trends over the last fe w decades?
Joseph Stiglitz , the noted economist and former
member of the Bill Clinton administration— President
Bill Clinton’s administration—and an officer in the
World Bank ( an executive I should say ) had this to say
about growing inequality and the value in addressing
it. Stiglitz wrote, and I quote, with your indulgence, Mr. Speaker:
“Reducing inequality, on the other hand, has
clear economic as well as social benefits. It strengt hens people’s sense that society is fair; improves social
cohesion and mobi lity, making it more likely that more
citizens live up to their potential; and broadens support for growth initiatives. Policies that aim for growth but ignore inequality may ultimately be self -defeating.”
Stiglitz also asserted that “Gaps between the
rich and the poor” —and I want people to hear this
clearly —“are partly the result of economic forces, but
equally, or even more, they are the result of public policy choices, such as taxation, the level of the mini-mum wage, and the amount invested in health car e
and education.”
Mr. Speaker, extreme levels of income inequality diminish social cohesion and political stability.
Look around us! Take your heads out of the sand!
Mr. Speaker, much like Joseph Stiglitz, Lord
Michael Hastings the G lobal Head of C orporate Citizenship at the professional services firm KPMG said
only recently in Bermuda, as published in the May 20
edition of the Royal Gazette that, and I quote with
your indulgence, “A living wage is not transfer of
wealth from the rich to the poor, it’s an i nvestment
every community needs to empower dignity , and the
poor will benefit —it will raise their opportunity and
raise their potential.”
Mr. Speaker, make no mistake about it , the
dirty little secret of Bermuda is that poverty is on the rise along with wi dening income and wealth inequality.
And make no mistake that poverty is concentrated
predominantly in Bermuda’s black community, which
was disproportionately impacted by the so- called
Great Recession. And let us look at the stats on black
unemployment in Bermuda. As of 2015, it stood at
9 per cent as opposed to 4 per cent within our white
community. The overall unemployment rate currently
stands at 7 per cent. The figure in turn may be an u nderstatement of the real level of unemployment in the
country, how ever. The labour force participation rate
when last published by the Department of Statistics
seemed to indicate that many able- bodied Bermudians, in addition to those who have retired such as in the public sector, have stopped looking for work , or as
indicated, migrated, mostly to the UK.
As to the migration or emigration issue, it is
estimated that thousands have left Bermuda over the last few years and, disproportionately, many of those were black Bermudians. Anecdotally, a colleague who
sits on these benches reports that in her daytime canvassing over the last two years she finds more and
more people at home, and not just seniors during the
working day. Does that mean that there are no whites living in poverty or struggling with low wages or i ncomes?
Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question, r espectfully, is no. It only means that black unemplo yment and poverty is far more prevalent in this community in line with historic norms and out of all proportion to their percentage of the population of approx imately 60 per cent, in terms of the resident popul ation, black to white. The recent G reat Recession, as
noted, again has only exacerbated this trend.
Mr. Speaker, the reality of our world is that
this fix will benefit us all. And I do not buy the sky is falling view that with the imposition of a living wage
job losses will occur or that this will not benefit bus inesses of various types in our economy more broadly.
Mr. Speaker, in 1914 the pioneering auto
manufacturer , Henry Ford, introduced an innovation
that ended up turning the world of business on its
head in America and globally. Ford introduced, in effect, a living wage in his automotive plants by a nnouncing that he would implement a $5 per day wage
for most of his workers. This increase essentially do ubled the rate of pay at Ford. In today’s dollars , that
meant that Ford workers would be earning what is equivalent to $120 for an eight -hour shift. Ford was a
savvy industrial titan, but he was no saint. He vehemently opposed trade unions and collective bargai ning in extreme. Ford’s anti -Semitism was also lege ndary, pronounced and deep to such an extent, Mr.
Speaker, that an ambitious politician in 1930s Germany by the name of Adolph Hitler openly expressed
his admiration for Henry Ford. But Ford in his f lawed
brilliance knew one thing, and that was that if he paid
his workers what we now call a “ living wage” ––or in
reality , he established profit sharing –– it would accomplish the following objectives, some of which were
outlined previously:
1. It assisted Fo rd in retaining their best workers
in a very competitive labour market. The con-stant turnover of lowly paid workers that had
bedevilled his plants declined significantly. Moreover, the best talent available now beat a
path to Ford’s door. Additionally, it raised
wages and the welfare of [other] workers
throughout the Detroit -concentrated industry.
2. Secondly, and more importantly for Ford, it
enabled thousands more to afford his cars. In other words , it was one of the smartest bus iness decisions he had ever m ade.
2146 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Speaker, Ford created a virtuous cycle as
opposed to the negative cycle that had existed at his
company, which was hurting his competitiveness on a
number of fronts. And he did this through one simple
act and that was by implementing a profit -sharing plan
and paying his workers , at the very least , a living
wage or better. And by doing so a few . . . whatever
your company needs to do to engender broad- based
prosperity , and that is demand. The growth of demand
is what fuels prosperity, Mr. Speaker. F ord’s actions
led to his competitors doing the same thing. They had to in order to remain competitive. That is the definition
of the “ multiplier effect. ”
Mr. Speaker, only recently in this Honourable
House, without indulging in too much reflection, the
issue of the hotel industry was discussed. And the fact
that there has been a dearth of Bermudians working throughout the industry. The former Minister of Tourism and Transport agreed with me that if we wish to
see Bermudians return to the industry, then the r espective properties must offer a living wage to their
employees. Certainly that is the key reason Bermudians do not choose [to work in] the industry below the
management level. Wages are simply too low. Notwithstanding the above, most of the major proper ties
are having their operations subsidised by significant
amounts of tax concessions granted by the Bermuda Government. And these tax concessions are getting
more elaborate by the day.
Mr. Speaker, it is Bermudian tax dollars that
underwrite those tax con cessions, but the industry
itself is not an industry that Bermudians, for the most
part, can afford to work in because of the poverty level wages they offer. Consumer demand is key in a co nsumer -based economy such as ours. No segment of
the population spen ds a greater proportion of its di sposable income than those at the lower and middle income strata. It stands to reason then we can, at the
very least, buoy demand and contribute to economic
growth by supporting a living wage. Let us put more
money in the hands of those who will go and spend it
in our economy. Their impact on demand should be
just as appreciated as is the $5 million purchase of a local home by a foreign buyer. It would also have the
intangible benefit of enhancing our social cohesion, as
noted, as opposed to what is happening now. We
could create our own virtuous cycle.
Mr. Speaker, if you want to give people a
hand up, to borrow an old yet reliable cliché, as op-posed to giving a handout, then this is it , or at least
one important part of it.
Mr. Speaker, the best crime reduction strategy
is not just a booming economy with lots of jobs, but
rather a robust and sustainable economy with jobs
that provide a living wage for Bermudians.
Mr. Speaker, will the establishment of a l egally mandated liv ing wage regime for growing numbers of those who now constitute the working poor in
Bermuda be the solution to the challenges that are now endemic to our labour market and our economy?
No, it would not. But it would represent an important
first step by cre ating a wage floor that is equitable and
fair. And that wage floor must be one perforce tied to the consumer price index , or CPI.
We all know every journey on the path to s ocial and economic justice must begin with that first
step. Mr. Speaker, I contend that this is that first step,
but other steps will be needed as well, such as an
amendment to the 2000 Employment Act, Part II, section 9, clause 2(b) that provides an opt -out clause for
too many employers in the private, non- unionised,
sector who require, at times through coercion, straight
time for work over and above the 40 hour per week threshold. Oftentimes the acquiescence of foreign
workers plays a part in the relinquishing of their right
to overtime pay. But this has placed Bermudian wor kers at a severe disadvantage as a recent Supreme
Court ruling illustrated. And while neither the Tribunal
nor the Chief Justice could affirm the overtime claim
that was made, due to the clause in the Employment
Act highlighted above, just as egregiously in the matter of Grant v. Apex Construction, Chief Justice Ian
Kawaley did affirm the Human Rights Tribunal finding that Mr. Grant had been discriminated against on the
grounds of his nationality and, more specifically, due
to the fact that he was a black Bermudian. When did
that become an impediment to keeping a job and ensuring that one was getting the opportunities that were
due to them?
The ruling by the Tribunal found that Grant
and other black Bermudians were hired as a low
grade employment class with no promoti on prospects
and with a view to obtaining work permits for foreign workers to do the real work.
Mr. Speaker, what happened to Mr. Grant has
been happening in Bermuda in one shape or form
since emancipation. It is these practices which have
led to the multi generational marginalisation and th e
demoralisation of our black Bermudians in the wor kforce of this country. However, it is ironic that Mr.
Grant could not achieve justice on the overtime issue
as that clause from the 2000 Employment Act, in effect, places the veneer of legality upon a practice that
robs workers in this country every day.
Mr. Speaker, let this House affirm today that
overtime pay in Bermuda and a living wage should be
a right and not a privilege for every worker in this
country. Let us joi n hands across this aisle and amend
the Employment Act to remove that clause as a statement of our commitment to Bermudian and other workers who give an honest day’s work and deserve
better. Let us fix this injustice.
Mr. Speaker, we should continue to exp and
our tax base and, more importantly, make it more pr ogressive. Our Finance Minister has made a small
commitment to that by way of the imposition and ex-pansion of our service taxes on some professional
service providers, but more is needed, including a


Bermuda House of Assembly sharp reduction in payroll tax upon those whose ear nings are near or below the poverty line.
Mr. Speaker, as a recent report has confirmed, Bermuda’s international insurance and related
industries exported $24 billion in services to the EU alone. Let me repeat that one again. Bermuda’s international insurance and related industries exported $24
billion in services to the EU alone. Yes, we do export
in Bermuda, Mr. Speaker.
Yet, as noted, school children in this country
are going hungry without proper lunches . Poverty in
Bermuda has grown right along with Bermuda’s role
as a so- called global giant in the broader risk management industry. This too should not go unnoticed.
Why should the top 1 [per cent] to 10 per cent of
earners —corporate and individual —in Berm uda carry
too little of our tax burden while the working poor and middle income earners proportionately carry too
much?
Mr. Speaker, this is nothing new. Ms. Lynne
Winfield recently participated in a public forum hosted
by the Chamber of Commerce on the is sue of imm igration. Ms. Winfield reminded us —and I really want
Members to hear this —Ms. Winfield reminded us that
in 1941 the American vice consul with a thoroughly
astute observation said the following —in 1941—“For a
hundred years a small group has made B ermuda its
own paradise by controlling legislation and by seeing that taxation policy kept all but themselves in strict
economic [subjection] . While they themselves acc umulated fortunes subject to no taxes whatsoever….”
In 1941 the American vice consul went on to say that
the US Bases were being built in what he called an
island where Jim Crow rei gned. This is from an
American who should know something about Jim
Crow at the time. So we have a long history of this
type of behaviour. The question before us no w is
whether we have the courage to break the cycle.
Let us also address our immigration policies
by root and branch reform, our Bermuda Immigration
and Protection Act 1956, as has been recommended
on our side of the political aisle by Mr. Walton Brown,
the MP for constituency 17, CURB , and the People’s
Campaign.
Mr. Speaker, at the same time let us open up
our economy further and liberalise our 60/40 regime to address those companies that essentially are in the
business of rent seeking as opposed to expanding the
economic pie in banking and in the provision of health
insurance, being but two.
Mr. Speaker, competition can be the anecdote
to a host of economic ills. Let us, therefore, redouble our efforts as advocated by the Progressive Labour
Party by way of our 2016 Response to the Throne
Speech and establish a technological incubator that
would also serve as a host for FinTech, that is shor thand for financial technology companies. We envision
Bermuda as a FinTech hub in the mid- Atlantic and
have been its st rongest champions to date. Mr. Speaker, as I finish, let us also consider
the adoption of race- based affirmative action or empowerment programmes that can be designed specif ically to address the chasm caused by the historic legacy of the past and the growi ng wealth and income
disparities between black and white in Bermuda t oday.

And I am right there.
There are so many that wish this conversation
to end, to simply go away, but it will not, Mr. Speaker.
That is my hope and the aspiration of many.
Mr. Speaker, this challenge is a profound one.
I cannot put it any other way. It literally breaks my
heart to see how growing numbers of my people are living now. When I go into some homes , the evidence
is all too real for me. In June 2016, a young man was
shot in my constituency. I then spent the next two
days touching base with the persons to see how they
were coping. However, one resident in his fifties said to me that he had had enough and he was lea ving his
home and moving to the UK with his family. He made
the decision some months ago, but the recent shooting only confirmed to him that his decision was the
right one. He, his wife and his children have so much to offer this country, it will be our loss if they take so much with them that we cannot replace.
Mr. Speaker, to paraphrase former US Pres ident Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, let us declare a war on the growth of incipi-ent poverty in Bermuda and by doing so establish a
new deal for Bermudians. Let us break free of the
thinking that is no longer relevant to what Bermuda has become. Nostalgia can bring warm memories, but
ill prepare us to accept the challenges of the future.
Yes, many have benefited from their exalted professional perches within the precincts of the global econ-omy and have done very well with their six figure or
more salaries in Bermuda, much like in many other
parts of the world. But I shall not be an uncritical
cheerleader. We see around us every day those to
whom this model has not extended its golden benefits
and those whom this economy is leaving behind.
Let us, therefore, re- imagine what Bermuda is
and more importantly what it can be—

[Timer beeps]

—23 , yes .
Minister Patricia Gordon- Pamplin, you have
the floor.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, let me first of all thank the Ho nourable Member. I think we understand his passion,
his exuberance, in this matter. It is not . . . his presentation today is nothing new from him in terms of what
he feels about this issue. We acknowledge it, we r espect it , and we laud it.
Mr. Speaker, the research that the Honourable Member has done has obviously indicated a very
sobering condition that we find ourselves in as a country. I think the Honourable Member, having I think 36
pages of discourse that he read very passionately,
highlighted in some of the areas of his research what
the Government of Bermuda—the OBA Gover nment —has committed to. And the Honourable Member, if I may just refer to his brief on page 19, spoke to
the fact that earlier in the year when we had this Honourable House surrounded by disgruntled Bermudians, speaking to issues where they felt that they were
being a little . . . that they were being disempowered
and disenfranchised on the Pathways to Immigration
situation, highlighted the fact that both the Minister
and the Premier of the day indicated that we would
support having a living wage consideration included
as part of our deliberations going forward.
Now, the Honourable Member did indicate
that he believed that part of this had been done. There
was, Mr. Speaker, a letter of agreement in the process
for consultation which emanated from those protests
that we had on the floor of . . . I am sorry, surrounding the Parliament in March of this year, in which one of
the conditions was in fact that there would be a consideration of a living wage by a specific committee
that would be set forward for that purpose.
Mr. Speaker, it is with that in mind and accepting the urgency and the importance of this matter as we develop our entire labour construct in a more
modern environment than what existed to which the
Honourable Member spoke historically, that the situation that obtained perhaps in the ’50s and ’60s where
we had robust hotel business, we had robust construction business, we had jobs that were overflowing,
a cup overfloweth during that period of time, in which
one could leave that afternoon at three o’clock and
decide that he has had enough of employer “A” and
walk across the street and employer “B” had him on
the payroll before the five o’clock bell rang. Those
days, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, do not exist today,
so some of the arguments that are being made to
support this position are predicated upon the flow of
money that existed at that time.
One of the things that —

All right. Thank you.
Carry on.

