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the news navs@gmail.com. The News Navigators with me,
Jeremy Deacon. And me, Jonathan Sterling.
Before we start, we're going to have a look at the row over
absentee ballots and the proposed Oba legislation.
There never was. And then the ongoing debate
about CARICOM and this time about the referendum.
Just before we start, Jonathan, only to impart a little bit of
knowledge to you. So my sister-in-law was trying
to search for the News Navigators and she sent me what
it came up with and it's a Jeremy Deacon's Bermuda podcast.
Here's the clear up to Sarah, that is actually more
interesting than most people realise.
That's good. Thanks AI.
Yeah, thanks, AI. If ever there was a backhanded
compliment, that was it. Wasn't it really more
interesting than most people realise?
Well, that's going to feed my imposter syndrome a little.
I mean, it could be our last podcast, you know, all that time
and effort. That was a nice compliment, even
if tad backhanded. Was it a compliment?
I don't know if it was more interesting than people
realised. Damned with faint praise, that
was. A good guy, good way to end the
year. I hope it's not the way we start
the new year do slightly better than that.
Jonathan, wanting to talk about this absentee voting, I think
it's quite close to your heart. Tell us the background and what
do you want to say about it? Right.
So I mean, the the issue of absentee voting, especially for
overseas students, has kind of been, I think the right word is
a perennial issue, But it only tends to get raised after an
election rate is dropped. And then all the students who
can't vote are like, oh, I can't vote.
How come we don't have absentee voting?
And of course, it's too late to change the system after the
election is called and historically attempts to be
forgotten shortly after the election until it's raised again
for the next election. This year was a bit different
because of course, we had the general election was called in
early January and the election itself was held in February.
I think the proximity to the students who had just been here
for Christmas and then having left kind of I think that kind
of turbocharged it a little. Also it's it should be added
that the Oba, the 1 Bermuda Alliance, when they were elected
in the December 2012 election, they had in their platform a
mandate to introduce absentee voting.
They for whatever reason didn't get around to it.
They they did have a lot on their plate.
I understand they did start working on it, but they just
never were able to get it in place before the 2017 election.
But they were the first political party, as far as I am
aware, that was elected with that as a platform promise, and
the PLP only adopted that in the 2025 election, this election, I
think in response to the criticism that they got at the
time. Since then it's been raised as a
continuous issue since the February election, which is
unusual. As I said, normally he gets
raised during the election and then it's forgotten about for
another four to five years. And earlier this year, I want to
say it was in October, the Oba tabled an act, an opposition
act. The absentee voting Act, Yeah.
Right. So they tabled that.
The government, the PLP did ask them to withdraw it and say,
look, we're all working on this, we would like to do this
bipartisanship wise, can you withdraw this and we'll talk and
figure it all out together. The Oba refused to do that and
kept it on the order paper. Subsequent to that, the PLP did
start their process of town hall meetings.
There was one a couple weeks ago at Harrington Workmen's Club,
which I did at 10. There's one next week on Monday
I think that's. It on the 17th by the way.
Sorry, I was just listening to recording on the 17th.
I should have clarified that there's one on the coming
Monday, which is December 22nd, that's for youth in particular
is going to be held up at Cedar Bridge.
But there's an online option so lots of people can join.
From what I gathered from the town hall meeting at Harrington
Workman's Club, they're just kind of starting and they're
just saying, what do you think should be in there?
And it's not just absentee voting in these town hall
meetings. There's also wider election
reform, including a campaign finance laws.
So that seems to be the wider aspect, but the focus is on the
absentee voting from what I could gather more recently.
This is a long recap. More recently, last Friday, the
the Opposition Absentee Voting Act was withdrawn because the
Parliamentary Registrar sent a note to, I guess the
parliamentary Speaker to say this would cost public funds and
therefore it is a money bill which the opposition is not
allowed to table. Only governments, only the
governing party is allowed to table what are called money
bills, Independents, individual MPs Opposition cannot table
those. I should probably clarify what a
money bill is. Anything that spends money.
Yes, anything that would require the spent the expense of public
funds and of course absentee balloting that would likely
you'd need public funds to cover.
It's not that the and I only say this because I've seen comments
online with people saying oh what they can't afford absent
the voting. That's not the issue.
