 Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker Let me lend my voice in sending my best regards to the speaker and hopefully whatever is preventing him from being in the house today that hopefully that would be resolved quickly and to his best interest Also, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I want to take this opportunity to wish all the beautiful women in St. Lucia Happy Valentine's Day Okay, well I think all the women in St. Lucia are beautiful So let me clarify that I believe they're all beautiful and I also particularly want to say to the women here who are here at Parliament also to congratulate them and hopefully they have an enjoyable day tomorrow and to all of my constituents as well Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker Let me first of all deal with something that the Prime Minister has brought up because this government, Mr. Speaker, has a habit of whenever they use the word putting people first it really is about putting politics first and they continue to go down that path every day We saw that when they came in to change village tourism to community tourism we saw a whole bunch of other projects all it simply was a change of names no real sense of any change and I would don't even mind the name change, Mr. Speaker if in fact that they were even better at executing it but the fact is that everything they touch nothing happens So let me speak specifically, Mr. Speaker before we get to it and again, we've reiterated this point many times but I've learned that with this government and particularly with the members of Parliament that despite bringing out what the truth is and debunking the rhetoric that they come up with you have to say it over and over and over and over again before it sings in So Mr. Speaker, I speak specifically to the Social and Economic Review on page 40 and it's a cautionary note for the 2022 budget and it says, Mr. Speaker information contained in the annual Labour Force Report by the Central Statistics Office CSO is a result of the household Labour Force survey conducted during 2022 is aimed at providing information about the level of participation of household members in the Labour Force and the size of the Labour Force aged 15 years and above engaged in economic activities The CSO always strives to ensure that our procedures and processes for the implementation of the Labour Force survey are in keeping with the proven mythologies. Therefore, the results represent the correlated responses of a sample of households interviewed during the period in question and not the opinion of the Central Statistics Office Results from the sample surveys are always estimates not precise figures Additionally, for the period under the review, the CSO collaborates with the ILO for verification of the Labour Force results This is due to the question of the Labour Force survey about what they call, quote, discouraged worker which is taken into account by the CSO in the calculation of the unemployment rate. For the results of this period do not correspond to the data collected from the period of 2020 to 2021 which normally runs for a quarter. So in essence Mr Speaker, I'll provide more detail The mythology that was used to collect the Labour Force data in 2022 was not the same mythology that had been used in previous years and that is why I stood and I will stand repeatedly on a point of order when the Prime Minister Minister of Finance continues to make the statement that this is the lowest unemployment level ever he says since 2010. Mr Speaker that is not an accurate statement because you're not comparing apples and oranges It says, and very importantly Mr Speaker, additionally for the period under review the CSO, which is the Central Statistics Office collaborated with the International Labour Organization ILO for verification audit of the Labour Force results. In this regard, it should be noted that the unemployment rate calculated by the ILO is less than reported by the CSO. So the IOL mythology produces a number that is less than what the CSO itself has achieved. So the ILO definition persons who did not work nor had a job during the reference period weak, seeking work and available to work. In the case of the CSO Mr Speaker it has that but it also adds a component which is discouraged workers and it says persons who want to work during the week ending even if they are not getting job or available to start. So the note ends with Mr Speaker very important. It says despite the current setbacks the CSO has made every attempt to provide you with accurate and reliable data based solely on what was obtained at the time and therefore has reverted to its pre-COVID 19 mythology of data collection for the Labour Force Survey. Any use of the results needs to take into consideration the aforementioned limitation. That's the footnote. So Mr Speaker I certainly hope that when Prime Minister in his hopefully upcoming budget presentations wants to speak about unemployment that we make sure that we are comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. Mr Speaker this bill is a very important bill but I sat patiently to listen to the more learned persons on this subject and particularly I waited for the Minister of Education to speak. Because it is his ministry that is going to be executing this program. And I was hoping that the traditional and normal deficiencies that we obtain in the Prime Minister's presentations would seem to be void of any facts. All we are