Philip ‘Brave’ Davis
Stalwart Breakfast
Sheraton Cable Beach Resort Hotel
October 3, 2009

Philice, thank you for that wonderful introduction.  I am so proud of you, Philipa, Philip, Philmore, Chris and Christina and I love you all very much.  I also thank God for my dear wife Ann.  All of you help to keep me grounded and through your love I am a better person.

As I stand here with my immediate family, I remember, my grandfather, Edmund “By-o” “Gullie” Davis, who could not read or write. He worked tirelessly tilling the soils of Cat Island as a farmer from the mid 1920’s to the late 1960’s.  He worked hard with the hope and vision that my father and his siblings would not have to work as hard as he did and would enjoy a better world.

My father was mandated to leave school at the age of 13, as education at an all-age school could take him no further.  He worked hard in various occupations, including being a jockey and later as a fireman.  It was his vision that my brothers, sister and I would not have to work as hard as he did.  That we would advance further in education and that our world would be better than his.  I have a similar vision to my grandfather and father.

After the birth of my first child I truly appreciated their desire to leave a better place for me.  .

Observing the work of my father and his father, I saw that I make their lives better without making the Bahamas a better place.

My family and their well being, their happiness and dreams, pushes me everyday.  They motivate me everyday to get out of bed and work into the night to provide for them and to improve this country!  I am what I am and I do what I do because of the motivation that their lives have provided.  I am indeed a better man because of them.

Stalwarts, 2009 convention delegates, family and friends, good morning.

I thank you for joining my family and I this morning for breakfast!

PLPs, let me tell you, there is nothing more important than family!  Family glues you.  Family keeps you going!  And PLPs are family!  When everyone and everything else is against you, family always has your back! I love you!

PLPs, there was once a time when we operated as a family.  There was a time when the camaraderie amongst us was unbreakable and undeniable. We were united and strong and it showed.  There was nothing that we could not achieve together.  Together, there was no obstacle that was too great.  Those were the days when the struggles for this country captured our full focus and we would sacrifice anything to advance the movement of change throughout the Bahamas.

Back then we were thinking about our children and each other’s children.  We wanted to make sure that the country where they would live and would raise their families was better than the one where we lived and raised them.  We wanted to make sure that they had more opportunities than we had; that they would achieve more and go farther than we did.  It was all about moving us forward.  It was about ushering in change and progressing because it was about them and not about us.  We need those days once again!

We need to come together.  We need to be a family once more!  We need to remember that our work, right now, in this moment is NOT to feed our oversized egos but to fix the problems of this country so that my children, your children and their children can achieve more, go farther and have happier more peaceful lives than ours – this is what we should be about!

Yesterday we lost a giant in our party and country.  The late Sir Clement Travalian Maynard served his country well.  He was a giant among men and in the tradition of the PLP he did much to advance the right of the average Bahamian.  He served as deputy leader of our party and Deputy Prime Minister of our country.  I am grateful for the support and counsel during my frontline political career.  May he rest in peace!

Stalwart Councillors sacrificed through the shedding of blood sweat and tears so that people like me, my children and your children could dream and achieve anything in this country.  It is because of you that a little boy from Old Bight, Cat Island could aspire to be the deputy leader of the greatest political party in the Bahamas.  You are the foundation of our party and yes- our country!  As I stand before you this morning, I stand on your shoulders.

I know of your sacrifices and your accomplishments all too well.  My father Brave Davis is my inspiration and a proud PLP Stalwart Councillor.   He has fought, and sacrificed and risked much. He has fought in every single election since 1956 with the PLP for a better Bahamas.  My father was but a fireman employed by the Government.  Despite living in a humble home with many mouths to feed, he risked it all to go with the PLP ALL THE WAY!  In those days you could lose everything simply for supporting the PLP.  Those of you who personally know my father know that he stood strong and firm and was very vocal against the powers that be!

He is brave and put everything on the line for my brothers, one sister and I.  He wanted a better life and opportunities for us.  Although not as strong as he used to be, he still continues the fight today!  He is what his name says - Brave!   Stalwarts, I assure you that I have patterned my service after his and only hope that I, like him, can make the Bahamas better than how I met it.