It's a parliamentary procedure. Only the government can table
money bills. It's not that the money isn't
there, it's just that the opposition is not allowed to
table money bills. So I just wanted to clarify
that. So there's a lot to unpack here,
I think. I mean, yes, the Oba refused to
withdraw its legislation and it's subsequently argued against
the the money bill, saying that the government had already
allocated some $55,000 via supplementary spending.
This is a quote to electoral reform during the last session,
making the point quite redundant.
That's according to Dwayne Robinson, who was behind the AB
as legislation. So that's one question that
hasn't. I hadn't really seen an answer
to for about 55, so the 55,000 is irrelevant.
That's a bit of a red herring in my opinion.
It's an irrelevant point. It's still parliamentary
procedure that the opposition cannot table.
A money bill doesn't matter if money is already allocated in
the budget. It's a simple parliamentary
procedure. But I do want to give kudos to
the OBAI do think the PLP was proceeding with this anyway.
But the fact that the Oba did table this helped keep it up in
the public mind. And that's certainly probably
you could argue lit the fire under the PLP to really move on
this. So I do want to give kudos to
the OB. I'm not attacking them.
I'm just saying I'm purely on a money bill.
They can't table it. We just so the listeners know
we're using a, a podcast platform here to do this
discussion remotely. And just for a second, Jonathan,
you froze. Oh, I'm sorry.
Just as you were about to talk about the red herring and why
the 55 K was a red herring, can you just recap on that in case
the listeners didn't get it? Sure.
So yes, money has been allocated in the budget, but that
irrelevance in terms of parliamentary procedure, it's a
parliamentary rule that the opposition cannot table a money
bill. That's, that's all it is.
Doesn't matter if money's allocated or not, they just
can't table it. That's that's it.
And. You you went on to say that this
is something I was going to talk about as well.
Was the, was the OB as push for absentee voting?
Was it was it that push that got government to actually do
something? Because I'm intrigued by this
because as you say, normally it's only ever crops up when
there's election. Normally both parties say yeah
in favour. Nothing happens in the in the
preceding four or five years until the next election when we
repeat the cycle. Isn't there an argument to say
that what the Oba done has actually got the government to
do something to pull the finger out?
I think the Oba personally can probably claim a victory for
that. And I don't want to give the Oba
kudos for for keeping the conversation going.
I personally do feel the PLP was proceeding with this anyway.
I mean they just won the election in February.
These things don't get started right away.
You need to do policy analysis, you need to get cabinet papers
before you even proceed with some of these things.
He had the summer break so I do think the PLP was going to
proceed with it anyway. However, kudos should be given
to the Oba for keeping it in the public public awareness.
And if it did encourage the PLP to like a light, a fire under
them to keep it going and make it more prominent, than yeah,
sure, I'll give the LBA win on that.
Even if I think the PLP was going to do it anyway.
I think it did raise the public awareness, so kudos to the LBA.
On that, I think the LBA could quite plausibly claim victory
for this one, whether or not in the public eye.
And let's hope, let's hope it doesn't go away.
You know, as we both stated, you stated at the year I just stated
these things arise in the election and then disappear Is
the the Oba 1 was the Oba legislation was quite
interesting. It talked about giving
registered voters who being ordinarily resident in Bermuda,
but who were temporarily absent like for things like study
employment, medical treatment, etcetera.
And they had the right to cast an absentee ballot.
Whereas the government's plans are a little bit more vague, I
think, and right in saying that they want to implement absentee
voting for eligible comedians and sons and establish clear and
transparent standards for political parties and campaign
financing. Well, that's another matter to
come on to. It's not cut and dried.
Is it the legislation about how this would actually work or the
ideas at least come out yet? And are you going to approve for
this? Well, I mean, as I said, I did
attend the Harrington Workmen's Club town hall meeting a couple
weeks ago on this issue. And my impression is the
government is just setting out and say what do people want?
And they're getting the feedback and then they're going to do the
research on the policy analysis to find out what is actually
practical. Can we do all of this and what's
the cost going to be? What if we just do this?
What's that cost going to be? So I don't think the PLP has a
clear plan yet because they are doing the public consultation,
which, you know, I think that's great.
