 Which to remind honorable members that when the house last rose the question in the beat Was that the same ocean tourism authority amendment bill be read a second time? Honorable members we give you time honorable members Are you interested in speaking go ahead and speak honorable member for or Minister for Tourism? Honorable members Member for Kastri South East mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker looking at this bill the amendments to this bill before us and Listening to the member for view forth south The fourth unit thing for me on this side of the house is I've been here a few days I have been here a few days And I've seen many bills come to this honorable house And I have been able to analyze sitting on both sides of the house in opposition and in government listening to the member for view forth south and Mr. Speaker The questions raised by the member for view forth south and what is on fourth unit? For us mr. Speaker is That when it is convenient Certain members of this honorable house choose to speak in one way, so let me make an example or give an example I Raise some issues about the Vap bill That was being spearheaded by the minister of finance at the time and member for view forth south And his response in to paraphrase was that Let us pass it as is and we will make the necessary amendments later on several occasions We would raise issues Yes, CIP is another prime example. I asked where is the supporting legislation or regulations to govern CIP But you see mr. Speaker When Certain members sit on the other side of the house They can give you the direction They can tell you what the loss is and how the law should be interpreted and what the legislation should be Mr. Speaker The same drafters Who are in the attorney general's chambers are the ones Who are drafting the legislation? And the member for view forth south at that time worked with the same people so Am I to take what the member for view forth south is presenting at face value and To say okay. There may be let me use an example The primary hotel and tourism association Because this is an act and not regulations Every time you have to make an amendment to an act you have to come back to parliament You don't if you use a certain formula of words Okay So when I raise the questions when you are passing your legislation, that's not what you told me You told me we will come back to parliament and make the necessary adjustments. So primary The word that seemed to be Question there is the word primary Now in the hotel sector, you have many associations You have all kinds of groupings that fall on the different headings. They have different registrations They are recognized as different bodies For example, if I were to use trade unions as an example You have a number of trade unions When you go into select or when the trade union select that team to carry out negotiations Who leads out in the negotiations? The primary or the main Union becomes the lead union. We deal with that all the time. You don't know anything We deal with that in the minibus association You have the national council on public transport and you have a number of other entities that are not Affiliated to the national council on public transport whenever negotiations take place The negotiations take place with the lead organization or if you want to call it the primary organization so so I'm not a legal person. So I'm not trying to interpret legal things Although I have to question a lot of legal things that the former prime minister did Because if he's so knowledgeable about the law mr. Speaker, he would have known who was supposed to sign the agreement for the seabed I would expect that he would at least know that and understand What his authority was whether he had the right to sign the deal with grindberg on the seabed Okay, so to tell me show me the one king sign You see mr. Speaker The member for view for south continually presents himself in this house Because they are not other lawyers Many other lawyers around the table But you know recently mr. Speaker I see certain people holding papers in court for other lawyers But they want to advise the whole parliament on how law should be interpreted But They cannot defend a case for themselves. They cannot answer questions. So mr. Speaker I have to wonder what is the basis for raising all of these concerns about these amendments to this piece of legislation And amendment that seeks basically to highlight The very same things That we do not want to come back to the house every time the situation changes So that you you would have to amend the act and so He raised the issue of the primary Hotel and tourism association and he says that the the language should be more definitive But I would expect that if you're giving a suggestion You would at least have one word to replace primary Or you would be able to say to to the honorable house in my suggestion of resolving that problem Here are some suggestions of what you can use That's committee stage No, mr. Speaker, that's not committee stage because what they have asked Is that this legislation you go back with it? You do the necessaries and come back But when I raise the same issues because I'm not a legal person So I have to be guided by what? The legal person see But the league of course those who do things you didn't see who said it on the newspaper Your former senator said Yes, and challenge me on that. I can bring people here to show you who get bad in church You want to challenge me on that? So Honorable member for kastry's office Continue contributions. So people die at st. Jude That's what you all have been seeing Because of the condition of st. Jude. You forget So mr. Speaker I would have loved to take Some advice from the member for view for itself But because of the double standards which I have seen I have heard Today the conflict In the advice given when he is on this side of the house as opposed to when he is on the other side of the house Then I have to be measured In what advice I take Because I don't know if it's advice. That's reliable because if he was on this side of the house If the member for view for south was on this side of the house and he I can tell you when I became minister of transport They passed a motor vehicle and road traffic app And before under the all act And as a as a former magistrate mr. Speaker, I'm sure you'd you'd be able to identify with what I'm saying under the all You could not if you had a driver's license And you had not paid him and you were found driving you could be charged When that then labor party passed the the new motor vehicle and road traffic act and regulations You know what happened If you had a license And you did not pay it you could be charged But if you never had a license and you were found driving you could not be charged If you never had a license and it and you Were found driving you could not be charged But if you had an expired driver's license you could be charged and you know what I did as a responsible minister We went and we fixed that without making it public Because we didn't want people to be at liberty to feel they can just go and drive on the road without a driver's license That was passed under the previous labor party administration not this time around prior to 2006 So when members come and and I understand certain things about legislation That today you think the words are right and tomorrow there's another word because all lawyers They go to the house. They go to the courts The same law is used by both lawyers Lawyers one for the defendant And the other one for the person bring The the plaintiff So when when you look at when you look at the situation how we interpret what is there Is important so The two suggestions or the two recommendations for amendment The exemption from taxes let's take 46 a as highlighted now If you pass in a piece of legislation today In the parliament And you say in passing this piece of legislation That it supersedes every other piece of legislation That was approved before it My understanding is the only piece of legislation that it cannot supersede Is the constitution So when we talk about the vat act the vat act was passed. How long ago? So you are saying that if you pass a piece of legislation in the parliament of st Lucia today And you say Regardless of what regulations or laws that was there before That supersedes it you are saying that we still have to go back and amend The vat for that piece of legislation to supersede it And is that the advice that the member for view for south is given to dishonorable house To tell us that that this so when when the parliament meets the parliament that makes the laws That enacts the laws Makes a law or enacts a law that says that on the dis piece of legislation The tourism authority Is exempt from all forms of taxes under every act that was passed prior to that to this one That it does not stand I would love to hear an explanation from a real lawyer From a real lawyer who can explain to me And explain to the people of st. Lucia how to interpret What is being said here because at the end of the day I am not convinced that the lawyer who was trying to explain this to me Has has done a good job in explaining it And so you're right. You're not a real lawyer. You're not a lawyer at all Mr. Speaker so On that basis I would say what had been told before We will pass the piece of legislation As is and if needs be we will make the changes later. These were the rules that was laid down in the house By the member By the member for view for south and when they had the eyes they did it But mr. Speaker, that's not why we are doing it because we have the majority, but it is evident It is evident. No, that's not the reason why we are doing it If the evidence is there to show That legal minds will tell you That the argument presented by the member for view for south is flawed And cannot be relied upon and on that basis I know the advice coming from the other side is not good advice and for this reason I feel that this bill should go ahead as is. Thank you Honorable member for castry south Thank you very much Mr. Speaker I joined at a parliamentarians who have expressed condolences and noted your comments made when we started this morning But I also want to add An express congratulations to Young akim ogis who was selected to be on the West Indies team that would be going to england I think everyone who's seen him but will tell you is one of the finest batsmen in the caribbean For his age group at this present point in time And hopefully he will continue to grow and become A West Indies senior batsman. I think never before in our history have we had so many talented young cricketers in st. Lucia I also want to Join the member from library who congratulated the member from castry southeast for having attained his MBA He noted the member from castry southeast noted at st. Lucia as a history of producing some very bright people And I got the impression that he was now saying he was joining the elite group of bright st. Lucia Having a having attained his MBA But it was instructive mr. Speaker that A few years ago the member from castry southeast was very scornful of those who had gone through higher learning institutions And I'm glad he was proud to boast that he had not gone to high schools But he was school In everyday life and in common sense and he's now added to that A prestigious title of the holder of MBA and I suddenly look forward to he and I discuss in the various courses and Common sense has been lost And it is reflected mr. Speaker in his response Which he just delivered And I would say to you I No, no, and I'm sincere in my congratulations to him. I mean, I really believe when somebody has Achieved such levels. We should always be congratulatory to them But it cannot be If the member had stood up and said on the advice of the ag chambers The staff there and the ag They do not accept the recommendations of the member from before south. I would be satisfied with that I may not agree with him, but I would be satisfied if that that the persons in the ag chambers are saying That the member from view for south is wrong And therefore stick with the approach that is been presented by the government I would have accepted that but to suggest That the same thing they did to me when I was in opposition. I have to do them now that we in government You know, I don't think is acceptable if we second mr. Speaker to raise the standards Even if it may have been done before and it was wrong Then surely it should be done the right way given the opportunity And I remember him the member from view for south actually saying that there are other contradictions and issues, but they will arise Over the years and then food amendments will be made and he himself said of by saying That even in his experience They've had to come back in the main bills because in the act of implementing and executed you recognize some of the deficiencies But