Stalwart Councillors I Philip Edward Brave Davis and my family salute you!  Thank you for your sacrifice that created the possibility for me to be who I am!

PLPs, this is what we used to be about.

Almost fifty-six years ago we began a march towards the freedom and upliftment of the depressed and despondent.  We began a march towards a better future and a brighter tomorrow for our children and our children’s children.    Led by the Father of the Nation Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling, we gained Independence, created the National Insurance Board, the College of the Bahamas, The Bahamas Development Bank, the Central Bank of the Bahamas, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the list goes on and on. We built scores of schools, sent thousands to universities all across the world and constructed an economy that brought tremendous wealth.  Many of us moved from the clap-board house with the outhouse and kerosene-powered lamps to homes fit for a king.  We - the PLP - did this, this is our legacy and we should always be proud!

Together, with ordinary men and women like Laura Williams, Friendly Palmer, Cessirina Hepburn, Calvin Neely and countless more of YOU, we marched forward.  We advanced and we changed the Bahamas and we did it together!

PLPs, with a list of accomplishments so long as ours, as a Party that has marched this country so far, it is easy for us to think that we have marched far enough.  It’s easy for us to tire and tell the Bahamas we can march no more.  PLPs, we still have further to go!  We must continue our march!  The march is not over.  The destination has not been reached and the struggle continues.

Today, the Bahamas is in a fight for its very existence.  Crime has gotten to a point where our murder rate is more than 4 times higher than that of the United States!

Everyday there are reports of heinous, brazen murders -  every murder seemingly more inhuman and colder than the one before.  Our people are getting killed as they try to live their lives as best as they can, our Bahamas is slipping away!  Innocent men and women who have so much more to contribute, so much more to achieve, so many more years to live, taken away!

PLPs, what will the Bahamas look like in 5 or 10 years if we continue down this road?  What kind of country are we leaving for our children?  No, no, no our march is not over.  There is still further to go!

PLPs, you have to realise that no one else is talking about crime!  No one else is willing to touch this!  No one wants to discuss how a country that doesn’t make guns has enough guns to arm a small nation!  The guns in this country could only have come through two ways – by boat or by plane – so we have to police our borders.  We must, be more vigilant and stop the guns from coming into our beloved country. There is still further to go!

PLPs, we have to fix this country.  The time for smooth talking, cotton-candy politics is over.  It’s time to get work!  Our country today is in trouble!

Our economy is going down the tube.  Unemployment is around 17% and going up every day.  What is going on in this country?  Our march must go on!

Our country has become directionless and our Captain bankrupt. How could a country decide to spend 6 million dollars according to them, to host a pageant, borrowed 160 Million dollars to pave roads using only two companies.  One of these companies is from Argentina, we can all guess who the other one is!

And yet they can’t sign a piece of paper that would have made it possible for our children to go college!  Do you know how many thousands of college students had their plans in place to go to school?  This cannot be right!  We must continue our march!  We must right the wrongs and put this country back on the path of growth!

PLPs, understand that things have deteriorated in this country so much that our nurses – the ones on the front line of health care – are now seeking to strike because the government won’t talk to them, because the government will not engage in dialogue.

Our march continues; there is still work to be done!  Indeed stalwarts, these are serious times and serious times call for serious leaders!

Today, like never before, the people of the Bahamas need the PLP to once again be the Party that continues this nation’s onward march towards progress and change.  We must renew our commitment to our children and generations unborn and once again give all that it takes to make this country safer, more prosperous, more stable, more respected than we met it!

PLPs, the time for talk is over, its time to get to work!

Stalwarts, we must realize that there are thousands of young Bahamians who are looking for change in this country and they are looking to the Progressive Liberal Party – the party for change.  It cannot be business as usual.

In our country there are too many young people who feel like second class citizens in their own country and they are counting on the PLP!

There are too many who see the Bahamian dream as elusive and out of reach and they are counting on the PLP!

There are too many Bahamians who feel disconnected from the governance of their country, national decision making and are fed up with politics and politicians in this country and they are counting on the PLP!

There are too many Bahamians who are being victimized, ignored and are suffering at the hands of this uncaring FNM government and they are counting on the PLP!