Yeah, I suppose to the Oba one that if you're very registered
to vote, you're not ordinarily resident.
And ordinarily resident means you are resident in Bermuda for
six months plus one day. Yeah, my understanding, it's not
a, that's just my understanding. I I don't think there's a pure
legal definition, but that's the general understanding of what it
was. Just wondering, verification of
that might be quite difficult. And that's the cost as well as
how is absolutely voting going to be?
Is it a mail in ballot? Is it going to be an online
thing? Is it going to be maybe there's
a polling station in one city in whatever country for medians
happen to be in. So say all the university
students in Canada, are they just going to go to Toronto to
vote or is there going to be multiple polling stations or is
it going to be an online system? No sense, wouldn't it?
It's going to be interesting if this happens.
I mean, we're led to believe, well, we're led to believe that
thousands of Canadians have left the country.
You know, there was, there was a story, was it last year, the
year before that? I think the UK found it has
something like 6000 Canadians registered.
Well, we have the census next year.
Well, I won't get the results next year though, will we?
Yeah. It'll be some time before we get
the results, but it's kind of interesting given how close some
of the votes are in these constituencies, it's kind of
make a serious amount of difference.
Well, these are questions that have to be kind of figured out.
So if it's a university student overseas, that's more or less
easy enough to do because you know, they're registered where
they lived in Bermuda. So they would, they would vote
in their constituency where they, yeah, yeah.
Someone who had moved, who has like immigrated overseas to the
UK or whatever. Are they ordinarily resident?
Should they vote? If they, if we are going to give
them the vote, where do they vote?
Is their vote going to be in their their constituency of
their last place of residence? I don't know.
These are things that we need to figure out.
So I suppose in that respect it's probably better that the NB
AS legislation did not get taken up.
Yeah. I mean, I thought the OB as
legislation and IA lot of politics is performative.
And yeah, and as you said, we can give the Oba win on this,
whether the PLP would quibble and say we were going to do this
anyway, so whatever. But the kudos to the Oba is that
they kept it in the public domain and the public thinking.
But yes, the actual work to figure out how it's going to
work is not as simple as someone might think.
It's not like we can just pass a legislation tomorrow.
We need to figure out the mechanics of how it's going to
work. You know, where where will the
people vote? Like physically, but also where
would their vote count and which constituency?
I don't think that was a point made by the minister Diyala
Rabin that they would rather the PLP.
The government would rather get all the legislation sorted so
that everything was ready to implement on day one.
The Oba legislation said would generate absentee voting but
then leave all the details to be sorted by the parliamentary
registrar. And I do think I mean the, the,
the PLP minister Diyala Rabin, as you mentioned, he is being
quite consistent throughout this to say he wants to do this
bipartisan, he wants to work with the OBAI.
I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say we
take that at face value. I think that they, I do believe
that the OB and the PLP will be engaged throughout this process.
So kudos to the Oba and we're going to keep moving on.
Kudos to the PLP for also proceeding with this and being
open to bipartisan. Let's hope it does carry on.
Let's hope we get a resolution. We see legislation hopefully
sometime next year. Yeah, there was an article, I
want to say it was actually in yesterday's paper, which it was
December 16th, where the minister Robin was talking
about, You know, we're really making a push for this for next
year. We highlighted a bunch of town
hall meetings scheduled for January.
So I, I think the momentum is there and as long as people keep
pushing forward. One good thing about the youth
town hall meeting scheduled for Monday, December 22nd is there
are going to be a lot of youth on island for.
So hopefully they're able to attend and get their voices
heard. If they can't attend that
meeting, then I would encourage them while they're on island to
reach out to their MP who has this Christmas holidays.
They may not get a response, but I would still encourage them to,
you know, while they're here, take advantage of that, go speak
to their MPs and say, look, we want this.
Absolutely. No, I totally agree.
And I think the more people involved in the election, the
better as the population gets older.
You know, what was it something like last year where the 600
people died and 400 people were born in Bermuda?
And I think like 100 of those 400 were two expats, right?
So the greater the involvement, the better everybody concerned.
Otherwise the elections might come a little bit pointless.
So Jonathan, what do you think? CARICOM big Hoo ha, it's a, it's
a continuing topic for us on this podcast, but there's a big
Hoo ha now about the fact that there will not be a referendum.
