December 6, 2024

Supplementary.

SUPPLEMENTARY

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Minister, would you agree that you are very
happy to have any transportation problems because of the huge influx of additional cruise ship passengers to the country?

[Crosstalk and laughter]

Hon. Wayne L. Furbert: I . . . I . . . 150 per cent support the honourable lawyer from Southampton.

Oh, I would like to be associated. Lou was a well -known figure in the St. George’s
area. He was uncle to Member Renee Ming. And he worked a long time down at East End Primary School.
So, he has touched the heart of many, many young
people in the St. Georg e’s area. And he will be a great
loss to us all.
Mr. Speaker, I would now like to speak on the
East as well, and I would like to congratulate . . . even
though the numbers are not in, I would like to congratulate the best choir and performance at L. F. Wade International Airport done by East End Primary and St.
David’s Primary together. They were absolutely phe-nomenal. I would like to associate the Minister of Education. I would like to associate the Minister of Seniors.
I would like to associate the Junior Minister, Mr. Kim
Swan, and Member Renee Ming. P henomenal! Nobody
can touch what they did, Mr. Speaker. I just want you to know that.

Yes. Thank you, Minister.

Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: It is a phenomenal competition. I was down there. Unfortunately, my schedule only
allowed me to see one performance and half of another
performance. But from my understanding, every single
school was shining.
And I do recognise the Member’s slant toward
one school versus the other, and I have no issue with
that. But I do want to congratulate all of the schools.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to send congratulations to the year 8 students at Francis Patton. Mr.
Speaker, as the Honourable Members would know, we
embarked on an ambitious education reform programme to convert from a three- tier system to a twotier system w ith Purvis Primary and Francis Patton being the first of those two to have students go from year
1 through to year 8. I attended a pinning ceremony, the
very first of its kind, for the year 8 students for Francis
Patton earlier this week. And it was an abs olutely phenomenal experience to see these young, young leaders, future leaders of our country to be awarded their
prefect pins —the head boy, deputy head boy, head girl,
deputy head girl and school captain.
I can say that some of the phenomenal things
that they will be doing are . . . they are prefects, but they
are assigned to different classes. And the principal had
said that some of the things that they will be doing are
things that the students came up w ith. One of them is,
if anyone visited Francis Patton, you will see that it has
a lower part and an upper part. And one of the students
came and said, Hey, what’s the best way to get lunch
down? When we have hot lunches, [how can] we get
them down to the l ower part? And it is like, I want to
volunteer to do that. I want to volunteer to be the prefect for that particular year group. And we had students who
are the accountants for the school. So, when they have
Grub Days, they are responsible for counting the
money, when they have bake sales, and producing the
bank deposit slips and all of these types of things that are currently happe ning. We have other students who
volunteer to fill in when other students are not there.
So, they are called roving prefects and such.
So, in an era where we hear so much negativity
about our school system and not much publicity goes
to what is going right, I just wanted to make sure and highlight that.
Just really quickly, today in The Royal Gazette
there are two stories, one about Purvis, one about Francis Patton. The one about Purvis has some negative connotations, all sorts of comments. The one about
Francis Patton talking about this wonderful event —zero
comment today. And that is just the way it i s, Mr.
Speaker. But congratulations to those young people.
[Timer chimes]

Mr. Speaker, I would like
for a letter, if possible, to be sent to the organisers of
the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. In particular,
having come off of a great event that showcased Bermuda before the world, a lesser -known of those events
is the APGA [Advocates Professional Golf Association],
the Advocates tour golf event with upcoming young
professional golfers from minority communities predominantly, which has become a very big tour. I would
say third- tier tour that features in Bermuda.
But more particularly, the winner, Mr. Kevin
Hall, no relation from the Rose Hill Halls. But he was
favoured in the Rose Hill community where the Halls
reside, became the first deaf winner on that tour in Bermuda. I thought it was very significant considering the
amount of good attention given by the Minister responsible for seniors and disabilities. The Honourable Minister Tinee Furbert does great work in this space. And I
just thought it was outstanding. I had met young Mr.
Hall and his family last year. And he travels around the
United States with an entourage of folks who are like-minded in supporting him in his professional pursuits as a member from the deaf community.
But the fact that he is a winner on that tour,
there have been players who have gone on to play reg-ularly on the PGA Tour from this community. And the
fact that he has done it in Bermuda is not lost on me.
So, I just wanted to say thank you to the APGA, a n
American organisation, a charitable organisation that
goes around the United States promoting golf for minority communities, particularly, but is open to all. And
its association with the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, which was brought to Bermuda by the Honourable
Zane De Silva (I wanted to share) some six years ago. A great initiative which continues to have offshoots.
And very soon they will be having a junior event which
attracts the next generation of young players whose
parents travel with them. And they spend a lot of money in the country supporting their young aspiring professionals. And the Honourable Member Tyrrell would like
to be associated, as I know the Honourable Member
Zane De Silva [would].
Thank you.

[Timer chimes]

Thank you. Thank you, Honourable
Member.
228 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Minister Furbert.

Hon. Tinee Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to
congratulate the Junior Bermuda Biennial art event that I attended this past weekend. I want to associate Minister Diallo Rabain with this event. This was the first of
its kind for our young people in Bermud a. It was an exhibition of young people’s artwork at the National Gal-lery. And they had over 600 young people submit art
exhibits to be entered into the final exhibit in the Na-tional Gallery for our community to have the opportunity
to visit and see. The artwork was selected by Ms. Molly
Bretton, who is the Head of Learning at the Royal Academy in London.
And I want to take this time to congratulate everyone within the National Gallery team who put this event on, and also our young people who are so very
creative. And if you have not had the opportunity to go
and view the artwork, it is available to see at the National Gallery. But this exhibition was also a remarkable
tribute to young artists. They had artists as young as
five years old.
And also, to recognise the late wife of Mr.
Gary L. Phillips, Ms. Patricia Ann Phillips, who was an
educator and also encouraged art as being a trans-formative power of learning. So, it is fitting to her legacy. I want to associate MP Foggo and also MP King in
regard to the Junior Biennial exhibition.
So again, just to congratulate all of those young
people who participated, because sometimes the arts can be overlooked, and they are not as recognised as
other areas. So again, awesome work, and I encourage
everyone to go and visit the exhibition.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Good morning, Mr. Speaker.
Good morning to the listening audience.
I would like to start on a sad note, sending condolences to the family of Mr. Noel Browne of 39 Sun
Valley Road, a constituent of mine, Mr. Speaker.
And also, to the family of Mr. Joseph Ratteray.
While is not a constituent of mine, I did know his two daughters. I associate MP Foggo and associate MP
Emilygail Dill. I did go to school [with] and know his two
daughters. And when I opened the paper today and
saw of his passing, I was very shocked to see him in
there, Mr. Speaker. So, as I said, I would like to send
condolences to the family of Mr. Joseph Ratteray.
And on a lighter note, Mr. Speaker, to the Bermuda Gymnastics team, they competed in the inaugural CARIFTA Gymnastics Championships in Jamaica. And they did Bermuda well, winning nine medals. And
special mention goes to 11- year-old Miss Eva Wright
who won four medals, three gold and one silver. And then also, Mr. Speaker, congratulations to
young Mr. Trey Mallory, a tennis player who secured —
I associate MP De Silva and MP Simmons -Wade —a
point on the ATP [Association of Tennis Professionals]
Tour, becoming only the third Bermudian to do so. So, he commands recognition for that, Mr. Speaker.
And I would just like to, on a last note, this past
Wednesday I had the privilege of dropping in and at-tending the Bermuda Youth Parliament this past
Wednesday. And you know, we heard a lot of bad news
of young people who go about on the Island . But I just wanted to take time to congratulate and just highlight
those who do positive things. And not only just the Bermuda Youth Parliament, but also even under my remit
the Junior Road Safety Council. It is good to see young
people getting involved, doing posi tive things. And
hopefully that could carry them on to the future and being able to give back to Bermuda and society as a
whole when they get older.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be very
quick. But I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Executive Director of HOME, Ms. Denise Carey, for being named Woman of the Year by the Women’s Empowerment Summit 2024. I will associate . . . I had better do the whole House. I associate the whole House. I
have met Ms. Carey on several occasions and had con-versations with her. And certainly, her commitment and
her advocacy for those of us who are in some unfortunate circumstances are really commendable. And so,
recognising the work that she does in that particular
area, I can certainly say that it is an award and a crown
and a name that are well deserved.
Thank you.

Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution at this time?
There are none.
Before I move on, I would just like to add a
comment to the condolences that have been expressed to the Ratteray family. As many would know, the Ratteray family is a very strong family in Somerset, and
Joseph was one who comes from that family. And it is
a sadness in the community to hear of his loss, although he had been sick for some time. And before his
illness, he worked for the Ministry of Education. So, I
know he has touched many throughout the Island, and
not just in the Sandys community. And in fact, he is first


Bermuda House of Assembly cousin to one of our own, MP Dickinson. So, my condolences join those that have already been expressed
thus far.
With that said, we will move on to the next item
on the Order Paper.

MATTERS OF PRIVILEGE

Are there any objections?
There are none.
Continue, Minister.

BILL

SECOND READING

EMPLOYMENT AMENDMENT ACT 2024

Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to
introduce the Bill entitled the Employment Amendment
Act 2024, which seeks to amend the Employment Act
2000 (the principal Act) to increase the maximum sev-erance allowance payments from 26 weeks wages to
32 weeks wages. Mr. Speaker, severance allowance is
designed to provide employees with a level of financial
stability and to assist with covering essential expenses
when [employees] lose their employment prematurely
and/or through no fault of their own.
Mr. Speaker, job loss can be a significant
source of stress and disquiet especially for persons who have been employed by one employer for a significant period of time. Increasing the severance allowance payable can help alleviate the fears associated
with sudden job loss, provide a sense of financial security and avert the need for persons to rely on financial
assistance.
Mr. Speaker, increasing the severance allowance payable to employees gives employees the time and resources needed to seek new employment. This
may result in better job opportunities, as employees will
no longer feel compelled out of financial necessity t o
accept the first opportunity that arises. Mr. Speaker, with this in mind, the Ministry of Economy and Labour
laid before this Honourable House the “Consultation on
Retaining the Local Workforce Position Paper 2024” in
March this year, which highlighted t he challenges of Bermuda’s shrinking working population. It sought,
amongst other initiatives, to put in place targeted matters to targeted measures to encourage and motivate
working- age Bermudians to remain in Bermuda, among
other measures.
Mr. Speaker, one of the initiatives the position
paper initially proposed was to increase the severance allowance from a maximum of 26 weeks wages to a maximum of 52 weeks wages. However, consensus received from industry and our union partners during the
public consultation period was that while an increase is
necessary, the Ministry must take into consideration
factors. These factors include the rising cost of doing
business in Bermuda, coupled with the fact that the purpose of the Bill is to set minimum standards and not
include provisions that may be progressing beyond a
minimum standard. As a result, support was received for an increase in severance allowance from a maximum of 26 weeks wages to a maximum of 32 weeks
wages.
Mr. Speaker, the principal Act has a cap on
severance allowance of 26 weeks’ wages, which reflects payments for a maximum of 12 continuous years
of employment. The Bill proposes to increase this benefit to a maximum of 32 weeks’ wages benefiting those
who have been in continuous employment with their
employer for 13 or more years. Mr. Speaker, pursuant
to the Bill, the severance allowance for an employee
with 13 years of continuous employment will equate to
29 weeks’ wages, and the severance allowance for an
employee with 14 years or more of continuous employees will equate to 32 weeks’ wages.
Mr. Speaker, not only will this Bill strengthen
labour policies that protect the rights of workers in Bermuda and encourage employers to engage in fair and
responsible employment practices, it will also assist
persons to be able to meet their basic needs, which is
the foundation of building a healthy and thriving society.
Mr. Speaker, this change falls in line with the
Government’s unwavering commitment to support
workers in this country. Mr. Speaker, the Progressive
Labour Party remains dedicated to supporting the
workers of Bermuda, and this is just one of many of our
actions that demonstrates our commitments to the
workers.
I would like to remind this Honourable House
that this is the Government that implemented Ber-muda’s first statutory minimum wage to support our workers. This is the Government that ensured that
workplaces have bullying and harassment policies in
place. Thi s is the Government that has increased compensation for workplace injuries in the workplace. This
is the Government that has extended maternity leave
to 13 weeks and implemented paternity leave as a statutory right. This is the Government that has ensured workers receive meal breaks. This is the Government
that has protected employees’ earned tips and gratui-ties from unscrupulous employers. This is the GovernBermuda House of Assembly ment that enables employees to receive leave entitlement after six months. This is the Government that ensures that there is mandatory consultation period prior
to redundancy. And this is the Government that has
protected employees from being misplaced as inde-pendent contractors when they are actually employees.
So, this change that we have today falls in
alignment with the Government’s commitment to sup-porting the workers of Bermuda.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution at this time?
Opposition Leader.
Hon. Jarion Richardson: Good morning, Mr. Speaker.
Good morning, Honourable Members, and good morning to the listening audience.
This piece of legislation seeking to amend the
period for severance pay from 26 to 32 weeks, we
acknowledge that it will increase support for [employees]. I take the point the Minister had made about ensuring that people when they lose a job do not have t o
take the very first job that comes along. When people
are made redundant, it is a shock to their life, especially
if they have been employed for a long time. And it can
take some time to adjust from that severe shock. I take the point of the Act is to pr ovide for minimum standards,
and therefore it does not accommodate specifics, other specifics to an employment contract. And this will avert the need to rely on financial assistance.
Mr. Speaker, my questions as it relates to this
Bill start with previous statements made by this Gov-ernment relating to the success of the economy —notably, statements about the growing economy and its success generally. That position has been put forward frequently and vocally. And to that end, it strikes us as
curious —it certainly strikes me as curious —why we are
seeking a very specific provision in employment law
adding further protections to the workers if the economy is growing.
[Inaudible interjections]

Hon. Jarion Richardson: As the economy is growing—
I beg the indulgence of the Members. Can I finish? Can I at least have a debate?

Members! Members!
Hon. Jarion Richardson: Thank you.
In a growing economy, what we should be seeing is further jobs being added to the market, and those
people who are already employed seeing increased
savings and financial security. So as the stated position
of the Government and through statistical returns saying that the economy is growing and successful, then why is there the necessity of adding further employee
protections?
I really want to ask about the balance of this
particular Bill. I mean, every piece of legislation, every
policy idea has an intended impact. Obviously, there
are merits. My question is, Have the adverse impacts or potential adverse impacts been evaluated, and what
are those? So, for example, Mr. Speaker, we are concerned about making businesses sustainable in Bermuda because they are the ones that are providing
these jobs. When a business has to make someone redundant, especially a small business, it is t ypically going through a lot of shocks at that time. So, it actually does not have a lot of money. And when we make it
harder for that business to survive—

Hon. Jason Hayward: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Point of order.

POINT OF ORDER
[Misleading]

Hon. Jason Hayward: I think the Member has misled
the House on a number of occasions this morning, but
this one is fundamentally important. There are a number of reasons why an employer makes an employee
redundant. And it is not always based off of the employer or the busines s being in some sort of financial
problem. There are very profitable businesses in Ber-muda that make employees redundant all the time.

Okay.

Hon. Jarion Richardson: Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker. I agree with the Minister that that can happen.
I am talking about the specific case especially amongst small businesses.
When they go through a period of redundancy,
it is typically that they are in financial distress. And when they are in those periods of financial distress, in
fact there are a number of jobs at risk. And so, one of
the questions I have for the Minister is, Have they considered the impacts to small businesses in financial dis-tress?
The Minister also spoke to [the fact that] he had
some support after the consultation for this piece of legislation. And my question would be, What support was
232 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly received from the Chamber of Commerce, the Bermuda Employers Council or BermudaFirst if they made
any contributions, and what they were, to the consultation period?
Yes. Those are all of my questions for now. I
thank the Minister. And I look forward to the debate.

Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
Deputy Speaker.

Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, receiving severance pay, redundancy pay, is nothing new. It has been in effect for
many, many years. And, Mr. Speaker, this is not based on the economy of the country. Because if it was, then
the banks would not have let many of their employees
go. I think between both banks, they let just over 500
people go in the last eight to ten years. And they are reporting over $200 million profit per year. So that is not
based on any economy. It is not based on the economy
of the country. The country could be in bad shape, but
that business could be in good shape. So, it is not based on that, Mr. Speaker.
And yes, losing their job is a shock. Most times,
Mr. Speaker, people lose their job, they do not even know. They just go in that morning, and they are told to
pack up, and they are escorted out.

Mm-hmm.
Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr.: Regardless of the . . .
particularly managerial people. They are escorted out,
unlike union people. We most times get a notice, and we go the proper way. Managerial people are treated differently. They are escorted out like they are a criminal or somethin g. And the Minister is trying (and I agree
with him) to increase their benefit, Mr. Speaker.
Now, is it enough? As a person with a union
background, no, it is not enough. But that is not for the Labour Department to address. Because most times in
a managerial position you have contracts that address those types of things. But for those who do not have a
contract, then I think the Minister may have to think of
not putting in a figure, but where they have the provision to go to the Labour Department to address that.
Because if you take places like Canada, managerial
people are covered by law. And they get their sever-ances based on the job. Because losing a job could in
a managerial position, you just cannot go downtown tomorrow and get another one. Sometimes it takes
months to get a job. And that is why they get much
more than other jobs in the count ries that accommodate that, because of that reason. It is based on the job.
And that is the first consideration. Then they are based
on the number of years you have been there. Now, yes, some employers do it because they
are in bad shape. Well, they have accounted for that,
Mr. Speaker, because over the years that they made a
whole lot of profit, if that could be in sight, you have to
budget for things like that. And over the years they have made a whole lot of profit, that means their assets have
increased. So, they have enough assets to take care of
these people.
Now, when a person loses a job, regardless of
what category it is, it is a shock not only to them, but to
their family. It turns the family upside down. And thank God for unions, that there is some protection there. Because in some unions, it is based on how long you have
been there. And the time period is unending. But most
agreements, you can get up to a year’s pay. And rightfully so; they should be based on the number of years
they have been employed, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I can recall one case in Bermuda
some years ago, probably 10– 15 years ago, could be a
little longer, the Phil Perinchief case. And he does not mind me calling his name because I have asked him.
He was dismissed from a law firm. And they did not give
him severance pay like they should, and he took it to
court. And he won the case, and he got the reward
based on the job, the position that he held, not based
on what we would have, let us say, at the BIU [ Bermuda
Industrial Union] [where] you get two weeks per year
up to a certain year, then it goes on. No, based on the job he had. And the court ruled in his favour.
So, Mr. Speaker, I must say this Minister has
done quite a bit to enhance the position of workers in this country, to protect them and to do things that are
not so bad for their families. So, I applaud him increas-ing this to 32 weeks. But let me say this here. The Government is not in the position, the Labour Department
is not there to write collective agreements for employees. That is not their job. But they are doing in the realm
where they should do it. There have got to be some
protections for employees.
Now, this amendment covers people who are
not covered by a union or who get less than this here.
Because I know in one union, you get up to 26 weeks.
So, the Minister has enhanced that. But there is nothing
wrong with that union going and trying to increase that
benefit beyond this to where it probably should be. So, they have that right, and I am sure they will probably do
that in the near future.
But I support this Bill with no reservations at all.
And I want to again thank the Minister for bringing this
here to enhance the position of people who work and
depend on that income to take care of themselves and
their families.
So, thank you, Minister, for bringing this Bill.
Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy.
Does any other —
MP Foggo.



Bermuda House of Assembly Ms. Lovitta F. Foggo: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I feel duty -bound to get up and
speak on this amendment. Let me say this. Arriving at
the figure of 32 weeks I am sure was a balancing act
for the Minister. Because no doubt he did not just willy -
nilly decide on a 32- week figure. We have empl oyees
who work for years in an institution. And because the
Minister is tasked with trying to create legislation that
covers the entire realm, whether it is private sector or
public sector, covers whether it is big business or small
business, he is duty -bound to look at all of the factors
that come into play. And I have no doubt that that is
what he did.
And all too often I am sure in his capacity he
has heard about persons who have worked for 50
years, arriving at a severance pay and only receiving
(let us say) maybe 26 weeks when, as has been pointed out, if we were to consider a person who has a
backgr ound of being a good worker, et cetera,
et cetera, sitting at a high level at a firm, they might be
entitled to more. As the Member who just took his seat
pointed out, we are not here to write contracts for the
private sector. We cannot, you know. Those contracts
exist between the employer and employee.
But we are here to try and create a fair playground in the work environment and to ensure that
while protecting (I guess if you will) the rights of both
entities, whether it be the employer or the employee, at the same time trying to ensure that an employ ee who
finds himself having to receive a severance package at least can walk away feeling that they have been treated with a certain level of fairness, especially if they worked
for an entity who is not going to say, You’ve worked 50
years. I believe that you should get at least a year’s salary. But by at least trying to recognise the length of
time that a person has been working, I think that it is a fair figure to arrive at, 32 weeks.
And no doubt down the road this will be looked
at again to see whether or not it can be amended in a way that it is even fairer for all. But I am happy with what
the Minister has brought to the table. I think it does
strike a balance of fairness. It does recognise long- term
employees. It does consider the fact that when you find yourself without a job, that at least you have some mon-ies that you can fall back on that may keep you in fair
stead until you are reemployed elsewhere.
So, on that note, Mr. Speaker, I do not think I
need to say more, because I think, between the Mem-ber who just took his seat and the Minister himself, that
every area was covered.
So, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and
good morning, colleagues. I do not want this debate to go with the premise
that in questioning certain things there is some move-ment [towards disparaging] the good work that the Minister has done for this Bill. I have worked with the Minister over the years, and he is getting real ly good. So,
the integrity of this process —

[Laughter]

So, I genuinely believe in the
integrity of this process and what the Minister has
brought before the table.
I did mention back in a previous debate that I
felt that maybe this should be skewed more toward the
larger businesses. And as we have already listened to
the debate, you know, the banks have been mentioned
and the like. And like many of us here as entrepreneurs,
we know that since the 2008/09 recession, many of the
small businesses that were able to survive only survived because they were able to find other funds, which put them further into debt. And if they were not into
debt, then they went into debt t rying to survive.
Unfortunately, our economy has not exploded
as many might have liked. And I am talking about for
the local businesses, the small to medium- sized businesses. And so, they are still trying to find their way back to a level playing field where they can be pr ofitable.
So, when I speak of this, I speak of my own
experience. When you have certain businesses, and I will speak specifically to corporate Esso when they
came to Bermuda. Their model was not long- term employees. Their model was a turnover of employees
every two years just about. And it was shocking to me
234 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly because it did not go and follow the same grain as what
Bermudians are used to. And that is that, even for the
small business, it is more cost -efficient to them to have
someone to hang around, who knows the business, can run the business in any of these instances. But again, the reality of where we are is that many of the
businesses that survived are still struggling. But yet we
have these corporate entities whose models do not fit
in line with —as the Honourable Derrick [Burgess] was
saying that these larger businesses are laying off peo-ple. We lost like 500- and-some people from the bank.
And where is the justification in that?
So, as we balance all of these things out, attempting to create new, thriving businesses at the same time as those who have been able to survive, the
small and medium- size businesses, I thought it might
have been prudent to take a look at how these might
be slightly skewed and tiered. So that the small business, understanding some of the challenges that they
are having, might be able to maybe see an increase
here, but not certainly to the level of some of the larger businesses, who quite frankly, the impact of their layoff
is far more impactful than a local, small, medium- sized
business.
You know, when the bank and these guys lay
off, they lay off in the hundreds. But a small to mediumsized business is probably going to have one or two
here or there. And I agree. Not all businesses do this for the fact that there are hard times and that t hey are
not being profitable. But typically for the small business, which this Government has been making measures to try and help, typically they are the ones who are having
to cut back. And it becomes more difficult for them. And
it becomes a debt situat ion for them because in order
sometimes for some of them to pay these severance
[amounts], they are going to have to borrow money in order to do that. And it has nothing to do with whether or not they are running their business well. It has to do
with external factors that are impacting Bermuda and at
no fault of their own, just like no fault of the employees
at all.
It probably, in my estimation, would be more
prudent to maybe address it from that point of view so
that the impact is less on the small to medium- sized
business as they are finding their way to, as the Government says, an improving economy. And right now,
and I have mentioned it before, the cost of living continues to go up. But we need the economy to be outpacing that at a rate and at a pace that allows businesses, especially the local businesses, to catch up. They still have not caught up. And they are r elying on
cash flow to stay alive.
They are even reluctant to have charge accounts, which back in the day, you know, people had
all kinds of charge accounts. I had to do away with them
at the gas station, because when the recession hit, you know, we are talking about millions of dollars los t. And
the poor small and medium- sized businesses are trying
to recover from that. So, I am hoping that maybe the Minister, as he moves forward with this Bill, will take a
look at how something can be carved out. And I do not
know what that level or line i s for the small to mediumsized business. Maybe it is 10 employees. I do not know. I do not know what would be fair.
But I am hoping that the Minister will take a look
at this when it comes to the small to medium- sized businesses, who quite frankly when they look at their busi-ness model and trying to survive, and as I mentioned, I
have no problem with saying, with corpor ate Esso, their
model is not long- term employees. It is to turn these
people over within two years. And many of the people
in the industry are encouraged to do that. This should
not be the case at all.
This does not bode [well] for the best of Bermuda and Bermudians. And I believe that the Learned
Member, the Minister Jason [Hayward] is smart and in-tellectual enough to see these things and to establish
whether or not he needs to make a move on this here
as is being suggested. I will not belabour the issue. I do
believe that this is a good measure that can be implemented, these 32 weeks. I get it. I see it. And when you
see the profits of many of these insurance companies
and many of these banks and the li kes, I have spoken
about it already. We are seeing the mergers of these
insurance companies. This is a challenge. And it is going to lead to layoffs.
But then you see when they come in the paper
a couple of weeks ago, they are profitable, right? But
you do not see the small to medium- sized folks coming
out and saying, Hey, listen, I’m extremely profitable
here, you know, so I can afford to do these things.
Maybe we can adjust the approach here. And certainly, as we move forward and as the country does better, I
recognise that some of these benefits can continue to
increase. When we see the financial and mathematical
prudence in it and in addition see the prudence in taking
care of our people, especially in the labour industry.
So, with that in mind, that is the sensitivity that
I have toward this here. I would like to see something
done more to help the small business, and I think that
this potentially could be a challenge as we go down the
road.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think in principle we are in agreement with the amendment, and at the same time we are mindful of the impact of the 32 weeks on small businesses in particular. So, what we are hopeful is that appropriate guardrails will be put in place. By that, what I


Bermuda House of Assembly mean is what we do not want is a situation where an
employer who would otherwise consider hiring someone on a full -time basis may now consider hiring that
person on a contract basis so that the person would not be entitled to the same rights and privileges as would
be specified in a long- term contract.
The other thing too is, I am also mindful of the
fact that this is going to increase the costs to those very businesses. So, consideration might be given to perhaps a reduction in payroll tax to spread the burden.
Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Speaker and
colleagues.
I rise to give my support to the Employment
Amendment Act 2024. Most of my points that I was go-ing to share have already been spoken on by Members on my side. So, I am certainly glad to hear that the Opposition support the Bill in principle , as they say.
But I certainly want to commend the Minister,
who I know to be fair and caring. So, I am sure at some
point in time he probably will look at small and mediumsized businesses as well. So, I think the 32 weeks is
certainly favourable. I have had some exper ience in my
family of redundancy. So, I know how traumatic redundancy can be. And I think this Amendment Bill certainly
will help others in this position.
So again, I support the Minister and his technical officers in this amendment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Yes. Good morning. Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, ever so briefly with regard to the
Employment Amendment Act 2024, I found it very in-teresting that the Opposition supports the amendment, but . . . And the “but” is the difference in what will happen if they were in Government like they were between
2012 and 2017 and what this Minister is bringing forward today and has brought forward in regard to labour.
And the “but” speaks to being a labour party and being
mindful of the importance of making sure that there are safeguards in place for all labourers. The Employment
Act represents all in labour.
I think it is important that, notwithstanding that
we have had good service in this country over many decades given by unions, that not all in this country
have had the benefit of unionised representation. And as a consequence, having a labour Government not
prepared to wait for a fire to happen, for a crisis to show
up, as the Opposition Leader would ask us —Why would we do it now with the economy growing? There
are safeguards that take place whether or not an economy is good or whether or not it is not, t hat businesses
when they are doing good make decisions so that they can do better. And it is at the expense of the employ-ees.
And we know, and we have had representation
made toward some of the bigger organisations such as banks, there are Bermudians who have put their entire
lives into working for one institution or one company.
And when you get that particular indication on that day, and that day when you have to pack up and go and
there is no tomorrow, it is very traumatic. And it has
been traumatic for many people for many decades.
Thankfully, we have a young Minister. He is certainly
younger than me. He would remind me from time to
time, You know, Swan, if we had to go in the ring, I am
a little bit stronger than you are because of your age.