The taxi-drivers, the straw vendors, the business community, young Bahamians looking to buy their first home, and our young people in need of positive programs are counting on the PLP!

There are too many people who are hurting financially, cannot afford health care, land and food in the country of their birth and they too are counting on the PLP.

Stalwarts, we have to listen to the cries of the Bahamian people and bring solutions to their concerns.  We have to articulate clearly how we will fix the problems that we currently face and we then must do it!  The shucking and the jiving have long since passed their stated expiration dates and we must seriously go about the people’s business!  No, PLPs, our march is not finished yet.  There is still a-ways to go!

PLPs, this morning I gave you a document that outlines how I think we must first change ourselves so that we can change this country.  I will not be the traditional deputy leader.  I have identified five objectives that must be accomplished if we are to successfully march this country towards a better place!

First and foremost, we must strengthen the ties that bind us all.  We must become more united, more cohesive and less disjointed in the way we operate and in the way we treat each other.  We must go back to the days when we locked-arms one with the other, where together we were an unmovable force.  PLPs, we must do it!  Our journey has not yet ended, there is still further to go!

We have to bring more young people and women into leadership positions within our Party.  We have to reflect the ideals and aspirations of those whom we seek to represent.  In this document, I have outlined specifically how we should go about doing just that.  To prove my point, to show you that I am not just a sounding brass and tinkering symbol my campaign is composed of a mix of young men and women, many under the age of thirty, stalwarts and seasoned PLPs.  PLPs, if we wish the journey for a better Bahamas to continue long after we have met our Maker, then we must make concerted efforts to replenish ourselves.  We must ensure that our conversation with the Bahamian people is not simply a celebration of our history but we must use our history to develop and communicate a road map of policies and programs that assists them in realizing their hopes and dreams

PLPs, the document in your hand shows clearly where I think we should go.  I am prepared to work with the Party’s Chairperson, Leader and leadership team to bring about a stronger more unified and well-oiled political machine.

The needs of the Bahamian people should be placed before every selfish need or desire.  Bahamians today are not interested in a contest of personality, but are interested in solutions to our problems.  Bahamians today want nothing more than their leaders to be genuinely concerned for the problems that face us and committed to fixing them.  Bahamians today want a work-horse not a poser, they want leaders that will get things done!

Stalwarts, throughout my entire adult life I have worked in this Party.  I come from a family of men and women like you that began the glorious march towards a better Bahamas.

Stalwarts, I am like you.  I have worked and looked for nothing in return but have always been driven by the desire to make this country better than I met it.

The country that I know and love, the country that was once ripe with opportunity, the country that you helped to create is quickly slipping from our grip.  I must now offer myself for senior leadership because, like you I want to make sure that our children and their children are able to achieve more and go farther than we did.

My desire is not to showboat, it is not to get my picture in the paper or revel in the trappings of office, but it is to renew our march towards change.

PLPs, I have six children, all of them here before you this morning, symbolic of the central hope of this Progressive Liberal Party, a hope that once connected us all together and connected us to the Bahamian people; a hope that our children’s days are better than ours.

Stalwarts, as we go into convention, as we cheer on our favourite candidates and celebrate, let us remember that the real work of the PLP is to make the Bahamas a better place for succeeding generations.  At this convention, let us remember that the work of the PLP is not about us but is about them.

PLPs this is our moment!  We are the Party that marched the Bahamas to new heights that boldly broke down barriers that divided us all.  We are the Party that triumphantly marched this country forward.  PLPs, we mould the future, we do not fear it!  We are the Party of Sir Lynden, Sir Clement, Sir Milo, A.D. Hanna, Clarence Bain, Loftus Roker and Paul Adderley; Brave men unafraid of the challenges that were ahead of them.  Unmoved by how the odds were stacked against them they boldy marched!  PLPs, it’s time to march again!  This is our time.  It is now up to us to march once more.  The Bahamas today needs us to carry-on our march. My brothers and sisters, let us therefore today march the Bahamas forward and make it the country that we all want it to be!  PLPs, be Brave once more and together, let’s change the Bahamas!

God bless you and God bless the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Thank you and have a good morning.