Opposition weighs next move after Parliament walkout

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­[email protected]

The Op­po­si­tion is set to dis­cuss its strat­e­gy for the next Par­lia­ment ses­sion af­ter walk­ing out dur­ing the de­bate on Fri­day evening.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said the par­ty would re­view its ap­proach go­ing for­ward fol­low­ing a cau­cus meet­ing on Mon­day.

Dur­ing the ses­sion, the Vic­tim’s Rights Bill ap­peared to be head­ed to a sim­ple con­clu­sion as Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land stat­ed the Op­po­si­tion planned to sup­port the leg­is­la­tion.

How­ev­er, when Act­ing Speak­er of the House Dr Aiy­na Ali ac­knowl­edged Aranguez/St Joseph MP De­vesh Ma­haraj at the end of Scot­land’s con­tri­bu­tion in­stead of Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle, the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les raised con­cern that re­turn­ing to Ma­haraj, who was the mover of the bill, sig­nalled the end of the de­bate be­fore Mar­celle could con­tribute.

De­spite this ob­jec­tion, the Act­ing Speak­er still went to Ma­haraj, prompt­ing a walk­out by Op­po­si­tion MPs.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader, speak­ing at the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Sports Day in Ma­coya yes­ter­day, said it was just the lat­est in a string of ac­tions, which she said were meant to lim­it her par­ty’s voice in Par­lia­ment.

“They were aware up front in an event we had two speak­ers. But yet still, they wouldn’t al­low him to speak. And that is not the first time be­cause you would re­call that it even hap­pened on the last pri­vate mem­bers’ day. So, this sit­u­a­tion seems to be de­vel­op­ing, and we will have our cau­cus on Mon­day.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said the Gov­ern­ment had al­so been very se­lec­tive on the mat­ters be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, not­ing the case in­volv­ing sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi was quick­ly ad­dressed, while oth­ers have lan­guished for months, in­clud­ing one in­volv­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader since last Oc­to­ber.

“In my case they have sim­ply pre­tend­ing that it doesn’t ex­ist,” Beck­les said, “They want to com­ment on (me), what time we’re tak­ing, and they just sim­ply ig­nore that, and they quick­ly moved the mo­tion as it re­lates to Sen­a­tor Bates and Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi, and as I said, met on a Sat­ur­day and met sev­er­al times in one week to deal with that mat­ter. So, the ques­tion aris­es, you want to talk about speed, in­de­ci­sive­ness, and all of those things, and as it re­lates to you, you pick and choose what mat­ters you want to deal with.”

Mean­while, the Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ques­tioned the wis­dom to cut back on Caribbean Air­lines routes in sev­er­al Cari­com states, giv­en the im­por­tance of trade re­la­tion­ships this coun­try had shared with re­gion­al part­ners.

“The truth is that Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways recog­nised this re­la­tion­ship be­tween Trinidad and the sev­er­al oth­er Cari­com coun­tries.

“But they can­not just, in my hum­ble view, get up in the par­lia­ment and read a state­ment and say, this is our po­si­tion, that we are no longer go­ing, these routes are no longer prof­itable, and that’s the end of it. And that is why the is­sue of Cari­com is so im­por­tant, be­cause you have to talk with the oth­er Cari­com broth­ers and sis­ters, be­cause it im­pacts us,” the Op­po­si­tion Leader said.

She added, “It’s not just that they’re com­ing to Trinidad, Trinidad goes to all these dif­fer­ent coun­tries, and the is­sue of trade. So as far as I’m con­cerned, this is an­oth­er ex­am­ple where Trinidad and To­ba­go is demon­strat­ing that they clear­ly don’t un­der­stand the role Trinidad and To­ba­go plays in Cari­com.”