mr. Speaker the member for ancillary canaries and minister for tourism of minister in the department response for tourism Presented that the amendments of this bill Was necessary to improve The management of the tourist sector tourism sector in st. Lucia And that he went on to explain the rationale that The amendments would make it better. We would achieve higher levels of performance And I took note of what he said mr. Speaker And he quoted from his statement this morning as proof That the management was on course in the tourism sector And I want to Examine that context for the legislation that he presented and I want to go directly to his statement It's amazing that the member for ancillary canaries boost of the exceptional growth in the tourism sector in st Lucia Mr. Speaker joined the debate On the budget I had reason to point out to the honorable member That growth has been consistent in st Lucia in 2012 2014 Sanctuary highest levels of growth in the caribbean Highest levels of growth The honorable member had boasted That st Lucia was passing the million mark for the first time And I pointed out from the social economic review that had been achieved for many years before But mr. Speaker The mendacity of the member is astounding Because he says things which can be easily proven And he's not taking it from very far In his own statement, mr. Speaker He points out that the growth Is due to the opening and the increase in bedstock in st Lucia. He says that in his statement That is why we are having the growth Not because there any better management of the tourism sector He goes on in his same statement presented this morning That it was due to a strong rebound in the u.s. And the world economy And reduce anxieties To a large degree About fears about egg brexit. He says it himself Of course, mr. Speaker. He goes on to also add that better marketing and I recall during the budget statement I made the point St Lucia has appointed a social media marketing agency And at the point of being appointed Did not have any social media presence none And up to the time we were debating the budget They did not have a website When you google you would see site under construction our social media agency a marketing agency And on facebook they had 65 followers And they only had one client st Lucia And you boost because of your social media marketing excellence and lucia is doing very well Some agency I could check the name and and come back to you on it But also mr. Speaker and and that's what disturbs me sometimes About how information is presented The member comes in and boosts That american airlines is introducing a new flight to st lucia And that shows confidence in us and how well we do it and we are leaders in the caribbean But mr. Speaker listen to this american airlines So it's now two flights a day You should have two flights a day to st lucia from american airlines. That's not new Anyway, let's not argue mr. Speaker I do not want to argue of the honorable member whether this is the first time in our history We have two flights a day. Let me continue with my point mr. Speaker The honorable members making the point That we have gotten a new flight from american airlines to two flights a day and that shows How we were the front runners and so much confidence in us american airlines Has added four new flights from holando to aruba keman islands nasa and tixan k course not one to st lucia four new flights Seven new flights from miami st lucia got one potter spin got another barbina's got and even st venison now has gotten their very first american airlines flight from miami So listen to that four new flights from one airport Seven from miami Two new flights from chicago None of these came to st lucia One new flight from dallas To aruba none to st lucia american airlines has expanded its flights to the caribbean by a total mr. Speaker Of 14 new flights to various destinations st lucia got one And the honorable member is boasting Of how we are the front runners because we got one new flight from america From four airports america has increased flights to the caribbean islands st lucia only got one Only one But he tells us That the tourism industry is so well managed Of course mr. Speaker. Let me say to you. I am glad that there is an increase The honorable member seems to have a difficulty in understanding simple statements I am glad there's an increase and I accept and acknowledge there is an increase But there have been increases every year for the last few years. It predated he becoming minister of tourism It predated him becoming minister of tourism But he wants He wants to claim that the increase is because of the excellent work that he's learned in his government We welcome the increase. We want further increase And we will support you to have further increase But do not pretend that you want to You know Give the impression that the increase only just started. Let's say, you know, it was shocking to me Mr. Speaker to hear the member virtually says for the first time we've passed one million And i'm saying but come on I can recall years ago Oh now you is 1.1, but he was he was boasting for the first time we've passed 1 million And I had to point out in in the budget debate We had passed that many times But he's now saying what he was boasting is 1.1 not 1 million, but let that pass Let that pass I'm a freaking joker, but mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker, no, let me continue don't even bother to chastise him. Let me continue Because he's a poor example of what a parliamentarian should be but mr. Speaker. Let me continue. Let me let me continue Mr. Speaker, no, don't don't don't don't chastise him. You will never learn mr. Speaker When this government came in mr. Speaker I want to expect governments to change and policies to change you expect that You expect that The honorable minister announced to this house that he was going to do an audit Into the St. Lucia tourist board into the financials and the operations mr. Speaker to date To date two months short of two years This report has not been tabled in this honorable house To tell us what were the shortcomings And what had been found Still nothing has been tabled in this house money paid for by the taxpayers of st Lucia Mr. Speaker We've still not heard from the minister any vision for tourism in st Lucia And the member from country's office is found of saying oh, we have set up a vision commission To see where the country has to go I'm not going to debate what the vision commission is all about with the honorable member But today The member for ancillary country says he's setting up is said a tourism council to outline the vision for tourism Herat he charged the chastise having a vision committee or whatever it was called But now he's going to tell that there's going to be a tourism council that is going to outline the policy Not the government Outline policy not cabinet But a tourism council now I grew up in an experience of consultation and stakeholders involvement. That's what I learned So I would certainly applaud a tourism council. I would never decryte I would never decryte But it just shows you Mr. Speaker the work thinking that exists you can criticize a vision committee But you would praise having a tourism council Mr. Speaker You know sometimes And you've already said many times by other people some things are conspicuous by its absence That when certain things are not said It really tells you That there's something worth wondering about it And I would have Expected the minister in his statement this morning to tell us about the jazz festival It was two weeks ago Two weeks ago That you came here and presented a minister's statement about the performance of the tourism sector If you are presenting today A Statement on the performance of the tourism sector. Why is there nothing about the jazz festival? Which is supposed to be the premier festival in san lucha? Why is there nothing about soley? We've had two soley festivals so far For the year One in january where millions of dollars were spent and the jazz festival And we've heard we've heard nothing Nothing mr. Speaker. Why is the honorable minister not saying anything about the first festivals? The soley has said Last year there was a if a last year mr. Speaker. I said I was prepared to give the soley festival a chance It is something new something different and when I said to some of my friends to me I'm a madman to say that because he saw that sun would never rise But I wanted to give a chance because I believe it'll be something new maybe something really dynamic and Whatever else, but we got no report on it last year And what really disturbed me is the minister came into this honorable house presented a report on the performance of the tourism Industry and did not make one reference to the jazz festival In fact a guy was teasing me That the ruling the government gave away VIP comps And guys who outside the gate at pigeon point selling them and people who are not even buying them Cheap could I get comes cheap I got a friend of mine from who are sure one of one of my supporters who told me you know you're in VIP You know because another I will support I gave him a VIP because they had so many given away The same minister who came and chastised The last government saying all the people that used to be at pigeon point on mother's day Will comes the bar party gave Will comes that's what they said will comes Today they give in comes and people not taking it It tells you something about what has happened to the jazz festival And where we are right now, but he's not reporting on it. He's keeping quiet on it There's a lot of talk mr. Speaker about mercury Beach activity Now I must tell you I enjoy the mercury beach activity I do I do I enjoy And I'm sure other persons in here Would enjoy the member for Bruce Lee Would welcome you I've seen I've seen him at Bruce Lee. Was it the mercury festival is on I'm not sure if he even bought me a drink. He probably even bought me a drink on that Friday night But mr. Speaker I heard the member for ancillary cannery is the minister Say And he can correct me if I heard wrong That mercury beach brings in seven million dollars into St. Lucia over the weekend And I can recall seeing from myself the impact of the mercury beach festival In grusy me by 11 o'clock. There are no drinks available There's no food to buy the supermarkets are run over in french guests buying foods Look as you can't get a cart to rent Um hobby which you have to close it door. You swear is the holiday sales in the u.s When you have to close your door and make people line up outside because it has an impact Seven million dollars the minister said And I'm hearing popular talk That they asked for an increase For the festival to stay in St. Lucia And the government said no And there are other top growing around and I think the honorable minister in his statement to the house on the performance of the tourism industry Should have updated us on the mercury activity If you have an activity that brings seven million dollars in a weekend For goodness sake Why would you not try everything you can to keep it in st. Lucia? I'm not saying they may not have been issues. I don't know but the minister should have presented that this morning when he gave his report Because I want the minister to tell us and I would have I would have loved to hear Him this morning in his update Tell us about the international soca awards that will be held in st. Lucia How much is the government of st. Lucia contributing for to the hosting of international soca awards? And when everyone talks about denry segment denry segment What level of support is government really giving? What level of support to ensure the development of that art form? Yes, moral support is is critical, but it takes more than that We are about to start a carnival season or it has started And there's so many calypso unions and soca artists that want to record their music They have to pay for music sheets and they have to record. What amount of support is government giving them? And I would love the minister to see how much is st. Lucia contributing Towards the hosting of the international soca awards. I heard at a minimum We pay in the flights for all the artists coming down and we pay in the flight for all the accommodation for everyone coming down Give us a figure Give us a figure why no mercury beach and why international soca award and I'm not saying we should not host it in st. Lucia And then we have to ask about cpl How much are we contributing to cpl for four matches? And don't tell me mercury beach will not pay in the bills cpl has not paid its bill Darren sum a cricket wrong yet monies are still owed to people And I noted in the budget Under the department of youth and sports There was 1.7 million dollars set aside for advertising 1.7 million dollars set aside for advertising And when you read from my recollection when you read the