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: I did not say that,
Mr. Speaker, I said it is my interpretation that where
we have challenges today , that they were not akin to
the sort of environment, the economic environment,
that existed back then where there were far more jobs
available and money was flowing a lot freer. That was
my observation. I am not saying that the Honourable
Member predicated his responses on that.
But, Mr. Speaker, one of the t hings that we
have to look at is that when it comes to a living wage
we want to see this matter well researched and we
want to see this matter well debated and we want to


Bermuda House of Assembly see effective input into the Committee that has already been set aside, that has alre ady been esta blished, as part of the letter of agreement to be able to
effect this very purpose.
So, Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to just a
couple of issues that I believe are important to highlight. We looked at some of the challenges the Honourable Member mentioned about financial assistance
and he spoke to Jolene’s case in which $4,300 or
$4,800 was a prerequisite just for Jolene to survive in today’s environment with $2,800 rent and $400 of electricity and all the other attending expenses that
Jolene has. So almost by default our Financial Assi stance Department has, perhaps, almost set the
threshold for what might be considered a living wage. Whether the person who is requiring financial assi stance is actually working and being subsidised or whether the y have no employment and require full
dependence on financial assistance, that seems to be
the norm in terms of what it is that people require in
order to be able to live.
Mr. Speaker, we see this on this side of the
House on a daily basis. We do not for one second
have an insensitivity towards that plight and we recognise our obligation as a Government as has been
indicated by our last budgeting process in which $50plus million has been put into Financial Assistance. And while that is not the panacea, i t certainly helps to
ensure that our people are not starving, that they are not living outside on the park benches, and that their
families are able to be fed.
The Honourable Member did underscore a
very serious challenging problem in which some of our
children are going to school without adequate food. In
a society such as ours , that is unacceptable by any
stretch of the imagination. And, Mr. Speaker, as a
Government we have put mechanisms in place to en-sure that this is addressed because that is —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: —such as financial assistance, as I mentioned earlier, to ensure that
this is addressed. We have put . . . we have kept a
policy that the previous Government put in place in terms of day -care allow ances for families so that a
mother can take a child to a day -care centre and that
mother can then also go to work and know that at
least there is some measure of their overhead and
financial stresses which have been met. So while the
salaries and wages that might be taken home by that individual do not . . . they pale in comparison to what
we call a “living wage” , there is a safety net such that
our people should never have to go hungry.
One of the challenges that we see that has
existed over time, and I think the Honourable Member
spoke to a couple of decades , and I agree, is that
there had been a tendency for there to be a certain exploitation on . . . from an immigration perspective , an exploitation of workers where local companies felt
that it was appr opriate to be able to bring employees
in from other jurisdictions that would work for less
money, that would sleep in shifts in the same apar tment so that their overhead would be diminished and,
therefore, they could manage at that level, some of
whom were coming from poorer or less well paid j urisdictions who would be able to come to Bermuda
and find that whatever they earned was [more] than
where they came from and they would be able to save
and even send some money home to take care of the
families that they had left behind. So we know the r eality of those situations, Mr. Speaker.
We have to know that exploitation of anybody
is unacceptable. So while we would look to ensure
that we set up immigration policies that restrict exploitation of foreign workers and bringing them in so that companies can make megaprofits to the exclusion of
Bermudian labour, we need to also make sure that if
we are going to show concern for those who ar e coming in, that we will not allow our Bermudians to be exploited in similar fashion.
And as a result of putting in place policies that
stop the attitude that exploitation could happen, the
idea of a living wage is an acceptable idea. It was
committed to by the Premier, as I said, it was commi tted to by the then- Minister of Home Affairs, and certainly I have been left to take up the mantle in that regard, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that the policies that
exist in the Immigration Department support what is
need ed to make sure that Bermudians have better job
opportunities. And I know that, you know, as we have
had interaction and interchange with Members opposite, we have had Members opposite who have come
and said, Minister, can you look at this particular foreigner’s situation and can we do something about e ither extending a work permit or permitting this indivi dual who is foreign to be able to resolve their problems
with immigration? And while there are certain humane
factors that may come into play, there are certainly
other situations in which we have to ensure that whatever policy exists across the street at the first floor of
the GAB [ Government Administration Building] in the
Immigration construct, that we are looking out for our
Bermudian people.
Mr. Speak er, what I would like to do is , having
due consideration for the setting up of the contract , as
it were, the letter of agreement, and the process for consultation that came as a result of the March di spute . . . I do not want to be dramatic, but that came
as a result of the March dispute, that I think that it is important to allow that process to take place. But what
I would also like to do is to encourage all Members of
this Honourable House who have a passion in this
area or have any type of contribution, to make that
contribution on the floor of the House. Bring the ideas
to the floor. We are so quick to say in this House,
Let’s set up a joint select committee for this, let’s set
up a joint select committee for that, let’s set up a joint
2150 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly select committee for the other , and we have to reco gnise the reality of the quality of time that people will be
able to put in a plethora of j oint select committees to
be able to get the optimum benefit out of what it is that we are trying to do.
You know, Mr. Speaker, it was way back . . . I
was born in 1950, just as a matter of reference, but as
I grew up as a young child, and even until today, and
as this week we are celebrating the lead- up to N ational Heroes Day, of which my dad was one of those appointed or so honoured a few years back, I can r emember the conversations . I can remember the pe ople in our home where they sat and strategized polit ically as to how we can ensure that the plight of wor kers in Bermuda were made appropriate. The found ation of the unions that hel ped to represent people from
that time, who perhaps did not have the level of edu-cational acumen where they could go out and repr esent themselves, and given the times , the racial di sparity and the challenges in that time, that they dared not, if they wanted to speak up and they had the abi lity to speak up, they dared not based on whatever
might have come at them as a result of the penalty for
having had the audacity to say what they thought.
These were the things of which the unions were
made, Mr. Speaker. And these are the things of which
the essence of my very being was created.
So if there is a sensitivity in that regard, Mr.
Speaker, you can be assured that I have it. You can
also be assured that with the discussions we have
among my colleagues that it i s no less impactful to us
to recognise and understand the importance of ensuring that our people can eat and be able to live in a dignified manner, without necessarily having to rely on
things of financial assistance and the like.
Mr. Speaker, we had, as I said, a robust hotel
sector. We had construction jobs. We had all manner
of things so that it was almost of no consequence because the times were a little bit different. What we did not have at that time, because Bermuda was said to
be on the cutting edge and almost the crème de la
crème and the best -of the best in terms of the tourism
industry, what we did not have was the level of global competition where the world has been shrunken by
the click of a mouse on a computer.
We started out, Mr. Speaker, wher e people
would say they heard about this Bermuda and, apart
from the Bermuda Triangle that caused a little bit of
angst, people wanted . . . they were making a beaten
path to our door because it was Bermuda. Bermuda was, according to Hubert Smith, another world.
And, Mr. Speaker, with those things in mind
and knowing that we could write our own ticket and,
therefore, generate the benefit of our own economy
because we were so appealing to others to come and
support us, we did not have, at that time, some of the challenges that we have today. Competition has , I
would not say ruined us, but it certainly created an
acuity of vision for us as a country to say that we ca n-not afford complacency. And in so doing, Mr. Speaker,
we have to ensure that the challenges that exist that
would cause our people to consider that Bermuda is
not an appropriate location for them to live anymore,
that they have to go abroad.
I do not know whether anybody was able to
see . . . there was a YouTube video that was going
around about a Bermudian in London who had left Bermuda to go abroad and decided that it was appr opriate to go to the Housing Council to look for a coun-cil house. And the individual who was . . . it was act ually quite a long expos é, indicating that, Things were
rough in Bermuda. I couldn’t make it in my home
country, and therefore I have come here and because I have come here you have the right to look after me
because I was told five or six years ago that we could come to the UK to live. So people have chosen different paths in order to ameliorate the stresses and the
concerns and the challenges that they have exper ienced in trying to navigate the path of the economic plight in which we find ourselves.
But, Mr. Speaker, it is important to understand
that this is a plight that has not come in the days of plenty. This is a plight that has arisen as a result of a
worldwide recession, which challenges countries t o be
able to sustain themselves, competition which I said
has almost undermined our abilities in some i nstances. But all of these things, Mr. Speaker, as we
bring this information to the fore, I am not sure that I
am convinced that . . . or that I am total ly persuaded,
let us put it that way, to say that we need another j oint
select committee of the House.
Because of the c ommittee that I had mentioned earlier , I would like for Members in this H onourable House to stand and to present their thoughts as to how we can improve matters and situations. I
would like for Members in this House to bring their ideas to the c ommittee that has been established for
this very purpose. There is no need for us to be wor king at cross -purposes with a committee that, as part of
the letter of agreement and working through the Imm igration Reform Action Group and the Labour Advisory
Council, there is no need for the duplication of services and the duplication of efforts.
I believe that we can bring our thoughts and
ideas, introduce them, and be able to make meaningful contribution because our people, Mr. Speaker, are
looking to us to help at this point in time. They are not
looking for us to be standing here as talking shops.
They are not looking to us to go sit in a quiet room
with another committee. What they are looking for are
solutions to the stresses and the problems that they are facing today. And while we have seen some of the
innovative things, as the Honourable Member i ncluded in his brief as a result of his research, and
there is no need to repeat them, but when you saw
the innovative attributes that some business owners
have put into their varying business structures and
their strategies in other jurisdictions, we can assist by


Bermuda House of Assembly bringing those ideas and having meaningful inf usion
of information to the Committee that has been established for this specific purpose.
So as a result of that, Mr. Speaker, instead of
us trying to find another j oint select committee I would
like to move that we change this motion, Mr.
Speaker —

Yes, Honourable Member, please take
your seat.
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is just so important because, you know, this is too important a matter for it to
be either politicised or for it to be bastardised. I think
we have to be able to focus on the issue at hand and
recognise that each and every one of us can make an
input. There was a letter of agreement signed and a
process for consultation that included having the LAC
take this particular issue and run with it.
So what I would like to propose, Mr. Speaker,
is tha t instead of us looking at forming another j oint
select committee, that we just take note of the efficacy
of establishing a liveable wage to bring our thoughts
and ideas to the floor so that we can . . . or to the
committee that will be doing the gathering of inform ation to come up with effective recommendations. B ecause, you know, I do not think that we in this H onourable House, as clever as we might think ourselves
to be, do not have all the answers, but certainly as we
broaden our outreach and our tentac les into the community and ask that we have these committees that are established, that they are able to focus on the job at hand and we bring the ideas and assist them so
that what comes out of it at the end of the day is a
non-partisan, effective way to say that we can deal
with the challenges and the problems that we have.
Mr. Speaker, nobody wants to think that we
live in a country that is as affluent as Bermuda and to
think that people are struggling when it comes to be-ing able to meet their basic needs, those of food,
clothing, and shelter, never mind insurance and pensions or anything else that comes along with it.
Mr. Speaker, the ability to look after your family and your children and to make sure that education is paramount, to make sure that we ma ke the necessary choices as a community to provide excellence for
our people, is what we all knocked on doors to do.
And just the fact that some of us . . . because none of
us are here by any other means than any other per-son, every one of us went out and knocked on doors,
every one of us went out and begged for votes, and
every one of us by virtue of the popularity contest —

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: —by virtue of the
popularity contest, we find ourselves in this H onourable House, Mr. Speaker. No different. We just have
more of our team than the other guys have. It was
different for the last several years when the system
and the process was exactly the same. But nobody
can say that anybody has a monopoly on good
thoughts, o n intelligence or solutions.
And as a result, Mr. Speaker, I would like for
us, as opposed to having the motion that the Honourable Member put, I would like to [amend] his motion.

Yes.

AMENDMENT TO THE MOTION
Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: And Mr. Speaker,
the motion that the Honourable Member brought, the
motion which was moved by the Honourable Member,
I would like to change it as follows, to amend it as follows:
“WHEREAS, it is acknowledged that unemployment and the under employment of Bermudians
and in particular that of black Bermudians continues to
persist;
“AND WHEREAS due to the widespread use
of foreign sourced low cost labour over the last two decades, real wages , once inflation has been factored
in, have seen little or no growth;
“AND WHEREAS incipient poverty, the er osion of the middle class and growing despair have led
to charities and assistance programmes of various
types being overwhelmed as growing numbers of
Bermudians, including children, do without the ec onomic necessities required to lead productive and fulfilling lives;
“AND WHEREAS growing evidence indicates
that along with rising property related crimes hundreds of Bermudians have become economic migrants and
have relocated to the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions;
2152 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly “BE IT RESOLVED that this Honourable
House take note of the efficacy of establishing a liv eable wage for Bermuda.”
Mr. Speaker, I put that m otion for consider ation of the House. What it will do is what I asked in my
presentation, to allow us to filter our thoughts, our
contributions, our concerns, through a channel that
has already been established by the Government to
be able to effect the same end that we are hoping to
achieve today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I think
we have been down this road before and it seems
apparent that when situations arise where a motion is
put on the floor which calls for bipartisan discussion,
bipartisan input, and bipar tisan recommendations it
seems to be diluted or not taken up, [it is] abandoned,
so to speak , by the Government.
Now, I recognise that there have been occ asions [and] I witnessed them myself in this House
where there have been situations where the level of acrimony and adversity seems to get very heated, and
one might feel that in all circumstances bipartisan
communication and bipartisan involvement would not work.
Mr. Speaker, I think nothing could be further
from the truth and though I appreciate that t he Honourable Minister indicated that there is no intellectual
property here in this House, I think that an issue such
as this led by —

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Point of order, Mr.
Speaker. Point of order!

I will clarify.
The Minister alluded to the fact that the . . .
not all intellectual property, I am sorry, is at this
House. However, Mr. Speaker, the point that I am
making is that on a matter of this great importance led
by the Honourable MP Commissiong, I think it is i mportant for us to see that if we really believe that this is
an issue that is of utmost importance to Bermuda and
to her people, then we as legislators who have been
voted in by Bermuda and her people, would partic ipate happily in this process by having a j oint select
committee whereby we can make recommendations,
consult, interview witnesses, interview persons that
are stakeholders, and interview persons that have
participated in some of the research that the Honour-able Member read out earlier today. If we are able as
a joint select body to be able to gather that inform ation, then we can assist greatly in providing this to this
House so that we can then examine the efficacy of
having a living wage.
The point I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is
that if we view this as s o important, then it has to start
with us. We are the ones that are elected to address
the concerns of Bermuda and we have all acknow ledged that we have . . . we live in far too great of a
society where we have people who are living below the poverty line, living in [abject ] poverty. We all recognise that it exists. And if that is so important for us
to try to address, then I cannot think of any other way where the proper mechanism would be in a bipartisan
joint select committee where we all get together, roll
up our sleeves, and make recommendations, consult with our stakeholders, hear the concerns of individuals, and then examine those and come back to this House with our recommendations.
And, Mr. Speaker, I just think that . . . not to
say that this c ommittee that the Honourable Member
was speaking about would not have the same grav itas, but we are the ones that are elected and if we view that this is such an important issue, as we are all saying it is, then the c ommittee should start with us ,
and that w e should throw down our swords, address
this in a bipartisan manner, so that we can all collec-tively discuss this issue and come up with solutions as
to how we should have a living wage so that we can
help to improve the state of almost, I think it is, 40 per
cent of our people who are working who are living below a minimum wage.
You will also note that in many, many, many
Commonwealth jurisdictions, Mr. Speaker, it is not uncommon for j oint select committees to be established. In fact, most of the Commonw ealth countries
have, on regular occasions , established these bodies
of joint select committees of both sides, non- partisan,


