Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go East MP David Thomas says the long-await­ed con­sul­ta­tion on stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion will take place in To­ba­go by the mid­dle of next week.

Thomas con­firmed that the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex had been cho­sen as the venue. He said the or­gan­is­ers want­ed to en­sure the lo­ca­tion was cen­tral and could hold as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble.

“In re­la­tion to the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, we are con­vinced that the con­sul­ta­tion should hap­pen in To­ba­go. Ini­tial­ly, we were think­ing about hav­ing two, but now the idea is to have it in a cen­tral area that can ac­com­mo­date as many per­sons as pos­si­ble,” he said yes­ter­day.

Thomas ex­plained that the ses­sion was orig­i­nal­ly planned for this week but had to be pushed back. “It should have hap­pened in this cur­rent week. How­ev­er, all the fa­cil­i­ta­tors were not avail­able,” he said.

The MP said To­ba­go’s in­volve­ment was nec­es­sary be­cause of the im­pact the law could have on the is­land. “As you know, crime can mi­grate, and if we hard­en the leg­is­la­tion, we should take a holis­tic view of Trinidad and To­ba­go. So, if things get tougher in Trinidad for the per­pe­tra­tors to op­er­ate, we don’t want them mi­grat­ing to To­ba­go and see­ing To­ba­go as a hotspot for them to, you know, ex­plore the op­por­tu­ni­ties that may ex­ist in the sis­ter isle,” Thomas ex­plained.

He said a na­tion­al ap­proach was be­ing tak­en to en­sure no part of the coun­try was left be­hind. “In the best in­ter­est of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, we are putting sys­tems in place so we have an all-in­clu­sive ap­proach to the con­sul­ta­tion go­ing for­ward,” he said.

Thomas is now en­cour­ag­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to at­tend and share their views. “I think that it’s crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant for To­bag­o­ni­ans to par­tic­i­pate. In times past, we al­ways were con­cerned about be­ing left out of na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions, and now that the op­por­tu­ni­ties are be­ing pre­sent­ed, and not on­ly be­cause the op­por­tu­ni­ties are be­ing pre­sent­ed in the best in­ter­est of your own wel­fare and in the best in­ter­est of leg­is­la­tion, con­tribut­ing to leg­is­la­tion that may even­tu­al­ly af­fect you go­ing for­ward, it is crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant that To­bag­o­ni­ans come out in their num­bers, par­tic­i­pate, let your voice be heard, and make sure that what­ev­er is struc­tured to serve the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, To­ba­go has a say in how it should be done.”

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine met with Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Sad­dam Ho­sein in To­ba­go yes­ter­day. The talks fo­cused on re­solv­ing long­stand­ing land ti­tle chal­lenges, im­prov­ing ser­vice de­liv­ery at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al De­part­ment, and fill­ing the long-va­cant As­sis­tant Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al post in To­ba­go.

The con­sul­ta­tion on the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion is ex­pect­ed to take place at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex on or be­fore Wednes­day. Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters are ex­pect­ed to be present.