[Laughter]

But I just tell him that, Don’t
worry. I know my type; but there is still a lot of punch
left in the old fella. But I just want to say how thankful
and appreciative that I am to have the first two lead- off
speakers for this labour Government be two labour
leaders in this country! Former labour leaders, one from
the white- collar union and the other from the blue- collar
union. Strong advocates for labour who have led labour
parties, led labour organisations in this country, who
can evaluate the situation of the economy and know
that these types of safeguards are absolutely necessary.
And like I mentioned, and it has been mentioned, those persons who occupy managerial positions, who may not necessarily be working for a company that is unionised, are no less impacted adversely
when they get that call that, Next week you don’t come
to work in this organisation. And it is very traumatic. Today we have EAP [Employee Assistance Programme]
and other organisations to provide some counselling to
persons. But it takes a long time, and you have given
your all for a company and then someone walks up to
you and tells you that you have got to go.
And, you know, Mr. Speaker, someone who
has put all of their life into a company like that who has
to transition, has been transitioned out because of decisions made in the boardroom, their life changes. Their
pension life changes dramatically. And someti mes, with
our living longer, there are persons who have been
transitioned out when they are in their late 50s and
early 60s, and they are right at the cusp. And they are
given packages, and the packages then shrivel up and
the like and no longer exist. And then they live longer,
and they become 70 and they become 80. And that pension that once looked good barely covers, the
what? Barely covers the health insurance.
236 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly There are people living in this country working
for organisations that are boasting huge profits with former employees whose backs they stand on who are
getting pensions today that do not cover their health insurance! And get regular —get regular —notices: Listen,
Mrs. X from number 9 Pond Dog Lane. You have a
choice of this package or that package for insurance.
And people are making choices just like they are mak-ing choices on medication and the like. And I give credit
to companies in pharmacies who are making medication a little bit cheaper for persons. I am not going to give any commercials, but there are companies out
there. Shop around.
They are living longer. People are unable to afford. And the decisions that are made are being made
in boardrooms up and down this country. I often speak,
Mr. Speaker, that the recession that engulfed this coun-try between 2008 and 2012, in particular, that tore the
heart out of many a business in this country, was done
by decisions that were made in boardrooms, not by
workers. But workers were the worst impacted. And thankfully, we have persons who are unionised in this
country. And thankfully, we have good unions that are
training their supporters up into financial literacy. And
thankfully, we have the credit union as well that does likewise. On a Tuesday you can tune in at least once a
month and get an education on financial literacy from a
working [person ’s] perspective.
So yes, it is necessary when a labour Government is in power, and yes when the economy is growing at a time when we are going to see more workers com-ing to this country through the Hamilton redevelopment
of the Southampton Princess.

Yes. And when 32 weeks,
Mr. Speaker, are given, that pink slip is necessary. And
the decision to put it in place is also necessary, and it
is happening now when the economy is looking better,
and future prospects are looking more promising. That
is a mind -set. That is where I was, Mr. Speaker, talking
about the mind- set between the persons who will come
and say, I support, but . . . But nothing! But it is a labour
Government prepared to look at the economy and put in practice fair practices that can allow people to survive
when persons who are prepared to say “but” are making decisions and give them no notice that today they
have got to pack up.
And let me tell you. Usually when the consequences of the 32 weeks take place—right around now—a lot of times we have seen these redundancy
notices happen . . . when?

Just before Christmas!
Truly, you want to rip the heart out of a Bermudian? Let
them, let them . . . yes! Because I am passionate about
this. I have family members. When I talk about a senior whose pension does not even cover their health insurance, do you not think I know one or two of them or three of them or four of them? Do you not think I might
be related to one or two of them or three of them? Do
you not think I might have empathy to our Minister, who
is a labour man, who is going to come with legislation
that is going to help this country? Yes. That is why I might get a little passionate. I make no apologies for being passionate. Sometimes you have got to be a little
fired up in this place!
I came up here as a young boy at 20 years old
to watch persons who advocated for this country who
were fired up about what they were doing, just like I am
watching here today.
So, Mr. Speaker, on the cusp of 32 weeks, I
just want to say thank you.

And I want to say thank
you to the Minister for being in a position to look to see
where [pieces of] legislation such as those that impact
workers who might not necessarily see the wisdom of
being unionised, like when he was the leader of a major
union of this country. Let me remind persons that when
I came back to this country to work in 1980 in the hospitality industry, I did not come here to work in golf. I
worked in the hospitality industry. So, I am not going to
talk about gol f.

No, no, no. No, no, no, no,
no.
When I came back in the early 1980s, Mr.
Speaker, we had a general strike in this country. And those of us who worked in white- collar jobs and those
of us who were in business, whether or not in the pri-vate sector or the government sector, saw greater benBermuda House of Assembly efits come up out of this country because of all organised labour in this country. The tide and the boats all
rose. So, when speakers, such as the Honourable Jason Hayward, such as the Honourable Derrick Burgess, speak on this particular subject, it is from a point of view of knowing that sometimes you have got to put
the right legislation in place long before those circumstances occur.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the
guidance to keep me on 32 weeks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, when I do not have the pleasure
of your company in this Honourable House, I spend it
in the courtrooms. And for over 25 years as a civil litigator, one of my areas of focus and expertise has been
employment and labour and discrimination law. So, this
is a topic with which I am well familiar.

And I would like to start by saying
this: The notion of a social safety net for those who lose their jobs is undoubtably a good thing in a civilised so-ciety. It is undoubtably a good thing in a civilised society. And I hear Neville Tyrrell, MP, in the back congrat-ulating me on that remark. And I am grateful to the Hon-ourable, the Honourable MP for constituency 36 [sic].
[Inaudible interjection]

The question, Mr. Speaker, is always one of balance. And the political point that has been made by speakers before me is, Why is it so nec-essary to focus on extending severance right now if, as
we are told, the economy is doing supposedly so well?
The mor e robustly practical point of the point I would
make is, Should not the Government’s focus instead be
on the creation of well -paying jobs and helping to create well -paying jobs for Bermudians?
Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the Honourable Minister. The first is, the question of balance is
clearly placing a burden, another burden, on employers and particularly those who are small and medium- sized
and those who are entrepreneurs who have a small
workforce. And this is a point made by the Honourable
Craig Cannonier, MP, when he made his remarks. But
the question I have for the Honourable Minister is, Was consideration given to carving out small businesses
and entrepreneurs?
As MP Cannonier made the point, you could
readily see how this burden could have been avoided
for entrepreneurs with a particularly small workforce or
for small businesses by having a threshold at which it would not bite, where the burden would not be appl ied.
What that threshold is I do not know. But I ask the Minister, What consideration was given to any such carveout of that nature, as MP Cannonier asked?
The second question I would ask the Honourable Minister to respond to when he closes the debate is, Was any consideration given to balancing the costs
that are being placed on small and medium- sized businesses and entrepreneurs with some sort of relief? S o,
balance for those small businesses and entrepreneurs.
I think actually MP Robert King made the point as well.
But, you know, perhaps some payroll tax relief to place
the burden and assist the departing employee who has
lost a job, but maybe make it a li ttle bit easier for the
employer.
And I think it is fair, Mr. Speaker, in the context
of this to also ask ourselves, What are the pragmatic
and practical ramifications of this? We must ask ourselves what will happen when a small business or entrepreneur who is already struggling . . . and I pause to
observe it is only those who are struggling who would be releasing the employee and paying severance. What happens to the other members of the workforce?
Because it puts that business in a much harder position. It has to pay out that larger sev erance. What happens, and are we placing those other workers at risk
unintentionally?
Anyway, as I say, I think the social safety net is
a good thing. I am glad that MP Tyrrell agreed with me.
But what we really need is more job creators on this
Island, people who are here to create better -paying
jobs for Bermudians. And it is very difficu lt to attract
those job creators if we keep placing more burdens on
them. And placing more burdens on them may not be the best way to attract them to our shores.
A third and final question for the Minister before
I take my seat is that I had thought . . . and the mistake
may well be mine. But I had thought that this Bill was also going to make clear that there was no tax on severance pay. And I do not see that in the Bill, and I do
not know if that is because it is being dealt with by a
regulation, order or policy, or if that position has been
changed and I missed it.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

So much so, Mr. Speaker, that I
wore what I believe to be a festive seasonal colour to-day because we all know that the business colour is
blue. Yes.
But, Mr. Speaker, I throw my support behind
this Bill because I hear a lot of chatter about the impact
to businesses and that we need to find a balance. I do
not disagree with that. But what I want to speak about is the impact on the people who are made r edundant
and the severance. And it is not always as cut and dried
as we think [as far as assuming] that it is directly related
to the success or lack of success of a business.
Mr. Speaker, I know someone who worked at
an establishment for 41 years. And when it was time to go and they made a decision for redundancy, they said, Here’s your 26- week salary. Check you later. Okay? I
do not believe in any way that that was a fair assess-ment. I think that is more like a gut punch to someone. And for 41 years you are dedicated, you are committed,
you are loyal, you come to work. And within one week,
you [are told, We are] making your job redundant , 26
weeks salary, and send you packing.
This Government is obligated to safeguard and
protect. And I think what we see here today is one of those protective measures. I hear us saying that we are
a labour Government. As a labour Government, I believe that we are expected to act in this manner. But I
also believe that if we were not the Government, I would hope that another Government would think
enough of its people to bring Bills and make changes
that looks like this.
Mr. Speaker, this may be new to some people.
Not all redundancies relate to the progress or success
of a business. And there is some work to be done for
us even in our capacity as Government to balance that.
Because we now have bullying and harassment in our
Employment Act. And I thank the Minister for bringing that even to this place. But there are some persons who
are made redundant because they may speak out at
their jobs. They may disagree. And so that tool of redundancy is not always used in a trend of the business
is not doing well or may not be able to afford. So, I do
think that there is work to be done even in that space. I believe that this is a great first step. If anyone asks me,
you know, I would probably go a little higher. But that is just who I am. But I also recognise that progress some-times comes in baby steps. And this is one of those
steps, Mr. Speaker, in the right direction.
Mr. Speaker, the balance that we speak out
cannot only be in terms of businesses. We have to bal-ance it for our residents who are here as well. And we
have to look at the data that are sometimes presented
to us because if someone is made redundant, Mr.
Speaker, how long do we think it takes for them to be
reasonably employed again? It is now taking 36, 26 weeks sometimes. And in most cases, it is more than that period of time.
So, what we are trying to do is protect, but also
to remember that people want to keep their dignity. Okay? Because that is why, for me, I am very supportive of this. No one wants to, if they do not have to, put
their hand out. But after 26 weeks if I had not found
employment —I have bills to pay, I have rent to pay, I
have children to feed —what are my options? Some
may argue that that is not the responsibility of the busi-ness. Maybe; maybe not. But what this Government is
doing is just putting further prot ections in place. Okay?
Because beating down someone especially when they
are already down is not good either. And that can lead
to other mental health and wellness issues.
So, Mr. Speaker, I do not even have to have a
long conversation with anyone. I do not think any of us needs to have a long conversation on this. And no one
should be rising on their feet not supportive of this. It is
a protective measure. It is needed. It will have more
work, I am pretty sure, that we can all lend our voices
and our support behind. Does it need to have some balance? Maybe. We can look at that over time as well. We do not make laws and say, This is the law for the
rest of our lives. Amen. We come with amendments.
We use the data that come to us. We use the voices
especially from the constituency, speak to each and
every one of us. And that helps to frame what an
amendment may look like, what a new Bill may look
like.
So, like I said, Mr. Speaker, in my view, great
start, 32 weeks. More work to be done. I thank the Minister for bringing this here today. And I think that it will
accompany a package, as we go forward and over the
years to come, of further protections for employees and
businesses, further review and assessment of what this
number should actually look like. You may get to 52
weeks, Mr. Speaker. I am cautiously optimistic. I see
the Premier smiling at me. But, you know, I am going to be cautiously optimistic about it.
And then I also want to say that we have to remember that not everyone who works in this country is
a unionised person. So, for those persons, what we do
in this House is extremely important to them as well.
So, as we move down this road, as we consider
it, I say thank you to the Government for listening, because you were not just listening to Renee Ming. You
have many of our own constituents out here who are


Bermuda House of Assembly applauding this. And anyone who has had the unfortunate case of being made redundant, I am pretty sure
that they would have appreciated this then.
So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I close my comments and I just say thank you.

Good morning to my colleagues and to those in the listening audience.
We all know, Mr. Speaker, that there is a saying that says, He who feels it knows it . He who feels it
knows it. A lot of times, Mr. Speaker, we have these
sorts of conversations as if someone is made redun-dant because of their own negativity or because they
are less -than, and therefore there is a sense of help.
This is not always the case , Mr. Speaker. We have
known that, in Bermuda, certainly throughout the whole
world, in the past several years many people find themselves in a situation whereby their job is no longer. And
as the Honourable Derrick Burgess said earlier, sometimes it is within an hour’s notice, if that. In another
case, Mr. Speaker, you walk in today and guess what?
By the next 15 minutes you are out of that job. So again, Mr. Speaker, he w ho feels it knows it.
A previous speaker spoke about the idea of a
social state in that this is clearly necessary, Mr. Speaker, because in the instance whereby someone is
made redundant and there are insufficient funds, guess what? The state, in this case the government, through Financial Assistance, has to pick up the slack because
that person will go and have to then receive financial
assistance.
But, Mr. Speaker, beyond all of that, my perspective is simply this: In some cases, and we know
there are several coming up, very real in Bermuda. And
there are many employees right now who are going through their minds, Guess what? I know that I’m very
much at risk of losing my job. What will happen? And
depending upon when this Bill is actually put in place,
they will have a benefit. Mr. Speaker, sometimes what
happens is a business in good times, in good times will
decide that I want to get bigger or make my profits higher. That is when we have mergers and acquisitions. Part of that decision process, Mr. Speaker, is going to be, Guess what? If I decide to merge or acquire
another business, what are my costs? In this instance,
Mr. Speaker, it is going to be a matter of, Okay, guess
what? I am going to join these two companies together. I am going to make 10 people redundant. And right
now, my maximum exposure is going to be 26 weeks. With this Bill, it is going to be . . . guess what?
Now think again. It is going to be 32 weeks. So, to the
Honourable Member, Mr. Pearman, I would offer that
this does what he said. It is not creating jobs but preserving jobs. Because I will make the com ment, Mr.
Speaker, that some businesses now will think twice
about what their intentions are in terms of joining together or trying to maximise their profit at the expense
of their workers. This, Mr. Speaker, is going to be very,
very real. I see one Member shaking his head, which
means he may not understand. But however, when I decide, Mr. Speaker, that I am going to do certain
things as a business, I have to consider the costs. So,
we have to first count the cost. And now what is going
to happen is, some businesses will decide, You know
what? I don’t have to go bigger if the cost is going to be an extra six weeks per my long- serving employees, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we also know, and I think one of
the earlier speakers spoke about this. If we took the time to look (and I will say this to one of my former employers), the HSBC has [had] a significant reduction in
their employees in Bermuda over the past 10 years.
They are a private company. But one of the beauties of Bermuda, and I take my hat off to all of those persons
who are part of unions, is that whatever happens to the
unions or with them with their bargaining power and
bargaining successes, it trick les over to the private sector. So, we now know for sure that if the legal requirement, legal minimum goes to 32 weeks for persons who
qualify, then the private sector will follow. Some will follow and maintain that minimum. Others will actually exceed the minimum. Therefore, there is the definite positive consequence to those in the private sector with this
legislation.
And sometimes what happens is we tend to forget that. We tend to denigrate the successes of the un-ions, not realising that their success is in fact our success, Mr. Speaker.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I am going to end by saying this because I know there is no point in going on for
too much longer. Many people have said that there
should be a carve- out for small businesses. I will smile
and say this: Does this mean that they will endorse a higher number, a higher maximum, for bigger compa-nies? So if, Mr. Speaker, we are now saying today that
this is in fact going to be applicable to small businesses
(i.e., this 32 weeks), does [the Government] then endorse the fact that Argus as an example, HSBC as an example, BNTB as an example, should have to pay a
higher minimum because they are a larger company,
they are bigger companies?
So, I still see one Member looking a little bit
quizzical. What I am saying is this: If we say that a big
company has to do 52 weeks and a smaller one is going to do 32, then we have already created a carve- out.
So, we have already considered the impact on a
smaller business as opposed to a larger business.

240 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. L. Craig Cannonier: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to
absorb without making a comment about the idea of somebody saying I am going to hurt. I am not quite sure
what that means. But I will leave it alone.
Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is simply this:
As an example, I would have, let us say, a large company. At the moment if we put in place this idea of a
higher minimum for redundancies, I will consider that in
the context of my decision to either merge or acquire
another business, or really to merge another business
and make any redundancies. The point I was making,
though, is that other speakers have said that they believe there should be a carve- out for small businesses.
If that is the case, the technical word is the corollary,
the opposite, will hold, that they would like now to put in place a higher minimum for bigger businesses.
Those two things are not —

Let us not go back to the
whack -a-mole from last week, Mr. Speaker.
My point is very clear. It is that I stand in support of the increased minimum to 32 weeks. My point was that if people believe that we need to be mindful of
smaller businesses, the opposite of that means that we
can actually have a larger minimum for big businesses,
which in turn would mean that . . . What we know right
now is very, very live is that the intended merger of Argus and BF&M that they would support a larger minimum for any employees who happen to be made redundant as a consequence of the Argus and BF&M
merger. That is the example.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
MP De Silva.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I too would like to rise and support the Minister with this change of legislation. There
have been a couple of comments that I think deserve
further elaboration on. We heard the Honourable Member Pearman talk about we should consider, rather than
bringing this kind of legislation, creating more jobs.
Well, I would like to remind the Honourable Member
and other people who may be listening, especially our
people, Mr. Speaker, that this Government, we can
chew gum and walk at the same time.

Yes.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: And we are good at it. That
is why we have been elected year after year, like we have been. We can chew gum and walk at the same
time.
Mr. Speaker, we have assisted our people with
mortgages as it relates to first -time homeowners. Why
do I mention that? Well, that creates jobs, Mr. Speaker.
It helps people hang on to their jobs, have more money
to help their families. We have also reduced stamp duty
tax for transfer of mortgages. We have a national certi-fication and apprenticeship scheme which is going to
create many jobs in many sectors in this community.
There has been a huge amount of work that has been
done and will be done by the Wor kforce Development
Department, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we have provided funding to the
BEDC [Bermuda Economic Development Corporation]
to start new businesses. And, Mr. Speaker, while we
are talking about new businesses, I think it was the
Honourable Member Pearman who spoke again about,


Bermuda House of Assembly Well, did we consider small businesses and entrepreneurs who have gone into business?
Well, Mr. Speaker, you will know because the
Act tells us so, and I can quote. Section 23(2) tells us
very clearly, “For the purposes of subsection (1), the amount of severance allowance payable to an employee shall be no less than the equivalent of —(a) tw o
weeks wages, for each completed year of continuous
employment up to the first ten years . . .” So, Mr.
Speaker, the Honourable Member mentioned, What about entrepreneurs? Well, if an entrepreneur has had a business for 10 years, I think that entrepreneur ship—
period— is a little past it with that regard, unless that
entrepreneur then branches off and opens up new busi-nesses. So, with regard to the protection of entrepreneurs, I think we are covered under that, very clearly,
as laid out in the Act.
Mr. Speaker, we also eliminated payroll tax for
the first year for new businesses. These are some of
the things that we have done that help create jobs over
the period of time that we have been in Government. Concessions for business operating in the economic
empowerment zones. That is what we are doing to create this business for our people. The Opposition say,
Well, we should be concentrating on creating new busi-nesses. Oh yes! We should. We are. And we are very
successful at it.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think the Honourable Member Ming was very supportive of this change. In fact,
you know, she finished off by saying, I hope it is not
going to take long before a year gets up. I think I prob-ably know why she in particular says that, because she
works for an institution that is well known for making
their employees redundant. And we know who that is, Butterfield Bank. And whilst we are at it, let us talk
about the profit margins that Butterfield Bank have
maintained, especially in particul ar over the last two or
three years. Not to mention that this Government bailed
them out, if we recall.
So for institutions . . . and I agree with Members opposite when they indicated that institutions that
do very well should have no problem with this legislation, in fact should support it with the amount of money
that some of have made and continue to mak e, especially under this Government, I might say.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Minister. And I know that for a man who works as hard as he does, he, in particular, knows the heartbeat of the
people in this country who would need this type of as-sistance. So, I thank him for driving it and bringing it here. And it will be successful.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, MP.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
None other?
Minister —Oh. Premier.
Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I of course rise in support of Government legislation. But I think that it is important to
make sure that we contextualise how we get here, what
it is that we are doing and the record that this Govern-ment has over continuing to increase labour protections. Because as we know, this is an amendment to
the Employment Act, which was a seminal piece of legislation that was passed by the first Progressive Labour
Party Government in 2000 to enshrine labour protections in law for the first time in thi s country. And we have
continued to build on that. Whether or not it is the numerous measures of which we have put in place to
strengthen the Employment Act, to ensure persons
who may be employers, who may be unscrupulous,
who want to do certain things that should not be allowed . . . we have made sure that those things have
been codified and put into law. So yes, this is building
on that.
Now, there are a few things, Mr. Speaker, because it is also important to note that this is something
that was mentioned in this year’s Throne Speech. And
this is something that this Government is delivering.
And it is a reminder that a Throne Speech is a legislative plan for the year, and there are things of which the
Government is continuing to execute around those particular matters, some items which were tabled earlier
today.
But I do want to speak insofar as it relates to a
matter related to this, which is under my remit as Min-ister of Finance, because the Throne Speech spoke to
not only the expansion of maximum severance pay
from 26 weeks to 32 weeks, but it also spoke about the
elimination of payroll tax for the employee on these particular matters. Now, that is a commitment that has
been made in the Throne Speech, and therefore that is
a commitment that will be executed when we get to the
Budget session in keeping in line w ith the promises that
have been made and been laid out.
But what I do want to make sure is that it is
clear, because I know that some persons may have mentioned payroll tax. And it is important to know that,
though this is one half of what it is that we are doing,
we will return back with the second half, whic h is to
make sure that for persons who may find themselves in
the situation where they are being made redundant,
they do not face the impact of course, with their final
redundancy cheque of then having to go ahead and pay
payroll tax on that particular mat ter. We believe that this
is a small measure, but we believe that it is meaningful
for persons who find themselves in that particular situation. And they can have a little bit more money if it
takes longer to find a job.
Now, we do know that unemployment in the
country is incredibly low, that the labour market is incredibly tight, and that persons are finding the opportunity to be reemployed. But it may not always be that
way. And we always need to remember that economic
cycles come and go, and we need to make sure that
242 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly we plan for the good times, but also for the times which
are not so good.
So clearly, Mr. Speaker, I am in support of this
legislation. This legislation is a reminder to the people
who are listening, the people of this country, that there is one party who has always stood on the side of workers in this country. There is one part y that gets up and
says, We stand proudly for workers, and we are not going to go with “buts.” So, we heard all of the things
about, We support the minimum wage, but . . . We support this change, but . . . It is either you are on the side
of workers, or you are not on the side of workers. And
we have said, shown and demonstrated through our
actions that we are on the side of workers. And this is
just one more thing that the Progressive Labour Party
has done that is on the side of workers in this country.
And I am a proud supporter and proud to lead a Government that acts in the manner consistent with its
name as a labour party.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mm-hmm.

Hon. Vance Campbell: And what I take from that, Mr.
Speaker, is that there has to be a symbiotic relationship between the two. There has to be a balance between labour and business, and what we concede to business
and what we concede to labour. Otherwise, without
business, there is no need for labour. And if we do not
take care of labour, then business will not succeed.
The Premier mentioned changing economic
environments. And it is important to emphasise that because markets do change. Business environments do
change. And when a business finds itself in a position
that it has to sever ties with a long- serving employee, it
is not always because that business is trying to capitalise and expand its profit line, its bottom line. It is not
always the case. Sometimes they are just struggling.
And a bigger business does have the capacity to sometimes withstand the severance of an employee here or
there. So, six weeks additional severance to them might not make a difference.
And I am not talking . . . I am not saying that we
should not increase the safety net. What I am saying is
every time we do have to increase that safety net,
somebody has to pay the cost. And with this particular
amendment here, it is a small business that will be less
likely to su rvive having to pay six extra weeks.
We heard about profitability. Profitability, Mr.
Speaker, has really no bearing on whether a business
is successful or not. It is cash flow! Because there are
numerous businesses, Mr. Speaker, there are numer-ous businesses that have reported profit on the bottom
line that have gone out of business because they had
no cash. So, what my point is, and I will sit down with
this point, is that if we reach the tipping point, we are
going to kill existing businesses because of the increasing cost burden. And then the very people whom we
are looking to protect will not have jobs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Members, your Minister would like to be
able to have an uninterrupted response.

Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Speaker, we are elected
Members in the House of Assembly. And I ask one
question to every MP: When you go on the doorstep


Bermuda House of Assembly and you ask your constituents if they would support an
increase in social protections such as an increase in
severance pay, what would the majority of the constituents say?

Mm-hmm.

Hon. Jason Hayward: And if the answer to that is,
They will support the particular benefit, it indicates that we as a Government are moving in the right direction
and we are actually serving their best interest. And that is the primary reason why we are in this particular
House.
Mr. Speaker, there was a lot of . . . You see,
the Opposition Leader is tactful in his approach. He has
a way of supporting something while also creating a
narrative that what the Government is saying may not be correct, or may not be true, or could be false. And I
will say that in the contex t of the references to, If our
economy is doing well, why would we be increasing
severance pay or social protections? I do have a Mem-ber who says we can walk and chew gum. But the facts
are the facts.
This is not the Government proposing that the
economy is doing well. The economic data support that
particular position. Mr. Speaker, last week we released
the GDP numbers, which are the official measure of
economic performance in this country. And our eco nomy expanded by 4.9 per cent in 2023. We had 14 out
of our 19 industrial sectors which increased and ex-panded economic activity. That is extremely positive. We have one of the fastest growing economies in the
Latin American and Caribbean region. That is a fact!
On top of that, Mr. Speaker, when you look at the 2023
numbers, they are closely or roughly $500 million, half
a billion dollars above our pre- pandemic levels in 2019.
So, there is no doubt that our economy has expanded.
And as our economy has expanded, jobs have
expanded in our economy as well. We see year -overyear increases in job numbers. We see that our employment income is up. We see that our unemployment
is down. Bermudian unemployment is down. Our trade
balance is up. Our air visitor arrivals are up.

Hon. E. David Burt: Yes.

