Deputy Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Ernest Hilaire participated in the House of Assembly Debate held yesterday, March 17th, in order to discuss new legislation and rules to strengthen the powers of the Police force to combat crime along with the matters raised by the opposition with better provisions.
According to the shared updates, during the House of Assembly meeting, Deputy PM Hilaire shed light on the different aspects of the security and safety provisions in the Caribbean country. He began his speech by extending greetings to the speaker of the assembly along with his colleagues.
While addressing the House of Assembly, he started by addressing the part of the opposition leader and expressed that he got disappointed but not necessarily by the points that he raised as somewhere they all understand that those matters are something which should be considered at some point of time of committee stages.
He furthermore mentioned, “The fact that there is a need to take some immediate actions on those matters now,” on the other hand, he added that “Under no more other circumstances, the opposition leader probably wouldn’t be encouraging us to do something now.”
The Deputy Prime minister of Saint Lucia further noted that the greatest disappointment is that the opposition sought to oppose the government to take action now.
Moreover, the Minister for Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information addressed the speaker of the assembly and said that “I find there is a need to reflect some points made by the leader of the opposition despite the lateness of the night, the instance by the opposition leader that having a state of emergency is cynical and unpatriotic.”
Deputy Prime Minister Hilaire pointed out that anyone who is in the right frame of mind can understand that declaring a state of emergency would be a disastrous step for the nation.
“As how can someone justify and explain it to the national community and travellers that if you come to our country and there is a state of emergency because of crime,” he added.
While noting that the visiting community to Saint Lucia is an integral part of it, he said, “If you are saying that the crime rates are so bad in the nation or in some regions of it, there is a need of imposing a state of emergency, but at the same time, we are encouraging the people to come to the island.”
Deputy PM Hilaire also recalled the time of the pandemic and emphasized that the government did not support the idea of imposing a state of emergency during that time either because the nation’s government believes that the emergency should only be imposed in the country during the most grieved and out-of-control situations.
Meanwhile, he noted that there is no need to put the country under a state of emergency under such circumstances. In addition, he cited that there are other solutions to deal with all the matters which would not affect the economy and other essential aspects which are necessary to the country.
