Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Join hands!

And with that ad­vice, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has par­tic­u­lar­ly called on all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion across the aisles on leg­is­la­tion and oth­er mea­sures de­signed to fight crime.

“The ur­gency is ob­vi­ous,” Kan­ga­loo told par­lia­men­tar­i­ans yes­ter­day.

“The pain and the suf­fer­ing are un­bear­able. These alone should dri­ve par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to put aside their par­ty ri­val­ries, join hands across the aisle, and col­lab­o­rate on how to stem crime and crim­i­nal con­duct.”

Dressed in a white trouser suit, Kan­ga­loo gave her rec­om­men­da­tions in an ad­dress to mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HoR) and the Sen­ate dur­ing yes­ter­day’s launch of the fourth ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment—the fourth year of the five-year term.

Kan­ga­loo’s ad­dress was de­liv­ered in the HoR’s North Cham­ber of the Red House in Port-of-Spain.

It was the first time the cham­ber was used since be­ing closed for re­pairs last No­vem­ber—and it was al­so the scene of cer­tain oth­er “firsts”.

Among these was the fact that it was Kan­ga­loo’s maid­en ad­dress to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans since be­com­ing pres­i­dent. The for­mer sen­ate pres­i­dent and for­mer Pointe-a-Pierre MP utilised her knowl­edge of Par­lia­ment to de­liv­er her hopes for T&T’s progress via five tar­gets—in­clud­ing de­clar­ing the steel­pan T&T’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment and bet­ter laws to pro­tect and pro­mote the right of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. She al­so rec­om­mend­ed tar­gets for Par­lia­ment to pro­duce more.

As well, Kan­ga­loo de­fend­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans against the cyn­i­cism with which they were of­ten re­gard­ed.

To the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors—in­clud­ing four new In­de­pen­dents—as­sem­bled, Kan­ga­loo said she hoped that in this Fourth Ses­sion, Par­lia­ment would con­tin­ue fur­ther along the road of get­ting things right.

“There are a num­ber of ar­eas on which I hope Par­lia­ment might see it fit to fo­cus—ar­eas which I hope Par­lia­ment will agree can help Trinidad and To­ba­go to get things right.”

On her call for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to join hands on an­ti-crime law and mea­sures, Kan­ga­loo said, “I ap­pre­ci­ate that some will say (as Samuel John­son once fa­mous­ly said) that that, like a sec­ond mar­riage, is the tri­umph of hope over ex­pe­ri­ence. But I pre­fer to as­so­ciate my­self with the more up­lift­ing phi­los­o­phy con­tained in Alexan­der Pope’s equal­ly fa­mous state­ment, that ‘hope springs eter­nal in the hu­man breast’.”

Kan­ga­loo con­tin­ued, “Sec­ond, my hope is that Par­lia­ment will, in that vein, pull to­geth­er to en­act laws that are even more re­flec­tive of our so­ci­ety’s goals and vi­sion—in­clud­ing in re­la­tion to leg­is­la­tion that both pro­tects and ad­vances cul­ture and the arts.”

She par­tic­u­lar­ly hoped, “that it will be seen fit for there to be an ur­gent par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tion that re­sults, at long last, in the steel­pan be­ing firm­ly and ir­rev­o­ca­bly de­clared our na­tion­al in­stru­ment.”

“Those in the in­dus­try will tell you that giv­ing the steel­pan for­mal and of­fi­cial ‘na­tion­al in­stru­ment’ sta­tus is crit­i­cal to open­ing doors for the in­dus­try in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. The Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of the Unit­ed Na­tions has for­mal­ly recog­nised the uni­ver­sal val­ue and sig­nif­i­cance of the steel­pan. I be­lieve that it is high time that we for­mal­ly do the same,” Kan­ga­loo as­sert­ed.

