Per­mit me to be­gin by ex­tend­ing my con­grat­u­la­tions to the new­ly elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and to the new­ly elect­ed Speak­er of the House. This is a tremen­dous­ly proud mo­ment for you, and for your fam­i­lies, and I join the Par­lia­ment and the rest of the coun­try in wish­ing you both well, in your new and im­por­tant roles.

I al­so ex­tend warmest greet­ings to the dis­tin­guished Prime Min­is­ter and Chief Jus­tice of Bar­ba­dos, who have been kind enough to ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion of the new Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to share with us the ex­pe­ri­ence of this mem­o­rable oc­ca­sion.

Per­mit me, as well, to con­grat­u­late, once again, the new­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment on your re­cent suc­cess at the polls. You have earned an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment and, with it, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to use your sig­nif­i­cant man­date, wise­ly and ju­di­cious­ly. Spe­cial con­grat­u­la­tions to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, on your his­toric re­turn to that po­si­tion, and on be­ing the on­ly fe­male ever to have held it.

Con­grat­u­la­tions, al­so, to all Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, both in the House and in the Sen­ate, for your elec­tion and your ap­point­ments, re­spec­tive­ly. I al­so say a spe­cial thank you to all out­go­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in the House and in the Sen­ate alike, for your self­less and your dili­gent past ser­vice. For those of you who in­tend to seek more qui­et pur­suits, may the Lord shine His face up­on your plans and be gra­cious un­to you. For those who will be find­ing new ways to of­fer pub­lic ser­vice, you have a na­tion’s thanks.

Now that the elec­tion is over, the coun­try turns its at­ten­tion to its lead­ers, in­clud­ing to all of us in the Par­lia­ment, to help chart for it a new way for­ward. I say all of “us” be­cause, by sec­tion 39 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, there shall be a Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go which shall con­sist of the Pres­i­dent, the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. So, the Pres­i­dent is in fact part of the Par­lia­ment. My Of­fice there­fore shares in the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of this in­sti­tu­tion to point the way for­ward for our cit­i­zens.

I’d like to think that, as we em­bark on this col­lec­tive jour­ney to­geth­er, the coun­try is off to a good start. The elec­tion of a new gov­ern­ment tends to have the ef­fect of in­spir­ing a new zeal and a feel­ing of fresh en­thu­si­asm. This has been as true, in the case of the elec­tion of this new gov­ern­ment, as it has been fol­low­ing the elec­tion of every new gov­ern­ment since In­de­pen­dence. And, as has al­so been the case fol­low­ing the elec­tion of every new gov­ern­ment since In­de­pen­dence, we have, on this oc­ca­sion, al­so been lucky enough to ex­pe­ri­ence a smooth and a seam­less tran­si­tion from our for­mer gov­ern­ment to our new one. Once again, there has been a “peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er”.

The trans­fer of pow­er in­volves, of course, far more than the cer­e­mo­ni­al rit­u­als of the swear­ing in of new Min­is­ters and the open­ing of the Par­lia­ment – as vi­tal­ly sig­nif­i­cant as these events are. It in­volves every cit­i­zen rec­og­niz­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the elec­toral process in which he has par­tic­i­pat­ed, and ac­cept­ing the con­clu­sive­ness of its re­sult in his heart.

In our elec­toral sys­tem, this will al­ways mean that there will be some part of the pop­u­la­tion who will be called up­on to ac­cept its con­clu­sive­ness with hearts that are heavy with loss. The zeal and en­thu­si­asm which an­oth­er part of the pop­u­la­tion feels, is lost on them. Such zeal and en­thu­si­asm might, to them, even feel cru­el. An ef­fec­tive tran­si­tion of pow­er will speak to that bro­ken-heart­ed­ness and will find ways to as­sure and in­clude, rather than to hurt or alien­ate.

Which is why I was es­pe­cial­ly pleased, as the coun­try set off on this new jour­ney, with the tone of in­clu­siv­i­ty that came from the lead­er­ship of both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion. Both the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, in their very first ad­dress­es to the pub­lic up­on as­sum­ing their re­spec­tive of­fices, spoke, elo­quent­ly and con­vinc­ing­ly, of the need for our sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, in which they each play a vi­tal role, to be all-em­brac­ing.

They both spoke of the im­por­tance of find­ing a means, in our cur­rent gov­er­nance struc­ture, of draw­ing the whole of our cit­i­zen­ry to­geth­er, un­der the um­brel­la of a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment that cra­dles all of our peo­ple, as op­posed to dri­ving sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion away, and out­side of its pro­tect­ing and heal­ing cov­er.