Hon. Jason Hayward: I was able to share this week
that our second quarter GDP has Bermuda’s economy
rapidly expanding at a rate of 8.7 per cent year over
year. That is extremely positive economic performance.
That is on top of a 6.6 per cent increase in the first quarter of 2024. That is extremely positive momentum, and
we expect jobs to increase as a result of that economic
activity. So, we should not be painting a picture that is
not the reality when all of the economic data say that
that is the reality o n the ground in Bermuda.
But as a unionist, the time in which you engage
in negotiations in earnest is when a business is doing
well, it is when the economy is doing well. Because you are able to negotiate for better benefits. If that notion
holds in that particular circumstance, then that notion
holds throughout the economy. You actually have the
ability or the capacity to increase benefits when your
economy is doing better. If we were in a recession and
businesses were shutting down, it would not be prudent
for the Government to expand benefits at this rapid
rate. But the economy is improving.
There is a lot of talk about small businesses in
Bermuda, Mr. Speaker, and I want to put that in context.
In the first quarter of 2019, we had 3,474 local busi-nesses registered in Bermuda. That is local businesses. That is inclusive of our small businesses .
These are not our exempt companies. The second
quarter of 2024 numbers have us at 3,958 local businesses. That is an increase of 14 per cent, or 484 —

Hon. Jarion Richardson: Point of clarification?

Minister. I am sure you have got your
information right in front there. You go ahead, Minister.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Speaker, this comes from
the Quarterly Bulletin of Statistics that is issued by the
Department of Statistics. However, there is a source
reference of the Register of Companies as being the
source of the data. These data are broken down by local, exempt, exempt partnership, non- resident —in various different categories . So, every time I talk about the
number of businesses, people then say, Oh, those are not local businesses. So then, I am breaking it down
into local businesses, and now they are saying that that
number of local businesses is not a reflection of businesses in Bermuda. I do not understand why we keep trying to pick bones at the data when the data are showing that there are positive numbers as it pertains to local
business in Bermuda.
There are 484 more local businesses registered in Bermuda now than before the pandemic economy. That is an increase of 14 per cent. That is extremely positive.
We have to stop creating a narrative that all is
doom and gloom. We understand that some businesses are struggling. And a struggle is a natural part
244 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report
B ermuda House of Assembly of a business cycle. When we deal with BEDC and the
work that they are doing expanding incubators and ac-celerators, partly the reason why we put incubators and accelerators in place is because the likelihood of a small business succeeding is higher when it has better
supports in place in its starting years. So, we understand that, and we are putting the supports in place.
And we are also expanding that.
We will also be developing a full National Entrepreneurship Strategy which lays out the suite of ac-tivities that we will do to support our small and medium-sized businesses. But we have expanded the goods
and services and the grants and the benefits to our
small and medium- sized businesses in Bermuda. And
we will continue to do so.
Mr. Speaker, one Member said that this may
force employers to place employees in precarious contracts. And that thought process is the exact reason
why we put independent contractor guidelines in place
so that employees cannot be exploited by these precar-ious work contracts.
There is this other notion about an employee in
a big business and an employee in a small business.
Both are human beings. Both deserve dignity. Both deserve rights and benefits. So, we do not have an Em-ployment Act that says, Because you work for a small
business, you are only entitled to this many vacation days or this number of sick days. They are treated equally whether you work in a small business or a large
business. So, to try to have carve- outs for just big business is not appropriate in this circumstance or this regard. If somebody dedicates 40 years of service to an organisation, they should be compensated for the 40 years of service to that particular organisation.
Mr. Speaker, there was also a talk about this
big-versus -small, but the legislation is designed to be
progressive. So, what MP Zane De Silva spoke about is that you get two years up to ten, and then after ten you get three years per year [sic] . And that talks about
the progressive nature of the legislation. So, every employee who is made redundant does not get the 32
weeks. But after 12 years of employment, then you get more benefits, and rightfully so. The more years you put in, the greater benefit you should actually receive. And that is the way in which the legislation is designed.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation is about providing
greater support to the people of Bermuda when they need it most. And I am proud to stand here today and progress this legislation in an environment where our economy is doing well, where we have an increase in
jobs, where this complements a full suite of changes that we have made to the Employment Act to make life
better for the workers within our country.
So, with that said, Mr. Speaker, I move that this
Bill be now committed.
[
Desk thumping]

Continue.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, this Bill seeks to
amend the Employment Act 2000 (the principal Act) to
amend the maximum s everance allowance of wages
paid to an employee on termination of employment
from 26 weeks wages to 32 weeks wages.
Clause 1 is the citation of the Bill.
Clause 2 amends section 23(2) of the principal Act to
remove the reference to 26 weeks and substitute the
reference to 32 weeks.
Clause 3 amends section 33(3)(c) of the principal Act to remov e the reference to 26 weeks and substitute the reference to 32 weeks.

It has been moved that the preamble
be approved.
Are there any objections to that?
There appear to be none.
Approved.
Hon. Jason Hayward: Mr. Chairman, I move that the
Bill be reported to the House as printed.


Bermuda House of Assembly The Chairman: It has been moved that the Bill be reported to the House as printed.
Are there any objections?
There appear to be none.
The Bill will be reported to the House as
printed.

[Motion carried: The Employment Amendment Act
2024 was considered by a Committee of the whole
House and passed without amendment.]

Oh, yes. As the printed report has been
accepted, the Minister just wanted for us to
acknowledge the civil servants who have been here for
the debate this morning and who have, I am sure, pro-vided invaluable assistance in getting this Bill to the table thi s morning.
And we appreciate what you do to keep the
Minister and his team working well. And thank you for being here this morning.

[Desk thumping]

The House is now in session.
This afternoon, the item that is on the agenda
is the motion by the Honourable Minister Weeks. The
motion was given notice on the 15
th of November, and
reads:
BE IT RESOLVED that this Honourable House
supports the report entitled the National Violence Reduction Strategy.
Minister, would you like to present your matter?
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Good afternoon to you.

Are there any objections to this matter
proceeding?
There are none.
Continue, Minister.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the document
[under] discussion is the National Violence Reduction
Strategy . This strategy is the combination of collaboration, reflection and dialogue bringing together stake-holders across sectors to address the urgent and multi -
faceted issue of violence in our community. Discussing
this strategy today marks a step forward in th is Government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring the safety,
security and well -being of all Bermudians.
The National Violence Reduction Strategy is a
comprehensive and adaptive framework designed to confront the complex and interconnected causes of violence in Bermuda. By integrating prevention, interven246 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly tion and rehabilitation efforts, the National Violence Reduction Strategy aims to create systemic long- lasting
change. It prioritises addressing the root causes of vio-lence, such as economic inequality, social alienation
and generational trauma, while fost ering collaboration
and inclusion across all sectors of society.
This strategy envisions a future built on trust,
opportunity and justice for all, a safer and more resilient Bermuda for generations to come. Mr. Speaker, this
strategy is not just a plan. It is a commitment to every
resident of Bermuda. It represents the collective will of
our community where stakeholders from all walks of life
have come together to confront the reality of violence
and its devastating impacts. Through the National Violence Reduction Strategy, we aim to transform our approach, shifting fro m reactive measures to proactive,
inclusive of solutions that prioritise prevention and longterm sustainability.
Every Bermudian deserves to feel safe in their
home, workplace, school and in their neighbourhoods. This strategy ensures that we take every measure pos-sible to address violence at its roots and build a safer
society. The National Violence Reduction Strat egy
builds upon the legacy of earlier initiatives, including
the Inter -agency Gang Task Force (or IGTF), the Inter -
agency Gang Enforcement Team (which is IGET for
short) and the Inter -agency Community Response
(IGCR). These entities were originally establi shed to
combat rising gang violence and antisocial behaviours.
As our challenges have evolved over time, the National
Violence Reduction Strategy expands upon these ef-forts, recognising that violence extends beyond gangs
and requires a broader, more integr ated approach.
This strategy is an evolution of what we have
learned, experienced and implemented, bringing
greater coordination and effectiveness to our efforts.
Mr. Speaker, this strategy incorporates a three- tier
structure to ensure comprehensive oversight and implem entation.

First Tier—National Violence
Reduction Steering Committee

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The first tier is the National
Violence Reduction Steering Committee, chaired by
the Minister of National Security and supported by Permanent Secretaries from key Ministries. This committee provides policy guidance and ensures inter -agency
collaboration and aligned resources with strategic goals, reflecting a commitment to tackling all forms of violence. This steering committee will spearhead the
development of policies and strategies focused on violence prevention, mental health serv ices and community resilience. Furthermore, it will monitor programme
outcomes to ensure alignment with objectives and adjust plans, as necessary, based on data and community feedback.
Mr. Speaker, the steering committee will work
closely with its strategic partners, which include the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Legal Affairs, the
Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the
Ministry of Youth, Social Development and Seniors.
This collaboration ensures that all areas impacted by
violence —education and legal affairs , health, housing
and youth development —are addressed by unified
multi -sectoral efforts. By bringing together key decision-makers and stakeholders, the steering committee
ensures that our approach is cohesive, comprehensive
and effective.

Second Tier —Inter -agency Gang
Enforcement Team (IGET)

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The second tier, the Inter -
agency Gang Enforcement Team, or IGET, focuses on intelligence -sharing, coordinated interventions and targeted enforcement efforts. This team employs a datadriven approach to identifying high- risk offenders, victim and crime hot spots, enabling precise and effective
action. The IGET serves as the operational arm of the
National Violence Reduction Strategy, ensuring that all
law enforcement agencies and supporting entities work
in harmony to address Bermuda’s most pressing safety
concerns. The enforcement partners include the
• Bermuda Police Service;
• Department of Court Services;
• Department of Corrections;
• Department of Child and Family Services;
• Department of Immigration;
• His Majesty’s Customs;
• Department of Public Prosecutions;
• Mirrors Programme; and the
• Ministry of Education.
Each of these partners plays a critical role in
ensuring that enforcement efforts are comprehensive, strategic and impactful.
Mr. Speaker, the IGET focuses on tasking and
coordinating law enforcement efforts by analysing community intelligence. It identifies offenders causing the
greatest harm, victims at the highest risk, the crimes posing the greatest threat and the locations w here violence is most concentrated. From this analysis, the
IGET establishes tactical priorities. And each agency
determines how to best contribute to the effort. The targeted approach ensures that resources are allocated
efficiently and that interventions are effective in addressing Bermuda’s most urgent safety concerns.

Third Tier —Inter -agency
Community Response (IGTR)

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the third tier,
the Inter -agency Community Response (IGTR), prioritises prevention through education, rehabilitation and
partnerships. This tier recognises that violence is not
only a law enforcement issue, but also a community issue that requires collaborative grass -roots solutions.
The IGCR works closely with at -risk individuals and


Bermuda House of Assembly their families to provide the support needed to break
the cycle of violence. Through initiatives like vocational
training, mental health services, mentorship programmes and community engagement, the IGCR
seeks to address the underlying social and economic factors contributing to violence. The Inter -agency Community Response team also collaborates with schools,
community organisations and health agencies to create
a network of support that fosters resilience and reduces
the likelihood of violence.
Mr. Speaker, by establishing the National Violence Reduction Strategic Committee, repurposing the
IGET and enhancing the IGCR, the National Violence
Reduction Strategy creates a robust and coordinated
framework for addressing violence in Bermuda. These
three tiers working in concert ensure that prevention,
intervention and enforcement are balanced and mutually reinforcing. By leveraging existing structures and
enhancing collaborations, Bermuda will be better
equipped to create safer, more resilient communi ties
and promote long- term social cohesion.
Mr. Speaker, the National Violence Reduction
Strategy is guided by eight strategic goals that represent the pillars of our collective efforts to reduce violence and promote community cohesion. Allow me to expand on these goals and to illustrate their significance and the strategies that underpin them.

Goal 1—Enhance Early Intervention and
Community -based Initiatives for
Violence Prevention
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The first goal is to enhance
early intervention and community -based initiatives for
violence prevention. This involves identifying at -risk individuals and intervening early to provide them with the
tools and resources needed to navigate challenges construc tively. Programmes in schools will introduce
curricula that focus on conflict resolution, emotional regulation and empathy, ensuring that children develop
strong interpersonal skills. Community partnerships
with youth centres, after -school programmes and
sports clubs will create safe, structured environments that engage young people in meaningful activities, re-ducing idle time that also leads to negative influences.
Membership initiatives will connect at -risk
youth with positive role models who can guide them to-ward constructive choices, while parent training programmes will help strengthen family bonds and improve communication within households. Expanding access to mental health services tailored to the needs
of young people will ensure that those struggling with
trauma or emotional challenges receive the support
that they need to survive.

Goal 2—Strengthen Community Resilience
and Support Systems for Gang Prevention
and Rehabilitation
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the second goal
is to strengthen community resilience and support sys-tems for gang prevention and rehabilitation. This entails
building robust networks of support that address the social and economic conditions that often drive individu-als tow ard gangs. Counselling and mental health services will be enhanced with a focus on trauma recovery,
addiction treatment and life skills training. Vocational
training and apprenticeship programmes will equip individuals with marketable skills providing pathways to
sustainable employment. Community mediation pro-grammes will play a vital role in addressing interpersonal conflicts within neighbourhoods, preventing
these issues from escalating into violence.
Support groups for fathers will be established
to promote positive parenting, emotional regulation and
stronger family dynamics. These initiatives will create a foundation of resilience that empowers communities to
stand together against violence and its root causes.

Goal 3—Conflict Resolution and De- escalation
Through Negotiation
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The third goal emphasises
conflict resolution and de- escalation through negotiation. Specialised teams of trained negotiators and community leaders will work to intervene in high- tension situations, preventing violence before it occurs. Mediation
workshops will teach individuals and groups the skills
needed to resolve disputes constructi vely. Community
engagement initiatives such as Neighbourhood Watch
programmes and dialogues between law enforcement
and community organisations will f oster trust and collaboration.
By expanding the Coordinated Crisis Response team, resources will be directed to affected communities to provide immediate support including
trauma counselling and conflict resolution services.

Goal 4—Promote Reintegration and Restoration by
Supporting Individuals Who Have Been
Involved in Gangs
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the fourth goal
seeks to promote reintegration and restoration by supporting individuals who have been involved in gangs.
Comprehensive re- entry programmes will address the
unique challenges faced by these individuals, providing
access to hous ing, vocational training and counselling
services. Partnerships with private sector organisations
will create tailored apprenticeship opportunities that
align with industry demands, ensuring a smooth transition into meaningful employ ment. Establishing
safehouses and offering relocation assistance will provide individuals with the support needed to leave dangerous environments and rebuild their lives.

248 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Goal 5—Strengthen Enforcement Measures to
Disrupt Gang- Related Activity and Enhance
Public Safety

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The fifth goal focuses on
strengthening enforcement measures to disrupt gangrelated activity and enhance public safety. Increased
police presence in high- risk areas coupled with advanced intelligence analysis will allow for targeted in-tervention. Restorat ive justice programmes will focus
on rehabilitating offenders, reducing recidivism and fostering reintegration into society. Public awareness campaigns will educate the community about the consequences of gang violence, emphasising t he collective
responsibility to create safer neighbourhoods. Special-ised training for law enforcement officers will ensure
that they are equipped to address gang- related issues
effectively and sensitively.
Goal 6—Improve Collaboration and Coordination
Among Stakeholders
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the sixth goal is
to improve collaboration and coordination among
stakeholders . By fostering partnerships across sectors,
resources can be pooled and efforts can be aligned to maximise impact. Joint intervention programmes and
cross- sector training will enhance the effectiveness of
initiatives, while community engagement will build trust
and encourage active participation from residents.
Advocacy for policy alignment will ensure that
government agencies or NGOs [non- governmental organisations] and community organisations work together cohesively.

Goal 7— Advocate for Policies that Address
Systemic Issues and Promote Sustainable
Rehabilitation Efforts
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: The seventh goal focuses on
advocating for policies that address systemic issues
and promote sustainable rehabilitation efforts. Initiatives such as incentivising corporations with law enforcement, expanding access to rehabilitation programmes and supporti ng community policing will foster
safer, more inclusive communities. Legislative reforms
will prioritise addressing the root causes of violence,
creating long- term solutions for social safety.

Goal 8—Improve Public Awareness Campaigns to Educate the Community on Violence Prevention Strategies and Resources
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, the eighth and
final goal is to improve public awareness campaigns to
educate the community on violence prevention strategies and resources . Targeted media campaigns, public
events and partnerships with influencers will amplify
key messages. Outreach programmes in schools and neighbourhoods will ensure that information is accessi-ble to all, empowering individuals to take an active role
in violence prevention.
Mr. Speaker, to ensure effective implementation, the National Violence Reduction Strategy employs a structured and phased approach. By focusing on
short -, medium- and long- term goals, the strategy addresses immediate priorities while laying a foundation
for sustainable far -reaching initiatives. This phased design allows the strategy to adapt to evolving needs, en-suring that efforts remain responsive and relevant to Bermuda’s unique challenges. Immediate actions target urgent issues, while medium- term measur es focus
on strengthening existing programmes and community
resilience. Long- term objectives are designed to create
systemic change, promoting equity, safety and oppor-tunity for all.
Mr. Speaker, today we have made significant
progress in addressing the short -term goals of the National Violence Reduction Strategy. Operational plans have been completed for key initiatives, including the
anti-violence campaigns, the GED completion programme, the Bermuda College programme and the
Workforce Development programme. These plans provide a strong foundation for advancing violence prevention and community engagement. Additionally, the National Violence Reduction Steering Committee has been estab lished. Furthermore, $500,000 in additional
funding has been allocated to support priority areas, including violence prevention, job training, mental health
services and public awareness campaigns.
These efforts reflect our commitment, this Government’s commitment, Mr. Speaker, to tackling Ber-muda’s immediate challenges and laying the groundwork for sustained progress. Over the next two years,
the Government’s focus will be on building upon the
foundational initiatives established in the short term to
create sustainable change. The aim is to expand educational and social skills programmes offering broad
opportunities for at -risk individuals to develop life skills
and increase their potential for mean ingful employment. Strengthening community resilience remains a
priority, with an emphasis on vocational training that
equips individuals with practical skills aligned with Bermuda’s evolving economic needs.
Additionally, we will develop enforcement strategies that are specifically tailored to Bermuda’s unique
challenges, ensuring a balanced approach that combines accountability with community focused policing. These efforts are designed to solidify gains made during the initial phase while addressing systemic factors
contributing to violence.
Mr. Speaker, in the long term, the Government
strategy shifts toward creating enduring solutions that
foster systemic and cultural change. This includes the
expansion of mentorship opportunities to provide consistent guidance and positive role models for vulnerable populations, along with the establishment of safe


Bermuda House of Assembly houses that offer refuge and support for individuals escaping cycles of violence. Policy reforms will also play
a critical role in supporting rehabilitation and reintegration programmes that reduce recidivism and promote
social cohesion. By addressing the root causes of vio-lence and prioritising the reintegration of affected individuals into society, the aim is to create a safer, more
equitable Bermuda for future generations.
Underpinning the National Violence Reduction
Strategy is a robust monitoring and evaluation framework, enabling data- driven decision- making, accountability and adaptability. This system ensures that Bermuda’s efforts remain aligned with the evolving needs
of the community and the overarching objectives of our
strategy.
Mr. Speaker, the National Violence Reduction
Strategy represents a collective vision for Bermuda, a strategy that builds on the successes of the past while
charting a bold forward- looking path to address the root
causes of violence. Through this strategy, we commit
to fostering safety, unity and opportunity for all Bermudians who are creating a future where resilience and
collaboration define our communities. Together we
stand ready to create lasting change.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to commend the National Violence Reduction Strategy to this
Honourable House and for the Honourable Members to
discuss.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to
the Minister for presenting.
I think everybody in Bermuda would say that
this is a major conversation that needs to be had. There is no one in Bermuda who has not seen what the violent
crime in this country has done to our community. And
having a strategy in place in order to tackle t hese issues should be and is a priority.
Mr. Speaker, the issues that were laid out by
the Minister are multi -faceted. We did not get here overnight. There have been multiple challenges that have happened over multiple Government administrations.
When you look at the death toll that is in this r eport, that
is one part, a major, sad part that has been tearing our
community apart. But look at all of the lives attached to
those deaths. Young men spending a significant
amount of time incarcerated, families torn apart, chil-dren growing up without parents. One of the things that
I think is important is that we all realise that it is our
collective responsibility. It is also our individual responsibility because it is going to take everybody in our
country to believe that these changes have to happen
in order for the changes to take hold.
A couple of weeks ago, I made mention that
there were issues that had happened in our education
system that probably led to some of the issues that we are dealing with today. Mr. Speaker, we have to understand that every decision that gets made, you have to
look at it for what it means the day you make it. And
into the future, what is the outcome that [will be] caused
by making specific changes? I do not believe anybody
would have thought that on purpose they would want to
create gang violence, gang activi ty when those
changes were made. But the consequences are the
same.
We have a problem in our community. Here we
speak a lot in this document about gang violence. But, Mr. Speaker, let us be honest. We have an anger management issue in our community in multiple parts of our
community. We seem to have an issue with being able
to resolve conflict. The conversation leads to an argument. The argument leads to a fist fight. And then it
continues to escalate. And the behaviour of a parent sometimes, not realising that they are modelling the behaviour that the child will follow.
And in this document, it refers to some of the
issues that are happening in our community, the breakdown of the family. Our Opposition Leader mentioned
in the Reply to the Throne Speech, that there has been
some breakdown in some of what would have been our
community establishments. People attending church
the way they did before. People attending community
groups the way they used to. This breakdown of our
community has happened in multiple ways. And that is
why it will take a collective effort to get us back on track
and to be able to heal our community.
But, Mr. Speaker, it will not be as simple as putting some words down on a document. It is going to
take both sides of the House, it is going to take our church leaders, our teachers, our coaches, our parents.
Everybody collectively has to understand that this is our
problem. One major problem in our community is that
sometimes if it is not happening in your neighbourhood,
it is not your problem. But one more young man losing
his life is one too many. And, Mr. Speaker, we sit here
with this document today, but we have not been able to
tackle it since the first one. Once again, I am saying accountability across multiple administrations.
The piece that will be difficult here as you go
through this document is implementation. Because
once again you can put this on paper, but our problems are deep- rooted, and it is going to take a lot of people
rolling up their sleeves. And it is also going to take a lot
of money. Whether we like to talk about that part or not, it is going to take a lot of money. Our issues are deep-rooted, and in order to fix them, we are going to have
to take a lot of support to get there. And the Minister
has mentioned some of those.
But, Mr. Speaker, if what we need is more support in the social services, that is going to mean more
people, more training for those people, giving them the
ability to go into these environments with numbers. Mr.
Speaker, it is important that what we star t to do is realise that we as leaders in this country have to also set
250 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly that example, how we behave, how we handle ourselves, how we speak to each other, how we deal with
conflict, disagreement. And then you have to have that
expectation of your neighbours, of your friends. If you
see a parent talking to a child in a way that they should never talk to a child, it is your responsibility to pull that
parent aside and say, That is our future, and you are
not allowed to talk to them that way.
Mr. Speaker, that used to be the community.
We took care of each other. We always talk about how
it used to be. We got in trouble in school, and on our way home two or three neighbours had already mentioned it. By the time you got home, multiple people had
been touchpoints. That is the community together that
brought that child up. Many of those children are leaders in this room today.
But, Mr. Speaker, in order to have the enforcement side, we need to have more police officers. We
need to get to the point where, one, we are wrestling
with what is happening in our community today so that
our community can feel safe, so that people can s tart
to be able to speak to each other with respect and without fear of what is going to happen to them if they speak
out. But that is going to take police presence. That is
going to take community policing, which means that you have to get your police for ce to a level that allows
for that to happen.
Mr. Speaker, this is an emergency, and that is
why we are here debating it today. But if the service is
not going to be able to get to a strong enough level until
2026, and that is without looking into the details of re-tirement and suspensions and all of the other issues
that might bring that number down, are we pouring water into a bucket that has a hole in it? Because, Mr. Speaker, the crime is not the same as it was in the
1970s. It is not the same as it was in the 1980s. When we look at these statistic s, I think everybody in this
room would have known that there was a time when it
was baseball bats and machetes. Then it was guns in
this community.
But, Mr. Speaker, it has now reached the point
where sometimes a gun crime happens, and it does not
even really get the full press anymore. We are not even
talking about in a level like it is something that is shock-ing, that it is impacting our community the way it is.
Have we become numb? Have we reached that stage?
Because if that is where we are, we cannot be here. We
cannot be at that stage. It is going to take everyone
here to remind everybody that that is not our community. That is not who we ever wanted to be and not who we should be.
But, Mr. Speaker, as we have moved into this
new level of crime, we have to understand that on one hand we will have to put in the services that help and
rehabilitate and try our very best to give opportunities
to our young people so that they have choices that do not lead [down] this path to nowhere. But at the same
time, you are also going to have to make sure that you are enforcing in a way that is a deterrent to the behav-iour. Which means we are going to have to make sure
that we are equipping our poli ce force in a way that allows them to collect that intelligence. And if that means that we need to give them more resources, I am looking forward to seeing how we are going to give them those
resources, how we are going to give them that manpower.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, am I allowed to
give a point of information?

[Microphone not on.]

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: A point of order, yes.
[Inaudible interjections ]

POINT OF ORDER
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: We have made it clear a few
times over the last couple of months that the police
have been given more resources. As of September, we
gave the police an extra $2 million, Mr. Speaker. Right?
We have 25 officers who just started, new officers,
boots on the ground in November. Twenty -five [officers]. And 25 officers will be starting in February, 25
more officers will be starting in February 2025.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think the point that I made was that we are in
an emergency. And when the report came out, and I
heard the Minister say what he said, and I also heard
the Commissioner say what he said, and getting to that
force in 2026. We are in 2024. That training is going to
take time. The problem is that as I am here speaking, the people who are committing these crimes, they do not spend their time listening to the House of Assembly.
They are not paying attention to the fact that we are
doing this report. They are t hinking about the next person whom they are going to hurt in our community.
I am supporting what is in this document. I am
saying that it is going to take another level of support
other than a document. And I am advocating . . . because we all know how the budget works. The Minister is going to have to ask for more. So, it is going to take
everybody in this room to advocate for that “more” to
happen. Because at the same time as we are locking
up more of our young people because of the crimes that


Bermuda House of Assembly they are getting caught in, they are ending up at Westgate, which means that you are going to have to have
more services provided there.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, another point of
order.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have had several
shootings in the last year. We have multiple crimes that
have gone unsolved. Once again, I understand the Minister thinks that this is a critique on everything that he has done. I am saying we have to give more support!
And I am actually giving him that support. I am saying that we know, and the community knows that they need more. Remember, this is just a report. All of the details
are not in this report. It talks about some things in general terms.
And once again, if at the top of the pyramid in
leadership we cannot have a debate without someone else’s opinion being knocked down immediately just because they sit on another side of the aisle, understand, how do we expect more from our young people?