talking about is putting people first in a very general sense but there is absolutely no meat to substantiate Mr Speaker where we are going with this expenditure. Four categories of expenditure that we are going to be doing and sharing with the OECS. Mr Speaker why do I know that we are in trouble? I know we are in trouble because the level of detail the level of detail that you would have expected both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education to have shared with us in this house today was not there and I know why I know it is because this government Mr Speaker has no plan and has never had a plan so when we talk about we are going to go and do training for jobs and we want to speak in general terms and everybody gets all excited as if that instant lusia, every single type of job that is available in the rest of the world is available in solutions it is not true the plan is required because we need to know where is the emphasis of growth of this government where are the new jobs going to be coming from so that when we are training our young people that we know that once we have trained them once we have trained them that we will be they will be able to get a job we also want to know Mr Speaker in this training program that if I have a job in an industry now and the question is after another 10 or 15 years and I am still doing the same thing and because I am doing the same thing I cannot get an increase in my salary so Mr Speaker let's take a room attendant let's take a waitress they stay there for years earning the same salary and after 10 years become disgruntled because they don't know why they are not able to make any more money and the reality is is because they have not been trained to add any additional value to the job that they are doing any business person if you in fact going to be under pressure Mr Speaker and you have a person who has not progressed in the job and the same skill sets that they had when they came in year 1 are the same skill sets that they have in year 10 and they want to get paid more I don't think that this government has any appreciation of how the business works in fact I am looking around the table how many of them have been self employed Mr Speaker how many of them have ever run their own businesses Mr Speaker how many of them really understand the detail of what it takes so all I am saying to you Mr Speaker Mr Speaker when I look at this government there is no plan where is the jobs what focus the prime minister said he has a focus the only focus he has is on politics there is no other focus he has always justifying putting people first how many new jobs are you going to have what areas are those jobs going to be in Mr Speaker nothing nothing Mr Speaker where is the economic development plan we heard him say the public service cannot keep absorbing people okay so where is it going to come from where it can of course it can you know Mr Speaker the minister of education is really displaying his naivety he is asking me the question Mr Speaker can the public service absorb more people the reality is if in fact in their own words that they are going to modernize and digitize the public service the idea of going to an office to file your taxes the idea of going to an office to get your driver's license the idea to go to offices to get your things all of that is going to change so in max we may have the same number of jobs paying a higher salary because those persons are going to be adding a greater level of value where is the training for public service knowing that this transition is taking place where is it I don't know if it's embedded in this program because nobody's provided any details Mr Speaker not one detail to tell us how many new jobs are going to be created where are those areas going to be created where are the gaps that we have Mr Speaker tourism how many more hotel rooms are we going to get how many more Mr Speaker manufacturing what are the manufacturing needs for our persons Mr Speaker in the area of agriculture we talked about young people don't want to do agriculture the same way and we are going to have to modernize is there money in here we will be now transitioning to a more mechanizing but we don't know we don't know Mr Speaker we've heard nothing Mr Speaker Mr Speaker public service we've just talked about it in the area of services Mr Speaker as the economy grows hopefully it grows I don't have lost all confidence that it will grow under this government Mr Speaker but what are the areas and services that are going to be growing are we going to have just more grocery stores what are they going to be so we need to know specifically so Mr Speaker when the members on the opposite side want an example let me give them an example when we talked about the development of the south the same DSH the same Ojo he has horses why horses Mr Speaker because DSH was bringing a new industry to Saint Lucia in building a horse racing track on an international basis and would have created permanent jobs for the maintenance of horses for veterinarians of the horses for the mechanization of the gaming systems that we were going to be putting in Mr Speaker and more importantly Mr Speaker the same guys who are running on the Kakabef now can now become real jockeys and not only be able to get to be able to ride horses in Saint Lucia bareback on the street but they now would be able to participate nationally and be able to race around the world Barbados on a secondary horse