Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on the na­tion to con­tin­ue to fol­low the health pro­to­cols in place to com­bat COVID-19. She has al­so asked that the na­tion re­mem­ber that with the hard­ships many are fac­ing, this re­mains a sea­son of giv­ing.

She made the re­marks in the fol­low­ing Christ­mas ad­dress to the na­tion.

My fel­low cit­i­zens, I would like to wish each and every one of you a hap­py and joy­ous Christ­mas.

I would like to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to once again thank those on the front line of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, nurs­es, doc­tors, hos­pi­tal staff, mar­ket ven­dors, garbage col­lec­tion per­son­nel, su­per­mar­ket work­ers, gas sta­tion at­ten­dants, po­lice­men, fire ser­vices and all those in es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vices for their ser­vice and du­ty to our coun­try. I urge every­one to con­tin­ue to fol­low the health pro­to­cols and to please con­sid­er get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed.

I know that the past year has been an es­pe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult one for every­one in our na­tion. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge af­fect­ing us all. Many fam­i­lies have sad­ly lost loved ones, and count­less peo­ple have been left un­em­ployed and are strug­gling to feed and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies.

As we cel­e­brate the sea­son let us re­mem­ber that it is a sea­son of giv­ing, not of ma­te­r­i­al pos­ses­sions but of our­selves. Let’s help make Christ­mas brighter for oth­ers in our com­mu­ni­ties in any small way we can.

It is dur­ing these try­ing times that the mes­sage of Christ­mas and the sto­ry of the birth of Je­sus fills us with hope. Born in hum­ble cir­cum­stances amidst mon­u­men­tal chal­lenges, the birth of Je­sus is a tes­ta­ment that the hope and di­vine love which has been giv­en to us by our cre­ator can nev­er be ex­tin­guished and will al­ways pre­vail. Je­sus would go on to change the world, not by us­ing force or fear, but by in­spir­ing oth­ers with his sim­ple yet pow­er­ful mes­sage of lov­ing thy neigh­bour as thy­self.

With hope, faith, re­spect and love, we can over­come any chal­lenge we face as a peo­ple. I once again urge the gov­ern­ment to re­frain from its pol­i­cy of em­ploy­ing fear, in­tim­i­da­tion and co­er­cion to­wards our cit­i­zens in re­sponse to this pan­dem­ic. In­stead, the Gov­ern­ment must win hearts and minds by util­is­ing re­spect and fos­ter­ing mu­tu­al trust be­tween them­selves and the peo­ple they serve. On­ly by do­ing this can we work to­geth­er as one na­tion­al fam­i­ly to over­come this pan­dem­ic.

I have every hope that our na­tion will emerge from these dif­fi­cult times stronger and more re­silient than ever.

May we all have a peace­ful, safe and blessed Christ­mas. May God con­tin­ue to bless our beau­ti­ful na­tion.

Mer­ry Christ­mas to all.