Baptiste backs PM’s address at Caricom meeting

Sen­a­tor Leroy Bap­tiste has en­dorsed the ad­dress de­liv­ered by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 50th Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of CARI­COM in St. Kitts and Nevis on Tues­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed the con­fer­ence un­der the theme “Be­yond Words: Ac­tion To­day for a Thriv­ing, Sus­tain­able CARI­COM.” She stat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­main a part­ner in CARI­COM and called for gov­er­nance based on ac­tion. She said the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing should ad­vance the qual­i­ty of life for cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Heads of Gov­ern­ment and del­e­gates that CARI­COM is built on co­or­di­na­tion and co­op­er­a­tion and must rep­re­sent all mem­ber states, not on­ly gov­ern­ing par­ties.

Bap­tiste sup­port­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on full and free move­ment while ad­dress­ing il­le­gal mi­gra­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He al­so backed her de­c­la­ra­tion on democ­ra­cy and cap­i­tal­ism with free and fair elec­tions, sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, free­dom of ex­pres­sion and as­so­ci­a­tion, re­gion­al part­ner­ship and re­spect for sov­er­eign rights in mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic pol­i­cy.

Bap­tiste con­grat­u­lat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the ad­dress. He said her state­ments re­flect­ed a shared goal to im­prove the lives of peo­ple across the re­gion and reaf­firmed sup­port for the Cari­com process.