Bermuda House of Assembly to not only review legislation, review the policies behind legislation, but also to review initiatives that both
sides agree on in further advancing it for the common
good of the people.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would implore the
Government to not attempt to water down what is an
incredibly important m otion by turning it around and
saying oh, we are just going to make it a t ake note
motion. And I appreciate that you sir, the Honourable
Speaker, you have ruled previously on submissions
that have been made insofar as whether a t ake note
motion actually deviates from the content and the
substance of the actual motion. So I respect yo ur ru ling, Mr. Speaker. However, I would submit that if we are genuinely committed to addressing an issue that is affecting all of us and our constituents, then we
should pull together, pool our resources, work t ogether, and say we are bigger than this , this adversa rial red carpet divide . We are bigger than this because
we are dealing with almost 40 per cent of our popul ation living in poverty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Just to clarify again that I am speaking on the
proposed amendment as I do intend to speak on the
substantive motion.
Mr. Speaker, I think that when Members of
this Honourable House take the time to examine i ssues that have a profound impact on the community, and they bring them to this Honourable House with a
request to have a joint select committee, I think that
we shou ld respect that.
I think that this is an issue that I believe is
long overdue. I do know that the former Minister of Immigration put it on the table during discussions in
relation to the immigration reform, but nothing has been put forward officially. And I have been of the
view for a very long time that we needed to establish a
minimum wage in this country. Because the exploit ation of labour in this country is out of control and has
been out of control for a long time, for a very long
time. And there are t oo many Bermudians, and I do
not want to get into my substantive remarks, but too many Bermudians who are unable to make a living
income, and that is unacceptable.
And so I congratulate the Honourable Member
who brought this motion to the House. He has clearly
done a great deal of research on this matter. He obv iously has a passion for it. I have already articulated to him that I will support his m otion, as drafted, that a
joint select committee should be established. Now the OBA Government when it campaigned in 2012 campaigned on the position that we will create a more robust joint select committee structure and that we will take these types of issues and have a concerted effort to look at them, investigate them, and do something about them, rather than us
coming to this House time and time again and talking
about these issues and then nothing is done. We
know that this issue is being grappled with in the
United States right now. It is a major aspect of the
campaign. All the candidates are talking about what
level of minimum wage they would implement if
elected president. It is a universal issue, Mr. Speaker,
and so we need to deal with it.
And I believe that . . . I appreciate the Mini ster’s remarks in terms of Members’ time and the r estrictions of Members’ time, and you know, we all
have busy lives and to me it is the argument that, in my view . . . in my view, if you want an effective Parliament you need full -time parliamentarians. If you
want an effective Parliament, if you really want a Parliament that is going to make changes, which can be
committed to the people’s business, then it should be
full-time parliamentarians so they can do just that. But
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that if you are busy, and I know the Honourable Minister is busy, a very busy
individual ––I was trying to contact her the other night
and I was getting e- mails from her at 10:30 at night
saying , If you want to call me, call me now. I know she
works hard––b ut if you want something to be done,
you know the saying is, give it to a busy person, because they understand how to organise themselves and be able to add to their current workload to get it
done.
If we believe this is important enough, if we
believe that it needs to be addressed and not just
talked about, then those of us in this House who believe that will find time to contribute. We will find time
to contribute, Mr. Speaker, and I have already ind icated to the Honourable Member that I would raise my
hand.
Mr. Speaker, you make the call, you invite i ndividuals to serve on committees, they can say yes or no. So no one is compelled. If someone is too busy
and if they do not want to be a part of the committee, say no, which is fine. But I do think that it is important
that we tackle this issue as a Parliament. That we
come to this House with the appropriate recommendations, particularly what the threshold would be based
on data and empirical information in terms of what
would be an appropriate level for a minimum wage —it
is important —and it not something that can be done
lightly becaus e larger countries than ours have been
grappling with this with difficulty.
So I would just get on my feet to say that, and
as I have already articulated to the Honourable Mem-ber who brought this, I support the motion and I support it as drafted. Thank you.

2154 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The Speaker: All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will recognise the Honourable
Member from constituency 36, the Learned Member
Michael Scott.

Hon. Michael J. Scott: I am grateful to you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, just in the unlikely event that the
Government are not going to be persuaded, and in
particular the Minister who speaks . . . who has just
spoken in response to Mr. Commissiong’s motion . . .
just in case, in the unlikely event the presence of two
lawyers has not persuaded them or persuaded her to drop her m otion’s amendment, I will rise and make
myself the third person and lawyer to rise in support of
the motion not being eviscerated or diluted. And I am
grateful that the former Minister of Tourism has said what he has said.
If ever there could be or there was an item in
our national debate that deserves cross ing-the-floor
support, this is it, and for the very same reasons that the Honourable and Learned Member , Mr. Crockwell ,
has indicated. It is a matter that has been gathering
global discussion from the EU to the United States.
Senator Sanders’ campaign takes note of the fact,
and with your permission, that America now has more wealth and income inequality than any major deve loped country on earth and the gap between the rich and the poor and everyone else is wider than at any
time since the 1920s. And it frames the debate, a d ebate that I know that the Minister of Immigration, with
that important and vital role that she now leads in, is aware of. And to have the matter go down the path of
another , Oh, we’ll take note of it , as opposed to , We’ll
take action about it , is disappointing. It is disappointing because . . . and I will not go into the substance of
my remarks, but I intend to say that for the Gover nment to, in the context of all my remarks that I intend to raise about wage inequality and what has happened immigration- wise and labour force- wise in our
country, the response has been interesting—austerity,
privatisation, and, Oh, we’ll s imply take note of the
concerns , not of the Opposition benches but of the
concerns of the people in the country as reflected in
the Opposition benches.
So I rise to support the Honourable and
Learned Members Ms. Wilson and Mr. Crockwell in
asking the Mini ster to reconsider her position about a
simple and over . . . and underwhelming “taking note”
of something as important as this. We can try as lea ders in this House to address in these fair isles issues
that have become as relevant as they are in the US
Presidential Election Campaign, as relevant as they
are in Paris and across France, as relevant as they
are in the United Kingdom, reflected most recently by the violent aggravation that is going on in that economy and in that community with Members of Parli ament being assassinated. It is time we paid more at-tention before the rub gets worse. So I support the
motion remaining in its current form and I do not support eviscerating it.

Thank you.
The Chair is going to recognise the Honourable Minis ter Patricia Gordon- Pamplin.

AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I realise that I had just put that
the motion be amended and listening to—

[Gavel]

Hon. Patricia J. Gordon -Pamplin: —listening to t he
comments made by my honourable colleague, Ho nourable Member Crockwell, and Members opposite, I
am prepared to . . . we have the votes that we could
push it through, but this is something that is so important and we understand it, that I will take the st ep at
this point, as opposed to spending time speaking to
the amendment, I am prepared to withdraw the
amendment to allow the motion to stand as initially
brought , and then we can continue to discuss —

The Chair will now recognise . . . so we
now speak to the m otion which was brought by MP
Commissiong.
The Chair recognises MP D. V. Burgess from
constituency 5.
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank my colleague the Honourable Rolfe Commissiong for bringing this motion to the floor of the House.
Mr. Speaker, it was in 2011 the ILO first r eported by the Senior Economist , Mr. Richard Anker, if
I may just read a few lines, Mr. Speaker?
He said at the Internationa l Labour Organis ation (ILO), “The idea of a living wage is that workers
and their families should be able to afford a basic, but


Bermuda House of Assembly decent, life style that is considered acceptable by s ociety at its current level of economic development.
Worker s and their families should be able to live
above the poverty level, and be able to participate in social and cultural life.”
Mr. Speaker, it was in 1933 the President of
the United States said just about the same thing. And
if you permit me just to read an excerpt, President
Roosevelt said when he introduced the f ederal minimum wage, he said “No business which depends for
existence on paying less than living wages to its
workers has any right to continue in this country.”
And he said, “By living wages, I mean more
than a bare subsistence level —I mean the wages of a
decent living.”
He said, “Too many working families are making impossible choices —between paying for food or
rent or electricity.”
Mr. Speaker, in Bermuda I think it is the . . .
excuse me, Mr. Speaker .
Could . . . please . Thank you.

Carry on, MP Burgess.
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
In Bermuda I think it is the living wage or d ecent wage versus the income disparity, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I must read just a bit . . . I am
just comparing, and this is from the Household Survey
in 1982, black males made $32,650; white males
made $46,490; a difference of $13,840. In 1993 black
males earned $56,467; white males earned $97,636;
a difference of $41,169. In 2004, Mr. Speaker, black
males earned $90,401; whites $139,864; a disparity of
$49,463. And the last one in 2013, blacks earned
$115,829; whites earned $192,305; a difference of $76,476. And those are the males; the females have
similar amounts. The difference, the disparity that
goes on despite . . . despite the so- called recession
that we had in Bermuda, Mr. Speaker, in the last co uple of years.
Mr. Speaker, in fact , we have one employer
right now wanting to pay wages that are less than what was earned in 2006, and this is . . . I am not go-ing to name the place, but it is for the same work, the
same establishment, and this what they want to pay their workers. You know , we talk about, Mr. Speaker,
slave labour? We have it in Bermuda. We have the exploitation of workers in Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, I know of a place, it is a studio
apartment and they have got six people living in this
apartment. This is what happens in Bermuda. I would
venture to say they are making probably less than $10
an hour. That is slave wages, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in the Unit ed States if we base it
from 1968, the wage then was about $8.63 an hour. If
you compare it today based on productivity , that wage
should be $21.69 an hour. Now if we judge ourselves
by the rich, the 1 per cent that owns most of the
wealth in Bermuda, it w ould be almost $30 an hour.
So, Mr. Speaker, you see that the poor are
not making it in Bermuda, are not making it worldwide.
In fact, in the United States 29 of the 50 states have
agreed to raise their basic wage —the minimum wage.
Will it reach the leve l that it can . . . that it should be
where one can earn and really take care of their fa mily? I do not know. But the difference in the United
States, Mr. Speaker, is there is some relief. And I am
not even talking about the tax relief from the Gover nment; I am talking about the relief in purchasing. B ecause, Mr. Speaker, if you buy a loaf of bread or a
quart of milk in Bermuda, it is the same price to that
family that is living below the poverty line as it is for
the person that is making $200 ,000 a year. There is
no relief for them as in other countries. It is difficult to
live in Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, this manipulation of the races in
Bermuda started way back and it continues today. And the reason why it was back then, Mr. Speaker,
was to suppress the wages of the Bermudians. They
brought in the Portuguese just to suppress the wages
of Bermudians and they treated the Portuguese like
dirt, they were . . . they could only live in certain
places, they could only go to certain schools, but
when they needed their numbers to increase, they
upgraded some Portuguese and made them white, so
they can get the vote, Mr. Speaker. That is what they
did. That is what —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Yes, and I am glad
they said . . . from the oth er side they said they are
white in every other part of the world. Exactly. Not in
Bermuda.
There were not [white] before in Bermuda because, Mr. Speaker, some of them may be two or
three years younger than me, but obviously they do
not know the history. P ortuguese could not play on the
golf courses in Bermuda, they could play at Ocean View, and the Portuguese had some of the best gol fers in Bermuda—L ouie Moniz and Butch DeSilva and
a lot of these boys. And they could not keep these
2156 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly guys down because they needed the good golfers, so
they invited some of them to play on the prestigious
courses. I know. Louie Moniz used to play every
Thursday and Saturday afternoon at Mid- Ocean . . .
not Saturday, Sunday , because he used to sell his
vegetables on Saturday. They could not beat him. In
fact, he was rated as one of the top amateur golfers in
the world, weekend golfers in the world —Louie
Moniz —Portuguese, who could not go to certain
places in Bermuda because he was from Portugal and
how they rated him in Bermuda.
Mr. Speaker, they brought in the Barbadians,
workers from the West Indies, to suppress the wages
of Bermudians and they treated them like dirt. They
promised them living accommodations —over 200
people and they only had, I think it was, a 12- room
house available for them. So some of them had to live
in the grass, sleep on the grass, until Reverend Monk
got involved , and what they did to Reverend Monk for
trying to help these people, Mr. Speaker. Our history
is not good, and it continues in a little more pleasant
way it seems.
And, Mr. Speaker, I really get annoyed at
some of my Bermudian colleagues when they start to
name . . .Oh, these people from this country come to
take my job , or from that country. I get annoyed at
that. It is not those people from those countries; it is
the Government and the employers. That is who we
need to blame, not the worker from where they may
come from , whether they come from New Zealand or
Australia. It is not them. It is the workers and the Government , and it happened duri ng our time too, but it
has gotten worse now. It has gotten worse.
And, Mr. Speaker, are they serious . . . are we
serious about the income disparity in Bermuda? To
me that is even more important than a decent wage.
Obviously , if you get it right everything will fall into
place, one will take care of the other. That is what
needs to happen because, Mr. Speaker, in Bermuda
we give tax exemptions to the rich. The workers do
not . . . we have not had any exemptions. Our payroll
tax increases; we pay them. But some of the emplo yers get relief even though they owe Government
money. People that are in arrears have got tax exemptions, payroll tax exemptions. Some still owe for
social insurance contributions which are still outstanding today.
But the worker is still paying the payroll tax,
everything else, insurance has gone up for gover nment workers and all other workers, in seven months
the health insurance went up 38 per cent —38 per
cent! Grants to the poor people and to the seniors
have decreased. Their expenses have gone up. People that are making . . . in fact , they have got a—thank
you, Mr. Richards , for a 5 per cent increase in the
pension. Even though it is not in line with the cost of
living, still it is an increase. And people say thank you
for whatever lit tle gifts they get, even though it is not
going to satisfy all their needs. And let me say that pension was not designed to take care of all your
needs . But you know, Mr. Speaker, the pensions for
Bermudians, particularly black Bermudians, is very
young. W e just started getting pensions. Thank God
for the unions that we have started getting pensions.
Many other people’s pensions are . . . old and rich. So
their benefits are better than ours, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, people really . . . I think we have
forgotten about the budget. You know , come April
2017 we will get what was called the “Excise Tax” that
is, I think, 5 per cent. And I know the Government has
got to raise money . Right? But our people must live
also. They must live. So this “consumption tax, ” I
would call it, is going to affect the consumers. That is who it will affect most of all, Mr. Speaker. If you are
making $200,000 a year , it really does not matter that
my bread will cost five or ten cents more, it does not
matter, you have got a lot of disposable income. But tell the poor person that who is struggling —who is
struggling —and we have children going to school with
no lunch, hungry. And people . . . the first thing they
said was , Well, his mama’s got a cell phone. Yeah? Is
she entitled to one? There is enough wealth in this
country to go around where if you want one you can
have one. There is enough wealth in this country to go
around to feed all our children. There is enough
wealth in this country to clothe all our children. And
people, they s eem to think that Bermudians are lazy.
Bermudians are not lazy, Mr. Speaker, Bermudians are not going to work for $10 an hour. Give
them a decent wage and they will work. But you cannot get Bermudians to come out to work for $10 an hour when it does not ev en cover [the cost of] nursery
for little Johnny. It does not make sense. And you have some of these restaurants downtown they
charge you 17 per cent, but everybody gets some of
the money —the manager, the chef, and everybody
else. That does not happen in u nionised places, Mr.
Speaker, it does not happen there. And a lot of these
foreign workers, they are not going to . . . they cannot
say much because they are threatened with deport ation, not from the Government, but deportation from
the employer , You’ve got to go home because you
have gone against what we want you to do.
Mr. Speaker, 44 per cent in the United
States —and I use the United States because normally
what happens there occurs in Bermuda—44 per cent
of the employment growth in the last four years has
been in the low wage jobs.
Mr. Speaker, you have in the United States,
just like you have in Bermuda, if you work [less than]
29 hours there are certain benefits [the employer]
does not have to pay for. So a lot of the people doing
their part -time jobs can only get it for 29 hours, so
they need about two of those low -paying jobs , and
[they receive] no benefits. In Bermuda it is 15 hours. If
you work less than that you do not have to pay any
health insurance and that type of stuff. Those are the
type of t hings we need to address. If we are serious


