By Attorney Paul D. Moss Jr.

Ladies and gentlemen good morning and thank you for coming.

Bahamians Agitating for a referendum on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (BARF) was formed out of the recognition of the overwhelming changes which will occur in the Bahamas if we become a party to this Agreement. So radical would be the changes, we realized that instead of creating good employment, the FTAA will have the effect of mass unemployment and underemployment for Bahamians by forcing jobs to leave this country for other less developed countries where labour is less expensive and labour laws antiquated. Additionally, things will no longer be Bahamian and our country and government will lose its sovereignty. Here are a few examples:

Ø Non Bahamians will now have access to the funds of the Development Bank. This bank is funded by the Bahamian Tax payers who themselves today have difficulty obtaining loans from this bank. Imagine facing completion from foreigners for these loans.

Ø The packing houses in the islands for farmers will be discontinued. This means that farmers will be forced out of business since the government will no longer be able to subsidize them;

Ø Bahamian fishermen can expect increased completion from fishermen from other Caribbean countries that already poach in Bahamian territorial waters. As part of the FTAA they can come and fish in our waters without being arrested and prosecuted.

Ø Straw Vendors too should expect competition from people in the south Caribbean who will come here to compete with them for the 4 million tourists that visit this country annually. Imagine that the government will not be able to stop foreigners setting up in the straw market competing with Bahamians. The same can be said of hotel workers.

Ø Radio and television. No longer exclusive to Bahamians.

Ø Taxi Drivers, prepare to compete with a flood of yellow cabs which will further saturate your market and deny you the right to make a good living in your own country.

Ø Construction workers will be replaced with cheaper labour from the south. No longer will government contracts be exclusive to Bahamians…every citizen of this FTAA country will have access. In short, minimum wage will be under cut.

Ø Medical practitioners will be faced with competition from others in the FTAA. They will set up shop right next to you and perhaps will not have the standard and training you have as the FTAA agreement requires equality and equal treatment in this regard. We will not be able to say that Doctors from other FTAA signatories must pass US State Board Exams.

Ø Lawyers too will face competition from lawyers in the FTAA agreement particularly those who are familiar with our more familiar with our Common law background.

Ø Architects, Engineers, Accountants and other skilled professions too will not escape. In short the FTAA will affect the employment of all Bahamians.

Ø The Hawksbill Creek Agreement, which has developed Freeport, will be repealed allowing other foreign entities to partake of the Freeport economy.

Ø Our tax system will be changed. It will have to be replaced. Will it be income taxes, VAT, sales taxes or poll taxes?

Ø There will be free movement of workers. This is very interesting because they proponents of the FTAA will never say this. They will say that there will be no free movement of people. But the difference is subtle.

Ø Our environment will suffer more. We have already seen this in the name of development. The FTAA will murder it and the Bahamas will no longer be a place where people can enjoy its untouched treasures.

This is a short list. The question we must ask our selves is “Having regard to all of these changes, why would some suggest that a referendum is not needed?”

Our initiative is one of and for the grassroots who are always an after thought by so called Intellectuals and Politicians who feel that they are too illiterate to understand the issues of the FTAA.  These grassroots are the same people who make the decision to support political parties which form governments and yet they are not educated enough to intelligently make a decision on a referendum of FTAA?

How hypocritical! We say that this is our right, and we will speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and those who are deliberately taken advantage off and those unborn Bahamians.

We say to Political leaders, please do not attempt to intimidate your supporters to not support this initiative. This initiative is not political. This is a Bahamian initiative and it is too important to cloud it with political colors. We welcome politicians to step up to the plate and sign the petition so that we as a nation can set our own course. We must all remember that the idea of the FTAA was not born in the Bahamas, this is an American idea and I dear say it has American advantages. It is more than naive for so called experts to think that a country like the Bahamas with a GDP of 5Billion can complete with a country like the United States where its GDP is 80% more than all of the other 33 countries GDP combined. Imagine that.

Like NAFTA, the FTAA will impose penalties on countries that seek to limit the profits of investors even if those investors are profiting at the expense of our environment. An example of this is the matter involving the US based Metalclad Corp. The Metalclad Corp sued a Mexican state to allow a toxic waste disposal site, claiming that the environmental zoning law forbidding the dump constituted an effective seizure of the company’s property – a seizure that, under the property rights extended by NAFTA (and to be perpetuated in FTAA), requires that the offending government compensate the company. The NAFTA tribunal ruled in favor of Metalclad and the Mexican government was forced to pay the company $16million. In the Bahamas, this will mean that either we are prepared to let investors destroy our environment or pay them not to destroy it.

We have sworn in a number of Circulators who will go up and down this country obtaining signatures of eligible voters demanding a referendum on the FTAA. This is very serious business and we are prepared to do all that is necessary, by any means necessary to ensure that Bahamians have their say on this issue. We will submit these signatures to the government for them to grant the referendum.

We are calling on each Bahamian, to support us. Even if you wish the Bahamas to be apart of the FTAA, you cannot deny that the changes will be fundamental and as such deserve to go to the people in referendum. This is a democracy so it should be put to a vote.

Bahamians, please do not allow yourselves to be hoodwinked by persons who stand to gain materially should the Bahamas join the FTAA. Get the facts, read widely, look at sites on the Internet and discover that we are not alone. As a measure of comfort, in September last year The Brazilian Catholic Bishops' Conference, one of the main sponsors of an informal referendum on FTAA to measure support for it said that 10 million Brazilians voiced their opinion by dropping "votes" in ballot boxes placed in squares across the country. 98% voted no to the FTAA and only 169,498 people, a paltry 1.67 percent of the total, expressed support for the U.S. initiative or FTAA.

We do not want a mock referendum. We want the real thing and these petitions will ensure that we get it.