Bet­ter laws for the dis­abled

Kan­ga­loo al­so sug­gest­ed the ap­pear­ance of ad­di­tion­al leg­is­la­tion that helped fur­ther en­trench T&T’s place in the mod­ern age, in­clud­ing in ar­eas such as per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

She said, “More than 20 years ago, when I held my very first Cab­i­net po­si­tion as min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for so­cial ser­vices de­liv­ery, it be­came clear, from the many protests that were held at that time, that it was ur­gent for more at­ten­tion to be paid to the needs and the rights of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

“Over the years since then, there has been a great deal of con­sul­ta­tion over a Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties Act.

“It is my hope that these con­sul­ta­tions will bear fruit dur­ing the life of this par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, and that T&T will have leg­is­la­tion that bet­ter pro­tects and pro­motes the rights of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. If we are to be­come a de­vel­oped coun­try, we need to have laws that cre­ate a more in­clu­sive so­ci­ety.”

Kan­ga­loo said she hoped the ses­sion’s agen­da would in­clude leg­is­la­tion that treat­ed, “with the awe­some po­ten­tial and the loom­ing threats of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence”; and for con­sid­er­a­tion to treat­ing leg­isla­tive­ly with the new re­al­i­ties in the post-pan­dem­ic world—work­ing from home and “hy­brid work”.

She said the lat­ter were not mere­ly pass­ing “fads”.

“They’re what our younger gen­er­a­tion is de­mand­ing from us, as they in­sist up­on their right to a high­er-qual­i­ty work-ex­pe­ri­ence,” she not­ed.

Kan­ga­loo con­clud­ed by say­ing—among com­ments—that she hoped when next she met par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, she would to be able to thank them for hav­ing heard her, and “... that we’ve ad­vanced even fur­ther in cre­at­ing a Par­lia­ment that col­lab­o­rates, leg­is­lates and acts, bold­ly and de­ci­sive­ly, in es­sen­tial ar­eas of our na­tion­al life, and that is even more ef­fi­cient than un­doubt­ed­ly it al­ready is. In short, I hope when next we meet, we can share re­ports of a Par­lia­ment and a so­ci­ety that con­tin­ue to work hand in hand to cre­ate a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

On her fourth and fifth tar­gets, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said she hoped Par­lia­ment would con­sid­er re­view­ing its Stand­ing Or­ders to cre­ate a com­mit­tee like the UK’s Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee, which ex­am­ines the de­tails of par­tic­u­lar Bills and re­ports to the Par­lia­ment.

She said, “In our Par­lia­ment, the ex­pe­ri­ence has been (at least when I was there) that it is a strug­gle—of­ten a vain one—to try to get through the en­tire par­lia­men­tary agen­da in any one Ses­sion. A sin­gle sit­ting of each house, once a week, deal­ing with one bill at a time, is not like­ly to re­sult in all of the busi­ness of each House be­ing com­plet­ed in any giv­en Ses­sion.

“Adopt­ing the mod­el of a Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee is like­ly to prove a far more ef­fi­cient way of bring­ing leg­is­la­tion to the floor, and ac­tu­al­ly get­ting it passed, be­fore the clock runs down on a Ses­sion.

“Us­ing a Pub­lic Bill Com­mit­tee to un­der­take more in-depth stud­ies of pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, will save time on the Par­lia­men­tary floor con­sumed by clause-by-clause de­bat­ing, and will al­low par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to spend more time treat­ing with wider is­sues of pol­i­cy. I am aware that this sug­ges­tion has im­pli­ca­tions for whether we ought, or ought not, to have a sys­tem of full-time Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans; and that that idea has, in turn, fi­nan­cial and oth­er im­pli­ca­tions.

“But there is so much work to be done that I fear that un­less some cre­ative and dif­fer­ent way is found to en­able us to get through, and then add to, our Par­lia­men­tary agen­da, we will for­ev­er be play­ing catch-up.”

Kan­ga­loo wants Par­lia­ment to de­vel­op an an­nu­al timetable or fixed agen­da, which will serve to pro­mote cer­tain­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy by al­low­ing, among oth­er things, for bet­ter plan­ning.