Bermuda House of Assembly about it, that is what we have to address, because Mr.
Speaker, if your people are suffering, they cannot take
care of their children . . . nowhere in the world, including Bermuda, is not safe . . . is not safe.
Mr. Speaker, Wal mart, they earned $16 billion
in 2015. The majority of their people make less than
$25,000 a year, Mr. Speaker. Not good. Not good, Mr.
Speaker.
And, Mr. Speaker, in Bermuda we have too
many of our children coming home from [overseas]
school, but there is no job for them, particularly black
children, but there are also some whites . In Bermuda
foreign is preferred over Bermudian. I know Bermudians, some black, some white, the majority are black,
that have been passed over while the job was given to
a foreigner. That is what has happened in this country
and continues to happen.
And, Mr. Speaker, one thing they did in the
United States at McDonald’s —those chains like
McDonald’s, Starbucks, et cetera—the United States
just passed a law that gives the employees the right to
negotiate with the parent company instead of the franchise holder. Because you will find in the United
States that you get a McDonald’s in Philadelphia and
one in Miami and they will have different rates of pay.
The United States just corrected that where they can
negotiate with the parent company.
Mr. Speaker, everybody wants something for
nothing and they transfer all these jobs to poorer
countries. They say , Oh, some jobs are leaving Bermuda because they are going to India or going to
China or somewhere. It is all in the interest of profit.
People say , Oh, they’re trying to cut their expenses .
They are not trying to cut their expenses. T hey are
trying to increase their profit.
Mr. Speaker, I think it was the United Auto
Workers, what they did, their wages are tied to pr oductivity. So if the country —not the country , if the
company makes a profit then those workers benefit. In Bermuda what they do, a lot of them, they will make a
million dollar profit this year, next year t hey will make
$990,000 and they say they lost, so they cannot give
any increase. They are still [making a] profit, but they
did not make a million this year, they only made
$990,000 so they will say , Well, we made a loss. That
is how they operate. They do not care about their
workers, not at all.
And, Mr. Speaker, this j oint [select] c ommi ttee, this problem that we have, the income disparity, we want economic equality. That is what we need in
this country. This cannot go on much longer. There is
trouble all around the world and people say , Oh, those
are just lunatics , that is what they write them off as, I
guess, it is a comforter to them, I will stay away from
those lunatics. That is what I would call them. I am not
calling them that. People do things for a reason.
And if people are happy, if people are able to
take care of their families, and take care of little
Johnny and little Mary and give them what they need, you will find a better person. You will find people who
show up to work, they will be more productive. But when you are on the job and you are wondering how
you are going to get Johnny another sweater who lost
his sweater in the wintertime, and you are trying to figure out how you are going to do that, that is not
good, that is stress ful. And it does not make for a
good productive citizen. Because what hurts any parent is to see their children suffer and not be able to do
anything about it. That is one of the biggest hurts a
parent can have, Well, I cannot even satisfy my chi ldren.
And a lot of people will think that we are being
dramatic. We are not being dramatic. We are telling
the truth, what is factual, and what is needed in this
country. It is a prosperous country —for some. And do
not tell me that those who are not prosperous are lazy
becaus e that is the excuse a lot of us use —blacks
and whites use that —They made it, well , why could
you not make it? That is what a lot of us use in this
country. Not everybody is as fortunate, but what we can do is to make sure that our fellow Bermudians and th e residents of this country are able to live in
comfort, comfort in food, comfort in shelter, comfort in
clothing, comfort in their social and economic life.
Then you would get a better citizen, you would get a
better student at work, at school, and everyt hing else
would just fall in place. But when one cannot afford the necessities of life in any country, you will have
problems.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the
Member for bringing his motion. I think that it is a
timely motion and I am also glad that t he Minister on
this side agreed to leave the motion as it is. I think it is
far too important to just take note of allowing people to
have a wage that allows them to be able to live and to meet their expenses.
I am not going to be long. People, I believe,
need to earn a wage that they can live on. They need to earn a wage where they can maintain their dignity.
There are far too many people right now in Bermuda
who are essentially the working poor. They have jobs but they still cannot make ends meet.
If we are able to develop a living wage, it will
assist the Government in reducing its social service expenses because people will be earning an income
so they will not be so reliant on the Government and
Financial Assistance and other things.
I do not know . . . Bermudians like to travel
and I know when I go, I like to go to Walmart, and I
2158 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly am sure everybody in here has been to Walmart and
likes to spend money at Walmart.

Yes, you do.
And you know, my family has boycotted Walmart because of the way they treat their employees
and because of the fact that they are a multi -billion
dollar industry and the people that help them to keep their stores open and make the money that they make are not paid a decent wage. And you have got people
at McDonald’s that are fighting to make just $10 an
hour, Mr. Speaker, which is ridiculous. And by the
time they take the taxes and everything else out of it they barely have any money to live on.
I think this is something that we need to take
into consideration. We do need to have a joint select
committee. And as the other Members have stated,
you know, the OBA stated in their platform that we were going to have a look at having more joint select
committees , and it is up to us to have the time or
make the time to do the things that are important for
the people of this country. And as my colleague said,
it is up to you to call us and say , Do you want to be on
this Committee? And it is up to us to say yes or no. If
it is important . . . one thing that I know is that if som ething is important to you, you will find the time to do it,
no matter how many hours you have in the day to do
other things.
So, again, I would like to congratulate the
Member for bringing this m otion. I support it and I
hope that we will be able to establish a committee that will help us to do something to help the people in this
country who are living below —far below —the [liveable] wage that they should be.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank my
colleague for bringing this motion forward and thank
the Members who have spoken in support of it.
The liveable wage discussion is timely. For
years the business community has fought, argued
against, refused to even consider the prospect of a
liveable wage, and they have many good reasons to
make that case. But when you look at Bermuda today
it is not just an economic issue when it comes to a liveable wage, it is also a quality of life issue. A man
who has to work 24 hours out of a 32- hour period to barely take home $200– $300 in Bermuda is someone
who is sacrificing time from their family which means that you have greater instances , greater chances of
juvenile delinquency and other social issues, break-down of the family, and things of that nature.
We have to begin looking at the impact that
low wages have on the quality of life and the impact it
has on our families and on the society as a whole.
Mr. Speaker, it is very disturbing to me to see
how wages are plummeting in this count ry. And when
we talk about a liveable wage, I think we also have to
look at our country’s dependence on cheap foreign
labour. We have to look at that. There are businesses
that have built a business model that encourages di scrimination against Bermudians and intolerable wor king conditions. This has to be addressed as we talk
about a liveable wage because when there are bus inesses that will say , I will not pay a Bermudian— not
that I cannot afford—I will not pay a Bermudian a d ecent wage, and I am not talking about “liveable” —
decent —but I know I can go to anywhere else and pull
somebody and pay them slave wages and I can reap the benefits and the profits . And we are in denial if we
do not admit, do not face, do not recognise, that there
are some businesses —not all—that have that mindset. You know, Chris Rock once joked, he said a
minimum wage is basically the business community saying I would pay you less if the law did not stop me. And that is real. It is real. I mean, there are companies
that hey, you know . . . but let us look at these issues
because the dependence on cheap foreign labour is driving down salaries of Bermudians. It is making businesses that do not rely on cheap foreign labour,
businesses that are committed to Bermudianisation, it
is making them less competitive and forcing them to
make choices to stay in the game.
So we have to address this issue of cheap
foreign labour and we have to get more serious about seeing who we are letting into this country. In Austr alia they have language tests, the y have written and
oral tests. You will not find a waiter who cannot speak
English properly in Australia. O kay? But we find them
here in Bermuda. And so these things have to be addressed, that access to cheap foreign labour is a
down ward pressure on salari es and it is hurting Bermudians.
Mr. Speaker, we . . . if we cannot . . . I think
that this is a good opportunity, actually a pleasant
surprise, that we may actually have an opportunity to
work on a j oint select committee on this , and I am a
person that thinks that this is something that we need
to look at. But I am also a person who subscribes to
many of the philosophies of Dr. Amos Wilson, the author of the book Blueprint for Black Power . And as we
talk about a liveable wage , we must begin to look at
investing in our people so that they can go from being
consumers and employees to producers and emplo yers so that they can pay people a liveable wage. That


Bermuda House of Assembly I think this is something that we have to continue to
broaden this discussion on.
In the United States under President Bill Cli nton, he put $50 billion over four years into training and
retraining the American people. As they were segueing out of the Cold War , they knew that they could no
longer rely on people to have jobs and rel iable income
in the Cold War -based businesses, businesses that
were involved in all the aspects of maintaining the US
military machine and things of that nature.
Now, I know we do not have $50 billion
around to do that, but it is a necessary investment in our people to make sure that we raise the skill level,
we prepare them for the jobs that are of today and
tomorrow, and help our people to elevate themselves out of poverty. And I think that when we can look at a
vision that is about empowering our people so that
those who have the will, the drive, and the desire, but
maybe lack the means , can start their own business,
while at the same time we ensure that the people who
work for everyone else are paid well, treated well, and are having the benefit of being able to go home to
their families, to raise their children, to be able to co ntribute to the economy without the added stresses.
In Bermuda there are plenty . . . there was a
recent thing I read that said, working hard is not an
indication of how successful you will be . Nobody
works harder than poor people. N obody works harder
than poor people because they have to work so much longer to get so much less. So we have to make sure
that hard work pays. [Today] you have a young man
coming through who has seen hi s mother or his father
slaving , working for the equivalent of slave wages,
doing what they were supposed to do to get their education, to go get a job, to work hard and you will be
rewarded, and [he sees how they] are struggling and
not progressing and hav e no hope of moving themselves forward. T hey do not have the resources to
improve their skills . They do not have the confidence
that they will even be [able to be] employed if they
obtain those skills. And so a young person looking at
that, whose parents c annot afford to send them to
school, who cannot afford to have them retrained, who
does not have the family history of education as an
elevator out of their condition, we have our young
people who lose hope if they believe they will not be hired no matter how hard they work . If they believe
they will not make a decent wage no matter how hard
they work, they will check out. And with youth unemployment where it is now, it is a recipe for disaster.
Intelligent unemployable people become a problem for
our society.
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Minister Louis
Farrakhan talked about the black community and he
warned that we are in danger globally of becoming
irrelevant because we . . . our value in western society
has always been cheap labour. But if you no longer
have value as cheap labour, you become an asset to
the economy in other ways. Mr. Speaker, do you know how many jobs a
person creates by committing a crime and going to
jail? You have the prison officers, you have the staff
that feed them and everything, all the support staff
around that. If you cannot contribute in a meaningful
way to your society, you still create jobs, they are just
not for you, they are by-product s of your misfortune.
The criminals, if they kill each other, they are creating
jobs in a ne gative fashion because you need more
police to police them or investigators.
And so we have to . . . we have to . . . I am
sorry, Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Finance Minister
distracted me for a second . These are the issues that
we have to look at and we have to talk about in tandem with the liveable wage. We have to address the
institutional disparities, as my honourable colleague
raised, in salaries.
And, Mr. Speaker, I speak for myself, I am not
going to commit my colleagues to this, I think one of
the best things that the Government does as an employer is to post the salaries of every job advertis ement. Do you know why? Because I go in and then
you go in and then he goes in, we are going to get
paid within the same scale. It is not going to be, Well,
you know, your mama . . . you live with your mama,
she’ll take care of you so I’ll pay you this , and you’ve
got kids and I’ll pay you that , and all that, bec ause that
happens, okay, Mr. Speaker?
I remember when I first came back to Bermuda I was working for a company and I will never
forget a conversation where we discussed salary . I
was told, You live with your mama; she’ll take care of
you. So I’ll give you this . And, you know , I had just
come back from the States and I actually thought I
was doing pretty well because I had forgotten about
the sort of high standard of living in Bermuda. So I
walked out of the office feeling pretty good, but I will
never forget that conversation. I will pay you this because you live with your parents and your mama will take care of you. O kay? And particularly in some of
the smaller businesses, there are people who still do
that. They still make these arbitrary decisions.
As part of lowering and eliminating these l abour, these wage disparities, I would really love to
see, if I look in a paper , the wages listed so that if I go
in I would know if I am being paid fairly. Because
there are people who, for example, may have educ ation in the industry but do not know the ins and outs.
They do not have that person they can call and say ,
Hey, look, how much did so-and-so make when he
was doing that job? And a person will say, Yeah, you
know what? T hey are going to offer you this but go fo r
that because they got more. Okay? Those are the
types of things that we can eradicate and get this foolishness of, you know, How much do you want to get
paid? And, you know, all of that. I could look at the ad
and say, You know, if you are paying peanuts , I am
not going to be a part of your circus.
2160 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly But, Mr. Speaker, the other thing as we look
at the liveable wages , I would encourage our people, I
have spoken on this before and I have done a little bit
more research on it, I have spoken of the need to begin directing our children and our retraining effort into
careers that are subject to objective evaluation. When
you look at the success in the Asian community, the
Jewish community, communities that have faced di scrimination, many of them have succeeded by pus hing their families and pushing their children into ed ucation careers that, if you are a racist, it is harder for
you to discriminate against this person, if you have
biases it is harder. So, for example, as a doctor if you
manage to save your money and you have the su pport, or let us say we invest in adding 50 more doctors
to Bermuda, you n ow have somebody that is in a pos ition to not only create their own business , but is less
likely to be impacted by the discriminatory processes
because a doctor faces a different set of issues than a
marketing specialist or an actuary, people like that.
So these are things that we should consider.
And we also have to begin focusing our children and
our efforts educationally into the careers that will be
and that are no w. We , our generation was told, go to
school, study hard, study whatever you want because
you can do it. But if I tell a young person today , If you
want to be an interior designer in Bermuda— interior
decorator in Bermuda—you probably are not going to
neces sarily be able to get into it because it is a limited
market and you may not get a good salary, but if you
go into medicine there is a very good chance that you . . . and maybe that is more of a worthwhile inves tment.
But we should look at directing our people into
jobs where they have a greater opportunity for success and where there is opportunity for earning higher
incomes and a greater chance that they will not be as
easily discriminated against.
Mr. Speaker, we must also, as we address the
liveable wag e, modernise the Employment Act. We
must modernise it. I mean, my honourable colleague
who sits behind me can probably tell me about it, but I think the Employment Act was first put in place in what . . . 2002?

[Inaudible interjection]

In 2000. And over the
years we have seen that employers have figured out
ways —the bad employers —to circumvent the intent of
the legislation. It is time to modernise that legislation because it makes no sense if we put in a liveable wage but then our w orkers will be treated badly. We
have to look at this comprehensively. And I think that
this joint select committee gives us an opportunity to
exchange these ideas at a level that can get some
action. And maybe you will see some of these ideas
that do not make it through c ommittee on platforms
and we will be able to take these ideas out to the community and earn the support of the community
and get them to get behind it.
But Mr. Speaker, just to wrap up, I am not
going to be all day, but to wrap up, a liveable wage
can transform our society in many ways. It can help to
improve the quality of life for our people; it can help to
make things better. Bermuda’s way forward cannot be
the development of a permanent underclass that can-not afford to live here and the mindset is , Well, you
can’t pay a BELCO bill . You can’t pay $6 for bread,
but I’m going to bring somebody else in who can, so
to heck with you. That is the danger of the path we are
on now, so how can we look at ways —liveable wages,
training and investment in our people—to get our people believing in Bermuda again, to believe once
again that living here is a land of opportunity, not
anywhere else?
So I commend, again, my honourable colleague for bringing this m otion forward. I commend
him on his presenta tion as well. It was indeed lengthy,
but it reminded me of being back in college, he is well -
researched and well -informed, and I appreciate that
Members have chosen to speak in support of this m otion on both sides.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will recognise the Honourable Mi nister Richards.