details on program strategies objectives It said monies will be allocated blah blah blah for the hosting of cpl and icc women's arm woke up so One would want to assume that the 1.7 million dollars for advertising Something which means sure of your fans. What does not regularly engage in is towards the hosting of those two activities I remember asking that question during the budget, but not really getting an answer so We talk about amendments and the The act and how essential it is to take the tourism industry forward and the minister comes to give a statement this morning And he's silent on those issues silent It goes further Hotel development And I'm sure the prime minister Representative for microsoft might say a few words after I speak We hearing a lot about hotel development a lot He's yawning and seeing him sober. He's a speaker. He's a so juvenile. It's not funny. He's really really juvenile You really need to grow up on rebel member you hotel development mr. Speaker And I come back to a point that I've made over and over The prime minister had announced a deal with range development Mr. Speaker and this is a real sore point for us Because we were opposed to the deal which the prime minister had signed with range. We said so The prime minister told me you will never come to me for financial advice The member from casters office asked me what you know about money What you know about money we said that that was a bad deal And the terms and conditions were illegal and unacceptable. We said so And we give the prime minister the mathematical analysis to show why it was a bad deal Mr. Speaker we talk about the tourism Industry and expanding the room stock The money is the 400 million dollars. We would give under cip 400 million dollars under cip We would be given to range I'm sure It can be spent on the education sector I'm sure it can be spent on finishing st. Jude's I'm sure it can be spent on financing our health care system in st Lucia And we always said that that was a bad deal And the prime minister said during the budget debate and I noted That he will resolve all the issues if range by july because there are some challenges But he will assure us he will resolve everything by july. I am waiting for july to hear Exactly how those issues have been resolved Because I insist it is a bad deal 400 million dollars of cip money should not be given to a developer as alone at 2 interest And you talk about proper management of the tourism industry and the growth that has started years ago Is your evidence of how well you manage in the tourism industry? it's not Then we heard about fermont And fermont is a project that we had started discussions with by the time the government changed And I want to ask and the honorable member from schrozel is there how many puts from schrozel are working on the site at fermont How many local trucks are working there? How many local tractors are working there? And I noted that fermont is the only hotel development on the cip website as an approved cip project only one There is no ds h there There is no range there. There is fermont And that we need to know honorable minister when you respond to me Does fermont have the same deal that range got? Because the prime minister said you are doing away with the whole you will not respond Well, the kind of disrespect you in parliament questions have been asked and you say you will not respond But let's proceed the people of st. Lucia at least can hear i'm asking the questions If you say into me The prime minister said he's doing away with the real estate approach that was used in the past and by other countries And his new approach is to give loans From the donation at two percent interest has fermont been given the same deal And if so, how many more hundreds of millions of dollars from cip monies will be given to another developer At two percent interest and you talk about the proper management of the tourism industry And then a few days ago We heard what i saw because i saw it i read it A new development for canals with the galaxy group And i'm not going to see much today is the speaker i'm going to wait for more information from the prime minister from the minister of tourism about the galaxy development at canals Because sometimes i wonder and i noted in the photo the photo the ag was the other signing ceremony I also saw the prime minister's personal lawyer mr. magma raj was there the signing ceremony What not and i'm waiting for the details to come out because it will come out And i asked all solutions to go and do their research on galaxy And the hotel development in sentits I will say no more at this point mr. Speaker But again, we speak of the proper management of the tourism sector and how it's taken off because of the excellent work of the government Mr. Speaker i wanted to raise a few issues And i think the member from jifford south has already raised them so i will not Care to repeat them Except to say mr. Speaker That for my part I believe And i think i said so to your junior visit to my parliamentary office. I have a difficulty with bills being brought to this house And having to go through all the sit-ins One time i have a difficulty that all the stages at one time i have a difficulty with this There's a reason why There's a reason why you have three different stages mr. Speaker I just come if it that if there's done before it is wrong They may be instances where you have to do that The last time we discussed this bill where it's now act in june last year I raised some of the points the member from jifford south raised Yes, and i was shun for raising it when we went to committee stage i raised it again But if mr. Speaker The bill had gone through its first reading had been put out for public discourse and discussion Maybe they would have been greater reflection on some of those issues And we really must stop this practice of every single bill that comes to this house has to go through all three stages Right away I understand and I make the point they may be circumstances where you would want to do that But that should not become the norm of business in this house Mr. Speaker That's my personal view and I appeal to you as a presiding officer to dissuade The other side from continuing to do work in such a manner so mr. Speaker I have been the response of the member from ancillary canaries He boasts that all the successes in tourism now is because of his fantastic work um I like most solutions want to see a very successful tourism industry We want to see more persons benefit from it I know I have constituents in marigold keep saying to me they feel slighted And they tell me every now and then they see the honorable member from ancillary driving past with his glass up but not stopping But he would appreciate Mr. Speaker That marigold is a very important place in st. Lucia One of the most scenic places and it would be there needs to be some attention given to marigold So when he speaks about proper management of the tourism industry marigold should not continue to be neglected And I'm looking forward to the details on the community tourism Because I heard you a couple meetings in marigold with by certain Operatives already discussing who's going to get what and what's going to happen And mr. Speaker before I end I must say something about banan Mr. Speaker, it is really sad the quality And the nature of the discourse that takes place in this country And I made a simple point when constituents called me to ask me what was going on. They wanted some explanation I made calls. I was virtually told it's not my business I wrote to the prime minister. I wrote to slasper and a couple of other agencies Saying at least just consult the people and inform them as to what the plans are not that you should not do it During the election campaign, I was one advocating the redevelopment of the area, but people have anxieties There are families living there. There are children living there. There are elderly people living there. There are fishers there They have business people there You may not like some of their business, but they have businesses there Just engage them and speak to them And for someone to tell me by asking for a dialogue if the people who'd be affected by any development is playing petty politics Mr. Speaker for the record, I support the redevelopment of the area But can you can you please ask the responsible agencies to engage individuals who would be affected who live there And the last time the work started I was across the road with some of the residents The prime minister was having lunch across the road that had this had He could have walked across the road and just have a few words of the people I mean, I would have joined him and and I may have asked him a couple of questions You know, but he could have done it, but he did not and you know what that does, mr. Speaker You know what that does and all of us who are solutions and we can appreciate that Is we and them When people believe that the prime minister they've asked for consultation And they see the prime minister across the road and he would not even come across and give them information Simple information that they're asking for when they see works are taking place. Nobody wants to engage them. What does that do? What does that do to them and how they feel about their country? How they feel about the government? How they feel about their own social existence? It makes them feel that they are not worthy citizens in St. Lucia, but they are second class in this land That's what it does. It does not take a lot to cross the road and have a simple conversation It does not take a lot for slasper to have a meeting with them for ccc to have a meeting with them They are human beings too And that's all we've been asking for and I heard the member the minister For local government, you know talking about how he may not doing anything but it's called situancy well those things will always Be said and I'm sure they will be resolving time to come But I believe when we speak about tourism development and if this area is going to be developed for tourism development honorable minister Come and have a meeting with the people talk to them reduce the anxieties. It does not take much Be a little more humble reduce the arrogance and just step across the road and have a conversation with the people They deserve it. They are citizens too. Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker Honorable leader of the opposition Thank you, Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker Let me start by Making the point that the member for country south made that we have nothing against St. Lucia's tourism numbers increasing We have nothing against More visitors coming coming to to this country. We are nothing against my hotel has been built in this country I just want to go back a little bit the real St Lucia was in the tourism ministry for a long time But the real crunch came between 1995 697 When the banana industry went down and collapsed I remember at that time the minister The minister of finance at the time was making the point that the economy was was in transition And there are some members. It's honorable house here who agreed with him That economy was in transition. We are coming from an agricultural based economy to services That transition was taking place. So the country depended more and more on tourism. So all of us Understand the importance of of tourism. All of us support the tourism industry. I remember When we gave incentives to the Royalton hotel, it was said that we had given Too many incentives There were some mini protests outside And people said we gave too many incentives to the to the Royalton hotel. So we understand the importance of tourism as we got but To to hear The minister of tourism speak now You would believe that from June the 6th The tourism industry has just come out and just shot up into the air and before nothing was happening And he's the one who caused these ships to get big He said he spoke about the cruise industry And as if he's the one who caused cruise ships to come to St. Lucia in June cruise ships came in between June and October Because the minister won elections in June cruise cruise ships prepared a schedule way in advance They repaid way in advance But they're going to government in June the 6th and because even government cruise passengers increase their work You have him say that Um, all hotels are full. He doesn't tell you He doesn't give you where the hotels are full whether the small hotels are doing well Whether the guest houses are doing well That is the question the numbers are good. We're very happy about the numbers But the question is how are these numbers queued? How are they skewed? Because where's you are doing well. Yes, some hotels will not doing well But the numbers are good and very happy that the numbers are good He's talking about the the industry since June the 6th. This marvelous means of tourism