[Inaudible interjections]

So, Mr. Speaker, as we go through
this, the question will become, How are we going to pay
for these things? Now, I am asking it because some of
the funding that the Minister is referring to happened in
a mid -term budget, not in the original budget. It was an
emergency back in January and February. This report
did not come up because it has just been 2024 that has
been our issue. This report has come up because this is an issue as pointed out, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 . . .
multiple murders. And as I was pointing out, this violence in our community is not just gangs. What has happened now is, because of that behaviour we have
other people now carrying weapons. We can sit here
and pretend that is not the case, but it is.
[Inaudible interjection]

I am fully aware. I read the document.
Fully aware.
So, as we are moving forward, you have to
have the details in here in order to make this happen. The Minister said it himself; it is a living document. Yes? We will continue to move forward. But in here it talks
about that we need more mental health support. That
means you are going to have to hire people. It would
be great to know how many people are needed in order
for us to have that support. We will advocate for that
support to happen.
Mr. Speaker, we know that there are cases
where our young people are not getting assessed at an
early age. It is no one’s fault; it is just because a parent
does not take their child for the assessment. So once
again this is where I am saying it is commun ity responsibility. It is individual responsibility. That is where the
difference comes. We cannot just blame one group for
it. We are all part of this. So, the assessment did not
happen. The child shows up in that classroom behind.
And now that child is acting up in that classroom as a
necessity to cover up what is a potential learning disability or trauma that is happening in their household.
And now they are pointed out as they are a trouble.
Now that young person is vulnerable to lead to a life of
crime .
That was not their original choice, their original
destiny. And I believe that what the document is saying is we need to do everything we can to prevent that first
step from happening by having support systems, by
working with our community clubs, by work ing with our
sports, by working with our schools. We are not in dis-agreement. What we are saying is that there is going to be some cost to that, and we have to make sure on both
sides that we are in support of what it is going to take
to get that support s o that we can change the direction
of our young people while making sure that the people
who are already behaving in this way are dealt with in
the way they need to be dealt with.
And I apologise right now, Mr. Speaker, but I
am standing here giving a speech about the fact that
we have multiple people in our country dying and suffering and parents crying because they have lost their
loved ones. And we have Ministers in this House l aughing while I am talking. And I am sorry. There is no possible way that that makes sense.

[Inaudible interjection]

Point of order.

POINT OF ORDER

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Mr. Speaker, we have to all
be mindful, especially that Member who is accusing this
side of laughing, that it is a very important discussion.
Right? We have to always be mindful that our country
is listening to us. So, when you speak to try to get your
political points, be careful who is listening.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that we
want to have a safer community. I said it before that we
have some parents who have had to make a choice to
migrate out of our country in order to protect their sons. That is not a decision that happens lightl y. The fact that
we have reached the stage in our country that we have to have a report like this, and we have reached the state where people are having to move to another country
because . . . let us be honest. We have had this conversation quietly with each other, that there are members of our community who cannot leave a parish. Bermuda is a small place. I cannot imagine not being able to leave one parish in a small community as what we have here.
But, Mr. Speaker, we also have to know that
there are some of the institutions in Bermuda that we
need to do all that we can to now support so that they
can help us through this process. Because there are
agencies that are in the field working this way, and
sometimes they have the ability to do things that cannot happen when it comes under a government banner.
And I believe that you see that within some of the documentation in this report where it talks about the private
sector working collaboratively in order for us to get
there. But once again there is the potential that you are
going to need to give some support to these agencies so that they can continue that work or increase that
work.
Once again, I am here advocating for if that
support is needed, we have to figure out how we can get those finances to these groups so that they can
make those changes.
Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things that I
do want to point out. One of them is on the one hand
we got rid of the Regiment because there were people who were specifically complaining about having to be
in conscription to be in the Regiment. But we forgot
about the impact that it was having on some of our
young people. Potentially the discipline and the commitment and the structure that they were not getting at home, for the first time they were able to get in that institution. So once again when that kind of adjustment
happens, we do not know what impact it might have.
There might have been a life saved by being able to get
that discipline, to be able to interact with somebody who
you might not have had a chance to interact with in any other way.
And there are Members within this Chamber
who can tell you stories about the change in their life that happened by going through a programme like that.
And the only reason that I am pointing that out, there
are multiple areas where that can happen. It can happen within sports; it can happen within church groups.
It can happen in multiple facets. We do have a lot of
people in our community who are helping and working
toward having our youth be successful. But, Mr.
Speaker, it is also important that we do th ings to make
sure that the people who are standing up in front of our
young people are trained the right way and are behaving the right way. The same way that I said modelling
as a parent, modelling as legislators, we also have to
make sure that our coaches and people who are in those positions are actually modelling what we would
like to see from our future in these young people.
There are people standing up in front of our
young people cursing and shouting. It happens. We also have parents at games behaving in that same way.
That is the example. And then when that young person is a 10- year-old behaving that same way, we want to
look at them and say, It’s their fault . Or was it we taught
them to behave that way? Now that 10- year-old is an
18-year-old who does not have a way to deal with conflict because they have been in a household where they watched arguments happening. And they have been on
a football pitch and have seen how that behaviour happens. And sometimes we have to enforce the rules so
that we are protecting the next generation because
they see that there are rules that they need to follow.
Mr. Speaker, I will bring up a point that comes
under another Ministry that I deal with, which is sports. And we used to have a policy in place that said that in
order to travel for a national team, you had to do drug
testing. And that slipped away. The problem with that is
that once again you are eroding your levels, your stand-ards. And the problem with doing that is that you are
saying, You know what? We are going to move that
away because potentially there are people whom we
want on these teams who are not willing to abide by the
actual rules —
Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Point of order.


Bermuda House of Assembly POINT OF ORDER

Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: As the National Sporting
Coach, that Member should know that we were re-quired to change our internal drug policy because of the pressures from the international drug policy. WADA
[World Anti -Doping Agency] made us change what we
were doing here. That Member should know that. It was
not something that we initiated. It was something that
was initiated by WADA.

[Inaudible interjections ]

So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to say it
again because it is pretty simple for every national sport
governing body to enforce that. Because it is your decision to be able to enforce that testing. The reason why
it is important is because that level, once agai n, is the
role model. That level is the group that the youngsters
look up to. And what we have to stop doing is challenging every time somebody says that we should be raising our standards instead of lowering them. What I am
saying is that as a country we need to start to chal-lenge. We need to start to do the things that are going
to help our community to be better than they are right
now.
And if you want to continue to be in the situation that we are right now, we are saying in this docu-ment there are multiple things that could be helpful for our community, but it is going to mean that each and
every one of us has to change our mind- set! S top
fighting every time somebody says something!

[Inaudible interjections]

We have to do better. We have to expect more of each other in our community, in this House
of Assembly.
This document with all of these murders in it
and the violence that is happening in our community and the fact that the families are breaking down, everything in here is an indictment of every person in this
community. We together are the ones who are going to have to fix this. So, if everybody here continues to point
fingers at each other and not realise that they should
look in the mirror and realise that they are going to have
to be part of this change, there will not be progress.
We support this. But we support this if everybody understands that it is going to take each and every
one of us to make this happen and not just leaving this
as a document on a shelf.
Thank you.

Yes.

Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: Thank you very much.
The title of this motion is BE IT RESOLVED
that this Honourable House supports the report entitled the National Violence Reduction Strategy . What we
heard just now is something I think we can agree with, and that is it is going to take all of us putting our best
foot forward in order to do what needs to be done. But,
Mr. Speaker, the same way we wish to be able to get
up and speak from a point of opinion, we also need to
be willing to understand that [our] opinions when not
based on facts can be challenged and will be challenged.
And until we are honest with ourselves, and we
are able to look at ourselves and say, Okay. You got
me. I wasn’t being factual. I’m just making political statements, —

I am just going to remind all Members
we are still early in this debate. And Minister Weeks in his comments when he said that we all need to make
sure that we guide ourselves.
And, Minister, you need to be in your chair
when I am speaking.
So, guide yourselves accordingly, that there is
the public listening to us. And we need to set a tone that does not entice antagonism and violence, but one that
254 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly says that an atmosphere of cooperation is what we
need to have practicing today, particularly on this topic.
Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: Thank you, Mr. Speaker,
and I will be guided.
Mr. Speaker, this is not just a policy document.
It is a moral imperative, a call to action that asks us to address the root causes of violence to build a better
Bermuda, a better Bermuda for our children, a better
Bermuda for our families and a better Bermuda for our
future.
Mr. Speaker, this strategy ties directly into the
PLP’s party vision of creating a fairer Bermuda where
opportunities for prosperity, safety and growth are
available to everyone, not just a select few. Mr.
Speaker, the stakes could not be any higher. And this
is where I agree with the Member who just sat down.
Violence is not something that operates in a vacuum in
Bermuda. It touches our schools. It touches our neighbourhood. It touches our economy. It threatens the very
fabric of our society.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what
the Member opposite said. And, Mr. Speaker, what actually came to mind is, when I look across the aisle. I
see people who were not in this space in 2010, 2011, 2012.
Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: When I look across the aisle,
I see people who were not in this space in 2010, 2011,
2012. And why do I say that, Mr. Speaker? Because in
2012 a document was tabled in this very House. The 2011 Joint Select Committee on Violent Crime and Gun
Violence whic h stated, “The continued increase in violence and gang violence would be the death knell to our
vulnerable economy.” Mr . Speaker, I reach back to
mention that report because it was tabled here in 2012, and it sat on a shelf after the General Election of 20 12.
The funding that was put in place was shifted to other
priorities of the then Government.
So, Mr. Speaker, we know that the impact of
violence goes beyond statistics. It creates fear. It perpetuates inequality and it leaves lasting scars on individuals and communities. But most tragically, Mr.
Speaker, it robs our young people of the futures t hat
they may have in front of them and does not allow them
to reach their full potential.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Education, I get to see violence every day in a different way. I see how it affects our students. I see when our children grow up in neighbourhoods where gangs and drugs are pervasive, where safety is a luxury, where
hope just feels out of touch. But, Mr. Speaker, this affects their ability to focus, it affects their ability to learn,
but most importantly, it affects their ability to dream and
grow beyond their circumstances.
Mr. Speaker, I was happy to see this document
come because it supports some of the things that have been happening in Education Reform. We have working groups that are looking at how do we change the trajectory of our children within our school system. How
do we get people to understand the varied role that
schools play in preventing violence that occurs in our
community?
Mr. Speaker, all of our data and all of our research shows that students need to feel —not hear but
feel—that they are loved, and they are cared for. They
need to be in environments that are restorative and not
punitive that allows them to flourish. They need to learn
social/emotional regulation and social/emotional skills,
Mr. Speaker. They need to be taught how respectful re-lationships operate.
Mr. Speaker, there needs to be strong ties between schools and the communities and the whole fam-ily. We need more afterschool programmes to give our
children meaningful things to do when the school day
stops. And it is through our reform working groups th at
we are working on these things, and we look forward to
partnering with the Ministry of National Security and
working on the National Violence Reduction Strategy
within Education to see how we can provide better opportunities for our children.
Mr. Speaker, it is no coincidence that the National Violence Reduction Strategy places a significant
emphasis on prevention and early intervention. This
strategy outlines mentorship programmes to guide at -
risk youth. Community -based support to give alternatives to the gang life. Conflict resolution training as part of our school curriculum.
These are not just recommendations; these
are lifelines for our children. These are things our chil-dren sorely need. And if we fail to provide the support —
again, something I do agree with Member opposite,
and that includes not just financial support, but t he support of all of us linking arm- in-arm and moving forward—we will continue to lose our Bermudians to cycles of violence.
History gives us sobering reminders, Mr.
Speaker, of what happens when systematic issues are
ignored. And this is where I reach back to persons like
the Member from constituency 6. He will remember
this, Mr. Speaker. When we look at the Wooding Report
of 1969, it highlights deep divisions in our society. A
warning that a single community providing common op-portunities for all is essential for Bermuda’s future.
A decade late the Clark Report of 1978, underscored the seething unrest caused by economic inequality and racial tensions. But, Mr. Speaker, despite
these warnings that came some 55 years ago, we still are sitting here facing the same crisis that we were
warned about. We will often hear about the so- called
political pundits that want to speak ill of the Progressive
Labour Party’s 20 years of Government while ignoring
all of the things that did not happen during the past 55
years. They will consistently fail to recognise in 35
years of UBP and OBA Governments we have still not provided those opportunities for our citizens.
So, Mr. Speaker, this reduction strategy
acknowledges that today’s violence is not an isolated


Bermuda House of Assembly problem but is a result of long- standing structural issues such as poverty, lack of opportunity, and economic and social isolation. And these are issues that
no single government department can solve. While the
Ministry of National Security has brought thi s forward,
this is a collective effort of every single Minister and
their Ministries that you see standing here today.
What sets this strategy apart is its holistic approach, Mr. Speaker. It is not about quick fixes that
some would think we need. And it is not about being
punitive. It is about moving forward with a strategy that integrates prevention, focusing on education, intervention addressing immediate crises, [and] rehabilitation
providing pathways for those who want to leave this cycle of violence.
This Honourable House should be particularly
encouraged that this strategy emphasises collabora-tion. And I look forward to Members opposite standing
up and speaking about this collaboration.

In a collaborative way.

Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: In collaborative way. Thank
you. Thank you, MP Foggo.

[Crosstalk]
Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: This strategy calls for collaboration and partnerships across government, across
law enforcement, across our society and the private
sector. We are all in this together, Mr. Speaker. It can-not just be one of us alone. This strategy recognises
that this is not just a law enforcement exercise, but a
societal challenge that requires societal responses.
(Thank you, Minister Weeks.)
Let me be clear. And again, agreeing with my
Member opposite, the cost of not implementing this strategy is far more dire than the cost —and when I say
that I do mean dollar bills —that it is going to take to do
this. If we fail to act, we will have another generation of
gang culture. We will further erode the public’s trust in
our institutions. And we will continue to damage our
economy as violence drives away investment and tourism, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Tumin Report of 1992 warned
that over confinement acts as a school of crime. This is
highlighting the futile attempts of just being punitive as
a means of driving violence out of our society. It requires a therapeutic approach, and Bermuda cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. This is not just about reducing violence, it is about creating a Bermuda
where every child has the opportunity to thrive, Mr.
Speaker.
I ask everyone in this Chamber to close their
eyes. I ask everyone who is listening to close their eyes
and clear their thoughts. Imagine a Bermuda where schools are a sanctuary of learning and growth, free
from the shadow of violence. Imagine our communi ties
that are united, providing support and membership for those in need. Imagine our young people seeing path-ways to success and not dead ends marked by poverty
and crime.
Mr. Speaker, this is a Bermuda we can have if
we dare to have the courage to embrace fully this strat-egy. This is not a time for division. This is a time that
calls upon all of us, across party lines, across economic
sectors, and across our communities to simply come
together. This is a national effort that requires sacrifices and it requires the work that is needed because the rewards, Mr. Speaker, are immeasurable if we are able to pull this off.
Mr. Speaker, I urge this Honourable House to
support this motion wholeheartedly. Not with words but with action. Let us fully commit to embracing the initiatives outlined today by the Honourable Minister Weeks.
Let us ensure accountability and transparenc y. Let us
remember that every decision we make in this House
impacts us all and the community we leave, a real community of families, of students and of future generations.
Mr. Speaker, violence is not inevitable. It is the
result of choices. It is the result of choices made by individuals and it is a result of choices made by our society. Today we have an opportunity to make a different
choice. We have an opportunity to go a different path.
We have an opportunity to choose hope over fear, unity
over division, and action over apathy.
Mr. Speaker, let us stand and proudly, and
loudly proclaim that we wholeheartedly support the Na-tional Violence Reduction Strategy and in so we all
agree that we will do our part to build a Bermuda that is
safer, a Bermuda that is fairer and a Bermuda that is
full of opportunity for all.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Absolutely. We agree with the vision
of having a crime- free Bermuda where families can
raise their young without fear of their children dying before the age of 21. Absolutely we are in agreement with
that.
256 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly What we are also hopeful for in this Strategy,
as you mentioned, as the Honourable Members have
mentioned, is that it is a holistic approach and that it will
address all areas of needs of the individuals who are at
risk of a criminal lifestyle in general, and in particular a
lifestyle that involves hurting other people. Male, female, children and otherwise.
So, in terms of the National Violence Reduction
Strategy, I am hopeful that this strategy is a national
strategy on crime in general and has different strata
and different approaches and means of addressing the overall problem of antisocial behaviour, cri minality, in
particular, violence and chronic recidivism, et cetera.
The thing that concerns me is that we are in
agreement with the vision and the mission of what is
being expressed. The issue is, How do we achieve
these things? It is going to require collaboration and co-ordination amongst ministries and departments. Historically, this has been a problem.
I know from my own experience working at my
former profession at the Department of Court Services,
although we had MOUs between departments and ministries we tended to operate in silos. Each department
and ministry, with good intention, trying to do the best
of . . . you know, the abilities with the resources that
they had, found it extremely difficult because of the
mechanisms and the operational procedures and policies and the people in decision- making roles, found it
very difficult to work as a collaborative and cohesive
unit for the achievement of the stated aims which we all
agree on.
So, first and foremost, we have also got to recognise that when we are looking at the responsibility for the persons who are in the criminal justice system, these are the same persons who are receiving financial
assistance. These are the same people who ar e receiving housing assistance. These are same people who are seeing persons get arrested, going to the courts, et
cetera. So fundamentally it is the persons who are receiving government services who we are talking about
in terms of generational criminalit y dependence on the
system, et cetera.

These are the persons, from my experience having worked at the Department of Court
Services, having worked in Corrections as well.
I know that Minister Hayward and I had a conversation years ago, approximately about 10 years ago when I was putting forth a proposal, Success Through
Academic and Vocational Education, and I gave the
Honourable Member a copy of that. And it spoke to many of the initiatives that are being talked about today
in terms of helping persons exit the system.
I am not suggesting for a moment that everybody who is receiving government services is a criminal
or commits these offences. What I am saying is that a disproportionate number of persons who are receiving
government services are affected by violence and t his
strategy is speaking to what their experience is.
With that in mind, I think that there is an opportunity for us to be innovative in terms of how we would
use increased penalty zones, not just looking at the in-creased penalty zones for a workmen’s club or a school
or a church but also government housing, perhaps,
where we know that these are areas where persons are
more likely to experience criminal behaviour, drugs, antisocial behaviour, et cetera.
When we are providing services to the community, those need to be places of sanctuary and safety
because we are providing those services. Those
should be places where we do not see the police going
there on a regular basis and arresting people. Those
are places that should be pristine because these are
services provided, housing, et cetera, for the people
who need it most. We need to take care of them. And I
believe that if we have this collaborative approach, holistic approach, putting protections in plac e for those
communities it will make a difference.
I also think . . . I also know that sentencing
needs to meet the needs of the community.

[Inaudible interjection]

Suppression speaks to the fact that
the behaviour needs to be discouraged. It needs to be addressed. Community policing, having “X” number of
officers, absolutely. We have already established that.
And there is $2 million in the coffers to make sure that
happens. Community policing, school resource officers


Bermuda House of Assembly and the other thing in terms of education, the thing that
we ought not to do is expel and suspend kids instead
of keeping them in school.
Hon. Diallo V. S. Rabain: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Wait! Wait! Everybody take their seat.
Everybody take their seat.
We are early in this debate. Minister Weeks,
what were your comments earlier about everybody
keeping proper decorum for this debate? Because you
really want this debate to take place, don’t you? Well,
speak to all your Members again, on both sides of this
House. Because we, in this Chamber, plus the people
out there listening to us, are concerned about the vio-lence in this community. And they want to have an open
debate without the violence taking place in here.
It is not just you physically hitting somebody,
your words and your verbal approach and attitude are
also violent. They do not want that here today in this
particular debate. We can have an open debate, and everybody has the right to express what they want to
say. Let the debate flow and we will not put out this tone
that we cannot even control ourselves. And we are telling the young people out there to control themselves
against violence. How can we give that message to
them verbally, but not conduct ourse lves in the same
manner in this place?
Everybody has the right to speak. If he gets out
of order, I’ll call him to order. But we do not have to
have this back -and-forth across the floor in tones and
comments that are going to incite a violent response.
We aren’t throwing sticks and stones, but words can
hurt just as much.
Control yourselves, Members.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The irony is that in those statements I was
making about expulsion and suspension, that actually
came from a child who was at a young person’s [Student] Leadership Conference that was held over at Liberty Theatre. And what was happening was that they
were being canvassed by others who were in the cohort
and members who were in attendance, and they were
being asked questions about their experience in
school. What would they expect from their educators
and those who are in positions of authority to help them
in their growth and development?
What they said was, The rules need to make
sense. If a person is having problems with behaviour,
that needs to be dealt with in the school and not having
them enjoy a few days off. Their learning needs to be
taking place in the school where learning the subjects, how to properly socially interact and work through conflict. That came from a child; that did not come from me.
So, the point I am making is when we have a
vision, it needs to be resourced. There needs to be
clear guidelines. There needs to be clear performance
measures. I know from having worked in the civil service many years that we have performance appraisals.
I can tell you that performance, although it is logged or
recorded, does not accurately reflect the actual performance of somebody, from my experience.
258 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly There are persons who were underperforming,
in my experience, in my area, who ought not to have
received the grades that they did and not. So, if we are
going to have performance measures, and there is going to be accountability, there needs to be a robust and comprehensive review of the policies and procedures,
how we are going to operate to ensure that we achieve
our aims.
It needs to have substance. There needs to be
MOUs. There needs to be proper oversight to make
sure that the vision and mission as expressed, and we are all in agreement, it is a good thing that it achieves
its aims.
Thank you.

Thank you, Member.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution?
Minister Furbert.

Hon. Tinee Furbert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, today we are here to debate the
motion of a National Violence [Reduction] Strategy. Mr.
Speaker, I want to share that there are very few brave
people out there. And while we say this is a community effort, which it is, definitely is, I want u s to examine what
happens when someone . . . we may see someone in
distress on the roadside. It [might] be a bike accident or we see a fight. There are few people, Mr. Speaker, who
stop to try to intervene. And to stop and break it up or
to stop and help.
But there are more people, Mr. Speaker, who
will drive by and who may even pull out their camera and video it. You know, take a video of it. Because that is the society and the community that we are now living
in. Where we opt to take a visual image, or a visual photo, or video instead of wanting to step in and actu-ally help the situation. I did not say this is all people
because there are some good Samaritans out there
that do step in and help. But we need more people who
are willing to be brave and to step in and help.
When I think of this National Violence Reduction Strategy, I am standing here to say that I support it, because it is definitely something that is needed for our community. We are grappling with violence. And violence, and serious violent situations hit us at the core
as a community. There have been some incidents, particularly this year, that have rocked and shaken us, Mr.
Speaker.
But I want to go back and start with what makes
us feel safe. And I want to start, because as a mother . . . I have children, and many of us in this room have
children. I am sure we pray about just making sure that
our children are safe. You know, we want our children
to be safe. But safety starts from when a child is
in utero. You know?
It starts when a baby is crying and you can pick
up that child to console it, to make them feel as though
they are safe and secure. It starts when a child falls, has an accident and falls, and you can pick them up to
let them know that everything is okay. It starts when you
show up and you show out to your children’s events to
show that you are supportive of them. And should any-thing happen to them while they are in your presence that you will stand up for them.
It starts when we make decisions for our children to protect them from people who may cause them harm. Particularly sexual predators, but anyone who
may cause harm to them, Mr. Speaker. It starts when
we believe in our children and we trust in our children, but we also educate them and show them the right
ways.
This discussion is . . . I don’t want to just focus
this discussion on just our youth even though it is very
relevant and significant for our youth population. But it
also takes into consideration not only our youth, but adults, as well as our seniors. Because our seniors also
experience serious violent episodes.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to highlight that while
we are discussing serious violent crimes within this National Violence Reduction Strategy, we must not discount those crimes that may be less serious. Because
these are crimes that can also lead to more ser ious
crimes, Mr. Speaker.
The eastern MPs have the opportunity to meet
with the eastern Bermuda Police Service and during
these meetings we have the opportunity to discuss
those crimes that are more significant, particularly
throughout our constituencies. And those ones that
come up high are those such as break -ins, bicycle
thefts, [and] grievous body harm. And while those may be less significant crimes, they still harm our commu-nity and they make our community and our residents
feel unsafe, Mr. Speaker. But these are also crimes that
can lead to more serious crimes which is why I think
this National Violence Reduction Strategy is important.
Because it also lists the importance of our neighbourhood watches.
And I don’t know how many MPs are aware of
all of the neighbourhood watches that they have in their
constituency but that is also something that we can do
as Members of Parliament in making sure that our area
neighbourhoods, particularly those ones that maybe
have more incidences of crime. Make sure that we sup-port them, and we encourage neighbourhood watches.
Some people may want to steer away from it because
maybe it is a pokey neighbour, but these sorts of neighbourhood watches that we have right now are very
helpful. If anyone has experienced being part of a
neighbourhood watch. But neighbourhood watches are
also included in this National Violence Reduction Strategy.
I want to take some time to also share some
facts about crime, not just in Bermuda but in the Caribbean overall. The Caribbean ranks in global reports
among the countries having the highest homicide rates.
And over half of those homicide rates are in the c ateBermuda House of Assembly gory of domestic violence. Violent crimes have been increasing, particularly throughout the Caribbean. And
this is accompanied by a decrease in both case clear -
up and conviction rates, Mr. Speaker.
The Caribbean is reported to have the largest
percentage of . . . sorry. I wanted . . . sorry. I am segueing into what the Caribbean’s global average of rapes
is, which is 15 rapes per 100,000 persons. The Bahamas had an average of 133; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 112; Jamaica, 51; Dominican, 34; Barbados, 25; Trinidad and Tobago, 18. I do not have the number for Bermuda, but I am sure Bermuda would be on the
lower range as reported. But this just . . . you know, if
we were to even do a cross -reference in regard to our
crime numbers across the Caribbean, Bermuda’s crime
numbers would probably be much lower. And I want to
share that because Bermuda is still known to be a very safe place to live, Mr. Speaker.
Violence across our Island is caused by many
reasons. And as is indicated particularly outlined on page 7, it may be due to race, someone experiencing
neglect or abuse, someone experiencing poverty, drug
abuse or substance abuse, even drug sales, not havin g
access to the right education, family breakdown, peer
pressure, exposure to violence in general, hate, mental health. These are all issues that are the root causes of
a violent community and society, or what can lead to
someone being violent or experienc ing a violent situation. If we do not have a strategy, Mr. Speaker, then we
will have more incidents of violent behaviours.
Our young people, Mr. Speaker, if you ask
them what the number one concern would be for them,
they would say antisocial behaviour and they would
also say safety. Currently, the Ministry of Youth, Social Development and Seniors, in conjunction with the Office of Youth Affairs, is going out to our young people
to speak about the National Youth Policy.
And one of the goals in the National Youth Policy, which is goal number three, is to minimise antiso-cial behaviour. It is interesting because these are what
our young people are saying. They are saying that they
want to feel safe, and they want to minimise antisocial
behaviour. They actually posed some questions to me, which I am going to share with this Honourable House. And the questions are:
• Can there be better lighting on the roads so
that young people feel safe when walking?
• What are the appropriate agencies available to
protect youth from antisocial behaviours?
• What is currently being done to ensure the
safety of our youth?
And rightly these are questions that our youth
have, and the answers are out there as it relates to
these questions. This Government, Mr. Speaker, has
invested millions of dollars in cameras, police, and security, Mr. Speaker, security in our schools. With the
National Youth Policy, Mr. Speaker, with goal number
three, minimising antisocial behaviour, the National
Youth Policy gives a progress report every year. And what they have reported that we have done within the year of 2023, is that grants were provi ded in the
2022/23 budget to organisations that assist youth in overcoming the involvement in antisocial activities, that
funds are sought to expand programmes in school to combat antisocial behaviour, that the community centres (including our programme such as Free Up Friday
and the Boys and Girls Programmes offer sessions on
combating antisocial behaviours amongst our young
people.
And they also acknowledge the Ministry of National Security hosting a two -day workshop on Community Violence in September of 2022 with the public and private organisations to establish this very thing that we
are talking about, the National Violence Reduct ion
Strategy. The National Youth Policy has a working group, and they are continuously working on how they are going to address [and] minimise antisocial behaviours amongst young people through prevention, intervention, and reintegration programmes.
But I do want to talk about to the Mirrors programme, Mr. Speaker. Because the Mirrors programme had been put in place to assist this very issue
of antisocial behaviour. And the Mirrors programme
has touched many, many, many people, and many children. They have served over 4,000 youth. They have
also served over 4,000 parents, Mr. Speaker. They
have had 27 cohorts and 652 students over the past 10
years participating. And the percentage of young people who have not reoffended in the last two years who
have gone through the Mirrors programme is 98 per
cent, Mr. Speaker. And over the last 10 years, Mr. Speaker, 72 per cent.
I share that so that we have a better idea in
regard to what programmes, like the Mirrors programme, are having an effect on our community. Because while we can speak about the crimes or the violent activity that happens now, imagine, Mr. Speaker, if
we di d not have any of these programmes in place what
this picture would look like for us.
I also want to take the time to acknowledge the
third sector because there are many non- profits and
church programmes that are also doing the work to assist with violence in Bermuda. So I want to take this
time to acknowledge them again. This is not just about a government strategy. It is about a whole person system community approach.
This report also allows us to examine and
share the work that we are doing already. The work that
this strategy supports, Mr. Speaker, in the Children Act
there is a mandate for a national child safeguarding
committee. And currently the committee’s work is to
identify and review existing programmes for at -risk
youth.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I just want to share what
programmes we currently do have. Because, again,
this strategy is a work in progress. It will be continuous.
But [there are] a number of programmes and services
260 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly that address all of those root causes that I spoke about
earlier that progress us to violent situations.
The Department of Corrections and Child Service Provision [sic] have 3 programmes; the Department of Court Services have 4; the Department of
Youth, Sport and Recreation have 5 programmes and
services; Child and Adolescent Services, 5; the Ministry
of National Security, 7; the Department of Child and
Family Services, 13; the Department of Health, 16 programmes and services; the Department of Education,
28. Which gives us, Mr. Speaker, a total of 81 pro-grammes and services that we as a Government provide for our young people when dealing with those root
causes that would lead to violent behaviours.
What Bermuda has, Mr. Speaker, is something
that many jurisdictions do not [have]. And because of
our size we have the ability to have something beauti-ful, something beautiful in our social cohesion. What
does this mean, Mr. Speaker? What does social cohesion mean? It means the extent of our connectiveness.
You know, we talk about families in here. If you
don’t know somebody’s aunt, cousin, uncle, friend . . .
and how many times do you get that question as a Bermudian, Oh, how many people live in Bermuda? You
must know everybody. And we don’t know everyone.
We don’t intimately know everyone. But we do have the
ability to have great social cohesion because of our size
and the number of people that we have in Bermuda and the families that are interconnected. Social cohesion is
also i mportant, particularly amongs t our groups in
which we can show solidarity in the vision and the mission that we want for our country.
The National Violence Reduction Strategy very
clearly sets out what that vision and mission is for us and our community. And what is most important and
what seems to hurt people the most is when there is not a sense of belonging, Mr. Speaker. A sense of be-longing is important for a community. And the relationship amongst our people is also important, Mr.
Speaker, for social cohesion. It is a vision of a community that lives well together. And I can say for the most
part, Mr. Speaker, we are a community that lives well
together, that is diverse in a democracy and we can live peacefully to navigate disagreements. Social cohesion, Mr. Speaker, fights for . . . fights exclusion and promotes inclusion. It fights marginalisation and it reduces
disparities in wealth and income. It builds shared values and communities of interpretation.
Mr. Speaker, we talked about how important it
is for the National Violence Reduction Strategy to be worked amongst different ministries so that we are gelling together and sharing information and we are sharing outcomes. But ultimately, Mr. Speaker, what t his
National Violence Reduction Strategy does is it helps
us to build social cohesion. And social cohesion is a
process that is to be continued as opposed to what the outcomes will be. Even though we want to know the
outcomes and we want positive results i n outcomes it
is still a document. The National Violence Reduction Strategy is a document of progress and process which is to be continued.
And so I stand to my feet, Mr. Speaker, to say
that this Government is committed to making sure that
our citizens are safe and that we are working toward a reduction in violence, because that is the ultimate outcome. And we have already shared that we . . . we already . . . Bermuda has a reduction in violence. The
Minister I think shared the numbers already, Mr.
Speaker. And so we must continue the work. We must
continue to work this strategy so that we can continue to reduce and reduce the numbers of violence.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there have been some long and
very powerful speeches before me, and I agree with al-most everything that has been said in this Chamber
about this very, very sad issue on our Island. And therefore I just wish to add three sort of overarching points
in relation to this report.
Firstly, I would like to thank the Minister for
bringing this motion to the floor of this Honourable
House and for tabling this report. And I . . . I . . .
whereas I was probably part of the target of the
Speaker’s admonishment earlier, I am glad you gave it,
Mr. Speaker, because this is a difficult issue. And it is
one that cries out for collaboration and bipartisanship.
If I may, Mr. Speaker, just refer to page [1] of
the report about the strategy, and quote, “ This strategy
recognizes the importance of identifying the root
causes, promotes educational awareness and
strengthens institutions and individuals. It emphasizes
the need to protect the most vulnerable and to ensure
that perpetrators of violence are held to account. ”
I don’t think that there is anyone in this Chamber who should or would disagree with that statement.
And if I am right that none of us in this Chamber could
or would disagree with that statement, then I hope the
adverse is also true. That we can agree with it, and we
can work toward it as a goal that all of us together must solve.
Again, by reference to the report, Mr. Speaker,
page 7, I would just like to quote this. “ Addressing the
root causes of violence is complex and time- consuming.” Yes, it is. It is not an easy issue, and it is certainly
not an issue that benefits by finger -pointing or blame.
There is no place for politics in respect of this issue.
The report quoted from the former head of the
Family Centre, Martha Dismont, who, sadly, is no longer with us. I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting
on that board for over a decade and indeed it was
where I first met the Minister before I was in this Honourable House and before the Minister was the Minis-ter. And we shared conversations many years ago—
over 15 years ago I think now, somewhere in there—


