En­er­gy Min­is­ter and Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young nar­row­ly es­caped the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee last evening, af­ter be­ing in­struct­ed by House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George to apol­o­gise to the Par­lia­ment for his “crass” com­ment to­wards Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last Thurs­day.

Dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) de­bate in Par­lia­ment, Young was caught by a “hot” mi­cro­phone us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and im­ply­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was leav­ing the cham­ber to per­form a sex­u­al act in the toi­let.

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram would “run girls” for UNC MPs in the back­room of the Red House, say­ing he could no longer use PTSC bus­es for that pur­pose. Rati­ram was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the PTSC in 2012 for al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in of­fice but no ev­i­dence was found to take to the po­lice.

Young was alert­ed to the mi­cro­phone be­ing on by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon De No­bri­ga was al­so snick­er­ing on the back bench. Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh at­tempt­ed to ad­mon­ish his col­league, but Young re­tort­ed that he (Deyals­ingh) should not call his name.

At the end of yes­ter­day’s SFC, which saw the 2025 Bud­get be­ing passed, the House Speak­er con­vened the sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and said she was com­pelled to ad­dress Par­lia­ment on the wide­ly pub­li­cised mat­ter, which brought the House in­to odi­um and dis­re­pute.

Slam­ming Young’s com­ments as deroga­to­ry, ho­mo­pho­bic and misog­y­nis­tic, An­nisette-George said she did not hear it when it was made, as she was re­plac­ing Deputy House Speak­er Ed­mond Forde at the time. How­ev­er, she said de­spite it be­ing ac­ci­den­tal­ly broad­cast­ed, it was not ex­cus­able.

“Mem­bers, if we are con­scious of our roles as lead­ers in so­ci­ety, we would un­der­stand that the re­marks were even more dam­ag­ing giv­en their misog­y­nis­tic and ho­mo­pho­bic char­ac­ter, as well as their crim­i­nal in­sin­u­a­tions. As a woman, I am nat­u­ral­ly led to con­demn state­ments which seek to in­de­cent­ly por­tray an­oth­er woman; state­ments which triv­i­alise crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties which ex­ploit women, or state­ments which im­pute im­prop­er con­duct on the part of oth­er mem­bers,” An­nisette-George told the House.

“It mat­ters not that the Mem­ber for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West was not di­rect­ly mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion. It mat­ters not that those de­plorable words were ut­tered sot­to voce but un­wit­ting­ly cap­tured by an open mi­cro­phone. It mat­ters not that the ut­ter­ances of the Mem­ber for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West were not cap­tured by Hansard. The in­con­tro­vert­ible fact is that those re­marks, which may have been in­tend­ed to be in­audi­ble in cer­tain parts of the Cham­ber, have now been heard across the coun­try, as a re­flec­tion of the Mem­bers of this House, and in par­tic­u­lar the Mem­ber for Port-of- Spain North/St Ann’s West. A re­flec­tion that di­min­ish­es the dig­ni­ty of this House and, in par­tic­u­lar the Mem­ber.”

An­nisette-George de­mand­ed an apol­o­gy and with­draw­al of the un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage. She said while Young apol­o­gised on so­cial me­dia, it was not sat­is­fac­to­ry.

“I have tak­en note that there is cir­cu­lat­ing in the pub­lic do­main a state­ment akin to an apol­o­gy at­trib­ut­able to the Mem­ber of Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West... I am of the view that it does not sat­is­fy that which is re­quired of him to purge him­self of his de­spi­ca­ble be­hav­iour in this House.”

Young was not the on­ly MP to be crit­i­cised on the Gov­ern­ment bench, as those who did not stop him al­so re­ceived An­nisette-George’s ire.

“Any mem­ber who ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in, sup­port­ed or pas­sive­ly en­cour­aged such crass dis­course has al­so failed in this du­ty (to up­hold the stand­ing or­ders) and can­not es­cape the fo­cus of this rep­ri­mand. Thank­ful­ly, one neigh­bour­ing mem­ber rose to the high­est tra­di­tions ex­pect­ed of mem­bers of this House by show­ing his dis­dain for what he heard,” she said as she hint­ed at Deyals­ingh’s re­sponse.

Mo­tion to send Young

to Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee  

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the House Speak­er’s re­quest that Young apol­o­gise to the House, Pointe-a-Pierre MP and UNC Chief Whip David Lee re­quest­ed that a mo­tion of priv­i­lege be brought against him.

“The words/state­ments by the mem­ber against the Op­po­si­tion MPs and the Op­po­si­tion Leader were vul­gar and misog­y­nis­tic which, from their plain and or­di­nary mean­ing and/or im­pu­ta­tion, were suf­fi­cient to bring this House in­to odi­um, con­tempt or ridicule by low­er­ing its au­thor­i­ty,” he said.

Lee re­quest­ed that Young be re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee based on the breach of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege by his use of ob­scene, of­fen­sive and in­sult­ing lan­guage, which amount­ed to con­tempt of the House. He said this was com­pound­ed be­cause the state­ments brought the House in­to odi­um, con­tempt or ridicule.

Young’s apol­o­gy to House  

Ad­dress­ing Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde af­ter An­nisette-George left the cham­ber, Young be­gan his apol­o­gy, once again ad­mit­ting that he utilised col­lo­qui­al terms that were un­par­lia­men­tary.

He took full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for his ac­tions and ut­ter­ances, in­sist­ing that it was nev­er his in­ten­tion to em­bar­rass Par­lia­ment.

“I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for my ac­tions and ut­ter­ances and would like to record my hum­blest apol­o­gy to the House, the mem­bers of the House and to the pop­u­la­tion whom I rep­re­sent for my in­dis­cre­tion and the en­su­ing dis­tur­bance that my words have caused. I as­sure you, Mr Deputy Speak­er, and those that I am priv­i­leged to rep­re­sent that it is nev­er my in­ten­tion to bring odi­um to this au­gust House and the Par­lia­ment which I will al­ways do my best to pro­tect.”

He added, “In the cir­cum­stances, I with­draw the un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage and I ask that my un­re­served apol­o­gy for the said ut­ter­ances be record­ed and I con­clude by reaf­firm­ing my com­mit­ment to the Par­lia­ment and the peo­ple of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Dur­ing his apol­o­gy, he did not men­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar specif­i­cal­ly.

Deputy House Speak­er’s rul­ing 

Fol­low­ing the apol­o­gy, Forde said he had con­sid­ered the cir­cum­stances and ex­am­ined the per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion made by Young.

“As we all heard, the mem­ber has un­re­served­ly apol­o­gised for his be­hav­iour and with­drawn his un­par­lia­men­tary com­ments. By apol­o­gis­ing, the min­is­ter has demon­strat­ed re­morse for his com­ments, reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to the val­ues and norms which ob­tain in this House and re­ject­ed his pre­vi­ous be­hav­iour which fell far be­neath what is ex­pect­ed as a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment,” he said.

“Ho­n­ourable mem­bers, I am sure you would agree with me that it would be be­neath the dig­ni­ty of this House not to ac­cept the apol­o­gy of the ho­n­ourable mem­ber for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West. I there­fore rule that the mat­ter re­ferred to me by the mem­ber for Point-a-Pierre does not war­rant any fur­ther ac­tion by this House or its priv­i­leges com­mit­tee,” he added.

Forde con­clud­ed by urg­ing all mem­bers to up­hold the dig­ni­ty of the House.