came I was by point surfing and the vendors And the vendors there Was saying to us that listen to me many people are coming but we are not seeing them Spending the money the numbers are coming But if you are not spending the money and what so what? The minister should be trying to do is trying to develop the product To ensure that more of the ancillary services benefit from tourism You may recall that there was a letter written But it's an original talent tourism association to the prime minister Where the people in the ancillary services complained that they will not See any benefits from the increase in numbers The that letter was signed by the president of the slsa That the the numbers were increasing But the ancillary services will not see the increase now I won't blame the government for it. It's because of the nature of the industry But let's sit down and talk about it But not because of during the sixth game you arrived and tourism exploded the ministers spoke about the tourism advisory council There was a tack already. It was called the tack. It was led by mr. Noel Kadas There was a turret and many and they were they were representations representation from every Player in the industry. So the tack is nothing new It was already he speaks about village tourism and says that's a brand new concept There's something called the nature heritage tourism program That was that was in place And the reason for the nature heritage tourism program was to develop attractions Out of castries out of the north so then they could benefit from tourism What you're doing So the minister of tourism Makes the point again that our numbers have increased our numbers have increased Of course our numbers have increased. I want to quote from the IMF concluding statement in in st. Lucia may 16 2018 and it says favorable external conditions and a mild fiscal stimulus sustained growth in 2017 The outlook remains benign But is subject to significant downside risk The fiscal position weakened on the score in the need for corrective action Policies to enhance resilience to climate change and natural natural disasters should be fully integrated into fiscal adjustment program Consistent if attained a 2030 regional debt target of 60 percent of gdp and has what it says on tourism continued strong demand from major source markets the opening of a large new hotel an additional elif lifted the tourism sector Which experience the fastest growth in store visitors arrivals And benefited from a recovery of cruise ship visitors The minister has never made the point That the reason or one of the reasons for such an increase in tourism numbers is because the world economy is doing better Many external factors Many external factors have come into play to make the tourism sector do better so instead instead of Come instead of trying again to do what one member said. Where's your legacy? This government is consumed with the opposition Every I mean they were they were in they were in miku I mean two years Two years You've been in power for two years and listen to the thing and you've named a road after you Two years in in power two years Two years in power You know that is the that that is the arrogance That's the arrogance that that that is the arrogance that that that we have in this country, but as the member for cashew sub says The minister refused to say anything about the jazz festival refused because he stood there And he said jazz was not for the people of marsha He said jazz is not about for the vendors of marsha. The vendors of marsha will never forget you They will never forget you. But anyhow, let me let me tell you about the jazz festival There are caribbean festivals in january Jamaica and bahamas. Jamaica has the jazz and blue festivals Trinidad has carnival in february In st. Vincent the gradians in march. They have the beckway easter regatta In april and tigger has stayed in week and to bego has to bego jazz In may st. Lucia had jazz and arts. Let's just hold back a bit In june st. Kids has the st. Kids music festival in july st. Vincent and the gradians. They have vince mass st. Lucia has carnival Jamaica has the montego bay reggae festival in august barbarous has cropped over Antigua's carnival vineda's carnival September new york has Labor day in october from nicker has the world creole music festival So in may st. Lucia was known for the jazz festival This government came into power and of course they have to They have to destroy anything the labor party Not started because the other ones just came when they went government But anything that the labor party is promoting they have to to destroy So here is what the prime minister says in december 2016 Speaking to the nation newspaper Here is what the prime minister said We are spending over 14 million on one event that lasts over two weeks That makes absolutely no sense It is impossible for the destination to have gotten a return What made it worse Is the fact that since beauty dropped out. We have had any replacement in televising So after 25 years st. Lucia jazz festival is finished Now listen to what a writer in the huffington post said about jazz Just a few days before the prime minister made made a statement This his name is you mackin sire, and he says This festival was clearly not only a big deal for the people of st. Lucia, but a source of national pride There are plenty of events like this in the u.s. And oftentimes they come and go We brought we don't be noticed outside the city lines But that was not the case here Everywhere I went on the island in the several days. I was there the woods jazz festival won people's lips It seemed like everyone I met brought it up and they're excited to do so They seem honestly happy that I had come to the country for this As it was a moment when everything looked is best and the entire nation seemed to be putting its best foot forward all what the government had to do Is reorganize the festival according to its own image and likeness Reorganize it. You say you're spending 14 million dollars spend less But no you have to make a statement st. Lucia jazz is finished You have to tell the world that this labor party wasted 14 million dollars from here and i'm stopping it So what happened? Anybody who knows st. Lucia may Would tell you doing that jazz week There was activity. There was bustling. There was hustling Vendors the same vendors you said that jazz is not for them vendors sold small hotels were full Taxi drivers the whole country Everybody made a dollar but Is visible it is visible that Your experiment in the jazz festival did not work, but you have all the surrogates jazz was successful It was a successful jazz We did well. It was a successful jazz. You understand, but you know that is that is the problem We do not want to admit We do not want to admit we've made a mistake And let's come back and see how we can improve it You fail in that the country did not benefit from jazz as it benefited before because of your haste Your haste in trying to derail what you say is a government that had no legacy And we come back to the tourism industry. This government speaks as if nothing happens They say that they're making new new creatives the prime minister and myself where Atlanta where we Ushered to the world new creatives creatives And not something new creatives happen all the time, but the point is The present prime minister, yes We were we he ushered. Yes He ushered. I think it was Simply beautiful. I think If I can recall he was there so creative that's something we've done all the time So do not come and boast as if these are new things and then it's because of vision And and because the leopards did nothing. That's why you're doing that. There's nothing new in creatives What we must deal with now We must deal with causing the benefits of tourism to accrue to more people than have been then Are benefiting now and even though you have an increase in numbers and the vendors do not benefit The taxi driver is not very benefit and talking about taxi drivers We were the ones who decided that we bring taxi drivers into the mainstream of the tourism industry And give them incentives and organize the whole taxi business. Now you have to improve it. That's good But do not pretend as if nothing happened And that is my point of departure This government is so consumed in attacking the opposition that they pretend as if nothing happened Nothing happened nothing we I mean We were we wasted time we couldn't finish every project The show is their secondary school. I mean it's sad to to listen to the minister about the show I said it's sad because he knows very well the story of the show is their secondary school He knows very well, you understand, but no We never the show is that we're happy We're very happy because the show is today school needed to be repaired It needed to be done. It was a hazard. We I had to we had to build a piece We had to put a piece on the school A piece. I don't if I can't recall it was I think we had to move people to the community center or something I was there when we did that we spend money we spend we had to have emergency to put children there I visited the school. So you think I'll be against you fixing the school Why why you think we'll be against you in the show at school? Why I mean but but but you come on you both as if as if you understand what You see this is because some some some people tell us that we shouldn't come to the house Some of us the police say you shouldn't come to the house But I'm one that says that we should come to the house But you know the the the the mayor of you both self discusses Legal things He says here's what happened Can we speak about it? Can we discuss it? Can we move forward? No, but I told him Don't be surprised. You just get attacked So said so then attacked You understand? It is very Mr. Speaker it is very It is very depressing Because you come to this honorable house to want to make a contribution You come this honorable house with intention to because you know all of us have our our sides You are the government. We are the opposition We want we understand that role you understand that role and we are the opposition, but it's as if It's almost a frustrating experience If it's almost a frustrating experience, but I want to come back to that tourism business Mr. Speaker The minister of tourism Must stop behaving as if tourism started with him And his policies and it's because of him Tourism is doing so well Or because of his policies the minister of tourism said that the cruise the cruise industry is doing well I I was the minister that built the most hotels in the country I million 2006 And 2011 the most the most hotels came under me And if you go to some of them now, you'll see my my my name is there. So I'd have to come and boast about it You have to help me come and boast about it You have to come and boast about it In St. Lucia, I can mention to you Capella Yes Yes The most hotels Within 2000 sorry We say We say sorry sorry Good morning Good morning Good morning Good morning Are you like you Are you like I had my day I had my day through All right You have me one more time I wouldn't like you all You score points Right So you know under me the most hotels were building solutions at the time So So it doesn't make any sense Come in and And boast about these things These things happen in the evolution of times The investment climate improves overseas More hotels get built But to not come and pretend That because you became minister of tourism And And this thing is because of me And our policies And you guys did nothing It's not right You know it's not right And the facts do not show That it is right And all I'm saying to you is The tourism industry is so important That we have to get common ground on a few things We need common ground on a few things Because the tourism industry is what Will propel St. Lucia in the near future So we need common ground So there are certain things that you must Come off Get a little less arrogant Get a little less arrogant And let us deal with issues As they come about Particularly where tourism is concerned But I insist That the benefits of tourism Still Are not accruing to as many people as it should accrue And that may not be Anybody's fault It may be the cause of the structure But internally We have to do something with the product We have to do something with our small hotels We have to do something with our vendors We have to do something with our transport providers We have to do something with our boat owners Even people Who take pictures In the hotels for weddings We have to do something with them Because they are saying that they are not benefitting And in the letter of the prime minister They said it clearly that they are not benefitting So Mr. Speaker The Marathon for view for itself Has dealt with The technical aspects of the bill The legal aspects I will not pretend To be a lawyer I will not pretend to give any legal opinion