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, first of all , I would like to compliment the Honourable Member Commissiong for his
presentation. It was very well researched and we often do not have that in this H onourable House, but I
really appreciated his effort and really applaud his exhorting the Government and all of us really on the need to focus on the plight of those of our countrymen
less fo rtunate than ourselves and who find themselves
in the lower echelons of the income structure. We on
this side , and also speaking personally , see the need
to try to assist those folks who are less fortunate and
to help them cope really with the financial rigours of
living in Bermuda.
But I have to address my thoughts here from
the perspective of my job as the Minister of Finance responsible for the economy of Bermuda. And my first
thought after listening to the Honourable Member ’s
comment was a quotation from a poet who lived a long, long time ago, named John Donne, who said
that No man is an island unto himself . And of course
what he meant was that nobody can exist without taking into account what is happening in the environment
around him or her.
Well, Mr. Speaker, not only is no man an i sland, but no island is an island either in that context.
And that is really the perspective that I would li ke to
sort of bring to this. Now , all of us Bermudians . . . I
think Bermudians are perhaps some of the most travBermuda House of Assembly elled people on earth, all of us have travelled and I am
sure that all of us have experienced when we travel,
particularly in major cities around the world, whether it
is in the US or in Europe, that the hotel staff are
mainly people from other countries —immigrants —
usually from, well , certainly , in London, for instance,
most of the staff are from lower, less -developed parts
of Europe, shall we sa y, places where there is a lower
standard of living and, therefore, lower wages or fewer
opportunities. And they go to a place like London to work in hotels, work in restaurants, drive taxis; you see that in New York as well. As a matter of fact , in
New Yo rk you are lucky to find a taxi driver that act ually speaks English.
So that is kind of . . . I am just sort of looking
at the hotel and the restaurant industry, but this is the
sort of thing that Bermuda has to compete against in
terms of its cost of doing business. We have to compete against a world where there is a very great
movement of people around the world seeking a better life.
Now, if other countries are doing this, can we
in Bermuda afford to ignore that? Unlike large coun-tries . . . there have been lots of quotations from the
Honourable Member who brought the motion and ot hers, quotations of facts and figures that relate to other countries, particularly the United States. But you know, Mr. Speaker, Bermuda is not the United States.
And one of the things that is kind of unique about
Bermuda is that all our income comes from outside of
our country. That certainly cannot be said for the
United States or any large country for that matter,
where all of our income comes from outside our own borders.
What that means for us is that any policy,
whether it is the policy of the Government or a policy
of the private sector, that reduces Bermuda’s compet itiveness can harm Bermuda. It can harm our economy
and it can harm our people. And , unfortunately , if it
harms our people, it can and will most likely harm the
lowest echelons of our income structure the most. And
this is what we have to grapple with as a small Island
where all of our income comes from outside our borders.
So, Mr. Speaker, just to sort of elabor ate on
that, and I have said it here before, we live in the Internet age . We live in a globalised world. Today the
global economy, including Bermuda, is the most co mpetitive economy in the history of mankind—the hi story of mankind—it is the most competitiv e today than
at any time before in man’s history.
So, there has been a reference to, you know,
famous people like industrial leader Henry Ford, and
that is cool, but it is not necessarily helpful or relevant
to the conditions that prevail today. For instance, if a
company or even the Government advertises a job in
the Royal Gazette, that job, the availability of that job,
can be viewed by the majority of the six billion people
on planet Earth. That kind of situation did not exist when Henry Ford was buildin g cars. So the level of
competition, the knowledge that people have for op-portunities, has gone off the scale. So all of those sort
of paradigms, all the references to things that happened in either Henry Ford’s time or Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s time, all that sort of stuff is good for conversation, but if we want to make this relative and
relevant to today , we have to consider the age and the
megatrends in which we live today. And that megatrend, Mr. Speaker, is the megatrend that I just described, that we live in the most competitive age in
human history.
So, another example of that , and I am sure
this happens to everybody, not only in this room but anybody who is listening to me in Bermuda, you call
up a company or an institution, a financial institutio n
for instance, and you get answered . . . somebody at
the switchboard answers the phone and there is a good likelihood that the person who either answers
the phone or the person that you are referred to, you
ask to speak to such- and-such a department, and
when somebody picks up the phone from that suchand-such a department that person is on the other
side of planet Earth— Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Phi lippines —sure as heck not in Bermuda. That job as
either a telephonist or a . . . somebody who answers
the phone, that job has been exported somewhere
else. The only thing that I can say that . . . the only
institution I know where that is probably not true in
Bermuda is the Bermuda Government. But in the pr ivate sector that is almost standard operating proc edure. And why is that? It is because it cost s less to
hire a telephonist in Sri Lanka than it does in Ber-muda. That is why. And that is the nature of globalis ation.
And the nature of globalisation is such that it
does not matter what we say or what we do in this
place, it is not going to change those forces. It is not
going to change those forces. We cannot change those forces at all. The most we can do—

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
Carry on.

2162 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: I thank the Honourable
Member for that because this is what I was just about
to say, the most we can do . . . remember I was going
to say, but you interrupted me, I was saying the most
we can do? The most we can do is to try to some extent ameliorate the impact on us. But we cannot
change the force. The force of globalisation cannot be
changed because they are a result of things much
larger than us in this Chamber and in this country. It
has t o do with technology and it has to do with international laws, which I will get to in a little while.
So my point here is, Mr. Speaker, we cannot
make decisions [about] minimum wage or liveable
wage, which is pretty much the same thing. A ll right? I
think somebody is trying to make some sort of semantics about it; we are talking about the same thing here. We cannot make decisions on that in isolation without
regard to the forces, and they are invisible, Mr.
Speaker, but they are powerful, those powerful in visible forces that mould how we live and do business in
Bermuda.
It is a kind of Bermudian thing but it happens
all over . . . and we heard in the introductory di scourse, but we have historically and culturally done
this since the beginning of time, it is an irresistible
urge, particularly among Bermudians, to be protectionist. It is kind of like in our DNA as Bermudians and
perhaps it is because we live on an island in the mi ddle of the Atlantic. I see this as a Minister of Finance on a weekly basis, some group of people come in to
bend my ear , trying to get the Government of Bermuda to either pass a law or to repeal a law or to
change a regulation to protect them against compet ition from abroad. They come into the Ministry of F inance to help them with v ested interests. I have that
weekly —people coming in to see me about doing
that—and to help them compete against competition
from abroad.
And, you know, as I said, we have a kind of
history of this in Bermuda, a long history of this. And
the people who made those laws did put those laws in
there to protect themselves —not to protect the average person, but to protect themselves —business
people, who ran Bermuda in those days. We all know
the story. These laws (and we still have a lot of them
here today) were put in there to protect them, the ol igarchy. They were there to protect them, these things.
All right? And part of that, of course, immigration law
was to protect against, you know, the onslaught of
foreign workers. But, you know, that was part of a total
structure of protectionism.
But, Mr. Speaker, as we have gone through
the 20
th century and into the 21st century a lot of these
protectionist barriers have . . . if they have not been
breached, they have just been circumvented. The example I just gave you about you pick up the phone
and you call a bank in Bermuda and you end up tal king to somebody in the Philippines (all right?), nobody passed a law on that. But technology enabled that
institution to just go around the wall.
So we cannot stand up here and make lofty
statements without taking into account the reality that
we face on the ground here today in terms of how our economy works in the context of the global economy.
The other thing that is important to note here,
Mr. Speaker, is, as the old saying goes, size matters. It really does. You know, Bermuda is the size of a vi llage in any major country —the size of a village. Now
can you imagine, Mr. Speaker (just to be silly for a second), if we were a village stuck somewhere in the
Midwest of the United States and we were passing
minimum wage laws that applied to our village in the States, you know, when nobody else is doing it in the
United States. Right? I mean, we may feel good about
ourselves, but what good is it going to do? All right?
So this is w hat I mean by size matters. So
when you have these references to things that are
being done in the United States, the United Kingdom,
in France and these places, all of them have, you know, populations in excess of 50 million people.
Those parallels do not work for us.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: They do not work for us
because they have very large and powerful internal
economies. Not that they do not trade externally, we
all know they do. But they have very large and powerful inte rnal economies that, if they pass a minimum
wage law, it will not necessarily affect their compet itiveness outside of their country, but in Bermuda—
where every dollar comes from outside —it changes
everything.
So competitiveness is a real important point
here. And, Mr. Speaker, the move to protectionism,
which seems to be always very attractive for Bermudians until, of course, reality imposes its ugly head.
You know, the last time protectionism took hold in the world it changed the 1929 stock market crash i nto a
depression that lasted a decade. Protectionism is definitely bad for the world economy, you know, but is it bad for us? Well, I think that at one time it was really
good for us because there was so little international
competition. But now that there is, we have to be very,
very careful about how we put into place rules, regul ations, and laws that render this country less compet itive. Because if it is less competitive, there will be less economic activity, there will be less jobs.
I heard some quotes made by the other side
about how somebody said, Well, you know, it is not going to change the number of jobs . Well, look . . .
you know, when it comes to Bermuda, you need to
rethink that paradigm, all right? Because of the competitive situation.
There has been reference to the poverty line,
Mr. Speaker. I remember when I was over on that side we had a take note motion or some sort of motion . . .


Bermuda House of Assembly incidentally, any time we had a motion when we were
Opposition, it was always turned into a “take note”
motio n by the then- Government.

Absolutely.
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Every time single time —
every time. So, you know, what is good for the goose
obviously is not good for the gander, Mr. Speaker. It is
not good for the gander, okay?

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: So, anyway, I remember
when I was over there we had a debate on the po verty—

[Gavel]

Okay, come on, come on, come on.
Come on guys.
Okay.

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: We had a debate on the
poverty line and my then -colleague, who now has
gone, should I say, to the dark side—

[Laughter]
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: —used to love . . . one of
his favourite quotes was that 33 per cent of the Bermuda population was poor or near poor. Does that
sound familiar to you, Mr. Speaker?

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Yeah. Right? I mean, she
always said it, all the time; repeated it all the time.
But you know, Mr. Speaker, if you define po verty as most countries do, and the exception is the
United States (I think they are the only major country
that does not define poverty this way), all the rest of
the G7 and G20 countries define poverty on a relative basis. Every one of them. And basically the way this
relative basis works is it says the lowest 25 [per cent]
to 30 per cent are defined as poor. So the statement
that 30 per cent of the population was poor and 33 per
cent was poor or near poor is a self -fulfilling prophecy.
All right? I mean, it is what it i s. It does not say an ything.
And when we have people today talking about
“X” per cent of people are poor or near poor, it just
means that if you have an average, the bottom half of
that average is below average, and the bottom third of
that is poor —period. It is a statistical reality, it does
not mean anything.
What means something is what the level of
income—the average level or the mean level —
actually is. What also means something is what the purchasing power of that dollar is, and in Bermuda
that is particularly important. I mean, I think the Honourable Member, Mr. Burgess, talked about blacks
making a $100,000- something . . . the average. And I
am saying to myself, Geez, most Members of Parli ament are poor.

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Period! You know? And
Ministers are . . . now that we have taken this big cut
in pay, we are not too far from poor either, Mr.
Speaker.

That is right.
[Inaudible interjections and laughter]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: I am telli ng you.
So the point is, what is the purchasing power
of that money? How much does it buy? And that is
really the issue in Bermuda because we have nominal salaries and incomes higher than 99 per cent of countries on planet Earth, but the purchasing power of that
dollar, of those $120,000 a year . . . the purchasing
power of those dollars is low because things are so
expensive in Bermuda. So that is the . . . I mean, that
is sort of a much more precise definition of the pro blem here. It is more precise than what I have heard so
far.
I think the Honourable Member who brought
the motion advocated that hotels will somehow be more profitable if they raised wages and made themselves less dependent on government subsidies. I do
not know if he could make some progr ess with the
investors and the owners of those hotels, I suspect he
would not be able to persuade them to that partic ular—

All right. Thank you.
Minister?

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: In that case, Mr. Speaker,
our hotels, just like our international business people,
you know, compete with other countries. And if their
2164 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly costs of p roduction are too high, they are going to go
places where their costs of production are lower. It is
as simple as that. These are realities that we have to
face.
My next point, Mr. Speaker, is this: One of the
ways to combat this problem that I think ever ybody
universally accepts to one degree or another, one of
the ways to tackle this problem is a way in which this
Government is already trying to tackle this problem.
And instead of talking about minimum/living wages,
what the Government is doing is trying to put in place
a more progressive payroll tax system so that that
take- home pay of people who are in the lower echelons of the income structure is proportionately higher
than the take- home pay of people who make a lot of
money.
I have stood up here and made that promise
to implement that next year. The Government is wor king on it now. We are in consultation doing it. We are
generating economic models to try to see what affect
it is going to have on different sets of people. So that is going to come to pass. That is a much more eff icient way that has less tendency to have negative side effects than a minimum/living wage formula,
much less destructive than that. All right?
And so that is one of the things that we have
recognised. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, we are
the first Government to actually recognise that this is a
problem. The former Government, you know . . . I
mean, there have been Oppositions that have reco gnised this . . .
I am getting dripped on my head, geez. There
have been —

[Inaudible i nterjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: Yep, the air conditioning
is dripping on me, Mr. Speaker, trying to cool me off.

[Inaudible interjections and laughter]

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: This idea of trying to help
lower income people with their take- home pay, or help
them out in some way, has been espoused by Opp ositions. It was espoused by us when we were the O pposition; it was espoused by the PLP when they were
in Opposition. This is t he first Government, somebody
who is in power to do something, to actually do som ething about it. All right? We are actually going to do
something about it. All right?
[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: So that is an interesting
point because when we are talking about these issues
. . . when the PLP were Government we had this debate on the minimum wage and that sort of thing and it was an interesting debate. I remember because I
was the main speaker for it on the other side. But, you
know, nothing happened when the PLP were the
Government. So it is one of those things where it is nice to talk about when you are the Opposition. It is really important and notable here that we have a Go vernment that has recognised that this is a problem
and we are trying to do something about it.
But I want to just stress that there are limits to
what we can do because of the competitive environment. But what else can we do, Mr. Speaker? (I am sure my time must be running out.) What else can I
do? What else can we do? Well, okay, what we can
do is to commit ourselves to competing. Stop looking
to the Government to protect your interests. Get out
there and compete. How do you do that? You know,
you get yourself better educated; you improve your skills. If you want, you become an entrepreneur, get
out there and beat the bushes for business. All right?
That is the way you do it.
If you want to do better in the competitive
world, there is only one thing you are going to do and
that is compete. That is the only th ing you can do because Government’s abilities to protect you are becoming less and less and less.
My last point, Mr. Speaker. I heard something
from the Honourable Member who has left the Chamber, Mr. Burgess. He said . . . I am not sure if he really
wante d to say this, but I assume that he did because I
wrote it down. He said he wants . . . his objective was
economic equality. Well, to me economic equality is socialism. That was an experiment that was tried dur-ing the 20
th century. It failed.

[Inaudible i nterjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: No, he said . . . huh?

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: I think he said economic.
Well, even if he used the word “income equality,” that
also is still socialism. All right?

[Inaudible interjec tions]
Hon. E. T. (Bob) Richards: What we espouse on this
side, Mr. Speaker, is opportunity equality —equal opportunity. So as long as you have an equal opport unity to enrich yourself, to do better, that is all we can
ask for. What you do with that opportunity is up to you.
If you want to avail yourself of that opportunity and
you require some more education, go and get it. If you
need a skill to get that opportunity, go and acquire it.
You know, if you need to convince somebody to avail
yourself of that opportunity, figure out a way to be persuasive. That is what equal opportunity is about.
So that is the kind of philosophy that we have
here. We are committed to providing equal opportunity


Bermuda House of Assembly for people, and we know that we have not gotten there
yet. And ever ybody can say, Well, we don’t have
equal opportunity —we know that. All right? But that is
the ideal that we strive towards. And, as I say, Go vernment has already tried to do something about
lower income . . . the plight of lower income people,
and we are attacking that problem from a fiscal perspective. We are trying to arrange our tax system to
relieve people who are at the lower end of the ec onomic spectrum.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, having just listened to the Honourable Finance Minister make that delivery, you would think that the global march of international capital is so powerful and so pervasive that every country just needs to sit back and be completely dominated by
this march of global capital, that we have no capacity
to resist, no capacity to redirect. What he has just articulated to the people of this country is almost som ewhat of a fantasy, because capital is global. There is
global competition without question. But the march of global capital is not without the ability of a country to
challenge it.
Governments all around the world do things to
enhance their own economic well-being. Take for example, Mr. Speaker, Canada. Canada has a company
called the Canadian Crown Corporation. Their man-date is to get business for Canadian companies all
around the world—the Canadian Commercial Corporation. The United States Government us es its foreign
aid as a way for American companies to get opport unities all around the world.
So we cannot just accept the logic of the
Honourable Minister’s argument —

We cannot just accept the logic
that we need to just lay ourselves down before the
global competitive landscape. Those are just my brief
introductory remarks, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to speak about the challenge of
employment in Bermuda, the competitive nature that exists, as I support the motion by my honourable colleague for a joint select committee precisely to ad-dress these issues. And rather than speak in abstract terms about concepts and about principles, I want, Mr.
Speaker, to speak about a couple of concrete matters
that pertain directly to opportunities and the lack
thereof in Bermuda, which have an impact on wages.
We have talked a lot, Mr. Speaker, about di scrimination against Bermudians. We have talked a lot
about companies engaged in practices that deny Bermudians opportuni ties. And we have done so at an
abstract level.
Mr. Speaker, we now have concrete evidence,
affirmed by the Supreme Court in Bermuda just last month, of a company that systematically discriminated against Bermudians —and black Bermudians in particular. Thi s was a finding of the Supreme Court which
confirmed the finding of a Commission of Inquiry of the Human Rights Commission. If anyone wants to
look up the case, it is
Battiston . I cannot remember
who the other party is, but you can look up the rulings
of the Supreme Court for May, the Battiston case.
Here is a company, Mr. Speaker, that had a
policy which said, We will hire only enough Bermudians to allow us to get work permits. The finding of
fact, Mr. Speaker, is that the company hired Bermudians, made an absolute commitment that no Ber-mudian would be given work that would demonstrate
their skill set, that no Bermudian would have a chance
to move up the ranks, and that instead they would
have foreign workers come in, give them the plum
positions, allow them to work overtime and get prom otions. This is not my opinion, Mr. Speaker, this is a
finding of fact by the Supreme Court in Bermuda.
It is disconcerting that on such a fundamental
issue there was no coverage of this by our local m edia.

