GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion Leader has pro­posed sev­er­al mea­sures once the UNC man­ages to grab the reins of po­lit­i­cal pow­er in the coun­try, once again. She de­tailed these plans, which in­clude the reim­ple­men­ta­tion of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre and the new Parental Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Act, dur­ing her of­fi­cial re­sponse to Bud­get 2025 yes­ter­day in the Low­er House of Par­lia­ment.

SE­CU­RI­TY

* Na­tion­al Con­sul­ta­tion on Crime and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice with­in one month of form­ing gov­ern­ment.

*Con­sid­er­a­tion of main­te­nance grants for fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims and vic­tims of se­ri­ous sex­u­al of­fences while they can­not work.

*Pro­posed Parental Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty Act - like Cana­da and UK - to ad­dress vi­o­lence in schools and bul­ly­ing and as a long-term mea­sure to de­ter crime.

*Short-term as­sess­ment to iden­ti­fy the scale of in­volve­ment of il­le­gal im­mi­grants in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

* Per­for­mance as­sess­ment of so­cial projects in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

*Re­struc­ture so­cial pro­grammes that have be­come gang and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty havens.

*Re­ward sys­tem for po­lice of­fi­cers /di­vi­sions where crime is be­ing kept low.

* En­force­ment of drug/ liquor laws re­gard­ing mi­nors.

*In­creased Covert op­er­a­tions at sea­ports, and air­ports.

* En­hance/ ful­ly reim­ple­ment The Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre.

* Se­cu­ri­ty Elec­tron­ic Bill­boards.

*Pro­vide elec­tron­ic da­ta ac­cess in all Po­lice ve­hi­cles; ful­ly com­put­er­ized crime sta­tis­tics and re­port­ing [COMP­STAT] sys­tem in every po­lice ve­hi­cle with GPS and link via NOC.

*In­door/out­door shoot­ing ranges for all pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

*Train­ing swim­ming pool fa­cil­i­ty to train all arms of pro­tec­tive ser­vices; prop­er health/ fit­ness fa­cil­i­ties for TTPS.

* Sim­u­la­tion train­ing the­atre for TTPS.

JUS­TICE

* Noise pol­lu­tion leg­is­la­tion for manda­to­ry cut-off time for all pub­lic events re­quir­ing a dance­hall li­cence not held with­in an en­closed build­ing. Ex­cep­tions to be made dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.

* Re­sources to en­sure cas­es in­volv­ing of­fences against chil­dren and sex­u­al of­fences are de­ter­mined rapid­ly

*Ex­am­ine resti­tu­tion mech­a­nisms so pris­on­ers can work to com­pen­sate vic­tims and re­ceive time off their sen­tences for con­tri­bu­tions to vic­tims.

*Sup­port for vic­tims in­clud­ing resti­tu­tion, job place­ments, hous­ing, and so­cial pro­grammes. Due to low de­tec­tion/ con­vic­tion rate, sup­port will be giv­en re­gard­less of whether some­one is caught/con­vict­ed.

* State sup­port for chil­dren of in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons and a fund for chil­dren who have lost one/both par­ents to crime.

* To pre­vent bias, re­view leg­is­la­tion to en­able cit­i­zens to hire pri­vate at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing their in­ter­ests at hear­ings for par­ty and bar li­cences.

*In­creased ju­di­cia­ry sup­port to bring in­dictable cas­es to tri­al with­in 2 to 3 years.

ED­U­CA­TION

*In­tro­duce Po­lice of­fi­cers full-time in all high-risk schools.

*Fi­nan­cial in­cen­tive pro­gramme for ded­i­cat­ed high-per­form­ing teach­ers based on stu­dents’ end-of-term ex­am­i­na­tion re­sults.

* Ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to any phys­i­cal vi­o­lence in schools. Any stu­dent phys­i­cal­ly at­tack­ing an­oth­er must be im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved from school and on­ly be al­lowed to re­turn af­ter com­plet­ing neu­ro-di­ag­nos­tic test­ing and a prop­er coun­selling pro­gramme ap­proved by the State.

* In­tro­duce the anony­mous an­ti-bul­ly­ing app for stu­dents to make re­ports.

*In­tro­duce par­ent pa­trols in schools.