Bermuda House of Assembly about how this issue, which was such a concern, then
could be better addressed.
And sadly and without pointing blame any
which way, it is worse now. And I heard the previous
speaker. I agree that we like to think of our Island as a safe island. But when we see the statistic of 107 murders since 2006 it is hard to cling to that fundamental
belief that we as Bermudians still hold. You know, 107
murders in 28 years.
One of the things that I learned while sitting
with Minister Weeks on the board of the Family Centre (although we didn’t overlap at the time) was that one of
the root causes (and I don’t say it is only the root cause,
but one of the root causes) is unaddressed generational trauma. And I commend my colleague, MP Ben
Smith, for his speech earlier, because I think that was
really what he was trying to get to. That heart there of the issue. We have unaddressed generational trauma.
And we must address that as part of a solution. I think
my colleague, MP Robert King, who incidentally before
he joined this House has lived and breathed this very issue for 25 years, talked about the need for holistic approach. We agree; I agree, certainly. Collaboration,
yes, I agree .
And so my first real point is, this isn’t easy. And
we must not pretend it is. But if we hope to solve it there
must be a sense of working together and to put partisanship and politics aside.
My second of three points, Mr. Speaker, is that
when you try to solve any problem policy does matter. And there is scope for disagreement, reasonable disa-greement, between reasonable Bermudians about how
best to solve a problem. And policy matters not because it is some esoteric, philosophical concept, but
because policy is really what we end up doing. And on
this issue as much as any, if not more so, what we de-cide to do matters. I respectfully want to pick out two quotes from an earlier speaker. And I do not do so to
be political, I just do so to pick those two quotes out. One I agree with and one I do not.
The one I agree with is this, Mr. Speaker, Violence is the result of choices. In my opinion violence is
the result of choices. Yes, we have generational trauma
that has been unaddressed. Yes, there are lots of ex-planations as to why people behave the way they do.
But to pull that trigger involves a personal choice. So, I
very much agree with someone from the other side who
said that violence is the result of choices.
That same speaker said, We have had enough
of futile attempts of being punitive. Again, and with respect, I disagree.
The punitive aspect of dealing with anti -gang
and violence reduction is part of the solution. It is not the only part. It is not even necessarily the most important part. But to say, as is sometimes said, that we
cannot police our way out of this issue, is, respectfully in my opinion, wrong. We must police our way out of
this issue together with collaboration, together with a holistic approach, together with addressing the un-addressed trauma of generations. And so, when I hear,
we cannot police our way out of this issue, that saddens
me because the police are on the frontline and they need our support. And they need all of our support.
Now, this report rightly, in my opinion rightly,
recognises that we must strengthen our institutions .
And I very much agree with that. And equally this report does focus on the issues that it identifies. And I take
you, Mr. Speaker, if I may, to page 8 first —

—where it sets out a list of issues:
family breakdown, exposure to violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, peer pressure, lack of educational and employment opportunities.
If anyone on this Island thinks that those all are
not factors to the problem we are facing, please come
talk to me because I would like to seek to persuade you
that you are wrong. But likewise, again by reference to
the report, we hear what this Minister proposes. And I
agree. But let me take you there. Page 11, goal 5,
Strengthen Enforcement Measures.
Mr. Speaker and Honourable Minister, that
goal is a fundamental aspect of any successful strategy
that we together hope to deploy. And we must not overlook that goal because of preconceived or historic problems where the police were the bad guys. We need t he
police to be the good guys, and they need our support
and they need to be well -resourced and well -funded.
And I am not saying that to suggest that efforts are not being made.
And I would like to repeat what the Minister told
this Honourable House earlier in response to one of the
speakers. He said, We have increased spending for the
police by $2 million. I absolutely support that. That is
good. [Here is] my question for all of us: Is more
needed? Likewise, the Honourable Minister has just informed this Honourable House that we will see 25 more
police officers. I think he said November. We have seen
25 more in November. And I believe you said we will
see 25 more in February. Agai n, great.
But are more needed? We must ask ourselves
that. I do not have the precise numbers. And the Minister may have the precise numbers. He may have them
at his fingertips. He may have to find them. But my understanding from conversations with the Police Service, is that we are way down. And we must fix that.
Because we cannot allow people to be on the frontline
of this issue if they are not well -resourced. Again, I am
not saying that the Police Service is the only aspect of
the solution, but they must be part of it. And we must
support them collectively.
Mr. Speaker, the third and final point that I wish
to make is really about the obligations not only on those
of us in this Chamber, not only on those of us in the
support industries, not only those in the government
262 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly sector, and not only those in the ministry but this comment I make to all Bermudians, Black and White, rich
and poor, those who see this problem and those who
ignore it. It will take all of us deciding that we are going
to get rid of this issue. This issue is solvable. It is solvable. I do not accept that on an island of 60,000 we
need to have 107 murders over 28 years. I believe that
can be changed if we together work to change it.
And so, I ask this of each and every one who
might be listening beyond this room. The ordinary citizens of Bermuda. We must recognise that this is all of our problem and until we do so it will not be solved.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One second, Minister.
Deputy, can you step in the Chair for a minute?
Thank you.
Go ahead, Minister.
[Hon. Derrick V. Burgess, Sr., Deputy Speaker, in the
Chair]

Hon. Jason Hayward: Good afternoon, Mr. Deputy
Speaker, and I certainly thank you for allowing me to provide intervention into today’s debate around the Na-tional Violence Reduction Strategy. And I think it is appropriately titled, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mm-hmm.
Hon. Jason Hayward: The aim of the [National] Violence Reduction Strategy is to continue to reduce the
level of violence that exists within our society. And I
think that the mission and the visions associated with
this strategy are on point.
The vision for Bermuda is: A safe, empowered
community where violence is reduced to its minimum.
Through collaboration and innovation, we aim for trust, opportunity and justice for all. Together we envision a
future where understanding and connection replace violence, fostering a brighter, safer tomorrow. We can all
agree with the vision statement.
The mission statement: To implement strategies that will reduce violence in Bermuda, particularly gang violence, in collaboration with various agencies
with emphasis on prevention, intervention and integration. That is the mission.
The submissions that have been given thus far
let us know, or have highlighted, that this is all of our
. . . as a collective, this is our collective issue and that
we need a holistic collective response. The report sets
that out clearly. What I would have thought would have come from Members, and they still have further oppor-tunity to weigh in on this debate, is where they believe
that there are gaps in the areas outlined in this report
that the Minister can take back to his team and say,
Hey, everybody generally agrees with the principles set
out in the report but here are some gaps which are
highlighted and considered which we can take on
board. That to me is fostering collaboration more than
regurgitating what the report already sets out as what is required.
The other thing I want to make the public and
Members of this Honourable House mindful of is the
way in which they characterise current Bermuda. Mr.
Deputy Speaker, it is fundamentally important that we
do not create a narrative that simply does not exist . So
when we look at crime statistics, crime statistics across the board are down. Where there were . . . and have
decreased substantially since 2000.
We need to acknowledge that. We need to
acknowledge that progress has been made over the last 24 years. We need to acknowledge that crimes
against persons in 2000 were over 6,000 crimes registered while in 2024 there were under 3,000 in terms of
reporting. That is a significant reduction. Crimes
against the community where they were just under
4,500 are now just over 1,500. That is a significant reduction. The number of individuals in our prison system are down. And it is not simply due to our inability to
prosecute or hold individuals accountable. They are
down because crime is down within our community.
That is a fact.
Murder and serious assaults remain a relative
small portion of our overall crime statistics. And I think that we have to put that in perspective. The Honourable
Minister said that Bermuda is one of the safest places
in the world. And that is absolutely cor rect. We remain
one of the safest places in the world. But do we have
to acknowledge that while progress has been made,
more progress needs to be made? I think yes. And that
is what this report effectively sets out.
We have made progress, notwithstanding that
we are not satisfied with the progress, the total progress that was made. And we will commit to making
more progress. And it is going to take a collective effort.
And so today I seek to provide a specific insight as it
pertains to the Ministry of Economy and Labour and the
role that we are playing in conjunction with this strategy.

Mm-hmm.

Hon. Jason Hayward: Because what I do recognise is
that when persons feel as though they are locked out
of the world of work, they can . . . or it can be a driving
force to them getting involved in alternative lifestyles
and precarious ways and informal ways of employment. And associated with those informal ways of employment, then becomes lifestyles which may lead to
greater levels of gang vi olence and other crimes. As so
as much as possible we want to ensure that our young


Bermuda House of Assembly people are on pathways to success and employment in
this particular aspect as early as possible. And I think
this is one of the primary emphases to the way in which
we reform our education system.
One of the aims of creating signature schools
is about building competencies within our young people
that puts them on career paths at a much earlier age so
that we do not have gap periods where persons are trying to identify what they are going to do or feel as
though they are locked out of the world of work with
limited resources.
And so, we recognised within the Ministry of
Economy and Labour that youth unemployment, in particular, was high at the end of the pandemic. And as a
result, what we did was develop a Youth Employment
Strategy. And at that time when we developed that
strategy and I brought it to this House, again we were
criticised to say it was just another strategy.
But from the time we implemented this strategy
youth unemployment is substantially down. Where it was over 33 per cent, we are now roughly around
15 per cent. And we will continue to focus on that demographic of our population. This strategy contained
nine goals. The goals were to
• increase local training opportunities and promote pathways to securing employment;
• expand career support services for young people from high school through to early employment;
• support and promote Science, Technology,
Engineering, [Arts] and Mathematics;
• expand apprenticeships and internship opportunities; improve public access to relevant labour market information and career opportuni-ties;
• support and promote youth entrepreneurship;
• promote support for vulnerable youth;
• revise policies to improve social protections for
young people; and
• facilitate the repatriation of young [Bermudi-ans].
The Ministry of Economy and Labour is taking
active steps on each and every one of those goals. So
we not just here to say We all need to play our part and
work together. We are here to say We are taking tangi-ble, active steps. We are playing our part.
And I think this is what the community needs to
hear. Not just a sound cry for us to rally together that
currently and for decades now, persons have been playing their part in this community. We can quote Martha Dismont because Martha Dismont actively played
her part. And that is what we need. Highlight examples
and let’s celebrate where people have actively played their part. Rather than just continuously talking about
there is a lack of resources here . . . what we need to
do. What have you been doing? And we have sports
coaches . . . we have sports coaches, we have community leaders who sit within this House who are part of organisations, sporting clubs, members’ clubs who have been playing their part on an ongoing basis.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was telling somebody a
story of one of the players on my Under -15 team that I
used to coach. And as I was telling these kids to do their
warmup, this young man was running around the field
with a bandana around his neck. A specific colour bandana. Based off of where I reside I knew where he resided, and I knew what that bandana meant. And I had
a conversation with him. And I said, This is a community club down here. We are all on the same team. You
need not represent anything except for the jersey that
you are wearing. And I used to have tough conversations with that individual. But it is that intervention that
is needed that, everybody is not against you. Some of
us are actually on your side. And I want to see you grow
and develop into a productive young man.
Well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that young man, I
hadn’t had any interaction with him. He went on, he did
go to school, he did come back —and I won’t single out
his career because I do not want to single out the young man— but he then thanked me for the interventi on I
played in his life. And I didn’t do it because I wanted to
be a hero. That was just my way of giving back to the
young boys in our community, coaching youth football.
I stepped away from youth football when I earnestly joined politics. Just a stretch of my time that I didn’t have but that is kind of where my passion lies.
And it just goes to say, we can do little things to assist
our young people on getting to pathways. There are
ways in which we can be role models in society that do
not need all these resources and funding and epic police strategy. I think I was more effective in changing the trajectory of that young man’s life than some type
of punitive action if he got caught in a crime from the
police.
And so I am simply saying that I am not discounting the police. They do have a role to play. But
when we start to talk about it, each and every one . . .
it extends and transcends just us as being Government
Members and working across the aisle. It means where
we have influence within our communities, how do we
expand that influence?
Based off of that, you know, canvassing I met
another family. And the mother simply did not have any resources to provide any extracurricular for her son.
And I told her, You know what? Send him to go play
football and I will sponsor him. And I have been sponsoring this young man ever since. The mother has
since which thanked me and she has seen a change in
attitude in her son by him being involved in youth football. This is not . . . this story is not about the support I
provided. The story is how our community clubs can also assist with changing lives by doing little things outside of some type of formal structure. How we create a
village around persons can also help with aiding the
problem that we actually face.
And I think that is why the Minister brought so
many diverse groups together in one room to formulate
264 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly the strategy because this strategy transcends governmental responsibility. We cannot legislate our way
through this problem. It has to be engagement with
those individuals and then once persons do find themselves in situations where they are involved in this ac-tivity, how do we, yes, hold them accountable for their
actions, but assist them with rehabilitation?
And we know what happens with the cycle of
gang violence in Bermuda or people who are associated with it. People mature out of gang violence in Bermuda. We do not have a group of 40- year-old gangsters. That is not . . . it simply is not there. Persons transition into employment but find themselves transitioning
a little bit late and needing additional workforce services. And that is why apprenticeships are important,
and things of that nature, so that we can assist peopl e
with their transition back within the world of work. Assist
people with developing a résumé.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Department of Workforce Development has been running a number of pro-grammes, primarily designed to support our young per-sons. We have fostered greater levels of partnerships
with local industry and local industry has an appetite to
support our young people as well.
Most employers that I do talk to they talk about
some internships and the importance of ensuring that they reach out to the young people and provide them
with opportunities so that they can get on pathways to success, how we invest in critical training pro grammes.
We continue to do so.
And we now not only run summer internships
and summer employment programmes, but we provide
a suite of workaround services with these particular
programmes —whether it be interviewing skills, making
sure that they have an appropriate headshot, talking
about workplace etiquette, what the expectation is in
the workplace, their résumé writing, (all of that) have people going on mock interviews. Because it is not just
about providing them with a skill, it is also providing
them with a holistic group of services that is required so
that that person not only gets in the workplace but remains productive and functional when they get into the
world of work.
I think something MP Ben [Smith] said that I
can agree with is in terms of the Regiment and that be-ing somebody’s first structured environment. Well,
some people do not even go to the Regiment and their
first structured environment may be somebody else’s
place of employment where they are an employee. And
you are asking an employer to have a greater level of
patience with a young person who may come in. The
expectation need not be fully on the employer.
We need to ensure that we prepare that employee so when they get into the world of work, they can simply execute the duties that they have been hired
to execute on. And so, we recognise that there are gaps and we have to fill those gaps as best as we possi bly
can. And that is a lot of the work that we have been
doing in Workforce Development. You would know that we are running a number
of programmes, but, more importantly, increasing our
summer internships and summer employment programmes. We have increased the number of students
in those programmes significantly because we know at that age, 16 through 18, what having other young persons who are not making money over the summer can
possibly lead to.
And sometimes it leads to . . . when you say
you are doing a pack , but then the pack then begins to
stack and bundle, and it goes from you are out there
doing a pack to now you are heavily involved in some
type of behaviour, or you are involved in a lifestyle. But
part of the early sign was that somewhere when you
were outside doing nothing, and you had nothing to do,
you preoccupied your time with your friends doing a pack.
And I think . . . and I know this is not parliamentary language, but that is just common language we use
in our households and in our neighbourhoods in term of
doing a pack . It refers to, you are not doing criminal behaviour yet, but you are tinkering around doing some level of foolishness. And we, as more mature persons
of society, know that is how it starts.
It starts with pushing the envelope at a very
small level and then it continues to increase. It starts
with hanging around the wrong cousin or friend, sitting on a wall, and then he tells you to hold something and
the next thing you know you are involved i n an activity
that you did not sign up for. And then it goes from holding to you actually making that transaction. Then it goes
from you making that transaction to you falling in love
with the money of making that transaction, and then you continue with it . And we need not have that person
on the wall holding that resource in the first place.
And so, this is what I am saying about how we
are keeping our young persons occupied in order to reduce the likelihood of them getting involved in certain
levels of activity. But then it was also spotting persons
at an earlier age, when you see that persons have low
tolerance levels. Those guys that were fighting in P1,
they were fighting in P7, those are the same guys who
were scrapping in high school. The same guys that
were scrapping in high school when you got out of
school and you went to the club, these are the same guys fighting. That person that likes to fight, they have
always been in fights.
Nobody gets to a more mature age and then all
of a sudden starts to fight, unless some type of trauma
happens that triggers that. But what we can say is there
are cycles of behaviour, and it is about us identifying
those cycles of behaviour or those flags at an early age
and nipping it in the bud and providing persons with a
level of support. And as a parent, I have had to identify
some triggers and provide the necessary intervention
when I see those triggers. And I think that is what we
need to do as a com munity.
The other thing is that the policies that we have
at Workforce Development do not discriminate. And so,


Bermuda House of Assembly we do not care whether you are a model high school
student or not. Yes, we do have benchmarks for certain
. . . some of our programmes. But for other programmes you simply need to demonstrate a willingness to participate. And our apprenticeship programmes that we are running, you just need to identify a willingness
to participate in our hospitality programmes ident ifying
that you have a willingness to participate, and we will
take you on the full ride of ensuring that you are skilled
up.
The Workforce Development department is
probably one of the most important departments that
we have in the government from my lens. Because I
believe it creates a bridge that persons can naturally
get in other areas of our community. If you have no
money, there is no other organisation that is investing
in your skills development so that you are job ready.
That is an organisation where you can walk in with no
funds in your pocket and receive valuable skills development. And now we are also helping with life skills as
well. And that is critically important.
We have a group of persons down there who
care. And I know they care because when . . . the person who placed me in summer employment is still employed at the Department of Workforce Development. So, I started out as a summer employee, and I worked
for a c ouple of summers in the government’s summer
employee programme. After I graduated from Bermuda
College, I did not have any . . . I wasn’t working. I know
best about idle time.

[Laughter]
Hon. Jason Hayward: And my granny encouraged me
to go to Workforce Development. I went to Workforce
Development and the same person who helped me with my summer employment said, Hey, they have a
temporary survey going on at the Department of Statistics. Would you be interested in that? I took that opportunity. I started work at the Department of Statistics and
I remained in that department for over a decade.
And I got four promotions and two degrees
while I was there. But it was that one connection that
Department of Workforce Development made that I be-lieve changed my life. And since then I went on to become the president of the union and this translated into
me being . . . my political career.
And so, I check the trajectory and I check the
critical need of any role that that department can play
because I know that the role that that department played in my life in my development. So, we will continue to run programmes specifically aimed at our
young persons on an ongoing basis. Next week you will
see me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, issue certificates to
young men who have completed a small appliance
training programme. We sent these young men to Ohio so that they can get certified. They successfully completed the programme, and we will be issuing certificates to those young persons. Not only is appliance repair in demand, it is
also a segue to entrepreneurship and self -employment.
And so we also have those young persons talk to BEDC
[Bermuda Economic Development Corporation], and
have officers talk to those individuals around how they go about starting their own business and registering so
that this can be a legitimate second job or primary job
if that is what they desire. But that skill set is valuable
within our community. We talk about the removal of the tech school and the impact that it has had on our economy. But what we have is not a tech school, we have
pathways into those same careers now.
And Bermuda College is well poised to fill the
gap that the missing tech school actually filled, in conjunction with the way in which we are now providing
NCCER [ National Center for Construction Education
and Research] certifications in our high school that can
translate directly into programmes that we have at Bermuda College, persons have a straight glide path.
Coupled with the work that we are doing to increase apprenticeships within our community, I believe
that we are doing a critical job with providing pathways,
non-traditional pathways to individuals. And steering
them away from trying to get a dollar by alt ernative
means that is surrounded by additional activity which may lead to levels of violence.
And I think we [should] expand our reach from
our portfolios as ministers of government, from being role models in our families in our households, but then
stepping away from that and just being simply role models within our communities and penetrating int o our
community clubs. Anybody who does activities with young people, you have an ability to influence the di-rection of that young person’s life.
And so I applaud everybody that currently
plays a role in society and that is why I always thank our international business community when I meet with
them about their corporate social responsibility. They
provide resources to organisations that have fundi ng
gaps. And they have been filling those funding gaps for
years, outside of the government’s services that we
provide. And those funding gaps go to empower our
young people in our community. And that is what we continuously need to do when we start to tal k about holistic. Let’s celebrate as well all of the hard work that each and every one has played.
The Honourable Member King said that he has
worked in the system for 25- plus years. Well, I would
assume that he has positively impacted lives for over two decades. We cannot underpin the work that he has done to say, We have a resource issue. The most valuable resource in this particular equation is human resources, human beings impacting and influencing other
human beings to do positive behaviour. When I go and
speak with our young people in schools, if I am asked
to speak at a graduation, I s ay a few th ings and get
them to repeat back to me a few things. Number one:
266 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Positive actions lead to positive consequences. Negative actions lead to negative consequences. They are
accountable for their own behaviour.
The teacher is not your enemy. This adverse
relationship we may have with teachers . . . I don’t like
this teacher or I don’t like that teacher. That teacher is
there and plays a critical role in terms of building your
capacity so that you can function in society after school.
I don’t care if you like your teacher or not. Your teacher
is not sitting here to be your enemy. The teacher is an
ally to assist with your development and empowerment.
Yes, these are the types of things that we need
to hammer home. That is why something like the Mirrors programme is important. And we talk about they
have the keys to success. But having my kids in school
and coming home and speaking about the keys to success . . . Do you know what it is? It is constant positive
reinforcement about their actions and how positive actions unlock opportunities and things of that nature.
And I think that is what needs to be continuously reinforced. And I think we do it well to a certain extent.
There are always some people who get missed. And
we have to find ways in terms of how we catch those
persons who we initially miss and ensure that we redirect those persons into alternative lifestyles.
I know persons who were involved in violence.
They left Bermuda. Their mind was opened up to a greater environment and they have meaningful jobs in other jurisdictions. That is not necessarily a negative
thing. Sometimes that was the solution that was act ually required to turn around and change that person’s
life. Sometimes the environment you are in (right?) is
important.
And so you have a lot of . . . you speak to persons who have been engaged in drug abuse in Bermuda and you speak to those persons about how difficult it is when they are trying to get their life together but their friends are not on the same . . . not quite on
the same level and the level of peer pressure that they get from the community that they were once in to reengage in the activity. Sometimes people simply need to
get away. And we have been providing people opportunities to get away and that is a posi tive thing.
But I say all of that to say [that] we all have lived
experiences in our community. There is no one- sizefits-all, but I think that we must look deep within ourselves as individuals and [ask], What can we do to enhance the value in our community to support others?
And if I leave here with any messages it is forget the us -versus -them, the resource issues. There are
things that we can do now just simply as members of
this society that can improve the lives of others and deter people away from antisocial behaviour and gang violence.
Thank you.
[Timer chimes]

Thank you, Mr. Deputy
Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, the one thing that is clear
is that the document brought before us today that we are debating sets out a systemic approach to how we
continue to work toward reducing the negative behaviours that we see taking place in society. And it i s indeed a multi -pronged approach that is required to get
us there. And it will be an approach that has to be continuous no matter what. We will not be able to say,
Okay. We reduced crime by 50 per cent so now we can
sit down and do nothing.
Those of us committed to ensuring that we help
our society and our young people who operate within
this society, and all persons who operate within this society, to get to a better state will require our continuous
commitment. And I think the Member who just took his
seat, as did other Members, spoke to that. And he
spoke to that quite well, specifically with respect to how
his Ministry positively impacts and how he himself as a
person positively impacts the people around him.
And he has seen, as I am sure some of us who
engage in like behaviours [see], positive outcomes. And that is what we are looking for. Speaking on this
issue I think it is important that we show that this
roadmap that now sits before us is something that we
should all embrace in terms of it is not one that we tear
down, we should all embrace it and in our own ways
and through our ministries do what has to be done to get the outcomes that every single one of us here are
looking for. Because I believe wholeheartedly that
every single one of us here is looking for positive outcomes.
And especially as it relates to our young people, we
want to see them be able to forge ahead with their lives
in a way where they encounter little to no impediments,
whether that be through economic unfortunate circumstances, whether that be to violence in the community,
whether that be to lack of opportunity through other means. We want to make certain that we provide the
framework so that we can reach as many people as we can, because it is not just young people. It is other people who in an ever -advancing society find themselves
having to retool and do whatever is necessary to be
productive. And sometimes they don’t have the means. And so, as a Government we have to have those programmes in place that will help them acquire the skills
necessary to continue to have a productive and successful life in Bermuda.
And so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, having sat on the
previous committee for guns and violent crimes, I can
definitely say that much of what the Minister has
brought here today was highlighted in the report that
that committee submitted to the House of Assembly.


