Members
Parliament
Transparency

Walton Brown

664
Speeches
103,662
Words Spoken
37
Sittings Active
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
1,474 words
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, let me first of all thank the Honourable Minister for her presentation. It is an exercise in brevity, and I would hope that all Ministers at all times would adopt such a course to allow for a substantive amount of time for debate. Let me also at this point, Mr. Chai rman, thank the …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
48 words
Right, a lot of paper . I have heard a story of one particular employer, they have about 300 work permits. They have to have a truck to deliver their work permit applications. I know that is an urban tale, but that is the story I was told.
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
597 words
An urban legend. They had a truck to deliver their work permit applications. And it seems terribly inefficient in 21 st century Bermuda, right, one of the primary offshore financial centres in the world, who are supposedly so tied in with technology, that we have not figured out a way to digitise the electronic submission of work permit appl ications. …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
390 words
We are referring to I mmigration policy. If you read the mandate of the Department of Immigration, it has a clear set of policy directives. And as the Minister spoke to the Comprehensive Immigr ation Reform Working Group, without comment from the Chair, I too am referring to the origins of this group and its mandate. So, this group was …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
22 words
Okay. Maybe it is not fair. But that is the truth. They do not meet as frequently as we do. [Inaudible interjection]
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
777 words
Okay. Maybe it is not fair to them [but do not take it very seriously then. Okay, fine. But I could tell you one thing, Mr. Chairman. They have not produced anything in a year. That is a fact. So, let us assume they take it seriously. Let us assume that they are keen to have their matters ad-dressed. The …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
5 words
What was that? [Inaudible interjection]
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
411 words
Right. I have not even had a three- week vacation in 20 years. So, when you come here for three months and you are a labourer, that should be an alarm bell. Okay? But let us go after the employers. So, what I wil l say is that you cannot have as part of your mandate, that you aggressively pursue …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
461 words
Government contracts should be a given, as well, exactly. Right. There was a hotelier who used to routinely . . . I do not know, it was some hotel down in the East End. I cannot remember the name right now. He would bring in people to do renovations. And when he was caught, Okay. I just paid a fine. …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
862 words
Okay. He is being modest today; so other people have talked. If I did not mention his name he would have been upset. Now I am mention-ing it and he is saying other people. Yes. Rolfe Com-missiong initiated that campaign for a living wage. Let me give him full credit. He initiated that campaign tal king about a living wage. …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
14 words
They built houses. The tips were just something on top of it. [Inaudible interjection]
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
38 words
We have changed it now. We have gone, you know . . . people get offended when I refer to sort of . . . my leader gets offended when I talk about Marxism and the economy. [Laughter]
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
51 words
But Karl Marx talked about the commodification of labour. When you just look at ev erything as a commodity, which with volume can go down, that is what we have done. We have looked at labour as a commodity. The wages have just gone down. Benefits have gone down. [Inaudible interjection]
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
333 words
I am showing my ag e, yes. Benefits have gone down. But at what price? And then you hear the lament that nobody wants to work in hospitality. My father was a proud bartender. He made good money, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, right up until he passed in the early 2000s. He worked at a number of hotel properties. But in …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
395 words
Netherlands. Good for you. Who in their right mind is going to want to leave Bermuda, Horseshoe Beach, and go and live in Birmingham? And then go and try to finagle with the system to extract benefits? So you can get £ 50 for groceries and your rent paid, living in dire, drab, cold, damp, lack -of-sun conditions? Who really …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
509 words
Right, right. They were sent on the Regiment’s jet down to Jamaica. Right. Right. So, this is sort of tangentially related, but it is an important issue for the country because it has f inancial repercussions for us and it falls under the Government. And that involves four stranded individu-als in Bermuda. In 2009 there was a very bold and …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
1,043 words
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for your permission to proceed. I have touched on many of the key areas I wished to speak on, Mr. Chairman. And there is just one remaining topic that I would like to raise for the Minister’s comment and response to it. And that, of course, relates to the question of the Bermuda …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
147 words
Thank you. It is hogwash! That is more polite than other words I might . . . okay. So we will say “ hogwash. ” The British know very well that there has not been a single overseas territory passport that went missing through some lack of intervention or lack of control by an overseas territory’s government. They know full …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
1,959 words
Well, it is a better choice in terms of parliamentary language than some other words. But I did not know until the Minister said earl ier today that the actual issuance of passports is farmed out to a private agency. I am happy to be corrected on that, but I believe in your brief you mentioned a third party that …
20 Mar 2017 House of Assembly
Official Hansard Report
3 words
Point of order.