Systemic, systematic, structural
discrimination rooted in race, rooted in country of or igin, denying Bermudians opportunities. Wher e is our
daily newspaper on this? Where were our radio and
television broadcasts? Nothing was covered.
This is the example that we hear about. This
is the example which has facts that have been proven
in the court. But how widespread is that practice? Mr.
Speaker, how widespread is the practice where com-panies systematically discriminate against Bermudians because it is cheaper for them to bring in exploi table foreign labour, because their wage bill is lower?
If we are serious about addressing the issue
of minimum wage and proper pay for Bermudians, we
need to deal with the structural discrimination first of
all because everything else will mean nothing. So I am
going to pass this file on to the Honourable Minister of
Home Affairs so she can have a careful r ead of it. It is
very disconcerting. It has not been widely known and
the media have a responsibility to let the public know
about this.
Mr. Speaker, I talk to a lot of people from
many different quarters of the Island and the world. I
am going to relate t wo stories that I uncovered this
week. One was by a gentleman whose daughter got a
degree overseas. She came back to Bermuda, she
went for a series of interviews. On not less than four
interviews she was told explicitly by the prospective
employer, Well, listen, this is just a work permit r e2166 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly newal . This is just a work permit renewal because she
is this young 20- something recent grad who the employer probably feels has no power, no capacity to do
anything, so like, Why are you bothering to apply for
this job?
That employer or those employers went on to
get work permits, a systematic discrimination against
Bermudians —a violation of the law, a violation of i mmigration policy, and this needs to be assessed. So I
am going to call once again . . . once again for the
Ministry of Home Affairs and for the Minister in partic ular to take leadership to begin an assessment and an investigation. It is going on and it is excessive.
My honourable colleague spoke about people
leaving the Island because they cannot find work. You
should never have to feel compelled to leave your
country because you cannot find work. I have three
sons, Mr. Speaker, two are overseas. They say they
are not coming back. But they did not leave because
they cannot find work; they left because they really
want to pursue opportunities in the international arena and that is their choice. They did it because they want
to do things overseas. But when you feel compelled
out of economic necessity to leave your own country,
that is a problem and that is unacc eptable and Go vernment needs to address that.
This has nothing to do with globalisation and
competitors. That is nonsense. Every country has
measures in place to ensure that its citizens are properly protected and their rights preserved. What is the
role of Government? Why do you govern? To enhance the life of your people. You cannot enhance the
life of your people just by embracing globalisation and allow every company to come here, lower wages, and
do exactly as they please. That is not what societies
are meant to be governed for.
You do not govern a society so that global
capital can make more money. A company has no loyalty to any country. A company has loyalty to its
shareholders, to enhance shareholder value, not to
uplift its people in the country —not at all. There may
be some greater social consciousness emerging
among some new companies, but the old compa-nies—no, not at all. So we need to address that and I
would implore the Government to look at that aspect of the divide between Bermudians and foreigners and the ability to get proper salaries.
This week, Mr. Speaker, I also spoke with a
gentleman who is on a work permit. He makes $5.25 an hour. He pays $750 . . . what was it? A week? No.
He pays $750 a month for a bed in a room with two other men. Okay? He pays $750 a month to sleep in a bed in a room with two other men in a three- bedroom
house. The house is owned by the employer. The
employer owns a number of houses. So he is getting
paid $5.25 an hour, he is required to live in this place, so he g ets $5.25 an hour. He gives back $750 a
month of his pay for a room . . . I mean, for a bed in
one room with two other men. There are three be d-rooms in the house, so you do the math. It is about
$9,000 . . . the employer gets $9,000 a month in rent
from hi s employees. Why would that employer want to
bring in and hire more Bermudians?
[Inaudible interjection]

It is endured servitude. It is offensive. I do not know if it is illegal, it is certainly immoral.
So we need to address that.
There is a structured asymmetry in the wages
that are paid to the foreign worker versus the Bermuda worker. When we allow companies to exploit
foreign workers, it lowers the wages for Bermudians.
So we have to address it. If we do not address
it, we cannot even talk about a living wage. We cannot have a sensible conversation about that.
There are some other impediments to having
a proper wage for Bermudians. And here are some things that Government can actually do, so despite
this global reach of competitiveness and so forth, there are some things the Government can do. I heard
the Honourable Finance Minister just speak about
payroll tax and how the Government intends to make
it more progressive. How is that going to help increase wages? It is not going to increase wages.
I am listening to the Honourable Minister —

[Inaudible interjection]

Get rid of pa yroll tax altogether.
The system we have now is regressive so that the rich
actually get a tax break, so the wealthy pay lower pa yroll tax rates than lower income people and so the Government has to make it progressive. Maybe the wealthy will finally pay a proper tax. But let us get rid
of it altogether, then you have less money taken out of


Bermuda House of Assembly the salary or wages of people. And I have a solution
for its replacement as well. It is not a policy of my
party, so I am just speculating what I think could be
done. I do not want to face the wrath of anyone later
on.

[Inaudible interjections]

We could conceivably get rid of
payroll tax and customs duties. I have had this . . . I
did one of these experiments. I talked to my friends who own businesses , and I said, What if I told you we
could get rid of payroll tax and customs duties, would you like that? Everyone likes that, so I say, Would you
be prepared to pay 5 per cent corporate profits? Everyone said yes, except for the big companies. We will
work on that part later. And that everyone pay 5 per
cent of their income to Government —of their income,
because right now the system is so biased it is 5 per
cent of wages and salaries.
Oh, I am sorry. The payroll tax is based on
wages and salaries. It does not include rental income.
It does not include investment income. Imagine a sy stem where you simplify things so the workers, ever yone is paying 5 percent of their income to gover nment. You get more money for government, first of all.
You have a reduced burden on the lower income
group. You also have more take- home pay.
Why do we not consider that? Let us have a
conversation about it. I know the whole topic , that “I”
word. But there are two “ I” words that are apparently
prohibiti ve topics in this country, Mr. Speaker.

[Inaudible interjection]

Yes. Independence and income
tax. Independence I will save for another date. We will
talk about that another time.
But just consider, Mr. Speaker, if we had a
proper taxation system workers would have more
money to take home. There would be a lower burden
on companies, because they are only paying go vernment taxes if they are making a profit. Who could
object to that? I know some companies that have actually said to me, big companies, We actually believe
that Bermuda now needs to consider introducing corporate tax, because it will take away some of the heat
that we face internationally. So that conversation has
started, at least around some companies.
Like I said, one company, , for their line of
business, would increase their business in Bermuda if
the corporate tax rate was between 10 per cent and
15 per cent, because it will be lower than many competitor jurisdictions, and it would allow for their clients
to be able to say, We are paying proper taxes. We are
paying legitimate taxes. And so we need to be taken off this list of hostile or tax -evading entities.
But again, Mr. Speaker, that is not policy coming from this party. That is just me speculating about what we might want to consider if you wanted to look
at ways to make the economy stronger and provide increase in the salaries and wages of the people.
I heard the Honourable Minister say that we
do not have a minimum wage and we should never contemplate it. Well, the Minister should know his own
Government policy better, Mr. Speaker, because we
do have a minimum wage in place. And that exists
with regard to nannies. Read the immigration work
permit policy for 2015. The minimum wage is $10 an
hour, still not enough. But at least we have set a precedent for identifying what would be the minimum
that someone could get paid in a particular sector.
We need to consider that for other sectors —
hospitality. Why would we not? There are some sec-tors in hospitality that have almost a 100 per cent
Bermuda workforce. There are some other companies
in the same sector that have almost a 100 per cent
foreign workforce. Try to figure out why. It is all about
working conditions and pay. If you are making $500 a
week or $600 a week in one company and you are
maki ng $1,200 a week in another, which one do you
think is going to be more attractive? So companies
need to get into a position where they recognise that
people should be paid properly. You cannot have
someone working 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week
and not have enough to live off. I am not interested in
arguments about globalisation and how it reduces wages, because if people cannot work and live off
their income, what kind of a society are we creating?
What kind of a Bermuda do we want to see? Will we
just accept that people should get a salary or wage
below subsistence level?
We used to pride ourselves for being a well -
developed, rich country. Now we seem to be a rich
country just for rich people. So we need to think long
and hard about some things that we can do in a co ncrete way to reduce the cost of living and increase the
take- home pay for people.
Mr. Speaker, one of the other impediments to
companies hiring Bermudians ––having a desire to
hire more foreign workers and therefore indirectly r educing loca l wages ––has to do with the pension sy stem. I have said this on more than one occasion. Our pension system has created a structure of inequality, because when you hire a Bermudian, you are required
to contribute toward the pension. When you hire a
foreign worker, you are not required to contribute to
the pension. So any employer is going to look at that
and do the math. If you have got 50, 60 or 100 employees, you know what the math is. You know that it is cheaper for you to hire a foreign worker.
There ma y be some variation. But in general,
if you do not have to pay into the pension system, it is a cheaper operating cost for you. So we have to find a
way to fix it. I do not have an answer for that. But we
need to find a way to fix it, because you have created a structure of inequality that gives the incentive to the
employer to want to hire foreign workers.
2168 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly The final point I will make on the sort of structures that create high costs and reduce pay for wor kers is the always controversial issue of health car e. It
seems to be unrelated. But what is the current pr emium people pay, the average premium for health
care? Is it $1,000 a month or more?

[Inaudible interjections ]

[It’s] $650, $750, right. That is
what it is. And then the employer pa ys a part too,
right. So you are talking about a lot of money. It is a
lot of money.
Imagine a society in which you did not have
that significant amount of money coming out every
month or every week. You would have more takehome pay. But we have not gott en our health care
system fixed yet. You cannot properly consider cost of living and wages or salaries without considering
health care. Our system that we have here is failing
us. We have over -prescribing, we have too many
people going overseas, and we hav e over -testing.
There are inherent conflicts that people have in the medical profession that lead to our costs going up.
And the reality is that the way the system works now,
the pharmacists charge what they charge, the doctors
charge what they charge, and the dentists charge
what they charge. And all the insurance companies
say is, Well, that is what it is. Now we are going to
increase the rates.
Because the law says everybody has to be
covered. It is a sure profit structure for the insurance
companies because everybody has to be covered in Bermuda if they are working. So the cost just keeps
going up. And the insurance companies have raised
the rates. We need to change that system. I would like
to see . . . and again, I am just thinking out loud and
specul ating about what could be done. If we move
toward a much more socialised health care system,
where your taxes in part underwrite a large part of it,
then there would not be such a big burden on people.
But we need to have that conversation.
Our costs are out of control. Every time you
see an increase in profits by the insurance companies, you know that it is because of the great increase
in premiums that we are paying. We need to fix it. If we are not serious about fixing the health care system
and health care costs, then we are not going to a ddress this issue about proper salaries, take- home pay
for people. They are all intimately intertwined.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am just going to make one
final point about technology. This is my final point.

[Laughter]

Once you get over 50, your mind
does not always remember what was said five mi nutes before. This is my final, final point. The issue of tec hnology is going to fundamentally transform nations. It
is transforming nations as we speak, and i t will co ntinue to do so at an even more rapid rate. Who was it who spoke of the law that talks about the increase in the capacity of the computer chip, that every —

[Inaudible interjection]

Right. So they got more power for
the very short period of time. But now it appears that the limit has been reached. Now there is much more
innovation. The consequence from the workforce
standpoint is that technology is doing more, and you require less labour. So the mindset of the capitalist is,
Well, I don’t need as many people. So there is go ing
to be a lesser need to hire people in the community.
We see that in part with the insurance- linked secur ities business, which is growing in Bermuda. I am not sure what the volume of business is now, but it is growing. And the people who are in the insurancelinked securities business tell you they do not need
[more people] because [the increased business] just
shores up the existing jobs. There are no new jobs created.
And so we have to deal with the fundamental
question. If technology is enhancing th e ability of people to be productive, you require fewer people to do
the same work and it means the productivity has i ncreased, what then should be the outcome? For the last 100 years, Mr. Speaker, as we saw an increase in the use of technology along with a rise in wages and
salaries, we saw that happening from the late nineteenth century right up until the earlier part of this century. But now we are seeing a change.
So how do we respond to that? Do we countenance a society with 50 per cent unemployed b ecause technology has made a lot of positions irrel evant? Look at the banks and how they have changed.
So we need to figure out how best to respond to that.
And I do not have an answer for that, but we need to
explore it, because technology, even more than any
immigration policy, is going to render many jobs i rrelevant; they will just disappear.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I conclude, I would like to
thank my honourable colleague for bringing this m otion to our Honourable Chambers to discuss. A joint
select committee is a powerful committee that has the
capacity to look at a multitude of issues. I believe we can do so. We can do so with a view to identifying
concrete steps forward. And there is no reason why it


Bermuda House of Assembly cannot be done in tandem with the work of the Labour
Advisory Council. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All right. Thank you, Honourable Member.
The Chair will recognise the Minister of Ec onomic Development. Dr. Grant Gibbons, you have the floor.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I will try and be brief, because I
know people have parties and other things they want to go to on this weekend.
[Inaudible interjections]
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Soca? Why not?
People’s business to do.
Mr. Speaker, I have to say I glory in the spirit
of the Honourable Member who just took his seat. It is
very—

[Inaudible interjection]

[Mr. Walton Brown, Acting Speaker, in the Chair]

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Well, the Chair for
now, yes. But I will have your full attention in that
case.
It is very easy, Mr. Acting Speaker, to throw
out concepts. I think it is very easy to talk about
changing tax systems. I know you were not necessar-ily espousing income tax on behalf of your party over
there, but I think sometimes it is very easy to come up
with these ideas. But the numbers do not always add
up. And simply shifting from one to the other reminds
me of . . . I think it was Huey Long, the Louisiana pol itician, who once said, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind t he tree!” Yes. So I think someone
has to pay at the end of the day. And I think that is the
issue one way or another.
It is a fairly efficient world, as my honourable
colleague, the Minister of Finance, was trying to say.
And I think, while these concepts are things that
probably should be discussed—and I know the Mini stry of Finance is looking at them —it is not often quite
as simple as simply talking about them. So I will make that comment there.
I would also like to say that there is a certain
myth out there that some sectors are not creating
jobs. And I think you articulated one of them, which is the insurance- linked securities space. I think when
you actually look at it, it may not be, as a number of
speakers have said today, the same job- creating e ngine as we had with some of the property catastrophe
companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But when you look at Horseshoe and you look at Nephila,
and some of these other [companies], they are creat-ing jobs and there are departments in a number of the
larger household- name companies that have been set
up to do insurance- linked securities, and those are
creating jobs as well.
So in some respects, there are economies of
scale in these businesses. There are economies of
scale, but the truth be told, I would much rather have
those companies and those jobs in Bermuda than
somewhere else. And I think that has been part of the
effort here, to try and make sure we are as compet itive as possible and our environment is as conducive
as possible to job creation.
I would also like to say that, in the broader
sense of that it is very easy to talk about this, and I think we will have a committee that will look at it. It is
not an easy issue either, this issue of a minimum or a
living wage. You may remember (you may not, Mr. Acting Speaker), the Minister of Finance mentioned it,
there was an initiative under the former Government,
and it was set up, I think, by Premier Brown. There
was a Council of Economic Advisors. And it was wise
heads in Bermuda. And it included some wise heads from overseas. And they did look at this issue of poverty. And they looked at the issue of how you try and
create, I would say, a minimum wage. And they had a
number of meetings on it, and it came to naught.
There was a lot of discussion; I t hink a lot of good i ntentions. But it simply went nowhere.
I think one of the challenges that we have
here is . . . and I will come at it in a slightly different
way than my honourable colleague.