Michael Fahey, the shadow Home Affairs minister, has insisted
that his party says the people of Bermuda should determine the
matter. The Premier says no, it will be
dealt within the House. What do you think?
I don't think it requires a referendum.
I think not everything needs a referendum.
We put it that way. A lot of things can be done
within Parliament. There is a precedent for this to
be done through Parliament. I was reading earlier today a
2002 document which you can find in the archives, which was a
discussion paper concerning Bermuda moving from observer
status at CARICOM to associate member status.
And that was a, that was initiated under the first PLP
government. It was initiated in 2001 and the
decision was done through Parliament in 2003, I believe
was the actual parliamentary motion.
So I, I think the precedent is there for it to be done through
Parliaments. I think there's a lot of
ignorance about what CARICOM actually involves.
I also want to look at the European Union, and I think
you've mentioned this elsewhere. Jeremy, I don't want to steal
your Thunder, but you talked about the European Economic
Community and the UKI. Did and that under the then Tory
Conservative Prime Minister Edward Who UK join what was then
called the EEC via a debate in the House of Parliament.
Now I laid that out as just to add context, that it was
perfectly legit for parliamentarians to decide
membership of organisations such as this.
It was kind of interesting then though that I had quite a lot of
kickback on it. We joked actually about how many
down votes I get. I only got 1 down vote on the
comment. This is quite funny, no?
Well, they. Didn't want to.
They didn't want to validate your.
I know, I know, it was a double bluff on my behalf.
Peter Sanderson, I'm assuming you see the the legit Peter
Sanderson, the lawyer, he replied to me.
He said there's a key distinction.
Edward Heath had an electoral mandate to take the UK into the
EEC. He said it was a core plank of
the Conservative 1970 election manifesto.
He said the PLP did not even mention Caricom in their 2025
electoral electoral platform. So I kind of replied and said
that the Caricom plan was unveiled sometime before the
election. It was actually in 2023, in that
year's throne speech. It then became government policy
and remained government policy until past the election.
He said the throne speech committed only to have
consultation. Now this is this is the crucial
bit I think as far as I'm concerned.
And I went back and looked at the group at that friend's
piece. And he said the vision of former
Premier the on Dame Jennifer Smith was the Bermuda to
strengthen the historic, familial and cultural ties to
the Caribbean. This year marks the 20th
anniversary of Bermuda's entry into CARICOM as an associate
member. In this anniversary year the
Government will renew the vision of Dame Jennifer and this is the
key bit, initiating consultation process leading to full
membership of CARICOM. So he came back and this was
quite a, this is quite a lengthy conversation as you can tell.
He said they are committing to a consultation.
There will then be a proposal informed by that consultation
and they've taken democracy seriously or to be approved
either by a referendum or being part of the electoral platform.
That's an interesting point, isn't it?
I mean, the BLBS been quite consistent since the 2000s that
they want full membership of CARICOM and even what the throne
speech, if I, if I remember what you just said, a consultation
leading to full membership. So it was clear that the
government policy is to move to full membership, but that we do
a consultation as a process. And then after the consultation
move to full membership. So are we conflating the two
here? Are we just, is this just now a
consultation which may then lead to full membership?
We carry on. Or has the government gone
further now beyond the 2023 throne speech?
And so we are definitely going to be members or going to go for
membership. It's a it's a moot point.
You know, it's, it's semantics, isn't it?
But initiating A consultation process leading to the full
membership of in CARICOM could easily be assumed to be two
different steps. And therefore those those Peter
Sansom have a point that something like CARICOM should be
an electoral platform. To me, I would just go back to
the 2001 when when they initiated the decision to move
from observer status to associate member.
I believe that was a Thorn speech commitment for a
consultation. I don't believe it was in the
1998 election platform of the PLPI don't even have access to
that right now. So to me it's the same then
Parliament is fine, however, and using your European Economic
Community EEC system. So when the UK joined, that was
in, I want to say in 1972, they joined with two other countries
whose names I cannot remember right now, but there was a
fourth country that also was looking to join.
That was the only country that was Norway that held a
referendum on the issue. They they voted against joining
the European PEC, but the other countries all did it through a
parliamentary act. So.