I have men­tioned that the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter is the on­ly fe­male ever to have held that po­si­tion. To­day, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we al­so have the po­lit­i­cal par­ty in Op­po­si­tion hav­ing its very first fe­male Op­po­si­tion Leader. With fe­male lead­er­ship man­i­fest­ing it­self in this way in the Par­lia­ment, the coun­try’s hopes are un­der­stand­ably high for a Par­lia­ment, and for a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, that func­tions more col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly and em­brac­ing­ly, and with less of the bit­ter­ness and hos­til­i­ty than we have some­times seen in the past. I think we should be care­ful not to dis­ap­point that hope.

In fact, it seems to me that our first task as Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, has to be to demon­strate to the pub­lic that the in­vi­ta­tion to in­clu­siv­i­ty ex­tend­ed by the lead­ers on both sides, does not re­main mere­ly as­pi­ra­tional, but is brought to life in the ac­tions and the at­ti­tudes of all Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. A peace­ful tran­si­tion of pow­er means more than just the ab­sence of ri­ots or vi­o­lence: it is the pres­ence of kind­ness and grace in the way we in­ter­act with each oth­er across the floor.

It seems to me that the pub­lic’s tremen­dous out­pour­ing over, and its over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive re­ac­tion to the fact that, in our coun­try to­day, the po­si­tions of Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion are held by women, might well be speak­ing to a deep­er, na­tion­al yearn­ing for all of us to show greater kind­ness and grace to one an­oth­er, and to the hope that fe­male lead­er­ship, at this time, might well be an im­por­tant im­pe­tus in get­ting us there.

And so, I ven­ture to sug­gest that here, in the Par­lia­ment, and out­side of its walls, the chal­lenge is ours to se­cure and to com­plete as whole­some a tran­si­tion of pow­er as the very first state­ments by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion sug­gest that we are ca­pa­ble. We must be care­ful not to al­low ei­ther zeal or en­thu­si­asm, to give rise to words or con­duct that rel­e­gate the tone of their first state­ments, to noth­ing more than a dis­tant echo.

That is not to say that here, in­side the Par­lia­ment, Mem­bers should con­duct the peo­ple’s busi­ness as if they were dis­em­bod­ied souls rest­ing in the par­adise of the Elysian Fields. Far from it: Par­lia­ment is at its most ef­fec­tive when its mem­bers fight, and fight hard, for what they be­lieve in. And, at the mo­ment in his­to­ry in which we find our­selves as a na­tion, there is much for this new Par­lia­ment to fight hard for.

Our new Gov­ern­ment has, with com­mend­able alacrity, al­ready iden­ti­fied key ar­eas and ini­tia­tives which it pro­pos­es to ad­dress and im­ple­ment both in the short term and over the medi­um and longer term. The Gov­ern­ment has sig­naled clear­ly what are the pri­or­i­ties it will be fight­ing for, both in terms of pol­i­cy and leg­is­la­tion.

One of the ar­eas that Gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied for leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tion, is the area of crime. I last had the priv­i­lege of ad­dress­ing Par­lia­ment in 2023. On that oc­ca­sion, I called for Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to put aside their par­ty ri­val­ries, join hands across the aisle, and col­lab­o­rate on how to stem crime and crim­i­nal con­duct. I re­new that call to­day, with even greater ur­gency, but with greater hope – in light of the ini­tial sig­nals from the lead­er­ship of both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion, that we might well be at the start of a Par­lia­ment in which there is the chance of more mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion than be­fore.

An­oth­er area that Gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied for tar­get­ed in­ter­ven­tion, is the econ­o­my. The times in which we live, and the geopo­lit­i­cal shifts and un­cer­tain­ties that sur­round us, will re­quire this Par­lia­ment to fight hard­er than per­haps any Par­lia­ment be­fore it, for poli­cies and for leg­is­la­tion that pro­tect our econ­o­my and pro­mote its ex­pan­sion. In a fright­en­ing­ly re­al sense, our very sur­vival de­pends on Par­lia­ment do­ing so.

Leg­is­la­tion that sup­ports and pro­vides in­cen­tives for Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es; that en­cour­ages in­vest­ment in our man­u­fac­tur­ing and non-en­er­gy sec­tors; and Fi­nan­cial Reg­u­la­tions that as­sist us in man­ag­ing our cur­rent and fore­see­able for­eign-ex­change chal­lenges, are all ar­eas which this Par­lia­ment can ex­pect will be en­gag­ing its full at­ten­tion.

I have men­tioned the last oc­ca­sion on which I ad­dressed Par­lia­ment, in 2023. I ex­pressed my hope then, that it would be seen fit for there to have been an ur­gent Par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tion that re­sult­ed, at long last, in the steel­pan be­ing firm­ly and ir­rev­o­ca­bly de­clared our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Par­lia­ment re­spond­ed to that in­vi­ta­tion. I trust that I will there­fore be for­giv­en if, en­cour­aged by Par­lia­ment’s re­sponse then, I ex­press the hope to­day, for a few fur­ther Par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tions which Par­lia­ment might con­sid­er can be of ben­e­fit to our cit­i­zens.