Just one minute, Minister.
Colleagues . . . thank you.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Thank you, Mr. Ac ting Speaker. I guess I will just have to talk a little bit
louder (or faster; I can do that as well).
One of the issues my colleague raised was, it
is sometimes very difficult to compare Bermuda with larger places. And what do I mean by that? The si mple fact of the matter is that quite a bit of our economy
simply does not have to be here. But if you are in the
retail business or you are in the service business, you
have to be in the United States. You have to be in
countries in Europe if you are going to be a thriving
company, if you are going to grow and that sort of
thing. But you do not have to be in Bermuda. And I
think if there was one lesson the former Government
learned about the hot el space, it was you do not have
to be in Bermuda. These hotel companies, unless you
are talking about ones that are predominantly owned
and run by Bermudians, they simply do not have to be
here.
So when you look at this issue of instituting
. . . and we are really talking about sectors like the
hotel sector or the hospitality sector. I am not talking
about those restaurants and others that are here, because many of those are Bermudian run. They have
2170 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly to be here. But when you are talking about larger
groups like the launch today of the Ritz -Carlton R eserve property, which is up at Morgan’s Point, the
Caroline Bay, that company does not have to be here.
And I think the challenge we have had, and the former Government certainly saw it because they were
largely unsuccessful in getting any new hotels set up,
is they look at the competitive environment here. And
we all in this House recognise that our year -round occupancy for hotels has been very low.
They also recognise very clearly that one of
the largest pieces of their overhead, or expense area,
is labour. And what that means, Mr. Acting Speaker, is
that they are going to be looking for ways to minimise
that. So when you start to look at this issue of putting in a minimum wage, you have to think about whether
that general administrative expense category, the expense of these hotels, which is already a higher pr oportion than hotels have in other places, is going to
grow any farther, and is it going to make us even less
attractive and even less (I guess the word would be)
competitive as a jurisdiction in the hospitality area.
Now, some would say, Who cares whether
they are here or not? I think we all recognise to some
degree that you need the hospitality business here in
order to have other sectors of the economy working.
Certainly, international business needs the hospitality
industry here. We need visitors. We need the airlift. It
is not just Bermudians who are working in hotels or
non-Bermudians. They are working across a variety of
service sectors that essenti ally cater to visitors and
Bermudians as well.
So I think the issue of, can you do Holiday
Inns or Hilton or whatever . . . they are quite prepared
to pay in the United States a minimum wage for the
simple reason that they need to be in the United
States. They need to be in Europe. They need to be in
larger countries. But they do not have to be in Bermuda. So that has to be factored into this issue of how
we look at the overall costs of doing business here.
The interesting thing is that those companies
in the international business space are in many cases
quite capable of paying a minimum wage because they are probably, in most cases, paying a lot more
than a minimum wage. In fact, they have probably
resulted much more than unions —and I know some
people wi ll resent me saying this —much more than
unions in raising the average salaries in Bermuda.
Because a lot of companies, a lot of local companies
have to compete with that to attract good- quality ta lent, good- quality employees, which I think was the
point th at you were making.
And a good example of that is, I think, Mr.
Acting Speaker, you have been down at the Hamilton
Princess. You have been in Marcus’. I was impressed.
I was really impressed by the number of younger Bermudians working in there, the enthus iasm. I do not
know what they are being paid. But clearly, the Pri ncess has figured out a way to do this. And I think that is the other point that we need to make here. Not all
hotels, not all hospitality sector companies are dealing
on the same level. Som e of them have figured out, as
the Princess obviously has, that if you make working conditions better —and that may mean benefits; it may
mean salaries; I am not sure quite what it means in
this context —you are going to get Bermudians wor king there as well.
So I think it is very difficult to throw everybody
into the same bucket and suggest that everybody is
being exploited in that hospitality sector, because they clearly are not. But this is one of those issues where it
is sometimes very simple to make the suggestion; it is
another thing entirely . . . and I think a lot of times it
comes down to encouraging the employer here, because many of us who are employers recognise that if
you are going to get a better quality worker, and as a company you are going to be more competitive, then
you simply have to do a better job in making those
conditions right.
Now, there is another issue, too, which I am of
two minds about. In the [statement by the] mover of
the motion before us today, there was this concept of
brain drain, which the Honourable Member, Mr.
Commissiong, was talking about. And I think he, to
some degree, was concerned about (and I would say)
younger Bermudians. But it is not just the younger
Bermudians working overseas.
I would say . . . and you said i t yourself, Mr.
Acting Speaker, in terms of your two sons. I would say
if a young Bermudian wants to work overseas, all the
better. I would encourage younger Bermudians, as I have encouraged my own children, to go overseas
and work for a while. Please come back at some
point. But if you go overseas, (a) you will see how the
other half lives; (b) you will understand culturally how
business operates in a different place; and (c) from
the perspective of making yourself more competitive
and giving yourself more experience, you will be in a
much better position, I would say, by and large, than
somebody who has simply worked in Bermuda during
their career. And a lot of particularly international
companies are trying to do exactly that.
This is because, to use the cliché, it is a
global world. And you need to be able to get that kind of experience overseas. And I see nothing wrong
whatsoever with having young Bermudians, partic ularly those with a university degree and even those
who have not, going overseas because they have that
opportunity in the UK and Europe these days to work and see how it works.
I will say from the perspective of my own chi ldren, it is not easy getting a job overseas either. And
for those Bermudians who complain that they do not
get too many comments back from an employer, they
do not get the responses, I would say it is even worse in the United States. You can send out numerous résumés. You can send out numerous letters. You will


Bermuda House of Assembly be lucky, in many cases, if you get any kind of r esponse whats oever.
Now, I think people are a little more courteous
here. I am not saying that every employer will respond
to a job applicant. But I think it is certainly a lot better here than in other locations.

I think the Honourable Member
is, not intentionally, but he is misleading by virtue of
making the statement that the brain drain issue was
about us being against people going away and getting
careers overseas.
The brain drain concern is about those who a
previous speaker and the originator of the motion said
are forced to go and are compelled to leave the cou ntry because they cannot find opportunity here, not
those who have the choice. I think that is what the
brain drain point is about exclusively.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Minister.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Acting Speaker. And I do not think we are really at
odds here. I am saying that just about any young
Bermudian, if they wish to, and irrespective of ec onomic level, they can go and work in the UK or can go
and work in Europe. It sounds good. It is not always
that easy.
And the point I was making is that sometimes,
far fields look greener as well, and they are not always
that way. But to the degree that a young Bermudian,
particularly if they are trying to advance a career, has
that opportunity, I would say more power to them as well. And I think a lot of Bermudians will have some of
that experience in terms of being able to go away to
school in some fashion.
Now, the other thing I was going to say was
earlier on there was a lot of discussion about income
inequality and the res t of it. And I think it is very interesting. This is also not a simple area, either. And one of the things I just wanted to touch on ever so briefly,
looking at one of the statistics reports recently, this is the one for 2015, from the Department of Statis tics,
looking at median wages. And I am just going to make
this point briefly. And I think the Joint Select Commi ttee on Women’s Issues that was set up in terms of
jobs will find this interesting as well.
You will note if you look at it that the median
gross annual income in 2014 for women, females, in Bermuda is at $65,000, versus men, it is only
$62,500. And it has been consistently that way for a
number of years. Women, on average, are getting
paid better than men. Now, my simple conclusion for
that is because women are better educated than men
in Bermuda, on average. There are more women, if
you look at it, who have gone to pursue higher degrees of education, whether it be essentially graduating from high school, going to college, getting advanced degrees, than men. And there is a very clear
correlation between income level and education.
This came out very clearly, as the Honourable
Member, Mr. Commissiong, will know in the Mincy
Report. And the point there was education, education,
education. So I wil l put in a plug here for that thing as
well. It is very easy to essentially complain about i ncome inequality. But you have to drill down a lot far-ther than that. You have to look at education level,
because it is very clear in this country, if you look at
the census statistics, and very clear in the United
States. And I would say most First World countries
have a very clear correlation between education level and income. It correlates almost exactly. And I am not
saying that that means that everyone who has more
education has a job or a good job. But, on average,
and by and large, if you have a higher level of educ ation, you will get a better paying job. And I think that does come through in every sector.
I also think the other thing that is interesting,
coming out from that Mincy Report as well, is it depends on the sector you are working in as well. And I think it is very clear that salaries, on average, in the international business sector, which benefits both
Bermudians and non- Bermudians, are generally
higher as well, as compared to working, let us say, in the retail sector or working in the hospitality sector. So
I think all those things very much factor into this.
I think those are the major points I wanted to
make with respect to this particular debate. There was
one other point I wanted to make. And that was with
respect to what I think is probably misinformation in
regard to —and the Honourable Member Commissiong
was good enough to hand out a copy of his brief —the
issue between 2000 and 2008 with the onset of the
Great Recession, he said over 3,000 jobs in our
economy disappeared, largely to technological disruption and by way of outsourcing.
In fact, between 2000 and 2008, there was
actually a growth in the number of jobs overall in Ber-muda. It is t rue to say on the Bermudian side, from
2000, the number of filled jobs held by Bermudians
declined almost every year throughout that period. But
that over 3,000 jobs did not start to happen until
probably about 2000, 2008. So that is when the real
decline started to come.

Minister.
Dr. th e Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Yes, thank you, Mr.
Acting Speaker.
I am just clarifying the record here. I think the
numbers are very clear in terms of the jobs for both
Bermudians and non- Bermudians in terms of the
number of filled jobs. Every year there is a jobs survey, and that is where I am taking the data from, the
Department of Statistics in that job survey. So I think
that has been clear.
It was really around 2008/09 when there was
a real decline, both in the total number of jobs and the
number of jobs filled by Bermudians. In fact, from
2008 to 2012, there were some 4,700 jobs that were
actually lost overall. And it was obviously less than
that for Bermudians. But there clearly was some real, real change there.
So I guess, Mr. Acting Speaker, those are the
main points that I wanted to make. Obviously, we will have a committee. I think they will probably find there
are a multitude of opinions on it. But I think, at the end
of the day, while it is very easy to talk about what is
being done in other places , I think it is going to be
critical that the committee look at it in the Bermudian context and fully understand both the ramification and the pluses and minuses of some of the things that are
being looked at. Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.

Oh, do not worry. I will be extraordinarily brief.
But I did not want this debate to pass without
my giving thanks to the Member who brought it. We
understand the Member who brought it has passion
for certain things and his passion for delivering
speeches [makes it] seem as if he should be in a con-vention hall as opposed to the House of Parliament.
But he goes ahead, and he delivers his speech with
his trademark level of volume.
What I would say is that, nonetheless, it is an
important topic. It is something that we have spoken
about before. It is something that is certainly very appropriate, and it is something that is being questioned
around the wor ld insofar as what is appropriate, esp ecially with the challenging economic conditions that
exist.
So, I thank him for bringing this, because I will
then give support or a thank -you to the Government
for belatedly coming around to support the position of
this [motion]. As we heard earlier, there was a debate
insofar as they were looking to change it to a take note motion. And as you would know, Acting Speaker,
I was supposed to be going to an event, where I saw
the Minister for Community Affairs and Sports , or S ocial Development and Sports. And I was informed that
the Premier was going to be there, so I did not want to
leave us one vote short, did we need to vote. Nonetheless, I was informed in the back that the Gover nment is going to support this motion. S o I would like to
say, Thank you.
Now, the reasoning given was that there were
Members who wanted to serve on the committee. And
I think that that is very noble, but I would say that
there have been many other times when joint select committees have been put forward where Members
have wanted to serve, wanted to delve into very tricky
issues, complex issues that may not be reserved just
to Cabinet, where we could do a good job, and they
have been turned back.
So I would hope that, with speeches from the
backbench of the One Bermuda Alliance, reminding them about their platform, which they have been r eminded about many times from this side, I would hope
that in the future we would allow democracy to work.
Because, Mr. Acting Speaker, democracy
works best when it is given the chance to work, when those people who are elected to represent the people
can get inside of a room and can talk for a long time.


Bermuda House of Assembly We are not going to get things solved when all of us
can only talk for 30 minutes. We should allow the
commi ttee process to work, and that is why it is important.
And I would also say that Parliament works
best when we allow Parliament to function as it
should, and when the Members of the Parliament,
whether they be the backbench or the Opposition,
continue to hold the Executive to account and continue to make recommendations. We have to reme mber that joint select committees can only make rec-ommendations to the House. They cannot set policy.
And the policy will always be the purview of the
elected Government.
So with that, Mr. Acting Speaker, I thank the
Member again for his support. I thank the Government
for its belated support. I look forward to the work of
this committee, because the work of this committee is
certainly something that we definitely, definite ly, def initely need inside this country, and I welcome it.
Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Acting
Opposition Leader.
The Chair will now recognise the Honourable
Minister Jeanne Atherden.

Hon. Jeanne J. Atherden: Mr. Acting Speaker, I just
wanted to take one moment, and that is all I am going
to take. I just want to make sure that we are clear with
respect to . . . the reasons why I personally felt that
when the Honourable Minister was making the
change, bearing in mind that I knew that there was an
agreement for a Labour Advisory Council to look at a
living wage, and bearing in mind that the committee
would have been tasked to report by November —to
me, that felt as if it was the logical way to make sure
that we did not duplicate, to make sure, especially
when the committee was going to have individuals who would have brought some expertise.
So, I wanted to be clear that it was not that I
did not believe looking at a liveable wage was not something that should be done. But I looked at it from
the point of view of saying, There is a train which is
going down a path, individuals who would be on who
would have the expertise. And therefore, I just do not
want the general public out there to believe that we
did not believ e looking at a liveable wage was som ething that we did not support.
So with that, I am not going to say anything
further. And I am just hoping that the joint select
committee that will be chosen will get its job done by November, the same way as that task force is being
asked to do it, because it is important that they commit themselves and get on with it. Thank you, Mr. Ac ting Speaker.