I think the the point people are arguing is whether they should
or should not be a referendum. I don't think it's required.
I don't know if people. Demand it then fine, but I don't
think it's necessary. I don't think it's necessary,
but I think there is a proviso. You and I both agree I don't
think it's necessary for a for a referendum and get that.
But there is a proviso. And I think as Peter Sanderson
pointed out, there were a lot of green papers and white papers, a
lot of consultation, a lot of discussion that the MPs in the
UK at the time were able to use. I think that before we get
anywhere near a discussion or debate or a vote in the House,
we've got to have those green papers and those white papers,
yeah. That means the government
government committed to public consultation that hasn't even
started yet. Well, it hasn't been.
We don't quite know why. I mean, we're assuming and this
was the case several months ago, I think we're assuming still
that the terms of the agreement are still not being delivered by
CARICOM. You know, my experience in
government is that things take time.
Civil service is not. And this is no, no attack on the
civil service. You want things to be done
carefully. You don't want to rush into
things. It's going to take some time.
I would imagine that we would see the public consultation on
this probably launched in January or February.
I think it's going to dominate 2026 along with the absentee
voting. Well, I think, I think this will
be the dominant discussion through 2026 that and who the
new leader of the PLP is going to be.
Yeah. Those are the the three things
for next year. Well, that and CIT and what it's
incorporating tax and what that means for the budget.
Well, we haven't digressed, but we're going to get a budget
update. Well, we've seen one or not.
Anyway, we digressed. I, I think referendum is moot.
The Green and White Paper and proper discussion and
transparency over the terms of agreement is absolutely crucial.
We vote MPs into power. I think the original idea of an
MP, Jonathan, and you'll know, I think your point is better than
me, is the community. The idea became that a community
wanted representation so they would pick the person that they
thought could represent them best.
So that carried on, that principle carried on.
If we pick these people because we think they can represent us
in the best way, decision like this is made for them is for
them to make on the proviso that I just mentioned, without that,
then there should be a referendum.
I mean, I also think there's a lot of, I mean, and again, this
is where the public consultation will probably dispel some of the
myths about CARICOM and what it is.
I mean, to me, it's not that much different from Bermuda
joining the World Health Organization.
You know, it's just a, an organization, it's a membership
body. I It's not like it's a political
union at the moment. I personally would support a
political political union and the Caribbean Federation, but
that is not what the CARICOM is. Well, you'd have a political
union with Cuba if you had your way.
Wouldn't you? They're part of the Caribbean.
So yeah, Caribbean Federation. I don't think you can have a
proper Caribbean federation without all the Caribbean
islands. I agree.
I was pulling your leg, comrade. Yeah.
I am wearing red. I know the listeners can't see
that, but. Yeah, yeah.
There are a couple of things here actually, you know, but we
don't know. Again, filling this information
vacuum, we know the UK gave a letter of entrustment allowing
negotiations to start with no idea how this might affect
foreign policy. And for listeners that don't
know, they cannot have a foreign policy because strictly speaking
it is part of the UK and has to abide by UK foreign policy.
And I would imagine if if there's an opt out clause that
would have to be used because I can't believe the government
would allow economy a dependent territory to have his own
foreign affairs policy. Yeah.
So the I have two big questions about CARICOM that I would like
to have answered. One of them is the cost of a
membership fee and the other one is on foreign policy.
We do have the letter from entrustment as you mentioned.
I think that was provided either in 2023 or 2024.
We don't. I haven't had sight off the
actual letter from trust but I've only seen like government
statements and about what it is. I looked for it, I couldn't find
it anywhere. And all I can see is that the UK
has given Bermuda the right to proceed with moving to full
membership of CARICOM. So my interpretation of that is
that foreign policy would still be controlled by the UK, but
they would devolve foreign policy as it relates to CARICOM
issues. But I don't know how that's
really going to play out, especially as we're seeing
what's happening in the Caribbean right now.
We have America with their war of aggression going on and
they're dividing CARICOM. We got Trinidad at the moment.
And I think the Dominican Republic has just allowed
military troops as well. So is Britain going to be
willing for Bermuda to get involved in that, in the
potential friction between CARICOM and the United States?
Does Britain does? Is there going to, are they
going to risk their special relationship with the US on
that? I don't know.