I am acute­ly aware that, mind­ful of the enor­mous work that needs to be done at this stage of our na­tion’s de­vel­op­ment, the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to have a packed leg­isla­tive agen­da. My hope is that some­where in the mid­dle of every­thing else that Gov­ern­ment has planned for the ben­e­fit of our cit­i­zens, con­sid­er­a­tion can be giv­en to at least some of the ad­di­tion­al Par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tions that I am about re­spect­ful­ly to sug­gest.

First - I hope that one such in­ter­ven­tion can be in the area of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence. This is an area which I raised when last I ad­dressed Par­lia­ment. I am ex­treme­ly pleased that the Gov­ern­ment has, in cre­at­ing a Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence height­ened recog­ni­tion of the im­por­tance of AI. For all of its po­ten­tial to do good, re­search shows that, with­out proac­tive reg­u­la­to­ry in­ter­ven­tion, AI can pose a va­ri­ety of so­cial and eco­nom­ic risks.

These in­clude dis­plac­ing large seg­ments of the work­force, con­cen­trat­ing eco­nom­ic pow­er in the hands of a few dom­i­nant play­ers, and ex­ac­er­bat­ing in­equal­i­ty. There is there­fore the view that, where AI is con­cerned, so­ci­ety ben­e­fits if leg­is­la­tors an­tic­i­pate risks be­fore they ma­te­ri­alise, and es­tab­lish legal­ly en­force­able stan­dards to pre-emp­tive­ly pro­tect against sys­temic fail­ures, un­eth­i­cal prac­tices, and threats to mar­ket in­tegri­ty.

The cre­ation of the new Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence sig­nals Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to treat with both the ben­e­fits and the chal­lenges of AI. What would be even more com­mend­able would be for Par­lia­ment to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion that puts our coun­try in the fore­front of re­gion­al leg­is­la­tion in this area.

Our cit­i­zens have learned dif­fi­cult lessons from us hav­ing to play “reg­u­la­to­ry catch-up” in the area of tech­nol­o­gy – es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to so­cial me­dia. The loath­some prac­tice of cir­cu­lat­ing in­ti­mate dig­i­tal im­ages of per­sons whom once we loved, when love turns bit­ter, be­gan to be ad­dressed by our courts on­ly af­ter un­speak­able hurt and suf­fer­ing were al­ready in­flict­ed up­on vic­tims – most of them fe­male.

The short point is, that with Gov­ern­ment’s sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the im­por­tance of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, Par­lia­ment has an op­por­tu­ni­ty – and it might well on­ly be a short one – to get out in front of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, in a way that we did not do in re­spect of so­cial me­dia, and arrange for the reg­u­la­tion of AI tech­nol­o­gy in such a way as will max­i­mize its ben­e­fits, and min­i­mize its risk to cit­i­zens’ well­be­ing.

Sec­ond - I hope that an­oth­er in­ter­ven­tion which Par­lia­ment might con­sid­er can be of ben­e­fit to our cit­i­zens, is in the area of En­dur­ing Pow­ers of At­tor­ney. Un­der our cur­rent laws, a Pow­er of At­tor­ney be­comes in­ef­fec­tive when its giv­er ceas­es to be men­tal­ly com­pe­tent. As Pa­tron of the Alzheimer’s So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I have be­come aware that more and more of our cit­i­zens are be­ing di­ag­nosed with Alzheimer’s, and that many younger per­sons are al­so now liv­ing with the dis­ease. As the law cur­rent­ly stands, once a per­son is af­flict­ed with Alzheimer’s, or with any cog­ni­tive in­fir­mi­ty, any Pow­er of At­tor­ney which that per­son has pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en, be­comes in­ef­fec­tive.

In or­der to man­age that per­son’s af­fairs, a cum­ber­some, lengthy, and ex­pen­sive ap­pli­ca­tion has to be made un­der the Men­tal Health Act to ob­tain an or­der ap­point­ing a Com­mit­tee of that per­son. That process is an im­mense source of fur­ther men­tal and fi­nan­cial strain and stress for per­sons al­ready stretched to the lim­it by the de­mands of car­ing for their loved ones. An En­dur­ing Pow­er of At­tor­ney will con­tin­ue to be ef­fec­tive when the donor be­gins to lose men­tal ca­pac­i­ty. Leg­is­la­tion which es­tab­lish­es the ef­fi­ca­cy of an En­dur­ing Pow­er of At­tor­ney, will bring enor­mous re­lief to thou­sands of cit­i­zens.