On the bill All I am saying Is that we should Listen to what the Marathon for view for itself says And discuss it And see whether we can move forward So that this bill Can serve the purposes It was meant for And finally I want to reiterate That there is no tourism authority No members have been appointed To the tourism authority board And that is a fact And It may be a mistake It may be an oversight As to the ramifications of that The legal minds Will say I cannot opine on that Finally Mr. Speaker I am happy Whether tourism industry does well Many of my constituents work in I am happy When it does well But I am saying that we must try To see if we can spread More benefits To the people of Celusia Many more people can enjoy The tourism cake I thank you Mr. Speaker Honourable member For Mekodisa Thank you very much Mr. Speaker I know it is late And I am going to try to be very, very quick The structure Of tourism Is The new structure Is based on Obviously with my Cabinet and my party While we were in First of all in opposition We had a long discussion about many of the things That the Honourable Leader of the opposition Brought to our attention That tourism Is growing But there are still segments of our society Who feel that it is not accessible Mr. Speaker And therefore There has to be changes You would imagine that some of those people Are also the hoteliers themselves Who believe that tourism isn't growing Fast enough They are not getting a high enough ADR That they are not competitive of what is taking place In the world And so therefore We had to take a very deep look At tourism And so the overall strategy Of tourism Was to stop thinking that one entity Like the tourist board Of tourism can solve the problem I've had the experience Of being a minister of tourism for five years I've also had the experience Of being a director of tourism here I've also had the benefit of sitting on many Tourism authorities in Miami In Jamaica Some other Caribbean islands And also being chairman Of both the Caribbean The CTO As well as the President's elect For the CHTA The marketing initiative for CHTA On two major regional campaigns One was After The Gulf War And the next one was after 9-11 So I've been able to gain From those experiences And what I've realized is that Many places are making the same mistakes All trying to think that one entity And one individual can solve All these problems When in fact tourism is substantially more Autistic than that So the goal here was To create Entities that would focus On specific things So we know that at the Salucia Tourist Board Hopefully that we're big enough Many here to admit that That the events Part of it consumed the tourist board Both from a budgetary Perspective As well as from a time perspective And the other thing that was Very clear Mr. Speaker Is that spending that kind of money And time In a 10 day period Could not generate the return More importantly Once jazz festival Had lost its space On the international market Through TV The number of people that it was reaching Was minimal Many of the hotels that were full Were actually more full With paid guests by The government of Salucia In fact the taxpayers were paying the money For those hotels to be full Production teams The artists coming in and out And every year we saw the number of Journalists actually dwindling But the size of the production Kept growing And so there is a term In economics called diminishing returns It had more than reached the point Of diminishing returns So what came Mr. Speaker Is that the art form Of jazz And what is a jazz festival And again Salucia made the same mistake In my mind That many other destinations did So in fact the concept Of Salucia jazz festival was initiated by me Actually started Its DNA came from the Montreal jazz festival And the Montreal jazz festival But primarily the Montreal jazz festival And those festivals also suffered In order to be able to appease All the critics that it was growing And getting better every year That what it did it widened The genre of music that it was offering And it went away from being jazz But we think of here now jazz As being music But if you take jazz in its literal sense In terms of jazz music All the other Festivals grew the same way And so what happened was Is that there became very few Pure or what we call boutique Jazz festivals In fact the most famous one right now Is really the Monterey jazz festival Which has kept that element So we felt that The jazz festival Was the wrong entity To be the leading Event for Salucia Because We don't have a lot of jazz musicians And the likelihood Of us saying that we're going to have The best jazz musicians in the world And more importantly Being able to create the International TV buzz that we once did Before We didn't think that that was going to be possible So the decision was That we were going to broaden it now Into a summer festival And we were going to take the genres of music Away from jazz To bring down every now and then An R&B artist But more importantly Mr. Speaker Was to focus our Resources on our art form So it was When I was the minister of tourism That With the consent of Sir John That we agreed to spend For the first time a million Dollars in Carnival Hard to believe that that was just 2007 Because prior to that time It used to get $250,000 And it was struggling And that One million dollars made A huge input and we saw The footprint of Carnival Start to grow So what happened now It doesn't matter whether I'm involved in Carnival or not But it's an irony that the person Who everybody on the other Sides accuses of being So culturally insensitive Okay That all of a sudden That it was under me When I was minister That we put a million dollars in And we grew the base Of Carnival And we gave the same people That the member from Castery South said The same member from Castery South said How people are struggling To get money Where was the money before And in fact when they came back into government For Carnival It went down So we now last year spent Over three million dollars Into Carnival And the intention is to spend Almost six million dollars In Carnival Why? Why? The comparison Mr. Speaker That we're asking the public Of Saint Lucia to be able to make The comparison Of Saint Lucia jazz and arts The only common point That they have is they have jazz in the need But there's nothing else Even remotely similar We've gone back to what we started At the jazz festival When we had all the top business people And bankers and people throughout the region Used to come here It used to be pegged on the calendar For them to come And it was successful enough within three years To fill the island Anybody that it got big was the same thing That happened to all of us Even I found when I was in minister of tourism Said okay let's now really Make it a big festival But the fact is that once we did not have the TV It was the TV that was Generating the return on that investment So it can justify Having 30% Of your rooms being paid for by taxpayers If in fact you're reaching an audience Of 15 or 16 million people But we weren't All we were doing was having a party Among ourselves Even when you listen to the name branding Of the jazz festival It became what the biggest party In St. Lucia In the Caribbean So what we're saying Is that we want the biggest festival In St. Lucia to be carnival We want the second biggest festival In St. Lucia to be The Creole Heritage Festival We want to take our art form Our culture, our people And boost them up and what the intention is The intention is now To make sure that the stage and the light And the sound that we provided for St. Lucia jazz And arts that we're doing the same thing Now for carnival and for Creole Heritage That is what we want And then we want to say Okay we're not going to get on TV If any of these festivals so if we can Have elements to help us sell Our summer time and take weekends Four days weekends throughout the year And help fill them with different genres Of music and do marketing outreach Within the region primarily That we believe that that's going to be A better success story So the events now Is no longer part Of the tourism product In fact events Is within the ministry of local government Equity And empowerment In order to make sure it's reaching out To the overall communities And that we have one source of production But the marketing of the events Is the tourism authority So the tourism authority Job is now to go out And market those events but not to be Involved in the production And to make sure that they're marketing In a way that it's complementing The brand position of St. Lucia Which is St. Lucia she will inspire you We want you to be inspired by our events Whether it's food and rum Whether it's creole heritage Whether it's carnival Whether it's jazz Whether it's reggae and soul Whichever one we want you to be inspired And so it's all under that theme We then now decided That a common problem that is in tourism Is that everybody's Involved in tourism But nobody's happy And everybody believes that the minister of tourism Is ultimately responsible For solving all the problems Whether it's crime Whether it's the airport experience Whether it's the vendors Whether it's the taxi drivers But all those things fall under Different ministries So what we wanted to do Was to create a tourism council A tourism council that now has All of the major private sector partners And all the major public sector partners That will collectively participate In the development of the policy And the strategy of solution tourism Is integrated That we now have people sitting at a table Looking at statistics together So instead of it being us against them Everybody now is at the same table And that council is going to be headed up By the minister Which will be supported by a secretariat To make sure now there's timely statistics There's timely reports To be able to say the same things To determine the same things Is tourism trickling down And making the impact on people In 2018 Where tourism is clearly the lead economy But yet the statistics that we have Are all historical Simple things like Satellite accounting systems We're just now trying to put that In place so that every single year We're going to have a satellite account system We must become more prolific In understanding how tourism works And the jargon of tourism And be more involved In the overall policy to make sure it's working But considering how important tourism is I think that we all need to Look at ourselves and ask ourselves Have we understood this industry enough Look at bananas When it was green gold Everybody knew what the difference between A good, a farmer and a bad farmer Everybody understood what the inputs were Everybody understood what the cutting days were People generally understood What bananas was about Can we say that after all these years Of transitioning from what was started By the Labour Party Moving away from agriculture Into tourism Can we say that we've been successful We can't So in addition now To the festival committee The tourism council Now we're proposed that we're going to have A dedicated entity called the tourism authority And the tourism authorities Purpose is to be able To just do marketing Focus on marketing The other one now Is village tourism So we're saying how do we make sure That more solutions Feel comfortable with the industry How do we get more solutions Actually as entrepreneurs And providing world class products So we said what's key Is the ability for those people To be able to have small hotels Restaurants But the problem that was happening Is that they were struggling to raise the money And the land spaces that they were selecting Mr. Speaker To develop those products Was always Subpar So they were almost starting behind the eight ball Before they even began They couldn't get Banking, finance And when they didn't get the financing They lived up to the reputation of the banks That they would fail So how many small properties have failed So what we said was Let us put a mechanism in place In which we can provide marketing We can provide product development I.e. training for managers Training for first aid Training in terms of Of Your landscaping Training in terms of your interior decorating And hold their hand And then work with the banks So for a person who wants to be able to get incentives Now in that sector Must become a member of the franchise And they have to go through a test It's not about a test of whether you Fail or you don't Or you pass It is to make sure that we understand what your deficiencies are And that we're going to work with you On making sure we solve those problems Because there's no point Being in this industry If you don't understand what it's about And where are people supposed to learn But we're encouraged now That we're seeing people who are Food and beverage directors who are solution We're seeing people who are Room