18th February 2004
 

1. THE SITUATION IN HAITI

2. THE PRIME MINISTER

Mr. Speaker, I wish to update the House on the latest situation in Haiti.
It is important to note that in my latest conversation with the Bahamas Ambassador to Haiti, he has said that he and the other staff members and their dependents at present feel no threat to their safety that would require their evacuation from Haiti.   However, the matter is under constant review by us.

The Ministers of National Security, Immigration and Foreign Affairs have met with a view to reviewing are emergency preparedness for a migrant crisis.  We are to speak to the Government of the United States to see how our emergency preparedness can work with their operations to ensure that as best we can any crisis can be managed.  The National Disaster Preparedness Committee has been asked to provide the Government with a review of the assets available.

I wish to reiterate the advice of caution that I gave to all those from The Bahamas who plan to travel to Haiti.  Clearly, the situation is highly volatile and dangerous.  Extreme caution should therefore be exercised in making any plans to go to Haiti, particularly to places outside Port au Prince. Discretion should be the better part of valour in these circumstances.

The Caricom initiative is proceeding in concert with all the international partners.  The Organization of American States, the United States, Canada and the Government of France are all engaged in this matter.  The progress statement should be issued shortly to show how the Haitian Government has complied with various measures called for by the Caricom initiative.

However, no political solution will be possible unless the Haitian National Police are able to restore order to the country.   Discussions are taking place with a view to seeing how best this can be accomplished including the provisions of any material or manpower requirements to assist in maintaining order.

Mr. Speaker, I will seek to keep the House abreast of these matters as they unfold.
 

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour at this time to lead the House in recognition of the elevation of the now Right Honourable Member for Farm Road and Prime Minister to the seat of one of Her Majesty’s Privy Councilors.   Some have sought to minimize his accomplishment by suggesting that it is a matter of routine.  While in once sense that may be so, it is certainly clear that one has to be an Honourable man as a prerequisite to becoming a privy councilor.    You also have to be Prime Minister. There have only been three in the history of the country.  That makes the Right Honorable Prime Minister of toady part of an elite group. The there is always the residual discretion to reject any recommendation to become a privy councilor.  On all three counts we have today the right Honourable Prime Minister as a member of this house.

It has been my honour to have known the Right Honourable Prime Minister from I was a boy.  We were both born and raised within the sounds of the bells of St. Georges Anglican Church in the Valley.  It is an area that has produced many of the country’s leaders.   I knew his parents as well as I knew my own. So it is a special privilege as one of the neighborhood boys to be able to say these few words this morning.

Upon elevation to the Privy Council, the member for Farm Road is entitled, as we have heard to use for life the honorific Rt. Honourable.  The Privy council membership of which the Prime Minister is now a part, is not of course the same Privy Council that is the final Court of Appeal for The Bahamas.  That part of the Privy Council is properly called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.   An oath of office is required to become a Member, and the concurrence of the British Government in this peculiarly British and Commonwealth institution is also required.

The privy Council was at point in British history the actual working group that made he decisions with the Monarch that governed the country.  Today it is largely a ceremonial office.  As the British constitution we inherited developed the functions gradually migrated to an elected Cabinet of Prime Minister and Ministers.  As the old British empire dissolved and the Commonwealth developed, Commonwealth Prime Ministers began to be appointed to the Privy Council.  The Bahamas prime insert then falls into that later category.

Some of the former British Dominions like Canada, Australia have also developed their Privy Councils.

As you know Mr. Speaker, it is the policy of the Government to develop a system of national honours for The Bahamas, and no doubt one of the considerations will be to put in place a means of distinguishing Prime Ministers of the country.  For example in Jamaica their Prime Minister has the honorific by the law of Jamaica of Most Honourable.

Mr. Speaker as you know the Bahamian constitution is based on the Westminster model constitution. And to some extent we have inherited all the traditions of the conventions of the British constitution. This honour today is one of the aspects of our constitutional practice. I believe that all of us are proud of the honour having been bestowed. It is clearly no mean accomplishment. There are very few Bahamians who have been able to enjoy the honour. It should serve as a benchmark for accomplishment and success, not in and of itself but as a mark of accomplishments having already been achieved.

And the achievements are these in my view: six successful elections, amounting to a generation of active political life, a scandal free political life and a political life of integrity.  It is also a life punctuated by ups and downs, dating back to his childhood when some person said he couldn't make it.  He with the help of his mother rose up and defeated the naysayers.  And that step back from the abyss as a child, has marked his whole life and has caused many people to underestimate the level of his acumen and the nature of his tenacity.

In 2002, they found out just who they were dealing with, having brought a party once mighty, from reduced circumstances back to the halls of power.  He is credited for having shaped an eclectic mix of people and generations into a formidable political fighting machine. No mean accomplishment is all of this.

And so it is only fitting that today, we mark the accomplishment in this House today by these words.  As a son of our country, it speaks well of him and of us what he has accomplished. We know that this honour will only inspire him to do more for and on behalf of the people of The Bahamas, to build a greater country in the months and years ahead.