*Pol­i­cy where­by all stu­dents must un­der­go free, manda­to­ry, an­nu­al phys­i­cal and med­ical screen­ing by State-ap­proved pub­lic and pri­vate med­ical doc­tors to ex­am­ine for phys­i­cal abuse, sub­stance abuse, sex­u­al abuse, mal­nu­tri­tion, and dis­eases.

* Af­ter-school meals for chil­dren sup­plied by the School Feed­ing Pro­gramme.

* Work ur­gent­ly to com­plete schools, re­fur­bish­mentof dis­tressed schools.

*Pro­vi­sion of tablets, lap­tops.

* Parental Train­ing Ini­tia­tive; Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion with­in the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to over­see PT Pro­gramme will be ini­ti­at­ed as a vol­un­teer par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­cen­tive sys­tem but will be pre­pared to in­sti­tute le­gal and reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments to en­sure PT par­tic­i­pa­tion. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-type process will be in­sti­tut­ed to ver­i­fy par­tic­i­pa­tion.

*Re­cruit out­stand­ing re­tired ed­u­ca­tors in lan­guage, and math­e­mat­ics to con­tin­u­ous­ly con­duct work­shops.

*Es­tab­lish the po­si­tion of mas­ter prin­ci­pal to lead/ man­age high-risk schools

*As­sign prin­ci­pals with proven abil­i­ty to im­prove their per­for­mance to as­sist un­der­per­form­ing schools.

* Full-fledged tech­ni­cal uni­ver­si­ty

*Full-time Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

FAM­I­LY

* Ba­by Grant rein­tro­duc­tion. Es­tab­lish parental sup­port groups for sin­gle par­ents, vic­tims of fam­i­ly vi­o­lence.

* Sup­port for sin­gle par­ents in­clud­ing af­ter-school care, to en­sure chil­dren are su­per­vised. Home­work cen­tres rein­tro­duced.

*Par­ent­ing work­shops to ad­dress par­ent-child con­flict, parental re­jec­tion, parental com­mu­ni­ca­tion, prop­er parental su­per­vi­sion, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of crim­i­nal be­hav­iours in chil­dren.

*Fund for faith-based week­ly com­mu­ni­ty men­tor­ing and guid­ance pro­grammes.

HEALTH

* Na­tion­al Car­diac (By­pass) Cen­tre and Na­tion­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry Cen­tre ad­ja­cent to Cou­va Hos­pi­tal

*90-minute pol­i­cy of Heart At­tack-to-Stent-Cath Labs for all ma­jor Hos­pi­tals to en­able car­diac stent­ing on a 24-hour ba­sis with­in min­utes of ar­rival at the hos­pi­tal.

*Dial­y­sis Clin­ics at all ma­jor hos­pi­tals to en­able 24-hour dial­y­sis.

*Men­tal health ser­vices in­te­grat­ed in­to all rou­tine health ser­vice de­liv­ery sys­tems.

*Can­cer Treat­ment Cen­tre

*Up­dat­ing CDAP, stream­lin­ing med­ica­tion, in­creas­ing ser­vice to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, tar­get­ing new­er drugs very ef­fec­tive in hy­per­ten­sion and di­a­betes.

*Au­dit the num­ber/ qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the many for­eign­ers work­ing in T&T’s health sec­tor while cit­i­zens are job­less at home. Em­ploy­ment of more lo­cal doc­tors, nurs­es

* Re­view Chil­dren’s Life Fund leg­is­la­tion for ac­cess to more ap­pli­cants with dis­eases not cur­rent­ly in­clud­ed in the Fund.

*Leg­is­la­tion to­wards unique med­ical mal­prac­tice court and spe­cial in­ves­tiga­tive unit. No Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund for re­lief even out­side the courts.

*Leg­is­la­tion for Front-of-Pack­age Warn­ing La­bel­ing on food prod­ucts warn­ing of high sug­ar, high sodi­um, and high-fat items.

EN­ER­GY

*Re­vised en­er­gy fis­cal in­cen­tives sys­tem to stim­u­late drilling.

* Oner­ous STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will no longer be re­quired; Re­vert to PLEA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion com­bined with an ex­pand­ed role of the OSH agency

*Labour rep­re­sen­ta­tives on all State boards

*New gov­ern­ment ve­hi­cles will be elec­tric, hy­brid, or CNG.