Beckles questions Govt’s rush on major legislation

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of ar­ro­gance, claim­ing it is push­ing through ma­jor leg­is­la­tion with­out giv­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and key stake­hold­ers ad­e­quate time for con­sul­ta­tion.

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the Mt Hope/Mt Lam­bert Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Thurs­day, Beck­les crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of leg­is­la­tion re­lat­ing to al­co­hol, to­bac­co, cannabis use and gam­bling, as well as the Pro­cure­ment Bill and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

She said the PNM was giv­en less than 48 hours to re­view the lat­est leg­is­la­tion, which was re­ceived on Mon­day night ahead of Wednes­day’s par­lia­men­tary sit­ting.

“Do you re­al­ly think they care about the peo­ple? Do you re­al­ly be­lieve they want the views of the Op­po­si­tion when they give you such a short pe­ri­od of time to pre­pare?” Beck­les asked.

Draw­ing a com­par­i­son with the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, Beck­les said cannabis and gam­bling leg­is­la­tion un­der­went ex­ten­sive scruti­ny be­fore be­ing en­act­ed. She not­ed that the cannabis leg­is­la­tion was re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, al­low­ing stake­hold­ers to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions be­fore Par­lia­ment.

“What that al­lowed for was the stake­hold­ers and every­body to come be­fore the Par­lia­ment, so when we passed the leg­is­la­tion you were ab­solute­ly cer­tain that you got the ben­e­fit of all stake­hold­ers,” she said.

Ques­tion­ing the ur­gency of the Gov­ern­ment’s cur­rent leg­isla­tive agen­da, Beck­les ar­gued that laws with far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions should be sub­ject to broad­er pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly with young peo­ple.

“If you are se­ri­ous about pass­ing a piece of leg­is­la­tion that im­pacts Trinidad and To­ba­go, then what is the rush? What is the rush?” she asked.

Beck­les main­tained that young peo­ple should have a voice in shap­ing laws that di­rect­ly af­fect them, ar­gu­ing they are best placed to un­der­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing their gen­er­a­tion.

She al­so raised con­cerns about the prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions of some of the pro­posed mea­sures, in­clud­ing their im­pact on Car­ni­val and young peo­ple em­ployed in the en­ter­tain­ment, bar and casi­no in­dus­tries.

Re­fer­ring to pro­posed age re­stric­tions and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ments, Beck­les ques­tioned how such mea­sures would be en­forced dur­ing Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

“We are in Oc­to­ber, Car­ni­val is ear­ly and peo­ple are al­ready pay­ing for cos­tumes. What are they go­ing to do? A lot of the peo­ple who play mas are young peo­ple,” she said.

“As we say, I don’t know who play­ing in Bliss, Yu­ma, Tribe and Vibez Mas, but think about it. You stand up on Ari­api­ta Av­enue and see about 20 trucks and you see the bar. Where is your ID? You find that mak­ing sense?”

Beck­les said Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ad­dress such con­cerns re­flect­ed what she de­scribed as an in­creas­ing­ly ar­ro­gant ap­proach to gov­er­nance.

She ar­gued that if the Gov­ern­ment is gen­uine­ly con­cerned about the wel­fare of young peo­ple, it must en­gage in mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion be­fore in­tro­duc­ing ma­jor leg­isla­tive changes.

“When a gov­ern­ment reach­es the stage where they be­come ar­ro­gant, and you be­lieve you don’t need to lis­ten to the peo­ple, that is when I want to say to you: wake up and take note,” she said.

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to the par­lia­men­tary process, ar­gu­ing that its ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives does not re­move the need for scruti­ny in the Sen­ate.

Point­ing to the role of the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, she said the Up­per House serves as an im­por­tant con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guard.

“The Sen­ate is a check and bal­ance,” Beck­les said.

She fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of act­ing as though sup­port from the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors was as­sured for its leg­isla­tive agen­da.