Bermuda House of Assembly And so, I can say here and now without reservation that it is a sustained and committed approach
that is required to successfully impact our society in a
way where we can say, as best we can, we help every
individual.

I have heard Members speak
about using punitive measures. Well, not really using them, but highlighting that for some maybe that is a measure. But I dare say in many of the societies, especially Scandinavian societies that have programmes in
place, even im prisonment . . . it is set up in a way where
it is not an atmosphere of punishment. And so they do not have a high recidivism rate.
Over the years they have seen how that has
reduced crime in their society. And so what I want to
say is that accolades to the Minister and his Ministry
because we do have to look for positive measures to
turn around the negative behaviours that we are wit-nessing in society and I dare say . . . you know the old
saying, you catch more flies with honey. I dare say using measures like that I think will be a net that proves
to catch more and turn persons’ lives around.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I do not think that I have
to speak long because I think points have been made. I just want to say that I for one will stand with that Min-ister and in my own personal space do the necessary
things with people in my community and the li ke to ensure that I, both at a government level and at a personal
level, engage in measures that help to promote positive
outcomes.
And we all want our people to have productive
lives. We all want our people living in environments
where they can have dignity. We all want our people to
find their respective places within society. And the way we do that is by our ministries that are show ing that
they are coming together as one to share whatever ini-tiatives that they have in place to ensure that indeed we
do have a systemic approach.
We do have a holistic approach. And we try
and hit every single nail on the head to ensure that we
do everything as a Government to uplift our people and create that productive environment and society that our
people can operate in and have a life of digni ty in. And
that our young people will embrace wholeheartedly so
that they too as their days move forward can have productive lives, whether that be through apprenticeship
programmes, going to college, having workforce within the schools. No matter what those measures are, we
are ensuring that we have adopted a systemic approach.
And even when it comes to our family settings,
so that our families from day one with their young people, straight through to school and beyond, can feel as-sured that this Government and any government who
picks up this roadmap to ensure that we fight the negative behaviours that we see playing itself out in our environment. If we use this roadmap, no doubt we will
make the inroads that we need to make and we will get
there. And on that note, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank
you.

—and where we could have
been, i.e., where some of our friends are, was a deci-sion, was a choice. And the key for us not making a bad
choice was someone important, or some individuals important in our lives. It could have been a grandmother,
a father, an uncle, a coach. And that person entering
our lives was key in us not making that bad choice that
could have changed the trajectory of our lives.
268 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly So I wanted to begin with that as it is so true. It
brings up the concept that it takes a village to raise a
child. And I think we have all said . . . all the speakers
have touched on that in different ways without saying the cliché that it takes a village. But it truly does take a
village to raise a child. Now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my
grandmother never had a telephone. And I am maybe
one or two years older than Minister Hayward.

I did not know how she knew,
but she knew.
I also had the experience of having a coach influence my life and see how he influenced others’ lives
as well. Just a simple thing. I was on Nellie’s Walk in Hamilton and a gentleman, a few years older than me,
came up to Mr. Donald Dane (I will call his name). And
he was smoking a cigarette, and he turned quickly, walked a few feet away, dropped his cigarette, put it out
and came back and said, I’m so sorry, Mr. Dane.
Mr. Dane never said anything. But that gentleman who experienced interaction with Mr. Dane, either
in school or at the football ground, knew what he represented and still held on to upholding those principles —
at least if it was only around Mr. Dane. So, I take what Minister Hayward said to heart. And he was spot on
with those comments.
Also using Minister Hayward and his efforts in
trying to improve our economy, even more so is if we fail to get this right, there is nothing Minister Hayward
can do in his Ministry if this gets out of control more
than it is now. If we don’t bring this under our hand and
get this turned around, there is nothing, there is no economic strategy that is going to work because people won’t want to be here.
Now with that, on Tuesday, Mr. Deputy
Speaker, in the morning as I turned on the sports chan-nel as I was getting ready for my day, and Tuesday
happened to be Giving Tuesday, and they were talking
about the [Jimmy] “V Foundation.” Now Jimmy V. is Jim Valva no, who was a basketball coach. He died from
cancer. But he started a foundation just before his death that still goes on today and raises millions for research in the fight against cancer. And their goal, Mr.
Deputy Speaker, is to put themselves out of business.
What do I mean? They want to eradicate cancer so that
they are not needed anymore. They do not need to be in the business of raising funds.
And so, yes, I accept, where we are now, that
our goal has to be reduction. But I don’t think there is anyone in this House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who does
not want total eradication of the violence that we see.
One person dying from gun violence is one pers on too
many. One person dying from a wound inflicted by a
bladed weapon is one too many. The environment that
we see today . . . And I know this report is focused. It is
a heavy focus on gang violence. But a lot of the sug-gested plans in here will address violence of all types.
So I won’t get into that.
But in the early days of this violence we saw a
majority happening in the wee hours of the morning or
the late hours of the night under the cover of darkness.
But it is no longer confined to those hours. Mr. Deputy
Speaker, we see things happening all hour s of the day,
broad daylight. Many of the incidents actually have
happened within a couple of blocks of the Hamilton Police Station. And we now have reached a point where
persons are actually shooting at the police.
So again, this report, I would have liked to have
seen it a lot sooner. But I am not blaming anybody. I am blaming everybody for that because if you go to
page 6—

Any of us who have been involved . . . and look at this chart. It is very sobering. We
should be thinking, Did I advocate enough? Did I demand more from the then Minister of National Security?
Did I do enough to . . . How many people were enough
for us to have this report? How many people dying was
enough for us to take the action—

But I am glad that we are here
today with this document that we hope to go forward
with.
It was suggested that we should be looking at
things that are missing from this here. The only thing I could think of is existing laws. Are they strong enough?
Because if I look at page 8, there is a list of reasons
why . . . you know, we have family breakdown, exposure to violence, et cetera. I would add one more to that
list because there are just in our society some individuals who are just bad individuals. And what is in place,
they do not want to be rehabilitated. They ar e not interested in turning their life around. They are just bad apples. So are the laws severe enough to deal with those
individuals who are not interested in the other
measures that are recommended here?
I am glad that we are again, in another area,
understanding the extent of our mental health issues here on the Island. And I am going to wrap it up by saying that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a
pound of cure.

And there is a lot of prevention.
I highlighted that word in this document when I saw it
because that is the key to succeeding in our fight against this violence. It is to prevent it rather than deal
with the costly solutions, or costly measures that are
required once we get to the violent stage.
Now, to go back to parenting. We are providing
support for parenting. And parenting, in my opinion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, does not only end with us raising our
child right but also recognising who amongst their
friends we need to separate our kids from. And I think
Minister Hayward may have touched on that earlier as well.

But you have to recognise, you
have to know who your child’s friends are. And you have to say, No, you can’t go. You are not to be with
Johnnie, because you can see as their parent that
Johnnie is a bad apple. Johnnie needs some assistance. And you must separate your child out from that.
That is the other half, or the other part, of raising your
child.
Now, I would like to add some other entities
that are on the preventative side: the Spirit of Bermuda
comes to mind; Sea Cadets; Boy Scouts; Girl Guides; Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

These organisations are doing
wonderful things with young people [and are] at the
frontend. It will help guide. Will they prevent every child
from making bad decisions? No. But I think that will be
a good start if we have our . . . if we provide greater
support to these entities. And also, I encourage families out there to get involved with the foster parent organisation because you have the ability to have a significant
impact on the lives of young people. And they will remember th at impact.

Okay.

Hon. Jarion Richardson: And might earn some slight
favour by that.
[Laughter]

Hon. Jarion Richardson: I wanted to speak to something that the plan mentions.
First of all, I want to echo the sentiments of the
previous speaker, MP Campbell, relating to the cadet programmes of Bermuda. I came up in the Sea Cadets,
along with a lot of my colleagues and friends, as well as junior leaders, army cadets. That was our environment. So, we were always in a very structured environment and I think that that will go a very long way to encouraging kids, certainly young boys, to focus. Be-cause that was the group I was in. You know, the boys
all hung around like that.
I wanted to speak about community policing
because it is only mentioned twice. And undoubtedly it
would require some unpacking. There is a lot in the
document, and I am not sure if they were able to fit it all
in. I am not sure who the actual author of th e document
is. It says, Created by . . . I want to say Frankco Harris,
who I know is a government consultant. If that is the
case, I want to congratulate him on contributing. He is currently studying [to earn a] PhD in criminology. And
so that would be a great use of some skills.
I wanted to speak to community policing because I worked in the police but the units that really shaped up the way I thought about the community was
really the Community Policing Team. Specifically, at the time we called it CBOs, Community Beat Officers.
Now, we were the successor to the parish constables.
And the parish constables, there were a couple of them
left at the time, older constables, older sergeants, knew
everybody in the community. I remember one of them
took me on a liquor licence check to So uthampton Arms
and made the point of teaching me [that] you have to
know the community. You have to make your friends before you need them. And [he] just always instructed me in that way.
I say that because I think a lot of people see
police and policing as a very abrasive, abrupt, forceful,
handcuffs, banging- in-doors thing. That is . . . there is
a time and a place for everything. But the most successful policemen who ever worked in Bermuda were
those parish constables and those sorts of people. Now
the reason was because they got to know everyone in
the community. They knew which kid was going to
which house, which bus was running when. They would
typically ride around on bikes, you know, they were not
pursuit police officers. And so a lot of us got to know
them through those kinds of policing.
When I joined the Community Beat Officer
fresh off of B -Watch, I then got sent on a conference to
(I want to say) Charlotte. And that conference was
called “Problem- Oriented Policing.” And problem- oriented policing was a method where you focus on a specific problem within a specific community, and you
worked to resolve that problem. Now, some people, advocates for a more aggressive kind of policing . . . sorry,
assertive kind of policing, would say, Well, that is not
the police’s job. And I strongly disagre e. The job of the
police is not only to detect crime but to prevent crime. Well, how do you prevent crime? By getting rid of problems in communities, especially closely knit neighbour-hoods.
So, problem- oriented policing uses a couple
different models which later on I used in my profes-sional life called PAT models and SARA [ scanning,
analysis, response, assessment ] model. I think the
names are sort of irrelevant. What I want to say is that there was a methodology applied to a community so
that we were able to identify problem behaviour and
conduct. We were able to fix infrastructure areas. In
fact, we actually work ed with . . . I remember doing
some work on some infrastructure in a community an d
one of the excavating companies (I couldn’t tell you
which one) gave us . . . or loaned us a crew with a machine and that problem got fixed.
What happened here, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is
that we got . . . that assigned officer was in charge of
documenting that problem and then identifying all the
stakeholders in the community and bringing those peo-ple together. And that is what the community polic ing
. . . I see it mentioned, but I really want to make sure
that we unpack it so that we understand what we are talking about with community policing. Because I really encourage the Minister to double- down on community
policing.
You would not believe how tempting it is for operational police commanders to become concerned with statistical returns. So, the next thing you know we
are concerned about how many tickets are getting issued or how many arrests, and all that kind of stuff. And
in community policing you do not have that kind of sta-tistical return. So it is hard to prove its effectiveness.
But here is the catch: On the long term you can always


Bermuda House of Assembly prove its effectiveness because the communities are
safer and safer and safer.
So, I want to make sure that we focus on community policing as . . . as . . . when we talk about policing we are talking about community policing not just arresting people. Those models, we got all the stakeholders together in the community. That meant that at the
end of every huge community project, whether we were
involving KBB [ Keep Bermuda Beautiful], excavators,
Ministry of Works and Engineering (at the time), you just worked with everybody.
And that connection that constable then made
in that community was basically invaluable because
they became trusted and when they become trusted
then people in the community would approach them
with information. So, before it becomes a crime, before
it bec omes a problem, they are going to go and say,
Hey, those boys that were coming off of the number 7
bus, they were a little rowdy. Pushing each other on the
hill. I think I heard maybe one of them got a bit of candy
from the little grocery store around the way. And then
you go speak to Mrs. So- and-so and you go, Hey, I saw
your son. Is he in football? What is he doing after
school? And then, you know, you connect them with the
Sea Cadets and then, all of a sudden, this problem gets
fixed. And so now you do not have a violence problem.
So, I just wanted to stand up and advocate as
strongly as I can that we need to put our attention when we talk about policing there is a time and a place for
everything, but Bermuda works best when our police
are embedded in the community and working with the
community. And I’m afraid, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you
are not going to get a lot of statistics out of it. It is not
very sexy. A lot of people like to ride fast bikes. You know, the white bikes and sirens and stuff, and community policing, it is boring. I t takes forever. But you get
to make friends and learn about people.
The other unit I worked in was the Intelligence
Division where we had to deal with (let’s call it) the de-tection side. The harder part of it. And that included putting together packages. And unfortunately that involved
the use of armed police officers and so I got to see this
huge pendulum of different kinds of policing. But the
one that always made me feel like I was doing good, the one that made me . . . the one where I now see
people and kids and I say hi, the one that actually got
this whole country to work was the one that is community policing. That was the parish constables. And the
sooner we get back to that maybe the sooner we will take the stigma away from policing again and we can make sure that community policing, police officers, parish constables become partners again in making sure
that crime does not ever rise up, that violence does not
ever rise up. We nip it in the bud I believe someone
said.
I also just want to advocate an idea that the police officers had that bus that used to go around, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I cannot remember the name of programme. I was not in the police at the time. But the bus went around to the different schools and introduced
kids to policing. I think that played an incredibly key role
that we do not have today.
Right now the community outreach from the
Bermuda Police Service is typically limited to the Gym-khana and a couple of isolated events like that. But that
bus used to go around with the motorcycle units and
the police dog, and you would get into the primary
school and the kids first experience of police was posi-tive. So then they got to know police officers as people,
as community members. They got to look at it and go, Oh, well, this isn’t . . . this isn’t a person who is coming
at me. This is a person whos e job it is to protect me.
Again, establishing a relationship.
So, I would advocate strongly to the Minister
that we get back to those programmes. We used to have a unit called the “School’s Resource Officers” and they were closely connected with the Community Beat
officers and so they worked together, and those schoo l
resource officers were in and out of the schools all day.
They were typically assigned one or two schools. And
they were just around all the time.
And again, getting the kids to understand . . .
not understand, sorry, demonstrating to the kids that
we in the Police Service cared about them. And we
wanted to be part of their lives. And not in that law and
order, kicking in doors, jumping out of helico pters stuff,
but in the way that Bermuda actually works. And that is why we had a lot of police officers involved in Bermuda
Football Association and all these other places because at that time the relationship was a lot tighter.
Now, look, I totally understand the historical
context is key and it was not all roses. I think we all know that. But the more that we focus on the kind of
policing that breaks up the community, that creates an
us/them dynamic, the less we are going to be able to
rely on the police and the less we will be able to communicate with the community and the police and fix
problems before they start.
So I just want to advocate to the Minister that
an area that requires a lot of development, I see only
two lines. I hope there is more to it. I imagine there are
more materials. It is community policing. We should
definitely increase the funding for those. Increase the
training. Make sure that they get the expertise and —

[Crosstalk]

Hon. Jarion Richardson: —then we then adopt those
community police officers, those parish constables or
whatever they want to call themselves now. We adopt
them into the communities and make sure they are in
and out of our schools and football clubs so that we can
create a relat ionship that benefits the community instead of polices the community in that adverse way.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Thank you so much.
Hon. Walter H. Roban: —there has been so many
substantive contributions in this area that I am sure it
has helped; it has assisted in informing the Minister of
the views of Members but also shown where the House
is with this particular motion on the National Violence
Reduction Strategy and the support he is clearly getting
for this. So I would only ask to give my meagre, short
contribution to this —

[Laughter]

Hon. Walter H. Roban: —because there have been
substantive valuable contributions from both sides on
this. But I just wanted to say a few things from the perspective that I am going to take it that we should not see ourselves as a country alone with this issue.

Yes.

Hon. Walter H. Roban: And you, as an experienced
long-standing legislator I am sure can reflect. Many of
our families to the south are dealing with this issue and are dealing with it and having to deal with it in the same
way that we are. It is a growing serious problem, violence. I am sure there are islands that you and your
long-standing, as a member of the CPA, and travelled
. . . there are many islands in the south that were virtually crime free years ago. And we thought we had more challenge with crime than them.
The reality is that some of those islands 10, 20
years ago that were crime free, are now experiencing
the same levels of crime that we are now. We used to
identify certain islands, I am not going to say who they
are, as being riddled with crime. No. We are all now
experiencing levels of crime, particularly crime from
young people in ways a few generations ago just did
not exist some places, and even here.
I am glad that this has been a debate that has
outlined not only how we feel and perceive but also facts. There has been an effort to ensure that the facts
were articulated. And there has been in areas of crime reduction and less. But the experience of cri me, I think,
is what we are all seeking to grapple and perhaps to
some degree it is almost like a bottle that has liquid. And we have seen change and reduction in areas that
have been through different efforts, have been easy to
tackle so those things are reduced.
But then you get down to where the fundamental challenges socially and economically that contribute to crime are now what we are dealing with. And it is
almost like trying to get to deal with that last bit, but it is
really the essence of the challenge that we face, and it
is the cyclical experience that has gone on for many
years and that is the hardest part that we are looking to
address now. It is those fundamental challenges that bring about violence and that sort of behaviour and the
dysfunction of whi ch that comes out of that we are now
seeking to address.
But we are not alone. This is what is happening
all over the region. And all of the islands of the south
are looking to work in different ways to gather on their own to address it. In fact I am sure the Minister of National Security and the Minister for Yo uth, Social Development and Seniors will . . . I send them as the Ministers responsible for CARICOM affairs, I send them
communications that I get on some of the major discussions that are [being] had. And one of the things that is
going on in the region, and this is perhaps part of the
global trend. It is also seeing violence as a public health
issue. Not just a crime issue that should be enforced
and would create laws of which we pour police and other enforcement against. But also there is a human
dimensi on that has got to do with public health. It is another avenue to look at this issue. And certainly here I
believe we are also taking on that as well.
And it is important that we understand that we
are not alone in this effort, and I commend the Minister for the work that his team has done to put together this
particular paper because it is systemic and it is trying to
address this in a way that we all c an see that we have
a role to play, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Yes.

Hon. Walter H. Roban: And that is what is important.
And I do believe that that effort has been clearly embraced by the whole House today.
And we have heard from other Ministers and
other Members, and particularly it seems as if there is a support for a number of critical paths being created.
We are not going to just create this through one way.
We must create multiple paths so that we can ca pture
as many persons and young people and those . . .
whether they be assessments of babies and ensuring that as children come up through the system that we
assess them through the education system.
We assess them obviously from the standpoint
of medical health. We assess them through education
and even in other avenues so that we can create different critical paths to capture those who may potentially
be at risk. Those who have had violence in their family
lives, who have seen people die in their families from
violence. Those children who come out of that trauma,


Bermuda House of Assembly we need to ensure that we have a critical path for them
as well. And all the other areas where we find where
there are deficits that often open up the possibility of
dysfunction and contributing to violence, continuing to
be perpetuated in the community.
As the Honourable Member from constituency 3 said, we must have an ongoing systemic, sustainable effort to address. This is not going to go away. But if we have a continued sustainable effort to address
it, we can minimise its impact on society and show p ersons that there are avenues of opportunity. There are
avenues of opportunities to improve their lives away
from seeing violence and antisocial behaviour being a
choice.
This report provides and it runs, as has already
been said, in a long history of reports which have told
us the story going back to the Wooding Report, Pitt Re-port, Clark Report, and we know what those reports
have said. They have sent a similar message. W e now
have this report. And certainly this Government, but I
also believe in what I have heard that this House is pre-pared to not only endorse but embrace the path that
this report has prescribed for us.

Yes.

Hon. Walter H. Roban: There was a bit of passion, but
I think that passion speaks to how people feel about this. Not necessarily to anyone who wants to be com-bative about it. We all feel this for our community. But
let’s ensure that we transfer that energy into oppor-tunity and to generate the solutions that we want to see
for the community.
Thank you, very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Yes, thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Deputy Speaker.
A very important topic of discussion and I want
to thank the Minister responsible for National Security
for bringing this discussion forward today. There were
some who alluded to persons who may have been around. Of course, I tend to sometimes like to go down
memory lane. Mr. Deputy Speaker, in this case I feel
compelled to.
I remember when the Honourable Member first
came to this Honourable House in 2009. I first met him
in an area . . . we often joke about this. We talk about it
very frequently. But I first met him at Government Gate,
outside of Ms. Butterfield’s house when I was doing a
little bit of canvassing. He was running in a bye- election caused by the death of the late great Nelson Bascome. Of course, I had never heard of Weeks and—
[Laughter]

Those wonderful people
who voted for my candidate, Mr. Keith Young, may he
rest in peace. And not knowing much about Brother
Weeks. But what I had come to know and appreciate
over the years is that he was very much a community man. And his family was well entrenched. And where
we took that picture of the late Keith Young and myself
and Brother Weeks up in Government Gate was outside that lovely lady and people’s houses who gave me
gingerbread and found out that that was his aunt.
[Laughter]

And Brother Tyrrell’s
mother -in-law, and the like.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I remember the murders
that happened early on. Names like Robinson come to
mind. Areas like St. Monica’s Mission come to mind.
Candlelight vigils out there going with Sister Gina
Spence Farmer to houses to grieve in . . . long before
there was any type of gang intervention types of things
coming around showing empathy. Church vigils. News
articles being written all the time about these new murders and the like.
We had a Premier at the time who was catching a lot of hell on building . . . on buying fast ferries and
building a dock there and doing . . . redeveloping a golf
course at Port Royal and spending millions (prior to the
recession) that came into great criticism and 20 years,
18 years later this country is reaping the benefits of
those decisions that that leader made at the time.
274 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly And I declare my interest. I might have been
one who was tickling him up a little bit on buying fast
ferries and renovating and building a dock and the
amount of money that was being spent and the like.
And even when Brother Zane and some would come back and say, Look! The dock paid for itself in two
years. Find an argument to counter it.

[Inaudible interjections]

And the Dame Lois
Browne -Evans Building there and the . . . there were
many projects. I just named a few that are benefiting
Bermuda today. The National Sports Centre’s Aquatic
Centre up there where universities would come around
and rent it and bring 50- odd people from Howard University, the alma mater of the—

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Point of order, Mr. Deputy
Speaker.

Point of order, Member.

POINT OF ORDER
[Misleading]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I think the Honourable Member is unintentionally misleading the House when he
said that the Dame Lois Browne- Evans Building is saving the taxpayers some money. It is doing more than that. It is in excess of $12 million a year going into the taxpayers’ poc kets.

I would . . . I would . . . had
that young Member been coming up to . . . and young
in the sense that he is new to the House, but not so
young, that if he was coming to this House in years
gone by and had listened to some debates, he would
have known that some spokespersons, great spokespersons, gave preambles to put things in context.
And I am thinking of the late Dame Lois
Browne -Evans who I try to emulate on many occasions.
And I am putting in context at the time when these mur-ders were taking root in this country, there was leadership and a leader at that particular time who was prepared to do something. And in the context that that person in what they were able to do with the monies they
had discretion over, was able to do some things that we
are benefiting [from] today.
And I was trying to make the case for the Honourable Member King to show him that Dr. Ewart Brown
had put in place through his Ministry programmes that
benefited Bermuda, that benefit Bermuda today immeasurably. Where would the 500,000 cruise visitors
who come to Bermuda be without the docks up in Dockyard?

Mr. Deputy Speaker, at
that same time I remember Dr. Brown making
speeches and declaring that for better or for worse he
spent a little time in LA [Los Angeles]. And I remember
Dr. Brown saying that his experience in LA equipped him well to offer his coun try, his beloved Bermuda
some advice on how to handle this gang culture.
[Inaudible interjections]

I remember Dr. Brown saying that in areas such as LA that gangs were taking root
there were strategists put in place to remediate it. And
I say that in the context that the Minister responsible for
National Security today is no different than the Minister
of National Security of 2000 or 1995, inasmuch as they only have a minimal control of policing in this country.
They have maximum control of how much money they


Bermuda House of Assembly give the police. But minimal control of operational policing. That final word is reserved for the ultimate authority which comes via the United Kingdom through
Government House.
So, when Dr. Brown in his capacity as Premier
saw a problem that he would have identified as being
very devastating, in the spirit that he did, that he was
able to do things in his ministries that benefit us today
15 years later, he did not have nor did any other national security or premier have, the authority to do what
they could have done in their ministries, in the Ministry of Finance, in the Ministry of National Security, in any
Ministry in this country. They were limited. The Minister
of National Security is limited. But being the Premier
and knowing . . . because sometimes people have to
catch up to where a person is at that time.

