Gonzales tells opponents: Let Tobagonians breathe

PUBLIC Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales seemingly compared the Opposition UNC and other people opposing greater internal self-governance for Tobago to police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of the murder last May of George Floyd in Minneapolis, United States.

He was speaking during debate on a motion to adopt the Report of the Joint Select Committee on the Constitution (Amendment) (Tobago Self-Government) Bill, 2020 in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Gonzales said, "I ask those opposite (UNC) and I ask some of the opponents in Tobago to remove your proverbial knees at the necks of our colleagues and our friends in Tobago. It is time that they breathe."

He also said there is one question which Tobagonians must seriously consider as they contemplate greater self-governance for themselves.

"Who do you trust?"

Referring to a letter from former Tobago House of Assembly (THA) chief secretary Hochoy Charles and PDP deputy leader Farley Augustine, which Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee argued were justifiable grounds to stop the debate, Gonzales said Charles did nothing, as a member of the NAR in 1986, to advance greater self-governance for Tobago when that government had a 33-3 majority in Parliament.

Gonzales said Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has also demonstrated that she and by extension the UNC are not serious about improving the lives of Tobagonians. He said the Parliament's records clearly show in 2013 that when the UNC-led People's Partnership (PP) coalition government brought similar legislation to Parliament, Persad-Bissessar as prime minister was singing a different tune then.

Gonzales said the Hansard record has Persad-Bissessar saying, "We are doing what is right and just for Tobago?"

Referring to her current stance, opposing legislation for greater self-governance for Tobago, Gonzales asked, "Does she still stand by this today?"

While the voices of Augustine, Charles and PDP leader Watson Duke should be part of a conversation on greater self-governance for Tobago, Gonzales said, the voices of other Tobagonians such as the Prime Minister, Tobago East MP Ayanna Webster-Roy and Tobago West MP Shamfa Cudjoe should not be discounted either.

Gonzales said Persad-Bissessar discarded her interest in greater self-governance for Tobago after the PP's coalition partner, the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP), was "red-washed" 12-0 by the PNM in the 2013 THA election.

Later in the sitting, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh and La Horquetta/Talparo MP Foster Cummings said in its two previous tenures in office (1995-2001 and 2010-2015), the UNC twice created a Tobago Development Ministry which was nothing more than an attempt to undermine the THA.

Cummings said, "It is quite surprising to hear all the love for Tobago coming from the UNC." Deyalsingh reminded MPs that the controversial run-off bill proposed by Persad-Bissessar in 2014 would have killed off third parties, especially those in Tobago, "collapsed in a heap of ash and flame."

Deyalsingh said Persad-Bissessar lacked the courage and conviction of the Prime Minister physically to go to Tobago and be questioned in person by Tobagonians about his vision for the island.