An­oth­er hoped-for area of Par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tion is in re­spect of Per­sons With Dis­abil­i­ties, which is al­so an area I raised when last I ad­dressed Par­lia­ment. I re­peat that ap­peal to­day. Do for­give me, if, like the per­sis­tent neigh­bour in the Bib­li­cal Para­ble, I con­tin­ue to knock on this par­tic­u­lar door, in the hope that, if on­ly to get me to stop knock­ing, this, our Thir­teenth Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment, will do what re­cent Par­lia­ments were not able to, and will rise to the task of pass­ing bad­ly-need­ed leg­is­la­tion in this area. If we are to build a so­ci­ety that is tru­ly in­clu­sive, we need to en­act laws that pro­tect the rights of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to en­ter and re­main in the main­stream of so­cial and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

I turn now, with apolo­gies, to an area of sug­gest­ed Par­lia­men­tary ac­tion that is deeply per­son­al. I have read that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to do away with the De­mer­its Points Sys­tem. De­mer­its Points Sys­tems, in gen­er­al, have the goal of safe­guard­ing road-users. Road ac­ci­dents cause death and dis­abil­i­ties. They al­so cause un­bear­able men­tal an­guish and long-last­ing trau­ma. Sad­ly, many of us here to­day have felt this an­guish and still live with this trau­ma. In my own case, one evening in 1993, I re­ceived a call from a po­lice­man telling me that my on­ly sis­ter, a Da­ta En­try Clerk, had been killed in a mo­tor ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent.

The an­guish and the pain I felt then, are still with me to­day. In 2012, I re­ceived an­oth­er call, telling me that my broth­er, Act­ing Chief Jus­tice at the time, had been in a ter­ri­ble ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent, which it was not ex­pect­ed that he would sur­vive. He sur­vived for a year, with se­vere dis­abil­i­ties. Even as I speak these words to you to­day, the pain of these loss­es still weighs me down.

As I have said, I know that thou­sands of cit­i­zens share the same pain. Clerk or Chief Jus­tice – it can hap­pen to any of us. I there­fore plead with Par­lia­ment that, what­ev­er is done in this area, Par­lia­ment com­mits to en­sur­ing en­hanced safe­ty on our na­tion’s roads, and to re­duc­ing road fa­tal­i­ties and re­lat­ed in­juries.

I end my wish-list of Par­lia­men­tary in­ter­ven­tions, by mak­ing a plea for con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to amend­ing the Reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern the op­er­a­tions of Ser­vice Com­mis­sions, so that we can all ben­e­fit from a mod­ern­ized and more ef­fec­tive pub­lic ser­vice. Think about the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, by way of just one ex­am­ple. Think of how our na­tion’s chil­dren would ben­e­fit from that Com­mis­sion be­ing able, through leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tion, to fill va­can­cies in our school sys­tem more rapid­ly than is at present pos­si­ble. Our school chil­dren would ben­e­fit im­mense­ly from leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tions in this area.

And so, these are just some of my hopes for this, our Thir­teenth Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment – that, among the al­ready iden­ti­fied key ar­eas and ini­tia­tives which Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to ad­dress leg­isla­tive­ly, Par­lia­ment might al­so con­sid­er leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tions in the ar­eas of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, En­dur­ing Pow­ers of At­tor­ney, Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties, en­hanced safe­ty on our na­tion’s roads, and amend­ments to the Reg­u­la­tions which gov­ern the op­er­a­tions of Ser­vice Com­mis­sions. As al­ways, I of­fer them, not as di­rec­tives (which, of course, I have no au­thor­i­ty to is­sue), but for con­sid­er­a­tion as po­ten­tial tar­gets (which it is, I think, my du­ty to help iden­ti­fy). It has been my priv­i­lege to have been able to share them with you.

What­ev­er are the pri­or­i­ties up­on which this Thir­teenth Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment ul­ti­mate­ly de­cides to fo­cus, my hope and my prayer are that it does so in a spir­it of true col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­op­er­a­tion. My hope and my prayer are that the ini­tial state­ments made in this re­gard by the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, are not on­ly kept in mind, but are em­braced by Mem­bers on all sides.

My hope and my prayer are that, when the fi­nal cur­tain falls on the last ses­sion of this, our Thir­teenth Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment, we can share re­ports of a Par­lia­ment whose Mem­bers fought hard, but with re­spect for one an­oth­er, to cre­ate a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go. My hope and my prayer are that, in do­ing so, we would have mod­elled the be­hav­iours and the at­ti­tudes that are re­quired in or­der to help draw cit­i­zens back in­to a fuller par­tic­i­pa­tion in the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, and not turn their backs on it, as the per­sis­tent­ly low vot­er turnouts at re­cent elec­tions tell us they are do­ing. As I have said, the Pres­i­dent is part of the Par­lia­ment, and I pledge my sup­port to this ef­fort.

In clos­ing, I wish all Mem­bers and their fam­i­lies God’s grace and con­stant guid­ance, as you set about rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go through your ad­vo­ca­cy in the Par­lia­ment.

May God bless you all. And may God bless our na­tion.