division managers We're seeing accountants We're seeing marketing people Who now have a skill set But now want the ability to be able to open up their own business And village tourism Is also about making sure that we develop And strengthen the communities themselves In order to ensure That everybody can benefit We're about to spend $12 million On the castries market Because castries market needs to be A showcase of our products When you go to the castries market What percentage of the stuff that's in there Where's it from What are we doing to help them How can we make sure that the castries market Can reclaim its position As the number one Tour destination In Saint Lucia And that when people go there They smell Saint Lucia They can taste Saint Lucia They can feel Saint Lucia And even us When we're going to travel abroad And we want to buy something Mr. Speaker In order to showcase our culture The place that we want to go to Is going to be the castries market We have to raise it as a place of excellence But a place that is genuinely authentic With our products And the hope now Is to replicate that in a lot of the different villages Is to take our vendors And help them become franchisees Not the artisans But let us work with the artisans In helping the artisans to produce the products And those products are now distributed Through the vendors Mr. Speaker I keep saying The greatest example of that Is Baron's food It's not by accident That all the vendors are selling hot sauce From Baron He has made them His ambassador Through training And get him to understand the product So when they're selling that hot sauce They have a better understanding And there's more added value to the consumer He's improved the packaging They know what the price is So literally through the length and breadth of Saint Lucia You see hot sauce Why can't we have more products that are solution made And the same thing is happening So We talked about The cruise industry And I was very happy that the leader of the opposition That despite seeing an increase In the numbers of cruise terms The spend is questionable In fact Cruise tourism Makes up in numbers I believe we hit 800,000 800,000 arrivals this year And we had 360,000 Land-based arrivals But that 800,000 only represents 5% of the expenditure Of revenue in tourism That's exactly how we Change our product In order to get more money So, Ben-Ans What do we want to do with Ben-Ans? We want to fix it up We said that before the elections I went and met with the community We talked about we don't want them to move We want to fix it up so you have a proper restaurant In there We want to have a proper sewage system Fix it up so the fisherman can be in there Fix up the dock and make it a beautiful place That people now have two ways Of getting into Ben-Ans One way is by a ferry So when all those cruise ship passengers are passing by And they see this little village of Oasis And there are some people who don't want to go Into the rat race And say you know what, let me just get a little boat And go over to Ben-Ans And hopefully they go over to Heart is Heart And we can help develop that area Into being arts and crafts But until we have a physical plan To be able to show them We've not gone in there We've been cleaning up the area All those years The government was in office The last five years The last five years All the containers that were Parked on the side of the road That were a hazard to all the kids And the families and elderly people Walking in Ben-Ans and Fola Sho How come nobody did anything to move it? Why was it allowed to be there? Those people were not there legally But no effort was made So I don't know how on one hand You tell me today you care But when you were in government And you had the ability to do something You didn't do it And that you want to come at this point and say But we do care And then hold our hands to the fire Our feet to the coals In order to ensure that we're doing things That you yourself didn't do But you know what, Mr. Speaker That's not what this is about Because there's no way To run or react to what the Libyan Party Is doing in the opposition We are focused on our plan All the things that we're doing Are in our manifesto Our manifesto is not the result Of pressure because we were In opposition when we did our manifesto But our manifesto Is one of compassion One of developing the people Of this country and having a vision For St. Lucia to be the best The best place to live The best place to work The best to visit All of those are things that we're looking for Yes, no visa No visa, and the way that you get To being a no visa is to make sure That you have a country that is secure A country that has a credit rating Of A, but these are things that The opposition wouldn't understand, Mr. Speaker Okay, these are alien things To them because in fact They actually go in the opposite direction So I want to say, Mr. Speaker With regards to With regards to the bill It's amazing to me, Mr. Speaker When people use the art Of asking a question In order to make a statement Let me repeat that again The art of being able to Ask a question, but really Making a statement Okay? So one would be made to believe That we would have to come to the house And consult the attorney general And the attorney general's office Who put this document together In fact, the member From Cass Free South is 100% correct The last time we were here The same thing that the member From View Fort South He brought up But clearly He either did not want to listen To the answer or doesn't accept the answer So let's go through it It says that That the The board shall have A chairman And A deputy chairman And it'll be made of five members So altogether, seven In order to be able to Have a constituted Board You have to have Either a chairman Or a deputy chairman So if the chairman is not there On his behalf So it's the deputy chairman And five members So the board is constituted If in fact now The chairman doesn't come And the deputy chairman doesn't come The five members of the members show up It allows them now to appoint A chairperson Because you only need five people To constitute the meeting I don't see what is so difficult For the members on the other side The math works out perfectly You need Five people To constitute a board meeting And at that board meeting Among the five people Mr. Speaker Among the five people One of them has to be the chairperson And that chairperson can either be The elected chairperson It can be the deputy chairperson And if neither of those individuals are there They can then now select somebody Amongst themselves That is perfectly good understanding And reasoning on my part I have no understanding why the members On the other side have difficulty But there's no point in trying to be So therefore The AG's office Is comfortable with it I understand the logic of it And we're prepared to move forward On that basis The member on the other side Also talked about taxes That's free south east brought up the issue with taxes The fact is Is that prior to the introduction Of that all of our Incentives Did not include the exemption of that And what did it say? It said if in fact you want to do Anything to exempt that You must come back to parliament So here we're back in parliament Passing a new piece of legislation In which we're saying up front That it's going to be exempt from that It's the same No it doesn't You can go and amend the VAT Act But the fact is you're coming in after the fact Because VAT is already in And what you're saying is exempt from VAT So again in consultation with the AG's office We are satisfied on this side That what has been written Is legally correct According to the AG's office The last thing I want to be able to bring up Is The vexing issue Casteries member from Casteries South continues to bring up with regards To CIP and investments I believe at the next sitting At the house that we will be coming up With an amendment To the regulations for the Economic Economic fund So when the CIP Act was passed Mr. Speaker It said that when The CIP approved The application It's only on the approval Of the application that they then receive The funds When they receive the funds They're supposed to transmit the funds From the CIP to The economic fund I came to the house and I said The difficulty we're having is Is that because the economic fund Has no regulations We cannot We cannot pass it on We'll be coming to the house Next month In order to be able to make sure That the regulations are there For the economic fund And that therefore the monies can go Into the economic fund And it will guide the economic fund On where it can send the money Whether they can send it to the Consolidated fund Or whether they can send it into Development of different projects And at that time I'm sure that And hopefully some of the differences That we can bring up In terms of the real estate Component of it You know, I don't know Why members on the other side Are again having difficulty In understanding what we're saying So I know that the member from CAST Results who is one of the architects Of Senlusha's CIP program Would clearly ought to know the difference That when a project Is approved as a real estate Project Mr. Speaker That entity now is Allowed to sell An interest In the hotel project For $300,000 The $300,000 Is supposed to go into An escrow account And that escrow account Will have guidelines in how the persons That company can draw down the money So they can draw down money To pay commissions They can draw down money to pay for marketing They can draw down money For architectural fees They can draw down money for construction But what we've seen In the industry today Mr. Speaker Is that the competitiveness In the real estate market In CIP Is that companies are paying Higher and higher commissions In fact some of those companies are paying As much as $50,000 The commission from the $300,000 So that means you're down to $250,000 And it's very difficult To control where that money is going So in essence, the developer has Now been able to benefit from Free and clear funds Through the sale of passports And he seems to have No concerns with that And in fact They are more unsuccessful Projects in the Caribbean Than they are successful projects There are very few successful projects Using the real estate format And our government will remain Concerned about that Because even though there is no legal liability That the state has To the people buying those passports Morally we're going to be obligated Because there's going to always be That underlying feeling By those people coming in That somebody's regulating that business But I think that I want to wait Until we bring this bill to the house And hopefully we can thoroughly Debate this issue And that we can hopefully get everybody To be able to understand So again, Mr. Speaker I just want to say to you That in terms of the growth Of tourism When people don't want to understand Numbers it's an amazing thing Or to manipulate numbers So I don't know how An increase in the Miami flight Can be perceived as anything Other than a success More importantly More importantly That there was no MRG To be able to get the flight So we're talking about a daily 757 Coming into St. Lucia Plus the existing Miami flight Also when we had JetBlue JetBlue was flying an A320 Now they're flying an A321 American Out of Charlotte was flying An A319 Flying an A321 So what we've seen is while frequency may not Have increased on some of the other gateways The capacity has increased In fact, even out of the UK There's going to be an announcement Of a substantial improvement In the capacity of the planes Coming from the UK So the other one that's very interesting Is when we talk about the success Of the numbers And comparing it to the fact that When Labour was in government Tourism numbers were growing But we kept on saying in opposition It wasn't growing at the same pace Of the other regional islands We were constantly behind everybody else We were in fact We were behind the average For all that's being ranked As one of the top We've come in And let's not underestimate The fact that we increased the airport tax From $25 to $95 To $98 And they said the numbers were going to go down Not only did the numbers not go down But we grew by 11% Which was the highest percentage growth In the Caribbean So on a relative basis So Lucia is growing faster than anybody else And what's amazing Is that that growth is continuing In the first quarter of this year But guess what Those same favourable headwinds That we're speaking about Exist for everybody It's a level playing field The same benefits Of the US market exist in Aruba The same benefits exist in Jamaica And all the other islands But yet this particular time Since Lucia is doing better Than everybody else So I don't want anybody To be able to come here Mr Speaker And to undermine the success The Minister of Tourism is