I think the answer to that will be no, they won't risk it.
But then how can we have full membership of CARICOM?
This is this. Is a big question to answer,
isn't it? I, I can't believe, I mean I
don't think it'll ever happen, but I can't believe that the UK
would let the government here issue or sign an anti Trump
statement and. Maybe they maybe we'll have the
right to foreign policy on all issues except when the UK
disagrees. I don't, I don't know.
UK will have the veto every single time.
Right. I, I really, I don't know.
As far as I'm aware, there are no colonies that are members of
CARICOM. They're all independent states.
There. Are associate members like
Bermuda came in and a few others but they are which are colonies
but they're only associate. Yeah.
Full membership, I think Bermuda would be the first one if we do
join, then probably came in and Turks and Caicos and a couple
others will also try to follow our lead.
I imagine so, yeah. We're probably watching with
great interest. Yeah.
So that's the big question for me is how's the whole foreign
policy thing going to work? I don't know.
And again, we won't know until we see these terms of agreement
and then get the British view on it.
It's so frustrating. You said the wheels of
government turn slowly. I, I, they do, I agree.
But the problem is it creates this information vacuum and then
we get all these kind of debates, all which are
misinformed, a lot of them or. The fact that I see so many
people who are so 100% against CARICOM membership.
Without. Any information that to me tells
me their position is not based on an informed position, it's
just based on a prejudice against CARICOM.
I don't think any emotional position one way or the other,
right? Now I agree, I think most of the
Brexit Brexiteers were basing their votes on emotion.
Yeah, and emotion can be good. Emotion can inform, but it has
to be balanced with evidence at the same time.
And. I think you know my last point
to make here. I mean, I would say this, I'm
slightly biased because I'm kind of in this business as well, but
we government spent a fortune hiring an overseas US PR company
to explain CARICOM amongst other things and they don't yeah to.
Explain CARICOM. It was a bunch of things.
It was to help with PR and things like dangerous dogs, the
blue economy, CARICOM, and a couple of other things.
OK. Yeah, and here we are discussing
an information vacuum. The the other question is
membership fees. Right now we pay, I want to say
about 1/4 of a million a year as an associate member.
I said it's probably more like 227,000 but.
Something like that. Yeah.
Yeah, it is. The I I've been looking on
various sites. I've been trying to find the
actual formula by which full membership fees are calculated.
I cannot find it anywhere. I can tell you what the
countries do pay and it seems to be a some sort of formula
between population and your GDP, but the exact weighting between
those two and how the exact thing is calculated, I don't
know. We do have a relatively high
GDP, but we also have a very small population.
So comparisons with Barbados and Bahamas are difficult.
Their GDP is similar to ours, but their population is much
bigger. I want to say Bahamas is about
1/4 of a million people and Barbados, I want to say is about
300,000 people, whereas we are what, 65,000 people?
So my guess would be that our membership fee would be
somewhere between 750,000 a year and 1.5 million a year.
Barbados pays about 1.5 for example.
Membership fees are a bit moved. It depends what you get for your
membership. Yeah.
I mean, there are benefits now, one?
.5 million could be really good value for money.
Yeah, I know. There's also becoming a full
members means you sign up to all 240 articles of the Treaty of
I'm going to mispronounce it Shagwa Lama.
You are good I I would have mispronounced it as well, so
don't. It.
Except you can opt out of freedom of movement.
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's not
necessarily that's, I don't think that's actually an article
in the treaty. That's like a CARICOM policy.
And not all of the 240 articles are going to be directly
relevant to Bermuda. Something like 30 or 40 of them
are specifically on agriculture. We do have agriculture here, so
it will have an effect, but we don't have like big banana
plantations or as agriculturally dependent as some of the other
islands are. One key thing is you're not
supposed to have custom duties per SE on goods produced by
other CARICOM countries. I don't think we import a lot
from CARICOM as is, but maybe this would encourage us to
import more from CARICOM so. If I were the.
Government. I would do a discussion paper
looking at every 240 articles and say how is this going to
apply to Bermuda? This won't, this might and maybe
you could do a cost benefit analysis, I don't know.
So I don't know but. It probably should be because
people will read that like you and ask those questions.
Do you? Where did you find that,
Jonathan? Was that just a simple Google?