I was able to go to some
articles and recall. You cannot go back in the archives
of The Royal Gazette unless you are prepared to pay
now, but thankfully the Bermuda Sun is still around and
I saw some that said that Dr. Brown had indicated that he had gone to Government House on a couple of oc-casions to get them to take on board a strategy similar
to that of what was being used in some areas in the
United States that he was familiar with. And it was not accepted.
And I pause because now we are talking about
since 2009 when Minister Weeks came into this House, when Dr. Brown was the Leader of the country. We are
talking about a report that I support that deals with strategists. In the absence of doing things that were recom-mended by the Government of the day at the time that
the Government of the day was unable to implement but it could only recommend to the ultimate authority in Bermuda. And I think it is important that Bermuda and
Bermudians understand that.
And I think it is important for us not to let them
off the hook either! Because in the context of that 15year period, where have their priorities been? And I will
just make a note to myself, Self, where have their priorities been?
[Inaudible interjections]

Where have their priorities
been?
I could think of 15 million reasons, 15 million
answers of where their priorities have been—15 million
reasons. Because I remember . . . and I have often said
in this House, everyone who has sat in this House
cares about this country. Loves this country whether or
not they were OBA, whether or not they were UBP in
the old . . . PLP past, PLP present. You do not go
through all of that unless you care about Bermuda. Just
have different ways of trying to do things. And we see that as we debate Bills and we talk
about the “buts.” The but . . . you know, I like that . . .
but . . . Well, you know, they could have done a few
things between 2012 and 2017, but they were focused
on trying to play catch up when the recession was tearing the heart out of the country and built Cross Island
and spent their money there. But they did not spend the
money into Operation Ceasefire.
And I am going to tell you this, I remember as
an Opposition Leader, going to a former Minister of National Security, called him up, friend of mine, PLP (I was not PLP then) and I said, Listen, my Shadow Minister
believes in Operation Ceasefire. He has currency. He
speaks passionately about it. Would you meet?
Shadow Minister Dunkley and Minister Wayne Perinchief met and actually went on TV together as a consequence of trying to do something collaboratively, put-ting out an appeal to get private funds to sup port Operation Ceasefire. I remember that and I respect both of
them for doing that.
And the question I want to ask today with those
that I said I would stick a pin where their 15 million is, if
it took money to realise Operation Ceasefire in a real
way, which came after Britain had the . . . the Government House and the FCO [Foreign, Commonwealth &
Development Office] and all of that had turned a blind
eye to what Dr. Brown the . . . because he wasn’t the
Premier when I arranged for Minister Perinchief to meet at that particular time. His plans would already . . .
turned a blind eye to by those ultimately responsible for
policing. Their attention was switched on him, prosecuting him t o this very day, $15 million worth. Where
would we be had that money been deployed into this
problem that is an epidemic?
Former Government Minister Campbell, now
sitting on Opposition benches, spoke to the chart in the report. And rightfully so. Those numbers spell an epidemic in this country. Why? Because when Minister
Weeks became an MP the children of the slain person,
the children of the person who was pulling the trigger
and the like may have been anywhere between one and five years old. Today they would be in their late
teens, early 20s, or there abouts. There is a generational impact on all of this.
So, the solution that was put forward in 2009
by Dr. Brown is a lot different solution than what is required today. Because he was treating it in the early
stages. It was almost like the diabetes problem that we
have in this country. I don’t . . . I am not a doctor. I don’t
play one on the radio or TV. And I don’t ascribe to be
one. But I do know this. If you treat a problem in its infancy stage, you have a better chance of addressing it
than to catch it down in acute stage.
And so the priorities of the British Government
as it relates to a major social problem in this country
differs from our perspective. And I want folks to really
understand that in a real way. And I don’t . . . I can see
it clearly. This problem is not happening in Brixton. It is
not happening in Bristol. It is not happening in Hull
276 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly where it could impact the . . . the . . . the constituents of
someone who might sit down in Westminster. It is happening in Bermuda far removed. The difference for
them . . . and I think it is important as we look at this
that we understand . . . I always say, look at the context
of things. Look at the timeline of things.
I know I have got to wind up, Mr. Deputy
Speaker, you don’t have your clock on, but I know the
biological clock is telling me that I am somewhere
around 15 or 16 minutes. How much do I got?

But I just . . . I just want to
finish up with this. That as we look to look at programmes that can address some social issues, which
are very near and dear to my heart always, I think about Happy Valley [Child] Care Center. And I remember in
the early days of the legisla ture in another place at the
turn of the century talking about how successful Happy
Valley [Child] Care Center is. And I only wish we had the [Wellington] Slip Road Happy Valley [Child] Care
[Center] model in St. G eorge’s. I only wish we had the
White Hill Happy Valley [Child] Care Center up there at
a suitable location up in the West. I only wish we had a
Jones’ Village [Lane] Happy Valley [Child] Care Center
down for my cousins down in Warwick. I only wish we
had maybe another Happy Valley [Child] Care Center
out there in some of the more densely populated communities in Bermuda.

Why? Because the problem has been kicked down the road several years, we have got to do more for those who are just being born
into this world who have family circumstances that have
been impacted by a generational epidemic. As they get
older, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you know, in my life I have
been a sports person. And I am not talking about golf
today, but before I was a golfer I was a very good footballer, and a not -too-bad cricketer.

[Inaudible interjections]

And Mr. Deputy Speaker,
when I . . . you know we often talk about Berkeleyites
and Techites and stuff like that. I guess I am the Berkeleyite who knows what the middle school concept is all about because for me Berkeley was a middle school
and Warwick Sec was my high school. I transitioned
through Berkeley and then somewhere else. As did many ot hers who did well afterwards too.

And I am an advocate that
whilst we are doing signature schools that there is room
for a Sports Academy in this country that can help this
country reach some of those persons where the top
athletes like a Carl Roberts, for instance, in St.
George’s who grew up in Somerset in the West End like I did. Fellows like me who came up in single parent homes could help reach some of these folks and switch
them on to academia or even the sciences and the
STEMs through the passion that they have and teach
them along the way. That is a solution. And I know it
doesn’t have total currency around, but I know that the
same Minister of National Security has seen some logic
of that. We have had conversations about that.
Happy Valley [Child] Care Center at the very
early stages expanded upon them around the country.
And people say, You gotta have the money. But the . . .
But things are getting better, and we need to find the
[money] because we need to save those people. Looking at sports and other areas where persons who might be vulnerable or susceptible to the vulnerabilities might
have some passions. And identifying those who are
skilled enough to inspire . . . and I will say this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am the beneficiary of an era when your
PE teachers were your icons.
In 1969 and 1970 when Berkeley was the junior champions of Bermuda, Randy Horton was our coach and we defeated [Earl] “Gabby” Hart up at . . .
But when we went to Warwick Sec we had Mr. Middle-ton who played for Academicals. You know, young people can remember Carlton . . . not Carlton “Pepe” Dill,
another icon person. Donald Dane. His name has been
mentioned already by an Honourable Member in the
House. These persons were schoolteachers in this
country. And today we still have them. We have the Neil Paynter s of this world, holding the hands of young people, bringing them along.
And I am here to tell you that those are the folks
that we need to empower and find the way to help us craft a new way forward. And I want to thank persons
like Pastor Leroy Bean for [his] efforts. And other ministers who have stood in the gap in this part icular ministry and been doing things. I remember there was a . . . Minister Caines had a farm that they used to grow
and inspire young people and stuff.

Still got it.



Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. Hubert (Kim) E. Swan: Still got it. Yes. Still doing
it. Yes, the Ministry still does it.
So, there are other Ministers. I mentioned
about three of them in this particular case who cared
about this problem. But I conclude with this. It is not lost on me that the priorities that allow $15 million to be
spent prosecuting someone, had that money been applied to remediating and saving our people the outcome
would have been a lot different. The persons who
turned a blind eye to those recommendations, history
will reveal that. They will get access to those when they try to google on The Royal Gazette. And people are
calling around from overseas. Can you get access? I
don’t feel like signing up to be a member. I guess they got to get a business. But thankfully there are other mediums that capture it.
But I know it to be that it was recommended
and rejected and there have been consequences to the
detriment of Bermuda because of that.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy
Speaker. I must say that this particular report has
sparked what I would consider to be some very valuable information and valuable debate as well.
Although it seemed as if we were getting off to
a bit of strange start, I think that the sentiment has been clear on both sides that we are all very much concerned about where we are with the violence in Bermuda. And
that violence being not necessarily violence in the gang area, but violence against one another, our fellow hu-man beings, period. And that unfortunately there are far
too many predators who are taking advantage of what
they might consider to be gaps or loopholes within the
system to perpetrate some of the real challenges that
we see out there.
I take to note that in the report it does mention
that from the very get -go as Bermuda finds itself
plagued by various forms of violence, and then further
on says, as a country we are grappling with relatively
high rates of violence. And so let me say to the Minister
that not everyone in the public is always aware. But I consider the Minister to be a friend of mine. I consider
him to operate completely out of integrity. And in this particular area I consider the Minister to be someone
who has been touched by some of this, who understands it and has seen fit to bring this report together.
I don’t want to get into the debating back and
forth over whether it should have been done a long time
ago or an old report should have been brought forward and all of that stuff. What is in front of us right now is
the fact that we have a challenge within our community and this National Violence Reduction Strategy is at-tempting to lay out a plan going forward.
Now, after having read through this report I
must say I thought that most of this stuff was already
happening. I don’t know if a lot of this . . . and hopefully
the Minister can reply to let us know maybe of some of
the things that are not happening that w e probably
thought should have been happening. But when you
read through it much of this is stuff that I thought was
already happening. And some of the integration of information and the like. So hopefully the Minister can lay out where the challenges are.
So, a lot of it was not new information. And
what I am looking forward to understanding a little bet-ter is, how is it going to be integrated? What is the
mechanism that is going to bring all of this together?
Because this is, as the Minister said, a long- lasting
change. This is what he is looking for. And the implementation of such a reduction strategy is going to take
some time to effect.
And so, as I have been listening to everyone
and after looking at the report, I wanted to concentrate
in on accountability and our role, as the Honourable
Minister Hayward brought up, is individual roles and
guiding and creating a structure within the home and
within the social construct that we have to help individuals who might have a propensity toward violence.
Interestingly enough, the other day, before I
even had gone through the full report, I was listening to
some FBI analyst on personalities when it comes to violence. And actually killing. And he said that genetics
may kind of load the gun. You know, you may have a
propensity, as Minister Hayward said, toward violence.
You know, you are one of these guys who is fighting all
the time in school. But that does not mean that you actually pull the trigger. You may have a propensity. So
that is one of the things he said may load the gun, but
it is experience that actually pulls the trigger.
And what I am getting to is that I am extremely
concerned that when you look around and if you look at
the violence, the Black on Black violence is like genocide. We are just killing each other off. And I do not understand how we are allowing . . . and whe n I say “we
are allowing” I am not saying anyone is wilfully allowing this to happen. But what I cannot understand is that when one of these crimes happens, it is like pulling
teeth to try and get a resolution to solving some of these
crimes. Which leads m e to believe that there are too
many, far too many, who are benefiting from the activities of violence. So, we are very slow, for any number
of reasons, to want to say, This is what happened. This
is who the perpetrators were. And on and on and on.
To give a personal story, my son is bigger than
me. And it was clear when he was 15 that this guy was going to be huge. Right? And he had just gone 15. But
I got a “butt” call, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and on that butt
call I could hear familiar voices. And they were saying
to this gentlemen, Young boy, don’t move or I am going
to stick you. Right?
278 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Now, if anyone knows about my past, I have
been around a lot of violence and drugs. Oh, yes. So,
when I heard these kids who come to my house and I
used to have 30 to 50 kids on a regular basis, Friday
night, coming to the house. And most of them were problem children. A lot of them have now passed because they got involved, or are incarcerated for some
heinous crimes, and some killings.
So when I heard these boys talking, they were
robbing someone, I realised that these were some of
the kids that were coming to the house. So, the next thing is, What am I going to do about it? And so, my
son decided he was going to go down to the field lat e
at night (he was 15) with some rough- and-tough boys.
He grew up conservative, sheltered, but yet these byes
wanted to get him involved. So I am going to tell you. I
called him. He had a phone. I told him, If you don’t get your behind back up at this hous e right now . . . I know
where you are. There is going to be a problem. Well,
he wanted to be defiant. He did not come back. It would only take him three minutes to get home. He wasn’t too far away.
I went down there and confronted all of them.
This is going to be a problem if you are trying to recruit my son. And then, with those who made the butt call
who were robbing this young man . . . and the young
man that they were robbing is incarcerated right now because he started doing the same thing.

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

Unbelievable!
So, I took it upon myself to intervene. And what
I am getting at is that if we had just a little more intervention, and remember now, I am not going to . . . I am
going to the homes now. The report is going to do what
it has got to do. If it is implemented, and I believe that
the Honourable Minister is looking to implement this
thing, get everyone together and start moving towards
it. The proof will be in the pudding. So let’s go ahead
and get on with this.
But one of the first areas that we can intervene
is in our own homes. Now, as government officials you
cannot function as an effective government with a prevalence of violence. It is a basic premise and that is why
I thank the Minister for what he has don e. Now it is
about implementation. And so I am not here to be controversial. I will be with the implementation if things do
not start happening because at this time, according to
this report, we have a prevalence of violence. I did not say that; the report says we have a prevalence of violence. And I understand that that is why we are looking
at this report.
I can argue over and debate over whether the
fact, you know, things like the Sloop and all these support mechanisms need more money to function. They
are not getting the money. We could go down the rabbit
hole of that. You know. But what is needed and where
I want to concentrate on is at the home, and I will talk a
little bit about in the educational system. Because that
is where early intervention happens.
I am going to tell you straight up. I got a grandson. This guy has a propensity for violence. And so I
have had to take it upon myself to spend my weekends
and whatever weekdays I can, holidays, with him so he
understands. Remember, Mr. Speaker, I had to l eave
the House because this young fellow is already turning
to violence. So, the intervention, especially by our senior males is vitally important for setting the stage for
generations to come.

I heard Minister Hayward talking about how things happened for him. At 14 my
mother threw me out of here and said, You are going
away to school. Because she could smell marijuana on
me. I wasn’t smoking it but all my buddies around me
were. Intervention. Because it was only a matter of time
she saw if I wasn’t. So that early intervention is important.
And what I didn’t see in the report . . . and the
report talks . . . and this is for the Minister. I know he is
listening. There wasn’t much to speak to the issue of
how the schools are actually going to engage. I did see
a bullet point there. But one of the things that I was concerned about that I experienced, I also talked about a
story where I saw a young primary school kid beating
up his young brother because his brother told on him at
school that he was watching porn. Now, this is a kid that
is only 11 years old. Right? Beating up his 8- year-old
brother.
And when I went to the parents, the whole
neighbourhood was listening to this ruckus going on. I
am across the water and could hear it in Mullet Bay. On
the Wellington side, because the water carries sound, I
could hear everything going on. Not one of the neighbours intervened. Everybody said, Ah, Ah! I’m not going to touch it. I am going to leave it alone. Intervention
is important. It is a check and balance when any individual stands up and says, Hey! Hey! You need to stop
this.
But what disturbed me was the parent, the father, who I knew, said to me, Yes, I got real problems
here, man. [He] was told by the system . . . these are
his exact words, Just talk to him. I can’t discipline him.

Hmm.



Bermuda House of Assembly Mr. L. Craig Cannonier: I will say that again. He was
told by officials in the system, You can talk to him but
you can’t discipline him. Or, don’t use the ruler on him.
But talk to him. This young man at 11 years old was
beating the pulp out of an 8 -year-old kid. Now what do
you think he is going to be in just two or three years?

And we have grown men who
are courting these young 14- year-olds, and some
younger, to go out and steal for their benefit. This is
what is going on as far as initiations are concerned.
And then I think about the victims and how they
are probably feeling right now about what is going on.
They want something to happen. So whilst the report
will address the long- term issues, we got a challenge
right now. And I believe that this is long on getting to
identifying some of the issues, but it is short on the
hammer for right now. And I get it that there are so
many other issues. There are issues out there that, you know, require a certain type of approach.
Now I know the Premier has sat down with
some of these guys. And some of these guys that are out there in these gangs, they are stone- cold, Mr.
Speaker. When you look in their eyes, I . . . first time
put a little shake in me. I was like, Ooh. This guy is look-ing straight through me. He has no soul. That was the first thing that came to my mind.
We talked about Martha Dismont. I was working with her very closely on some of these things and meeting with some of these gangsters who were involved. And they were coming into the Minister’s office
with certain other seniors. Mr. Speaker, every single one of those young men are dead today. One retaliation after another. And they were coming into the Min-istry. Civil servants, everyone saw them. They are dead. Gone.
And so I am looking to hear from the Minister
also about how we are going to deal with the here and
now because just like we recognised that when we
were talking about SCARS [Saving Children and Revealing Secrets] and the like, and for those paedophiles
who are out there as predators, there doesn’t seem to
be a cure. So whatever programme we put on, we got
a problem here. And now you see, because of phones
and the like, the prevalence of young people through
cyberbullying who are sending naked pictures out of
these girls, taking money from them, and threatening
them with all kinds of things. There has to be a hammer involved here.
There is a lady by the name of Dr. Julia Hare.
Some of you may know her. She started the Black Think Tank in Jamestown. And she was talking about
the educational system. And she said this, “ Us as a
people” (race, Black people) she says, “we have gotten
to the point where we were allowing educated people
to tell us that discipline in certain forms was not neces-sary. That parents became afraid to discipline their chil-dren.” And you know how we make jokes about how
Black people discipline their kids and White people dis-cipline their kids. It is an ongoing joke. Just talking and
the others ruining them when it is early ages with a kind of an iron fist.
She said, Parents became afraid to discipline
their children then the teachers became afraid to disci-pline and became afraid of the principals if they did discipline the children. The principals were afraid of the
superintendents, and the superintendents were afraid
of the school board, and the school board was afraid of
the parents and the only thing that was not afraid was
the kids. They ain’t afraid of no one!
Look into the schools right now. Yes, back in
the day, Weeks, we used to have a little scrimmages in
the school. But nothing like what I am sure you are seeing now on video. You know, nothing like what you see
now.

[Inaudible interjections]

Nothing like what you see
now.
And then on top of it we have organised members in the community who are putting videos out —in
Bermuda! —about killings! So, there has got to be a
heavy hand dealt here because I can assure you, there may be some that we can get to and help, but I can assur e you, there is a select few who are almost operating as if they are soulless. And I have seen those
eyes. It is a scary thing to see. That at will, they will
come after whoever. It doesn’t matter. We are at a point
where we are killing over material things. Life means
nothing! And if you stand up death is the result.
So, I am hoping that the Minister is going to
present to us some of the things . . . there were some
things about working with the police and getting all of
this information together. Like I said, I thought that a lot
of that was already happening. But the families need to
know in Bermuda who are allowing this stuff to happen, I mean, it can’t be that difficult to figure it out.
Something has to happen. And it should happen more immediate than not because once these predators gain the experience and that thrill, it is hard to break. And unfortunately, we are watching genocide.
It is already tough enough that we don’t have enough
of a birthrate to sustain ourselves, but we are also killing ourselves. We cannot blame anyone else. A game!
You have a choice to make when you decide
to pull that trigger. That individual has a choice to make and will make that choice in an instant with a knife. That
choice must come with consequences. How dare you
as a Black family member allow one of your memb ers
280 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly to go and kill another family member’s child. There has
to be consequences!
Ask my Aunt Gertie. When she was a police
officer she was the head of narcotics. I watched her
beat people up for foolishness. Now, I am not advocat-ing frivolous violence here. What I am saying is that I
remember when I went 16 and I got caught speeding.
She looked at me like, Are you a fool? You are coming
to me to get rid of your ticket? You are going to court, bye. You are going to court. Accountability.
Well, what do we do? First thing we do, Oh,
Pookie, gone and got a ticket. Can you get him off? Can
you . . . you know, he didn’t mean to go speeding. Yes,
he meant to go speeding. There has to be some accountability. And if we do not stamp it out from that
young, young age . . . like I said, my second youngest
grandchild, I am pointing him out. I got to love this guy,
but I also got to make sure that there is a limit of what
you can do, byes. There is a limit of what you can do.
And violence against anybody is not important . . . I
mean, it’s not right. If you are perpetrating it, this is a problem. This is a serious problem.
I kind of smiled when the Minister talked about
guys out there doing a pack. He is right. Guys out there doing a pack. And the unforgivable thing to me is that now the women are involved. Doing a pack!

And for the first time . . . I
don’t know if it was the first time, but I mean we saw a
young lady who was shot at on the back of her bike. I
think . . . I can’t remember where it was. Involved! I
mean, wow! That is where we are. And in this small
community I think we have an opportunity to arrest
some of this. I know that we will not fully stamp it out,
but the question is: What are we going to do about those ones that I know —that I know —are not going to
make it?
Number one, we need to hear more about how
we are going to identify this from a very, very early age, so that, Minister, it is a long -lasting change. It is a longlasting change. Being able to make good decisions and critical thinking are vital to the future of this Island. Time is critical, and I dare say that many of those in Government that had to go out and intervene in many of these
situations . . . People are living in fear. And so, we have
to have something that addresses that fear as well.
In addition to that, one of the conundrums of
governing is this: there is an underbelly to Bermuda that
is supporting this violence because the violence is supporting buying groceries. Now what do we do? What do
we do because that now has become a rule as opposed
to just happenstance? And so, I take keen ears to the
fact that we have got to provide many of these support
mechanisms and job opportunities and the like, but what I am concerned about is that individuals, families, we have got to find a way to get our families to understand that this is completely unacceptable, unacceptable.
We cannot in clear conscience believe in Bermuda yet at the same time kill each other.

We cannot. And that is why I
said a government cannot govern while under this premise. And I am thanking them, Minister, for taking this step, but this is a monumental step that we are taking. And it is going to require, if the people are going to
trust, parliamentarians, that we follow through on this
because there are too many living in fear.
I just heard a story last night at a Christmas
party, Mr. Speaker , and I will close out with this story
how . . . I will say my eldest grandson was at (I should
not say the school probably. I am going to say the school because it really backs me.) Warwick Academy.
Now you know, for him unfortunately in this circumstance, [he] is a lot browner than me. Right? And he is
being bullied based on his race. This is a young man at
the top of his class and being bullied by other students —

—so much so that this young
man pushed him and punched him. And he was trying
to tell him, You should not be calling people names like
that. The boy was using racial slurs on other kids. Hey,
man. You should stop doing that. You know? That is
not the proper etiquette in school, man. This is not right.
So, this boy decides to push him and punch him. Well,
he made a mistake because he has got a little bit of that
St. David’s blood in him. Right? He made a mistake.
But for defending himself, (Guess what?) he got punished. Now what do you think I wanted to do?

[Inaudible interjections ]

Oh yes, the heat has got to
be turned up. And my goodness. My eldest daughter told me: No, no, no, no. I got it. She is a little crazy. So,
smart —she is loyal. When she turns it on, it is going to
be a problem. So, she went up there and tore things up.
Did you know that they still insisted on giving him demerits? Unbelievable! And then this woman last night tells me— who is a teacher there—that her son was being bullied. Now, we got a problem.
And so, again, I am saying early intervention is
important, but it goes back to the fact that even some of the educators are afraid to say something because
they might get in trouble with the principal. They might
get in trouble with the board, whatever the case may
be. And Dr. Harris, she is saying: Hold on a second,
guys. We have to apply this discipline early because


Bermuda House of Assembly the only people who are not afraid are the kids. Everybody else is afraid. What kind of world are we living in?
Minister Weeks, you have a lot of work to do,
boss. I am not sure if you wanted this Ministry or not,
but it is yours.

[Laughter]

And I heard the Honourable
Minister Tinee [Furbert] say . . . She mentioned about
how . . . I wrote it down here somewhere about the violence. Yes. This report is a work in progress. I accept
that. I do accept that. But I tell you what else is a work
in progress: crime. And these guys at a young age are
getting smarter and smarter and smarter. The question is: Are we recognising that? Are we identifying it early
enough? And are we dealing with it? Because we are going to be at a point whereby Scotland Yard is going
to have to come. Wherever they come from, something
has got to happen because cowboy justice is going to
kick in if the people do not believe that we are going to deal with the situation. And then you have a whole new
ball game in front of you because I can assure you the
Honourable, former Minister, [Zane] De Silva, when we
took SCARS [Saving Children and Revealing Secrets] ,
he had a no- nonsense approach that, If you are going
to mess with my little granddaughter . . .
It has got to be stamped out. Stamped out. And
whatever we need to do for the police, whatever we
need to do in the community, everybody needs to stand
up—and especially in these organisations that are funded by Government —stand up and say: No, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am identifying what I
see as symptoms early. When this little four -year-old
and five- year-old come into the school, I can see symptoms. Now that is not to say that a whole bunch is hap-pening, but I am identifying it. And I am flagging it. And it has got to be recorded so that everybody can see
what is happening. Too many families are getting away
with this here. And too many families are suffering right
now over something like a girlfriend, a chain, a bike.
Oh, y ou looked at him crooked. There are some stonecold boys out there. I am saying boys —defi ant. We
have come into contact with them.
So, in conjunction with the Government, I look
forward to the implementation of this report. I hope that
the Minister can fill us in on some of those gaps that I
brought out that I am hoping we can find some resolution to and fill those gaps because tomorr ow’s future
might just depend on how we deal with this.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, MP Cannonier.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution at this time?
Any other? There are none?
Premier.