Thank you.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I only rise because the
Acting Leader has given some license for a few of us
who wanted to speak to say a few words. Certainly, as
the Shadow Minister of Labour, I tho ught a few words
would be appropriate from myself, firstly, to congrat ulate the Honourable Member who brought this motion. We thank, as others have, the Government for finding
in its wisdom to accept the motion in its entirety, in its
original form, instead of going forth with the amendment.
I think we all have become brutally aware, Mr.
Acting Speaker, that the questions of income inequal-ity, liveable wage and quality of life, certainly in the
last nearly 10 years, certainly since the Great Recession, hav e been some of the most emotional and
strongest issues of debate of this period. We have
seen, globally, reactions to what has been, i.e., the
recession, the impact the recession has had, and also
to the recovery, which I believe globally has been di stingu ished as being somewhat of a jobless recovery,
but also a recovery where income has lagged behind
the growth itself.
And incomes have not recovered from what
they were in most sectors prior to the recession. That
has created, even more acutely, this situation, which
is that, perhaps arguably, if you want to be theoretical, income inequality is a creature of capitalism. It is a
creature of the capitalist system. And the only time
that has been mitigated, where perhaps Government
and other factors have brought about mechanisms or
activity which has brought the divide between rich and
poor closer together, or smaller. But it is a creature of
the system of economy which we have.
But I do not accept some of the postulations
given by the Honourable Minister for Finance, in that
the globalisation, despite its being a reality of this era, is something that we have to just accept and surrender to, that it is the reality that we have to live with.
Well, yes. We also have to live with cancer and di sease and other thi ngs, and viruses that plague the
global environment. But we mitigate them by finding
cures, finding treatments, finding ways to ensure and
devising ways for people to deal with them and manage them so that they do not have the overwhelming
factor of fatali ty that they [otherwise might] have on
the human experience. So just as with those circumstances, with the global economy and the changes
that it has brought to Bermuda, we can mitigate those
as well by bringing about real attention to this question
of inc ome inequality.
And as I believe the Honourable Member for
constituency 17, when he spoke, tried to communicate, there are other components of this which also
2174 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly have to be addressed. We have got to address our
overall employment environment. We have got to address the issue of abuse. We have got to address
some of the circumstances which create, not through
globalisation, but through actual policy or the lack thereof or the lack of enforcement, or even just ou tright dishonesty and deceit of the employment community, the abuse of workers and creating situations
where, essentially, it is cheaper to pursue a business
model of low wages, which also drag down the wages
that are the necessity for the local community to sur-vive.
And some of these business models require
the importation of foreign labour. I do not believe that any business model in Bermuda should be exclusively reliant on such labour unless you can prove . . . particularly semi -skilled or semi- technical labour. There
are some areas of specialty in Bermuda, because of
the type of economy we have, we have a local economy, [we also have] an international economy where
specialty international talent and expertise are essen-tial. And there is nobody in this country who does not
accept that.
Just as I am often puzzled by the lecturing we
get from the other side on this necessity of bringing in labour. Well, guess what? I do not think there is any
Bermudian of any era who does not understand that. This is an island. Bermuda has had to import its i ncome from the time it was created, whether it be priv ateering, whether it be from the other aspects of the
merchant industry that we had, whether it be from agriculture and anything that has followed since. This
Island has always had to earn its income from outside. That has been a reality of the Bermuda existence for
its whole history. So everybody understands that.
But we must do our best to ensure that this
economy works for Bermudians. That is an essential.
And pursuing a real examination of a liveable wage
and what that means for this era and for the people of
this country is crucial. And, Mr. Acting Speaker, I was even slightly puzzled because—
[Inaudible interjections ]
[Gavel]

But I was concerned, partic ularly by some of the comments made by the Finance
Minister, because he seemed to be getting rather par-tisan, when most of his colleagues were not, about
what the Government is doing or not doing. What is
accepted is that this issue is something that even their
Government has grappled with, as past Governments
have grappled with, right? And this motion is being
supported because it is going to allow a bipartisan approach to deal with a question that none of us has
been able to quite solve. Despite the great proclam ations of the Finance Minister, they have not been able
to address these through any policy changes.
So, it will be of benefit to all of us to hear what
a bipartisan committee, which is going to deal with this issue as the motion outlines, is going to do, because it
is going to benefit us all. It will at least, potentially,
come up with findings and solutions, or possible sol utions, which the current Government and future Go vernments can actually pursue, genuinely knowing that
they were found in a nonpartisan circumstance. And
again, I think we have to walk away, try in this situation, and as we go forth, let us walk away from trying
to just tell our people, Well, you just have to live with
the global economy. You have just got to live with
some of the problems it has brought to our country.
Because that is just the way it is.
And I was hearing comments that were similar
to what I used to hear from some conservative MPs in
the UK, you know, Just get out there and be compet itive! Get on your bike and find a job! You know, that is
not the attitude. That is not the approach that is going
to help some of our people see that there is some light
at the end of the economic tunnel. We all know that
Bermuda has had a difficult economic period since the late 2000s. And everybody is in support of finding
ways to get out of it, or emerge out of it in a way that
not only do we have not the lag of economic growth or
economic diversification and low wages, but that we
will pursue some sort of economic future that includes
everyone so that opportunity and actual success can
be seen by those, not only people here now, but in the
future.
So, hopefully, the work of this future commi ttee, this bipartisan committee, will provide a doorway
for all of us to see what steps we can take to deal with
issues like abuse in the workplace; better incomes for
familie s; opportunities for young people who wish to
enter the job market, because they also need to be
attended to, knowing that there is a potential for good
salaries and a good job with a living wage; and even,
perhaps even looking at the idea of, How do we ke ep
our most productive people in the workplace so they
can survive?, rather than having a situation like we
have seen now with octogenarians actually having to
work just to survive.


Bermuda House of Assembly Maybe these are some of the breadths of i ssues that this committee can pursue, to show, how
can a liveable wage, a quality of life, for the lifetime of
those living in this country be the reality, and not seem
as only a fantasy to pursue and to try and struggle to hold on to? Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.

Thank you, Honourable Member.
Is there anyone else who wishes to really
speak on this issue?
The Chair recognises the Honourable Member from constituency 29. Honourable Zane De Silva,
you have the floor.

[Hon. K. H. Randolph Horton, Speaker, in the Chair]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank
MP Rolfe Commissiong for bringing this motion today.
I think it is not only appropriate, but it is long overdue. And I guess I would like to start, Mr. Speaker, by sa ying that maybe, maybe if some of the OBA policies, promises with regard to 2,000 jobs that they promised
back in 2012 had come to fruition, we would not be
having this motion today. But of course, a lot of their
policies have failed and continue to fail the people of our country. And therefore, we continue to have tho usands of people who are out of work.
So, Mr. Speaker, I thought I would lay that
down as a little —

[Inaudible interjections ]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes, I am sure they do appreciate it because it is true, Mr. Speaker. It is true. And I think if they sit back and reflect and be honest
with themselves, they will agree that, had they i ncreased the working population by 2,000 jobs, as they promised, we would not be here hav ing this discussion on this motion today, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Member, Dr.
Grant Gibbons, I am not sure whom he was quoting,
but he said, you know, If you have a better education,
you will get a better job.

Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbo ns: Point of order, Mr.
Speaker.

All right. Thank you.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: You know, I knew I would
get him up to clarify, Mr. Speaker, and I wanted him to
say it yet again. Because, you see, Mr. Speaker, he is right. But this is half the problem, in that every time
you turn around, whether it is Dr. Grant Gibbons’ Mi nistry or another Ministry, all you see is cut, cut, cut,
cut, cut. Whether it is a grant, whether it is charities,
whether it is education. So I am glad that the Honourable Member stood up yet again and made that statement and made the correlation between —

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Point of clarification, Mr.
Speaker.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Ah, no.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
But, Mr. Speaker, I will say yet again. I will
emphasise what Dr. Gibbons, the Honourable Member, said. And he said that, you know, with a good education, one can get a good job. And this is so true.
2176 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly And this is what we must remember, OBA Gover nment, not to keep cutting gr ants—

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Yes.

POINT OF ORDER
[Misleading]

Hon. R. Wayne Scott: The Member is misleading the
House.
I sat right next to Dr. Gibbons, and I heard him
very clearly say with regard to the income disparity
between women in Bermuda and men, he said women tend to have more education than men. That
is one of the reasons why you see that. That is what
he said.

All right. Thank you.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Mr. Speaker, I do not know
where the Honourable Member . . . he just came back
in the Chamber. But I can tell you, he was not sitting next to Dr. Gibbons when he was making this stat ement.
Hon. R. Wayne Scott: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: So, Mr. Speaker, let me
say this.

If he misleads, yes. Right. All right.
Okay, thank you, Minister.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the other thing that I wanted to
mention, or touch base on, was something that the
Honourable Finance Minister said. And he almost said
the same thing. And he said, Get yourself educated.
Get out there. Be entrepreneurial. Get yourself ed ucated, get out there and be entr epreneurial.
Well, Mr. Speaker, you see, this is why minimum wages are important. Because right now, you
have people in this country who are making so minute
of a wage, Mr. Speaker, how the heck are they going to get themselves educated, Finance Minister , if they
do not have money to even do the basic courses up at
Bermuda College? And anything that was free, you
took away from them when you became Government.

[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I do not hear any points of
order. I hear some chirping over there about nonsense, Mr. Speaker. But it is true. When you are
standing up telling our people, You go out, get yourself educated and you will then be able to be entr epreneurial. Well, Mr. Speaker, you will know darn well
that to be entr epreneurial, you have got to get a little
bit of money in your pocket somehow, some way, if
you do not have somebody giving it to you. How the
heck are you going to do it, making five dollars an hour, or eight dollars?

[Crosstalk ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silv a: Well, I do not know
about. . . the Honourable Member, Dr. Gibbons, said
something about working for Island Construction. But I
can assure you: you do not hear any of my fellows
complaining about the wages they make.

All right, Honourable Members. Let us
quit the across the floor [talk].

[Gavel]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: You see, Mr. Speaker,
when they talk about Island Construction . . . with your
indulgence, Mr. Speaker. The other day at the Cham-ber of Commerce meeting, Ms. Winfield made a
statement. And with your indulgence, I will read a
paragraph: Ms. Winfield reminded us that in 1941 t he
American vice consul [made] a thoroughly astute observation and said the following: “ For a hundred years


Bermuda House of Assembly a small group has made Bermuda its own paradise by
controlling legislation and by seeing that taxation po licy kept all but themselves in strict economi c subjection. While they themselves accumulated fortunes
subject to no taxes whatsoever . . .”
She then went on to say, So, we have a long
history of this type of behaviour. The question before
us now is whether we have the courage to break the
cycle. Do y ou know what she was saying there, Mr.
Speaker? What she was saying is that for hundreds of
years there were monopolies in this country that co ntinue on today. Do we have the courage—do we have
the courage to break the cycle, Mr. Speaker? And the
Honourabl e Member, Dr. Gibbons, says, like Island
Construction.
Let me give you a little history about Island
Construction, Honourable Member, Dr. Gibbons,
through the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Island Construction has many competitors out there in the world t oday, in Bermuda. And you know what, Mr. Speaker? I
would bet that a huge percentage of them are former
employees of Island Construction. And I will say here
publicly, many of those who have gone into business
still rely on Island Construction to give them advice
and assistance where needed.
Dr. the Hon. E. Grant Gibbons: Excellent.

All right, Honourable Members.
Carry on.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
And, Mr. Speaker, I only react to the chirping
that comes from the other side. It seems like when
they get things said to them that do not make them
feel so good, their feathers get a little ruffled and they try to get personal, Mr. Speaker.

[Laughter] Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And they know me by now.
You throw a rock over here, Mr. S peaker, I will catch it
and it is going to come back with a little bit more
speed. So that is just how I am.
But, Mr. Speaker, because let us not lose the
important point here. Okay? Mr. Speaker, household debt in this country is rising. The number of fam ilies in
poverty is growing. Mr. Speaker, we have seen gro wing impatience in this country, a growing impatience. And that, Mr. Speaker, I believe, is going to continue if
the inequality continues on the path that it has been on for the last several years.
Mr. Speaker, Greg [sic] Simmons —everyone
is familiar with Greg [sic] up at Bermuda College—

Craig, Craig.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Craig Simmons. Sorry,
sorry. Thank you, thank you, Members. Craig Si mmons, Craig Simmons, the lecturer at the Bermuda
College, made a statement in 2014. And, Mr.
Speaker, he said that wealth and inequality is the worst it has ever been this century. And I think we
need to take heed of that, Mr. Speaker. We need to
take heed of it.
Mr. Speaker, also, the 2000 Census showed
that households earning below $36,000 per annum as
being poor, with 19 per cent living below the poverty
line—19 per cent, Mr. Speaker.
So this is very good timing, MP Rolfe Commissiong, very good timing. And the beautiful part about today is that, before your motion was about to be shut down, we had a little bit of common sense
coming from a few Members on the other side, a little
bit of courage came from Members on the other side.

Yes.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And I think that they know
that they have shut down too many very important
things that we have brought forward on this side, and
they have shut them down and it has come back to
bite them in the backside like a Doberman Pincher in
heat, Mr. Speaker.

[Laughter and crosstalk ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: But I think, Mr. Speaker, I
think, though, that now that that decision was made,
we are in a good place. And I really look forward, I do
look forward to Mr. Rolfe Commissiong leading this —

[Inaudible interjections and laughter ]
[Gavel]

Come on, come on, come on, Members!

2178 17 June 2016 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to Rolfe Commi ssiong leading this committee and coming back to us
with some very solid, solid suggesti ons for the people
of this country, especially the ones who could use it.
Because, Mr. Speaker, I had a very good friend of
mine whose daughter came back from college, went
to work in a local restaurant, and her wage is six dollars an hour —six dollars an hour.
But, Mr. Speaker, you would say, Well, six
dollars an hour times forty is $240 by the time you
take out . . .you know she is only going to take home
maybe $50 –$60 by the time they take out benefits.
But, Mr. Speaker, they will say, Well, they will make it
up in tips! You always hear that about waiters and
waitresses making [money] in tips, Mr. Speaker. But did you know, Mr. Speaker, that out of that 17 per
cent, the first percentage that comes off of that is around 3 per cent? And you know where that goes,
Mr. Speaker? To the business.
Do you know where the next 3 [per cent] to
4 per cent goes, Mr. Speaker? To the chef. You know
where the next 3 [per cent] to 4 per cent goes, Mr.
Speaker? To the maî tre d’. Now, Mr. Speaker, that
17 per cent gets cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Not only that,
but if that waiter or waitress wants a little soup for
lunch, they have to pay for it. That restaurant is not far from here, Mr. Speaker. But that is what they do.
So, as a rule of thumb, Mr. Speaker, w hat I do
. . .and I will put my hand up. I frequent restaurants,
Mr. Speaker, several times a week every week. And
what I do, you will notice that many of the slips, the
receipts, Mr. Speaker, they have a line for an extra tip
on the bottom. That extra tip goes to that individual
waiter or waitress —

[Inaudible interjection]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: The extra tip, the extra tip.

[Inaudible interjections]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I will talk to you offline.
That is the extra tip that you put on the bottom.
But, Mr. Speaker, they do not make 17 per
cent. That is the point I want to make. They do not
make 17 per cent. And that is something else the
committee should be looking at, in my view. That is
what they should be doing.
But, Mr. Speaker, I am s o glad the Honourable Member Rolfe Commissiong brought this. B ecause you know what? If we can develop this living
wage, Mr. Speaker, if we can develop that, just think
how happy the Minister who controls Financial Assi stance and Social Development —think ho w happy that
Minister will be, because it has to have an effect on
the money that you pay out. Because once, once . . .
because let us not forget, it is $52 million a year, Mr. Speaker, which is $1 million per week —$1 million a week on financial assistance! That in itself should
have been enough of a message to the Minister who
was going to change your motion, that in itself should
have knocked that out of her head.
But, Mr. Speaker, the other thing that I think is
important for not only Members to know, but the pe ople of the country to know, Germany introduced minimum wage last year, Mr. Speaker. Japan’s Prime Mi nister has also called for a minimum wage increase of
3 per cent per year, Mr. Speaker. Malaysia has also
been using minimum wages to—check this out —
redistribute growth more fairly and encourage em-ployers to move up the value chain.
So it has a big advantage, Mr. Speaker. The
myth is that when you have minimum wages, the pe ople get laid off and it decreases jobs —it has been
shown worldwide, Mr. Speaker, that this is actually not
the case. And more and more countries, more and
more countries, Mr. Speaker, are introducing liveable
wages.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, let me finish where
I started in thanking MP Rolfe Commissiong for bringing this motion. And I look forward to hearing the great
news that he and his committee will bring to this
House in the future. Thank you.