having And the energy and the enthusiasm That he's bringing into the marketplace And I know one thing That nothing happens by accident So when we talked about cruise industry Why were the cruise numbers going down Under Labour If in fact My colleague The leader of the opposition Who unfortunately is not here Why is it If he had such a great relationship With the cruise industry Would the numbers going down And immediately upon coming in That at our inauguration And signing in Of all of our ministers The head of the FCCA was there And all of a sudden miraculously In the last two years The numbers have grown You know what that is? Confidence And that is a government That understands its partners And knows how to work with them And I am very excited of the level of support That we're getting from the cruise sector With regards to building a cruise ship terminal In the south And I have to say to you It is amazing to me That the representatives for the south Would have not have thought of that years ago That instead of spending More money on growing castries That we're spending money on growing the south Particularly when we say that We're concerned about the taxi drivers The poor taxi drivers in the south Could only live on one thing And that is transferring people from the airport Up to the hotels But now they're going to be able to get business In the hotels They're going to get cruise ships in which they're going to be able to do tours And they're going to be busy all the time So I have to say to you I'm very proud of our strategy I'm sorry that the opposition doesn't understand What our policy position on this issue is And even to suggest That the tourism council In any way remotely resembles A vision A vision commission And really being ridiculous Okay So again I want to support this bill As is And hopefully we can pass this bill today And move on and get the tourism Authority up and running as quickly as possible I thank you Honourable minister Honourable minister Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I wouldn't be very long Because my colleagues have dealt With a lot of the mistruths That have been said here today About the record breaking Year that we've been having in tourism And the great performance that we've been having Mr. Speaker I just want to point out a few things And the Prime Minister was absolutely correct In pointing out that there was some growth Over the years of 2013 And 2014 and 2015 According to the social economic review But what we inherited Mr. Speaker In 2016 Clearly does not resemble Anything that grows Because the social economic review Which is a document put together By the civil servants that we have inherited From the previous administration Suggest that the 2016 figures Showed that St. Lucia had An overall decline Of 7.3% in the year 2016 Then as well Mr. Speaker There was a 13.2 Decline in the cruise sector Mr. Speaker There was a 4.8 decline In tourism expenditure Correct, yes There we go Then as well Mr. Speaker Stay over arrivals declined by 4.9% The expenditure that came From both cruise and tourism Mr. Speaker Average hotel occupancy declined by 11.9% Mr. Speaker All inclusives declined by 4.4% In the year 2016 Mr. Speaker The European plan or EP hotels Hotels that are not considered all inclusives Mr. Speaker There was a 16.4% decline In their occupancy levels Mr. Speaker Small properties declined by 0.2% Mr. Speaker The average length of say Decline by 2.1% Mr. Speaker cruise ship calls Decline by 2.1% And there we have it Mr. Speaker The year 2016 When we assumed office It was a difficult crisis that we assumed And so Mr. Speaker To suggest that we Have We have somehow come in And are riding on the backs Of the Labour Party is absolutely ludicrous And I just want to use The few moments left In this debate to totally debunk Oppositions by the opposition Mr. Speaker I want as well to use this moment To clear up The Miss quote from the Member for Castries South Who suggested I said it was for the first time We had received a million Mr. Speaker unlike him And I've said before I am not receiving a brief I'm well acquainted with the numbers And I could not have said that For the first time that we had Accomplished 1.1 million And the arrivals for 2017 Represents The best year St. Lucia's had in history And that is a fact And if the Member for Castries South Would like to To Disagree with that He can get up right now I'll give him my time I'll yield to him Mr. Speaker And he can stand up and say well There's another year where we did so Where They performed better than 1.1 million And those are clear facts The Arrivals we've had in the winter Suggest in the first quarter That is the best first quarter St. Lucia's ever had At 110,000 And 32 visitors And I'm very very sorry But we are growing at a phenomenal rate And Mr. Speaker I'm very very pleased Mr. Speaker The meeting was also made About the Mercury Beach Festival And I think we kept seeing And the Prime Minister alluded to it When he mentioned the jazz festival That One of the things we inherited from the previous Administration was a policy decision To form an events commission It began under them And the thought was Mr. Speaker Was that events commission would manage All of our national festivals Including jazz and carnival and so on That policy And the Ministry of Tourism Is not responsible For the production of the jazz festival Neither is it from Mercury Beach So I want to say to the member For Castry South That not only is he misinformed as usual But he's asking the wrong minister And if he's coming to this honourable house Then he ought to have known where To direct his question It belongs under the purview Of events in Lucia And the Ministry of Culture Mr. Speaker, there's an MOU Which was signed between Mercury Beach And the events company And Mr. Speaker, I will Since the Minister of Culture is not in the Lower House I will take this opportunity To explain a few things That has gone wrong Mr. Speaker, the owner of the Mercury Beach event had a partnership With the local Mercury Beach agent And who owns the rights In St. Lucia And he branded Mercury Events Mr. Speaker, my information is Is that the local Mercury agent Has actually asked The promoter of the International Mercury Beach Festival To discontinue using his brand I can't tell the honourable house What has went wrong But once that happened Mr. Speaker It became very difficult for the government To continue The other thing I can tell you The negotiation between Mercury Beach And events in Lucia Suggest that the 200,000 Which was the normal rate Or contribution from the government Being paid to the festival The owner of the event Was now asking for 500,000 Or a 150% increase In the Allotment In marketing And production support given to the festival As the government's contribution Mr. Speaker, I think that the board And the members in the negotiation team May have felt that There was nothing significant that was happening To have Caused this change And I think that they had asked Mercury Beach To give them a quantitative analysis On the economic impact Of the festival Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note As we speak Of the economic impact Which that local vendors were not allowed Into the festival And so when the member of the cast South speaks of vendors And his deep interest Of vendors I think he should also be concerned That every single aspect of that Was controlled By the event Mr. Speaker There are also Incidents with the Local Which Information that's reaching me Suggests that Mercury Beach would like A VAT waiver Mr. Speaker, there is no legislation That allows The Ministry of Tourism, event St. Lucia The Ministry of Culture To waive Mercury event of VAT As all events do in St. Lucia They do pay VAT And Mr. Speaker I would like to thank Mr. Speaker For the government to offer A VAT waiver To Mercury Beach So there were all of these Challenges Mr. Speaker And I'm sure that the Minister of Culture Will in greater detail make A statement On what actually Transpired But I want to leave this on Slightly And allowing whatever fallout may Have come from Mercury Beach To adversely affect the tourism Industry Or arrivals during the month of August And that must be made clear Mr. Speaker, I can assure you That efforts are already on the Way to organize Other activities Marketing activities To bolster arrivals From the Caribbean islands Of the CPL Cricut And very shortly we will have An announcement in that regard As we try to protect the Revenues that our Small hotels may have been lost Mr. Speaker, to put this into context It must also be said that If you multiply our total Arrivals last year By the average room nights In St. Lucia which is about Eight and a half You would end up somewhere close To room nights In the scheme of things my Information suggests that Mercury Beach represents about 900 room nights So 900 out of Four Million room nights It's not a big deal If we're looking at the economic Impact But Mr. Speaker Every bit of Room nights, every bit of Spread the philosophy Or the idea that somehow You know we have lost This big event Which is going to cause Significant damage Or significant fallout To the fortunes Of the tourism industry So we have to look at this In its proper context to establish What is actually happening Mr. Speaker A lot was said About the flight coming into St. Lucia And the honourable member of the South attempted His brief attempted because he Doesn't know what's happening To undermine The fact that you're getting Seven additional weekly flights Seven additional weekly flights Into the destination Mr. Speaker this means that Every single week St. Lucia Will have 14 flights From American Airlines out of Miami That is unprecedented Mr. Speaker And that has never happened before And I ask the other members To prove When that has ever happened Where American Airlines Had 14 weekly flights Coming into St. Lucia And so Mr. Speaker I challenge them to prove that That has ever happened Mention was made of Aruba Aruba has 10,000 hotel rooms The dumb rep Has about 75,000 hotel rooms Jamaica has Well in excess of 30,000 Hotel rooms Mr. Speaker The other destination that was mentioned Cuba has over 75,000 Hotel rooms These destinations Mr. Speaker Cancun and other destinations that were Referenced to make a comparison Are big behemoths Mr. Speaker They are massive giants In comparison to St. Lucia With 4,000 established Traditional hotel rooms And so Mr. Speaker When you see American may have A portion Some flights into destinations like Aruba That is clearly because They have a lot more room stock They have a lot more capacity It is our intention and we continue Mr. Speaker To continuously to ensure that We grow the numbers And increase Our own capacity In the room In the ventry side of things Mr. Speaker The member for Castro's East Did Make A ridiculous comparison Between village tourism And heritage tourism Said before That while heritage tourism Over the years has sought to encourage St. Lucia To get involved in the attraction sector And tourism Excursions and so on There has been no agency or effort That I know about that has encouraged The non-traditional Accommodation sector Which to be honest is a recent Phenomenon driven by The Airbnb And VRBOs And other sites And so what village tourism Seeks to do is to expand From mayor attractions And also encourage St. Lucia To become owners in their own right Participating within The accommodation Sub-sector of the industry So there is a massive difference Between what village tourism Seeks to do Simply seeks to empower St. Lucia To create more than they have ever done Before In the tourism industry Mr. Speaker I am happy to report That the OECS tourism Competitive project is going well And I do so Mr. Speaker in the face of criticism From the member of Castro's East who suggested We needed to pay more attention To our vendors. In fact Mr. Speaker Just before I came here It was a privilege With Minister Guy Joseph And the Minister of Culture Along with the Mayor of Castro's And we opened the first workshop Dealing With the advancement Of vendors. Mr. Speaker This Happened in the Financial center at Point Serif And Mr. Speaker I am happy to report That the members of vendors attended And from my From all indications the workshop Went very very well to the Mr. Speaker It's part of The project to Rehabilitate the Castro's market Mr. Speaker Not just the physical Facade And the infrastructure But also Mr. Speaker To deal with the human development issues And the product development issues In many many years. Now Mr. Speaker We also saw Very very weak attempts By the members of U-Ford South To undermine The progress that we have been making And if there's ever been an enemy Of progress Mr. Speaker It is the members of U-Ford South Because As you follow him Mr. Speaker You can't help but to see That every time there is success Always has to find a