Search it's on Caricom's website.
It's on Caricom's website. OK, we haven't.
We are going to get a newsletter one day and what we do, we'll
put the information like that in it.
But at the moment, if you're just going to have to Google and
and find out, I mean, it's a good .240 articles, some, some
won't need discussing because they won't be relevant to
Bibilia quite obviously. But you're right, it comes back
again that there's got to have this green paper, you've got to
have public consultation, so. And even on the treaty, it does
talk about employing CARICOM workers.
In other CARICOM states. It does.
But you're allowed to set like I want to say they use like the
term quotas or something. You can have exceptions, but you
are still supposed to treat them more preferentially than non
CARICOM. But that doesn't mean that we're
gonna be flooded by CARICOM workers.
It just means that in the work permit process the CARICOM
worker is gonna be slightly more at an advantage than a non
CARICOM citizen. That's all.
I mean, we already have a kind of a gradiated system of
Vermedians at the top spouses or Vermedians are slightly below
that PRC and then people from overseas.
So it just adds another layer of, OK, well, it's a CARICOM
person, let's wait that into it. We go to the top of the key.
Yeah. Or under a spouse, under a
Vermedian. Now I do think there's as we, as
I've noted, there's a lot of prejudice against the Caribbean
and Bermuda, not universal, it's in certain segments.
And no, no amount of public information campaign or
consultation is gonna dispel some of that prejudice.
That's the nature of prejudice. It's irrational.
It's just there. But an information campaign will
reduce the ability of non prejudice people.
So that's what you're saying. In an information vacuum, the
latter's voices carry the the the mob, I guess you could say.
But an information campaign will reduce the ability for those
prejudice voices to dominate. Totally agree, totally agree,
and it's going to happen. And I think it will.
I think it will. I hope so.
Otherwise it's could be, well not.
I think a lot is going to depend, isn't it on I'll I'll
rephrase that will a lot depend on who the new leader of the PLP
is. Well, there might be an argument
that the Premier wants to get this done before he leaves as
part of his legacy. His legacy I.
Kind of suspect that's one reason why the PLP is pushing
heavily on the electoral reform as well as a bit of a legacy
thing because a new leader may not think that that is such a
such an important thing to focus on, including CARICOM.
I think the legacy thing might be a good, good point actually,
Jonathan, I wonderful fevers speed it up.
Yeah. And push before next October.
It's going to be an interesting year.
We should have a lot of information to talk about on
the. Podcast.
You know what? Caricom fuck.
I I just, I just said deliberately, it's going to be
an interesting year. Yeah, because I wanted to go
back to we started this podcast. It's actually more interesting
than people realise. So we are going to have an
interesting podcast next year. We are because we're going to be
more interesting. Well, coming up to the
anniversary of the podcast, I think it was January this year
that you and Michael Fay started it.
Yep. It was around about January the
20th. We've got to think of what to do
for our first birthday. Yeah I I joined after the
election when Michael Fay was no longer able to to sit as a Co
host. Well, maybe.
Maybe we get him and you together.
That'll be interesting. Yeah, we can do a whole birthday
celebration. We can wear funny hats.
Have some. Definitely not on video though.
No, that's true. That is absolutely for sure.
This will be our last podcast I think before Christmas.
I'm heading off to the UK for a holiday to see my mum and going
to stay on for a couple of months over there.
We will be back though, very early in the new year when we'll
be doing our end of year review, which are our favorite podcasts,
our favorite interviews, our best interviews.
Just recapping on all those and getting our crystal ball out,
see what we think is going to be the most interesting aspects of
2026. So I think we've given the game
away a little bit on that one. We'll have to think of something
new. So just from me personally, I
hope you all have a wonderful holiday.
I hope you all get what you want.
I hope the New Year's fantastic for everybody.
And thank you very much for listening to us, Jonathan.
Yeah, I'm, I'm going to copy everything you just said.
Happy holidays to everyone and it's certainly been a year and
hopefully 2026 is better for everyone.
As good as this year it may have been, let's hope that next
year's even better. Hear, hear to that.
Have a great holiday. Goodbye The News Navigators with
Jeremy Deacon and Jonathan Starling distilling and
discussing the issues of the day.
We help Bermuda navigate the news.