Hon. E. David Burt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my comments this evening by commending the Minister and his
team for the work of which they do. Being Minister of
National Security is not an easy job. And it is a lot of
times, you know . . . whether it is in Cabinet or in caucus or other times, you know, we have to support the
Minister because he has a really difficult job and a difficult challenge. He is the one that, you know, goes to
visit the families, goes to the funerals, does all those
things [in] the community. He is there at the hospital
when issues of tragic violence happen, and it is not
easy. So, I want to make sure that I record my support
and appreciation for his work and the work of his team
because it is not nine to five, Monday to Friday. It is a
24/7 jo b that happens all the time.
And it is important because we do not often get
to celebrate the successes and the progress that is made because of course the points that get the most
awareness are when there are the challenges, when
there are the instances of violence, when there are the
murders, when there are deaths, when there the shootings, when there are the stabbings, the things that affect our community to the core. But I want to make sure
that I stated here that over the last seven years progress has been made. Young men and young women
have been saved. Persons who were on the wrong path
have been directed to a better path. But the fact is, Mr.
Speaker, that there is more work to be done.
Now I remember in 2017 in our election manifesto, we said that we need to make sure that we focus on tackling the root causes, and we have been doing
that. And Ministers have spoken to that. Members have
spoken to that, about the work that is taking place in so far as tackling the root causes, whether that is in the
social circles, whether it be in the education circles,
whether it be in the economic circles, the training, those
types of things that are necessary to focus on matters
related to rehabilitatio n and reintegration and trying to
make sure that we do that particular work that is nec-essary to save our young people because no Government wants to write anyone off. Now yes, there are
those who write themselves off despite the amount of
time and effort that we may [put forward to] try to intervene. And then action is taken. We know that.
But any government —any government —must
look at what it is that we are doing, and in this case,
there was a need and a desire to update the strategy.
And it is important to remember how this report came
about, Mr. Speaker. This report came about by the Minister bringing the community together, all segments of
the community that were a part of this particular effort,
whether that be community clubs, whether it be educators, whether it be the police, whether it be the persons
who are on the front line, whether it be mental health,
all those particular areas. [He] brought them together
for two days to examine what was working and what
needed improvement, and to make sure that we
mapped out a strategy that was coherent —that could
be seen— that everyone could under stand what it is
282 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly that we are doing and (important) to be held accountable for the delivery of that.
Now it is important, Mr. Speaker, because
when we speak about some of the things that are inside
of this report . . . And I will focus on one particular page
in this report a little bit later. But you cannot arrest
change, have impact, without making the investments —not just in time and policy but also in financial
investments —to make sure that those persons on the
front lines have the tools in order to tackle these particular issues. And the reality, Mr. Speaker, is that we
have made investments. We have made investments
in a number of spaces and instances. So, whether that
is increased investments when it comes to the police,
whether or not that is increased investments in the tools
of which they have, whether or not that is the upgrading
(in many cases controversially) regarding CCTV net-works, et cetera , to help to detect and to deter crime,
whether or not that is improvements in the resources
and technology that the police have to interdict, to
gather intelligence, to do more things to intercept . . .
And I think that it is important to recognise that there
has been progress that has been made. I speak about
it. The fact that over the last year we have recovered
12 firearms . . . that is significant. And it is because of
the additional investments in tools and resources that
have been given to the Bermuda Police Service.
We have made investments in the area of social services, whether or not that is the investments that
we have done through Minister Tinee [Furbert’s] Ministry, or whether or not it is the investments we have done through the Ministry of National Security as well. We
have made investments in matters related to mental health and trauma, and that was before this year’s mid-year review where there was significant additional
money that was given. But two years ago, we made a first down payment investment in expanding mental services outlining a mental health pathway so we can
understand and tackle these particular issues. We have
made investments when it comes to training and development and rehabilitation and making sure we execute
on [the] Youth Employment Strat egy to make sure
there are more opportunities that are available and more persons have the opportunity to learn a trade, to get their skills, so they can be reintegrated into society
into productive spaces.
But, Mr. Speaker, a strategy is only a strategy;
what is necessary is implementation and execution of that strategy. And it is important to note that the way
this thing is outlined—as many strategies have been produced by this particular Government —that they are
produced i n a way where they are not, you know, 200 -
page reports, which most persons cannot actually go through and read, where it is difficult to follow what may
or may not have been done. [The National Violence Reduction Strategy report] is laid out with eight key focus
points and items which are laid out there.
And what is important, Mr. Speaker, is that this
strategy . . . The reason why we are bringing it to this House today is because we want the endorsement of
this House, and the motion says that this House supports the National Violence Reduction Strategy, which
has been tabled by the Minister of National Security.
So, once this House passes this resolution, Mr. Speaker, it is up the Government of today to execute.
But the responsibility of Members of this House does
not end today. It does not end today.
We have heard contributions from many Members speaking about things of which we all have to do
individually in our communities to make sure that we support this work, but in addition to that, Mr. Speaker,
there is the responsibility of Members of the legislature
to make sure to hold the executive accountable to the
matters of which have been passed in this House. And
so, if we say that this is the National Violence [Reduction] Strategy, if we said this House supports this strat-egy, then we must execute it. But it is also important
that the House carries out its function in relation to oversight and in relation to holding the Government to account.
And Mr. Speaker, I think you know where I am
going here because I know we have had discussions
and thoughts around our oversight committees,
et cetera, which are in our Standing Orders. I know that
you said we are going to move to make sure that these matters are formed, but they need to be because Mem-bers of the House of Assembly who are not Ministers
need to have a forum where—not just in the main
House—they can examine these issues, where they
can speak to technical officers, where they can ask
what is going on and ensure that we are actually holding firm to the things which have been laid out here and make recommendations to the House and to Ministers
so they can be informed not just informed on what they
may read on The Royal Gazette or what they may hear
but [on] what they are actually hearing from the people
who are responsible for implementing this particular
strategy.
Now the Member who just took his seat, the
Honourable former Premier, Member for constituency 12, MP Cannonier, spoke about implementation.
And the Minister, I know he will address this issue when he replies because it is important to note that not only
do we have a National Violence Reduction Strategy but
we also have produced an implementation plan that
breaks down the various items inside of this strategy
into parts of where responsibility falls for implementation and how those particular things will hap pen. But we
have an implementation plan. And we have seen
through the strategies this Government has produced
and come up with an implementation plan that [is] successfully executed —whether that be [the] Economic
Development [Strategy], whether it be [the] National
Youth Policy, [the] Youth Employment Strategy [or] others—where we lay those things out and make sure that
we carry through on the execution. And we recognise that carrying through on the execution and implementation can yield results as it has i n other spaces. I am


Bermuda House of Assembly confident that if we carry through on the execution on
these particular matters that it will have an effect.
We have made some progress. But many persons will not feel that there is progress that is being
made because many persons feel unsafe, unsecure. And when there are issues of violence inside of our
communities, it will always come back to the fact that
we are not the peaceful place that many persons like to
reminisce [about], around how Bermuda was and how
Bermuda used to be.
But here is the most important thing, Mr.
Speaker , and here is where I am going to get to page
seven of this report. When speaking about how the world used to be or how Bermuda used to be, I am not
entirely certain, Mr. Speaker, that those types of conversations and discussions are worthwhile. And I say that, Mr. Speaker, because the world has changed.
When I was growing up, the only distraction that I had
was [to] get to ride my bike around and go play outside.
When I wanted to learn something, I had to pi ck up my
Childcraft books or pick up an Encyclopaedia Brittanica
or something else like that.

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. E. David Burt: Oh yes. Childcraft. Yes, I had my
Childcraft books, all 15 of them, too —
[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. E. David Burt: —and the annual versions as well.

[Inaudible interjection and laughter ]

Hon. E. David Burt: But, Mr. Speaker, when I was
young, I remember there was only one house on my street that had a satellite, and I would go out there Sat-urday mornings and watch, you know, cartoons because that was it. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have to recognise and understand that our young people have exposure to far more.
Now, when we go to page seven of this report,
Mr. Speaker, it speaks to the primary and proximate
cause of violence, and it lists six particular points. It
says, “not limited to,” but it lists six. And I want to read
them, Mr. Speaker : family breakdown, substance
abuse, mental health, lack of education and employment [opportunities]. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken
of some of the things of which we have done to tackle those matters, whether it is the investments of which we have made, insofar as making sure that Minister
Tinee [Furbert] and her teams have the tools to be intensive when it comes to families. We have spoken
about the increase in funding of which we have done
on substance abuse, the increase of funding in resource[s] that will go into mental health, and certainly the matters related to lack of education, employment,
and the work to reform the school system to ensure
when we have signature schools that can actually . . . to the talents, needs, and spaces where persons who
may not be fully academi cally inclined can actually
make sure they leave school with trades and skills that can make sure they are employable in the workforce.
But there are two other matters of which they
spoke of, Mr. Speaker , because there were six. And I
want to focus on those two. The first is exposure to vi-olence and the second is peer pressure. And I speak to
that, Mr. Speaker, because I think that it is important,
as I said, that the world is not the same today as it was when I was a young person. It is different. Whether it is regular media, when we are talking about TV and cable, whether it is music that literally makes money from
the glorification of vi olence and singing about killing
other persons, which we hear in our community clubs —
sometimes we even hear it on our radios —or whether
it is social media, which our children have access to,
which on any given day you can watch videos around
violence, arou nd all types of things that young kids
when I was [that] age would have never had exposure
to. That is the reality of where we are living, Mr.
Speaker.
Now I know in my household I try to make sure
that all of the devices are locked to keep my children away from that exposure. But the reality is, Mr.
Speaker, that many parents do not do that. Many parents use phones and computers as a distraction from
parenting. [They] do not monitor or supervise what their
children are doing. Kids at a young age are exposed to
so much. That is the reason why in many jurisdict ions
in many countries, we have seen they are taking
measures to restrict young people’s access to social
media. And it is something that we have discussed and
something that we need to consider as a Government
and as a country because the impacts are real on mental health, on confidence, and others.
So, we talk about exposure to violence, but we
also talk about peer pressure. Peer pressure now is
greater due to the pressures that are put upon young
people when it comes to social media. That is a reality.
That is a fact. And those are the things also t hat we in
this House as a Government, or as a parliament more
broadly . . . because here is the thing, Mr. Speaker . And
I hope that you will forgive me because I am going to get slightly political here but it is for a point.
We need to stop politicising the issue of violence. There was an incident that happened last in late
October where my constituent, a young man, was murdered at a party. Now we can speak about the circum-stance of the party, and I am not going to go into tha t
because it was, you know, a younger person, BYOB, and all the rest. And that gets to the parenting and the
other circumstances. But I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, I
was dismayed at the response from the Opposition to
politicise this tragedy as an attack on the Government.
No matter how good the police and/or the Government
or Minister of National Security can be, there is never a
284 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly place where we can be in all places at all times to prevent all acts of violence. It is not a reality. It is not possible.
And so, as this report is receiving bipartisan
support in this House, I hope that we can also move
forward on these matters in a bipartisan nature because crime and violence do not just affect PLP Members or OBA Members. It affects everyone in Bermuda.
It impacts our ability to succeed as a country.
When we talk about the future and all the
things, it is a challenge when people do not feel safe. And work has to be done in order to make people feel
safer. But that work is easier when it is not politicised.
And both sides of this debate are working towards it,
Mr. Speaker —both sides of this debate —because it is
not easy. Difficult decisions do need to be made. Some-times there are inconveniences that need to happen. Sometimes there need to be CCTV cameras in areas
where we do not want them because we have to focus
on why it is that we are doing it, Mr. Speaker.
And so, on the issue of exposure to violence,
on the issue of peer pressure, these are matters that
require parents in this country to parent. Technology is
a challenge. When you turn your blind eye, you are
making it more likely in the future that your son or daughter may be negatively impacted by circumstances you cannot see.
And everyone in this House, Mr. Speaker, has
been impacted by violence. I have personal stories of
my close family members who I have had to talk to Pastor Bean [about], who I have had to go through coun-selling with, who I have had to go through intensive sessions [with], where we have had to si t down and cry with
each other to bring the healing which is necessary for
restoration. But if we as a community do not realise that
all of us have a part to play, then these circumstances will not move in the direct ion of which we want.
It is not just a police issue. It is not just a Government issue. It is not just an Opposition issue. It is
not just a church or community club issue. It is everyone’s issue, Mr. Speaker. And so given the fact that this
strategy was put together with the input of all of those
particular bodies, with all of those particular agencies,
with all the persons who this impacts and affects, then I sincerely hope that after this Honourable House endorses this strategy today, that we can walk hand in
hand in making sure that we carry it forward and hold
each other accountable for its implementation, not point
fingers, to ask: How can I help? What more can I do?
How can we support this from wherever we are, what-ever political stripe we hold, whatever portion, whatever
religion, wherever we are in the community to help to
bring about the change in hearts and minds in society,
Mr. Speaker ? Because that is the challenge. The world
is different. Our strategies must be different, and they
must be according to the realities that we face as a country. So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the
Honourable Minister for bringing this. I want to com-mend the debate today. At sometimes it has been testy,
but for most of the time it has been good. We expect
that this motion will pass, that this Honourable House supports the Nationa l Violence Reduction Strategy. But
this is not the end. It is just the beginning. And we must
work as a community to make sure that we support the
aims and objectives here, hold all of each other that
have to be a part of this ac countable for its execution,
and work towards making this country a safer place
with less violence and violence in all forms, Mr.
Speaker.
Thank you.

Thank you, Premier.
Does any other Member wish to make a contribution at this time?
None?
Minister Weeks.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to start off by thanking you actually
for keeping the House in order, so nobody was actually
doing a “pack” as one my colleagues had alluded to as
we talk to each other in the neighbourhoods. So, it was
not a pack, and I want to thank the Members that par-ticipated, Mr. Speaker , because that is important that
our country listening to us recognises that this is an issue that concerns all of us.

Mm-hmm.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: You know, so I commend
everybody. There are some things that were said [that]
I would like to address.
But one of the first things that I want to say, Mr.
Speaker, is that when we decided, when the Ministry
decided . . . [When] I decided to have the two- day workshop, I reached out to every organisation that we could
possibly think of, private and public . . . and I want to
stress that we also reached out to the Opposition. And
some of those Members came and sat with us in this
two-day workshop. I stress that because I want it to be
known that the issue is so concerning and passionate,
the issue of mine, that I decided to leave no stone unturned, called everybody to the table, everybody to the
workshop, listened to everybody’s information, their advice, their complaints, and whatever, because the ulti-mate goal was to come up with a national strategy to
make our country safer.
Mr. Speaker, I heard one of our colleagues talk
about questioning whether or not there are enough policemen. I want to stress that we have 25 new policemen that started in November; 25 are due to start in
February. And in the new financial year 2025/26, by
May or June of that year we have another 20 to 25 starting. So, when it comes to community policing, we are
looking to bolster the numbers in our police service so


Bermuda House of Assembly that they would be doing their part. But in saying that, it
is not [by] an enforcement issue that we are going to
get to where we want to get as a country. That is just a
part of the total approach that I hope that we as a country can make. So, I hope to s ee them, hopefully —but
not hopefully —a part of the strategy. The police will be
more visible not only on our roads but in our schools
and in our community clubs and the like.
This strategy is more than just anti -gang; it is
anti-violence. Gang intervention is a part of the strategy, but it is anti -violence in particular. Gangs, school
kids, domestic violence, whatever kind of violence our
country is facing, this strategy hopes to encompass all
of that. That is why we brought everybody to the table:
the community clubs, the sports clubs, the mental
health professionals. Whatever you could think of, we
reached out to them. And it took some time for us to come to this point of hav ing the strategy together because you could imagine, Mr. Speaker, having to collate all that information and deal with different opinions and different attitudes.
One speaker today on the Opposition, the Honourable Member from constituency 2, wanted to know
about the gaps. That workshop was to address those gaps as best we could, see where we were duplicating services, see where we could improve services, see
where those holes are and how we can plug them. I tell
people about some little Johnny. Little Johnny from two years old . . . Sometimes, like my colleague from constituency 17 alluded to, sometimes if you see a little boy
in P1, he is a fighter, that same littl e boy in middle
school has the same tendency [and] in high school. And
when we become adults, we see him in the night club.
It is the same guy looking for a scrap. That person to me is like little Johnny from the first time you notice that
at two years old, that first assessment.
What we were trying to do in this workshop was
to take little Johnny from two years old to adulthood and
the different phases that they go through, the different
services we already have, and the different services
that we need to put in place because ulti mately when
little Johnny goes from two years old to twenty years
old, hopefully this strategy could help steer more young
people, especially young men— men and women, but
especially young men— away from the ultimate Westgate.
We know where you end up if little Johnny is
not identified and the services put in place to help him
to sort his life out. We know that the police, the courts,
and Westgate are waiting. This strategy is more than that enforcement part. It is the intervent ion. It is the
early prevention of it. So together as a community, I am
looking for us to recognise that in order for us to make
a change, we have to stop pointing fingers and say,
How can we be a part of the solution? You know? Because it is not a PLP iss ue; it is not an OBA issue. It is
a country [issue]. It is a community issue [where] we all have to do our part. I was asked about [an] implementation plan.
We have already started because what I noticed when
we had the workshop was that there were a lot of pockets of positive people, positive things being done. So,
we brought everything together so that this implemen-tation plan is not a new plan. We have put together a
steering committee that is well underway in addressing
different needs that we have. The Gang Violence Reduction Team is well underway in being in our schools
and mediating and counselling, so things are already
being implemented.
But talking about the Gang Violence Reduction
Team, I must stress that I heard someone talk about
one of my members, [a] dissertation student Frankco
Harris, he has been very, very instrumental in us getting
this plan together. But I must stress too that t he Gang
Violence Reduction Team, Mr. Speaker, was well underway in doing their part in putting together this strategy. So, I really want to highlight —

[Inaudible interjections]

Keep going.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: —Bishop Leroy Bean, the
head of the Gang Violence Reduction Team [and]
Bishop Lynn Landy who is a part of the Gang Violence Reduction Team. Mr. Darren Woods is a part of the
Gang Violence Reduction Team, and [so is] Mr. Cadre
Smith. So, I am calling them out because I cannot have
the thought out [there] that it is only Frankco Harris that
has done this work. It has been a team effort, and those
guys have done a tremendous job over the last 18 months to two years in helping us get this strategy together. And it was not always peaches and cream. We
had some arguments in that Ministry, you know, some
back and forth before we could come to this understanding of having this strategy in place.
I heard another colleague talk about when the
murders were happening up on the hill —up on my hill,
up in my area —how he visited different houses and
places with Dr. Gina Spence. I remember those days.
But I will tell you that there was a time before that when
I and my brother, MP, neighbour MP in constituency 15, we were doing things quite some time before
that. And the same Pastor Bean, he had an organisation called CARTEL. He was fighting gang intervention.
He was fighting untoward behaviour before we
acknowledged as a country that we had gangs in the
country. So, Paster Bean has been a part of this struggle for quite some time. So, at this point I am going to
take my hat off to the work that he has done, and he
continues to do with all the passion that h e has in helping our country to remain safe.
I have made some notes here, Mr. Speaker, so
if you just can—

Go ahead.
Hon. Michael A. Weeks: I just want to reiterate that the
implementation plan is well on the way. We are putting
together a gang violence reduction steering committee,
and that steering committee has been tasked with identifying different agencies and members to put on this
committee. And we are strictly looking for different skill
sets. Everybody is available.
While I was just out in the hallway, one of the
Opposition Members pulled me aside and said he
wants to be a part of this implementation and how we
can all come together. And I told him reach out to me
because no one will be turned away. Everyone’s input
is going to be there, is going to be used to try . . . not to
try, I think collectively we can reduce the violence that
we see in our society. But I want to stress that it is a
community effort.

Yes.

Hon. Michael A. Weeks: Right? Christian and nonChristian, sports clubs, you know, whoever, the young
and the old, everybody plays their part in this national
strategy. It is a living document. So, as we go, it is going
to grow. We are going to do what we need to do in order for us to make our Island safer.
So, with those closing remarks, Mr. Speaker, I
want to thank you. I want to thank the Members on both sides of the House for participating, and I want to thank
the public for those out there who are listening. And
they listen closely to us sounding like one joined- up
Government today.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister.
And on that note, I just want to add to that to
thank all Members for the level of participation that we
had and the tone of the participation today. And I hope
it does send a clear message to the community that we
are in sync in this House in trying to get ahead of this
violence that we need to squash in our community.
And Minister, thank you for your motion. And
Members, thank you for your participation.
With that said, it brings us to a close of the business for today. Can we do the third reading for the—
[Inaudible interjection]

Yes!

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Very, very disappointed indeed.

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Well, Mr. Speaker, there was
an article that was run in the paper today, and if I could
. . . Sometimes I really do not know what to think about
The Royal Gazette . And I have got to wonder about
some of the articles they print.

You know what they think about
you.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We
sure know what they think about me.

[Laughter]

288 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: But I was just wondering
what they might have thought about the Opposition
Leader —
Some Hon. Member s: Aah! Aah!

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: —because we had a very
large article in The Royal Gazette today [about] Mr. Vic
Ball and some of the inner things and workings that
have been taking place over there in the OBA.

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Well, if you missed it, you
know —

Smoke.

Another Hon. Member: Right.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: We seem to get articles out
of the yin- yang. We seem to get reports from all angles
of this country. But we have not seen . . . Not . . . I do
not think —

[Inaudible interjection]
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: —because, I mean, has
there been anything on the radio waves today?

I hadn’t.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: —with one of their . . . Or did
they did not know?

[Inaudible interjectio ns]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Now there . . . There is
something.
So, Mr. Speaker, maybe if any of those Members opposite care to elaborate just a little bit, I would
gladly take my seat.

Nope.

Another Hon. Member: Nothing.
Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: But, Mr. Speaker, . . . I
thought . . . I thought that, . . . The Royal Gazette , . . .
Certainly I am disappointed because usually between
them and the other media in the country, somebody would have at least had some kind of reaction from the
Opposition Leader, or maybe the former Premier of the
country might say something tonight.
[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Or maybe even the new candidate for constituency 9 might wish to get up and say
something tonight.

[Inaudible interjections ]

Change your bait.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Oh, change your bait! Okay.
All right. Okay.
[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Well, actually, I am going
fishing tomorrow morning. I was going to use squid and fry.

[Inaudible interjections ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: I was going to use squid and
fry, but maybe I will just take something and roll it up in
The Royal Gazette—

Roll it up in a ball.

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Roll it up in a ball.

[Laughter and crosstalk ]

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Well, no, that is it for me, Mr.
Speaker. I will gladly take my seat, and if the Opposition
feels so inclined, we will be anxious to hear from them
on this side of the House.
Thank you.

—mentioned that BF&M had
experienced 70 per cent increase in profits over a period of time. You then would have read in the paper that
Argus experienced an 18 per cent increase in profits
over a similar period of time. And as you know, Mr.
Speaker, I have been speaking to this matter of these
consolidations that are taking place with local businesses in the insurance field and how I believe that as of today, I am not really sure if we are experiencing the
benefits of these mergers ot her than to see that these
mergers are creating threats for what I consider to be
local businesses of many of those people who were born out of a labour movement and told to go get an
education and come back and make a difference with
their entrepreneurial opportunities. And I spoke specifically to the fact that these large businesses are walking
into the pharmaceutical world and opening up their own
pharmacies and competing with the local businesses.
I spoke to the fact that we were very wise back
in the day to not allow franchises like the McDonald’s and the Burger Kings to come here because we wanted local restaurants to thrive. And now when we see these
insurance companies touting these impressive profits, I am wondering when maybe they will invest in those folks who have quite frankly been dedicated to these
insurance companies and paying their premiums,
whether or not they will see a decline in those premiums or some form of offering because the ne w mortgage insurance, especially for seniors. So —

[Inaudible interjection]

I will leave that for you. I will
leave that one for you. I mentioned that there is a proverbial war coming, and what I was looking at was the local businesses now having to fight to survive with these large conglomerates and that doctors’ offices cannot own a pharmacy
but yet an insurance company, [an] even larger busi-ness, can own a pharmacy.

[Inaudible interjections ]

And so, I am very much concerned, and I am hoping that the Government is taking
the opportunity to speak to these insurance companies
about how we are going to move forward. Because
GEHI has its challenges. It is offering more than what it
costs. They are doing their part. So, the offering for
health insurance there with GEHI . . . You may be paying a $400 premium, but you are probably getting like
$550 worth of coverage. But yet the private insurance companies are touting these prof its.
We have to do something about this here. We
have got to at least sit down with these insurance com-panies and figure out how to . . . They are merging together, so how to do we as a people start demanding what . . . How can we make this thing better?
We hear the Government for sure looking at
how they can make coverage more cost -effective for
everyone and, more importantly, [for] seniors. But I can
tell you right now, I kept my insurance with BF&M. For
years I have always had it, you know. And then my wife
said, Well, you know, you have been in Parliament all
these years. Why didn’t you decide to go with GEHI?
So, I signed up. And incredibly . . . I mean, I am not sure
what I am signing up entirely to. I am still reading through the booklet. But the cos t of what I am paying to
GEHI compared to what I was paying to a private insur-ance company is drastic, unbelievable.

But what I am saying is that
collectively I think we all understand that some inter-vention needs to be placed here. And, Mr. Speaker, you
yourself can speak to the issues that we are having with
some of the insurance companies and coverage.
Now, I must say, I had great coverage when I
was with . . . I had the premium package and got to go
away and do all of those kinds of things. And now I am
weighing out the costs and benefits here, and I am like,
What in the world are we doing?

[Inaudible interjections ]

So, it is not where you are,
but it is where you are headed that makes a difference.
And I smell something that is headed towards us. This
is a problem.
Now, for the pharmacies that are out there and
the doctors’ offices, I am saying to them, You need to
open up an insurance company because if they can
threaten your private business, you should threaten
theirs.

He might be, you know . . .
And one of these other labs might be one of
those that is going to be taken over, or certainly now
they have to fight with the big leagues because they are
looking at cost -savings while the others, these private
enterprises, are looking at trying to surviv e—two different scenarios. One is looking at cost -savings for profits,
and the other one is trying to survive.
So, I am encouraging this Government, as they
look at some of these enterprising labs and doctors and
things, that the system allows it to become smoother
and quicker so they can get up on their feet and moving
and do what they have to do. And I am encouraging the Government to go ahead and have some conversations with these conglomerates —

Hon. Zane J. S. De Silva: Well, you still got 10 minutes
to talk about these changes in the party.

—Conglomerates.
And I think that with enough pressure . . . I . . .
You know . . . I cannot speak on behalf of all of my colleagues, but I am concerned when I hear the stories of
292 6 December 2024 Official Hansard Report

Bermuda House of Assembly how difficult people are having it —how difficult they are
having it. And when you see these massive profits . . .
I do not see any of these private businesses coming out
and saying, Well, you know . . . Seventy per cent increase in profit! What? Somebody is doing a pack.

[Inaudible interjection]

Seventy per cent increase!
Now they go through, and they talk about cost -savings
here and there and the like. Guys, Bermuda, Parlia-ment, let’s just start the conversation.
Let’s just start the conversation. Like I said, I
was called by one of the insurance companies to clarify or to correct me, and it was a farce because what I said
was correct.

[Inaudible interjections ]

And when generic . . . Bermudians are tough, you know. We like brands. Man, we
. . . When we buy that brand, we will pay $50 before we
pay $10, you know, or take it free, even free.
But I believe that we are learning the lesson,
and there needs to be more spoken about the idea of the generics now because a lot of these patents have
used up their time for the brand. And you can get it generically. We need to encourage our people to under-stand that it is just a label. It is the same product. And
we should be encouraged. But when the insurance
company decides to say, Well, you can only get the generic at 100 per cent coverage if you come to me.

—very fast because they understand that they have to move quickly. So, I would
encourage us, again, to be aware.
I declare my interests. My wife is a pharmacist,
and I was general manager of People’s Pharmacy for 13 years.
The threat is there. They see it. They are feeling it. And they are getting tired as well. And unfortu-nately through fatigue, some of them just may say: You
know what? I am tired. I will take the extra million just
so I can retire and just go off into the sunset. But what that does, Mr. Speaker, is all the time and work that
they have put in to establish this business —family businesses —is going [up] in smoke, and generations after
us will not see the benefit of that business. The whole
idea of having been a n entrepreneur is to be able to
pass that stuff on for generation after generation, to create wealth. To create wealth!
And that is what I am hoping. That we can encourage many of our small to medium- sized businesses who are finding it difficult to hold on. But we
have got to sit down with these insurance companies, and something has got to happen, Mr. Speaker.
That is all I have to say.
[Desk thumping]

Premier, the floor is yours.

INSURANCE COMPANY MERGER
ALARM RAISED OVER

Hon. E. David Burt: I asked my Whip. None of my
Members are speaking, and no one from that side decided to get up. So that is all right. Except for the Honourable Member . So, I will make sure that we can go
quickly, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, just to address the Honourable
Member who just took his seat, I will just happily refer
that Honourable Member to the Government’s Throne
Speech. And if you would allow me to quote—

Go right ahead.

Hon. E. David Burt: —because we spoke about a worrying consolidation in key industries that has occurred in Bermuda. We stated that in critical sectors, consumers may be faced with a loss of genuine choice in service and that competition is essential to achieve quality
delivery at appropriate costs. I did say currently the
Government is limited in its options outside of sectors under the regulatory authority to provide conditions for or to reject mergers that may concentrate the provision
of essential goods and services that may reduce competition, increase prices.
And I then went on to say —or the Government
went on to say —Mr. Speaker, that residents should
rightly expect that the Government should act in the
public interest if it is deemed necessary to do so. And I
did say that during this legislative session, the Government will commence consultations on amendments to
legislation to a llow the scrutiny of local mergers and acquisitions that concentrate significant power in essen-tial sectors.
So, Mr. Speaker, I will just state that we do recognise this particular challenge, but the reality is, Mr.


Bermuda House of Assembly Speaker, that the Government does not currently have
the power to act. And we must through this Legislature
give ourselves the power to act. And I sincerely hope
that when that Bill comes, it will be supported by both
sides of this House because it is important, Mr. Speaker.
But to speak to the particular point that the
Honourable Member who just took his seat was speaking about, he says the Government has to move
quickly. Yes, I accept that because what we are seeing
that is taking place inside the health insurance sector is a direct result of this Government moving towards its
mission of ensuring that we have universal health care
in this country. And companies with shareholders are
trying to react.
But let me be clear and unequivocal, Mr.
Speaker, and I can say that I speak for myself, the Cabinet, and my entire party on this. We put the health and
welfare and access to medical treatment above the
concerns of profits in the private sector. And to be clear,
there have been times when we have come here to make difficult decisions where sometimes Members do
not wish to support those difficult decision. So, I sincerely hope that Honourable Member keeps that energy because when that comes here, I expect that he
will be in full support, and we will not hear what we
heard earlier: I support this, “but.”
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Members who spoke this evening
on the motion to adjourn for keeping it very short. We
have had long day —I think a productive day. I think the
tone of the cooperation that came in this afternoon’s
motion is one that we need to carry forth as we c ontinue
to sit in the rest of this session.
With those few remarks, Members have yourselves a good weekend. Get rested up for next week,
and we will see you next Friday at 10:00 am.

[Gavel]