way To Either mount a propaganda campaign Or either Blow smoke in people's eyes But sometimes Mr. Speaker When you Attempt to hurt others It boomerangs and it hurts you And I want to make reference Mr. Speaker Because he Raised here on the order paper today We came and there is a statutory Instrument Of concessions to Sandler's Resorts And he Implied Mr. Speaker That we were somehow Adjusting The concessions for Sandler's Which had expired This Mr. Speaker This Mr. Speaker Brings me To the case Brings me Mr. Speaker to the point Where Mr. Speaker The concessions clearly state Who That the concessionary period Was in 2013 To 20 It went on for 15 years So 15 years from 2013 Mr. Speaker 2028 Is where the concession period Ended But Mr. Speaker This is an example Mr. Speaker Of A broader effort And dated the ministry of tourism With as many as 30 odd Different SIs Which were Configured by the previous Administration And they were for various reasons They were Badly done Or they were illegally constituted When they were under the tourism Specific tourism legislation And so Mr. Speaker We are having to clean up A lot of these Including concessions given In one example by the previous Administration under the tourism Incentive Act To a particular hotel developer For diesel That is unprecedented Mr. Speaker And that is never I can't remember in my lifetime Ever hearing That a hotel receives A concession Incentive Act To get Fuel duty free And so maybe at another Junction Mr. Speaker The member for view for itself Would like to explain Where a hotel developer Has Been given concessions On diesel Mr. Speaker I will not call the name Of the developers Because I think that on this side We respect the people who have invested In St. Lucia And we are not here to undermine Or injure their reputation Even though they like to point out And call out sandals Mr. Speaker I also want to indicate That one of these statutory instruments That we are dealing with Is One whereby PAYE A concession was given by Mr. Speaker To a former company Which is now defunct when bankrupt And they were Allowed Mr. Speaker Concessions On taxes paid by Employees Now a government can I guess But Mr. Speaker What I find What I find What I find Mr. Speaker Ridiculous about this Is that These are taxes being paid by Employees I mean it is good to say We will give you concessions On taxes That you are supposed to pay Usually it's withholding tax Usually it's That Usually it's But PAYE Employees contributions Mr. Speaker To allow this to happen Mr. Speaker concessions to a hotel To buy a boat For the specific interest Of undertaking excursions And tours To compete with a sector Mr. Speaker thus far Which has been done principally By St. Lucian's Mr. Speaker Unprecedented Mr. Speaker To with the specific purpose Mr. Speaker To conduct tours And so Mr. Speaker Here we are An SI Mr. Speaker Which Was given by the AG's chambers Way before my time To say well clean this up Because we cannot bring this to parliament Right? You need to properly align this I have inherited all of the Uh This management and all of the Uh inefficiencies Mr. Speaker And so Mr. Speaker You'll be seeing several SI's That predates me Which will come to this honourable house Mr. Speaker But the truth Mr. Speaker To sum It hurts Mr. Speaker The honourable member for itself Also He suggested That This bill And the way that we have presented this bill Were by Removing from allowing the minister of tourism To elect Single-handedly All 12 directors Under the former SLTV regime Right? To now allowing the private sector To nominate Mr. Speaker He said that This is somehow Not a correct Assertion to say that we're Deeply deciding the board Mr. Speaker There's clearly a change here Whereby we allow the private sector to nominate The intent here is to give Our private stakeholders The opportunity Mr. Speaker To have the expectation That at least Three of the seven members So Mr. Speaker A lot of erroneous statements were made here today The other Statement erroneously made By the member for Viewfort South Was that He wanted us to be specific In terms of what a primary hotel And tourism associations But Mr. Speaker In his own constituency Writing his very backyard He has one of the biggest Associations And so Mr. Speaker If he's saying to me That the Southern Taxi Association Does not constitute A primary tourism Stakeholder organization Then I'll say I'll have to agree with him But I want him to say so Mr. Speaker In the presence Of the many hardworking taxi drivers From his own constituency Mr. Speaker I want him to say to me That the taxi union Mr. Speaker which is a national body For the All of the taxi Associations Mr. Speaker Is not a primary tourism association Mr. Speaker I want him to say to me That the Dayboat Charters Association Is not A primary stakeholder tourism association Mr. Speaker I want him to say to me Mr. Speaker That the Florida Caribbean and Cruise Line Association Is not a primary Stakeholder association And so Mr. Speaker What this does is that We came here and the intent Is to allow the minister The opportunity to choose from a wider pool And not confine himself To specific organizations Mr. Speaker there is an Organization in the south The Southern Tourism Development Association Or council or whatever it is called Mr. Speaker Where is that organization You don't hear anything about it And so Mr. Speaker Organizations come And organizations go And if you now confine yourself To what exists now The future may change And you will have to come back to this house To make changes all the time And so Mr. Speaker The intent here is to Clearly allow time To give this legislation The benefit of time And to also Mr. Speaker Widen the pool from which Human resources Can come from and so Mr. Speaker I want to Leave you with every assurance That this bill Is well constituted In my view Mr. Speaker and I think that The assertions We've heard from the opposition here today Mr. Speaker Does not constitute Any given reason As to why we should rethink Our position Mr. Speaker You know when You want to know who a doctor is You look at a man's record And if a doctor Has misdiagnosed A patient Mr. Speaker I would be foolhardy To go to that same doctor and ask him for advice And so Mr. Speaker If we Just allow me to divert a little bit If we look at What is happening With the Sin Jude scenario The same people who have failed To solve this cancer Called Sin Jude's Redevelopment And now coming to give Advice. The same people Mr. Speaker Who Constructed a deal On Roachamal And we were supposed to then Mr. Speaker Get shares For the government guarantee That was issued Mr. Speaker Constructed a deal where we lost Millions of dollars Of taxpayers' money And now they want to come to this honorable house And lecture us About what to do. I am sorry I listen to successful people When I need good advice And if I want A lawyer, I know where to find a good one Mr. Speaker, I thank you Honourable members The question is that the Sin Lucia Tourism Authority Amendment Bill be read a second time I now put a question As many as are Of that opinion see I As many as are Of a country opinion see no I think the eyes have it The eyes have it An act to amend the Sin Lucia Tourism Authority Act number 8 of 2017 Honourable members Clause 2 Interpretation Clause 2 stands part of the bill Clause 3 Amendment of section 7 Clause 3 stands part of the bill Clause 4 Insertion of new section 26A Clause 4 stands part of the bill Clause 1 Short title Clause 1 stands part of the bill Honourable members The question is that the Committee rises and the bill be reported I now put a question As many as are Of that opinion see I As many as are Of a country opinion see no I think the eyes have it Honourable members I beg to report That the Sin Lucia Tourism Authority Amendment Bill went through committee stage With no, without amendments The ability for tourism information And broadcasting Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I think I need to ask For your protection from the Excessive Excessive abuse from the opposition But you know Mr. Speaker We must never allow them to silence us In this democratic house Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I move That the report of the committee Then the bill be read a Third time and passed Honourable members the question is That the report of the committee be adopted And that the Sin Lucia Tourism Authority Amendment Bill be read a Third time and passed I now put a question As many as are Of that opinion see I As many as are Of a country opinion see no I think the eyes have it The eyes have it Then you know the Yeah Finally The attention you all I Have to remember When is it the When is there a When is it the That there is power and some of you members are members of standing committees. Let me just remind you, I know some members are not present, but for your record keeping purposes, I'll just remind you of the committees and the members. Public accounts committee, member for Cassie South East, member for Swazel, member for Cassie East as the Czech person, member for library and member for Cassie South. Standing order committee, member for Babono, member for Cassie Central, member for Vifot North, member for Cassie South and the speaker as the chairperson. House committee, member for Miku North, member for Miku South as the chairperson, member for Grosily, member for Cassie East and member for library. Regulations committee, member for Denry South, member for Cassie Central, member for Denry North, member for Cassie South and member for Cassie's, oh I think we have, yes. Cassie Central has already said. The no-chair person yet for this committee because this committee has not met and upon meeting the committee will so select the chairperson. Privileges committee, member for Cassie North, member for Souffre, member for Vifot North, member for Denry North and chairperson, the speaker. So just remind the members of that, we have various functions and roles to play and in fact during the debate would realize that the whole issue that in some instances our standing orders are silent and it would mean that time to time the speaker is being forced to take decisions and the standing order committee at least would have to meet. I know some time ago in the past there was the proposal for a joint committee to review the standing orders so we'll look into that. So I'm just reminding members of their role, honorable prime minister. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Before I close the session, it would be remiss of me if I did not also share your sentiments with regards to the members of parliament who have passed, particularly Mr. Ferdinand Henry and also Mr. Cyril Landers. But I also want to ask for the prayers tonight of a constituent of mine. Unfortunately, a couple of days ago Mr. and Mrs. Louise who were in Derrisso were violently attacked by an intruder wearing a mask. And Mr. Louise was slashed with a cutlass and his wife was also slashed as well. Mr. Louise or Steve was in ICU for the last couple of days and unfortunately passed away yesterday. So my heart felt sympathies to them. I know how traumatic it must have been but I also want to thank the solution police force who I understand have apprehended three people and I want to thank them for their swift action and hopefully that justice has served although Mr. Louise's life cannot be returned. So again, may his soul rest in peace. On this note, Mr. Speaker, I beg that the house be adjourned, sign the die. Honorable prime minister, before I put a question, I think all members will so join you in expressing condolences and sympathies to the Louise family. Before, let me define a thing. Honorable members, let me thank you from members from the staff of parliament for so approving the logo to be used by parliament. It's a logo that was developed way before this current parliament. I think I was told during the currency of Speaker Rosary's husband and then Clark Thomas. I know the staff will have been very, well I've anticipated the adoption of the logo and I know that in the coming weeks, I would say the logo will be put to use to identify parliament as being a co-equal branch of our government. Some of you may, well, we all should know that there are free branches of our government being the cabinet, the executive parliament and the judiciary and everybody seem to have had their own logo except for parliament using the coat of arms. So it's a step in the right direction, at least it's showing that parliament is a co-equal branch and we'd like to thank you very much on behalf of the staff because the idea of the design came from staff. So thank you very much for that. The question is now put that this how do standard joints sign a die? I now put a question as many as of that opinion, CI, as many as of a country opinions, you know. I think the eyes have it, the eyes have it. House is adjourned.