racing track has been able to achieve that Jamaica has been able to achieve that Trinidad has been able to achieve that there are examples all throughout the Caribbean all throughout the world that horse racing is an international sport Mr Speaker Mr Speaker yes but he would have created jobs nonetheless created jobs nonetheless Mr Speaker just like with a golf course Mr Speaker so it doesn't mean you're not going to have pros it doesn't mean you're going to have green keepers it doesn't mean you're going to have all those people it generates jobs and the same thing Mr Speaker no Mr Speaker well tomorrow is the day of love Mr Speaker so Mr Speaker take Ojo Labs what are we doing we're creating I don't know no please do Mr Speaker please do Mr Speaker when we brought those companies to Saint Lucia was to create jobs that did not exist in Saint Lucia Mr Speaker we saw the success of some of the call centers KM squared being one of them we knew that it was not because we saw the growth of the call centers in Jamaica we saw the growth of the call centers in Central America and when the tests were done on our workforce here they rated very highly Mr Speaker the same Ojo with AI which is now exploding around the world think the prime minister then called mind bending technology this is growing sector Saint Lucia was the first in the Caribbean to bring a company that was using artificial intelligence and instead of this government embracing them and wanting them to grow and they're paying Mr Speaker salary starting at $3,500 one out of every eight people in Ojo was getting 8,500 I have one of my constituents from Duga had no job and Ojo was able to build a home make a life for herself and develop skills now that are international Mr Speaker we can't come to this house and just speak vaguely about these things when we talk about the same Saint Jude's hospital Mr Speaker you want to go in and use an 80 year old building instead of moving into a modern building purposely built and instead now Mr Speaker member for Castry Central member for Castry Central Mr Speaker on a point of order member for Castry Central yes Mr Speaker on a point of order the leader of the opposition cannot stand here in this other chamber and continue to perpetuate lies he overtly said that this government is using an 80 year old building he needs to tell us which building is the 80 year old building that we are using stop the lies Mr Speaker I shall continue Mr Speaker the NAT program national apprentice program was to identify young people to give them an opportunity to develop their skills in tourism because there was a clear ambition to double the number of hotel rooms Mr Speaker and an ambition I'm hoping that this current government will continue to aspire for I think that they recognize now that they must but if we cannot wait for the hotels to be built Mr Speaker and then start trading people the intention was is that the cruise industry Mr Speaker was taking our young people after they had spent five years in a hotel they invested five years to train the staff members and that that young person would leave as they were getting into their people so in talking to the cruise industry Mr Speaker we realized that we can do a certificate program and it turned out that certificate program was six months Mr Speaker all we had to do was to train them in classroom and practical trading for six months we got the cruise industry Mr Speaker to agree to do what young people and agree that they would be paying back the loan off of their salaries and it would go directly to the bank in addition to that Mr Speaker Norwegian cruise lines and I really want to thank them put it in an added incentive that if a young person stayed for two contract peers the cruise ship paid off the loan in its entirety why is that all of important why is that detail important Mr Speaker to put in while you're going to have some people that may may not pay back but the idea is for the majority too so that the next set of people that come that the same money that they benefited from that they could get now when they come back they have now participated at tourism at the highest level because on a cruise ship a cruise ship is like the UN you have workers from all around the world United States and it comes all over and there's a skill set that our young people learn about tourism that they cannot learn here in St. Lucia in our narrow place and when they come back all the hoteliers will tell you all the restauranters will tell you you can when you go to a restaurant you can see exactly who was working on the cruise ship it's a free education and they would have developed a skill set and this is the same thing that's taking place in Europe Mr Speaker three quarters of the workforce in Europe did not go to university TVET training and that TVET training was aligned to the industries that they were in I have not heard one person here speak about that alignment to know that we're going to spend this money and that when those young people get out that not only are they going to get a job but they're going to get a job that's going to create a career for them and that we understand that what we are facing we have high cost here the one thing that we have that can differentiate is our workforce in the call centers our ability to multi-task has been significantly better so when you talk about ITEL BPO how fast they were able to grow here and how did ITEL BPO come here when there was a problem in Jamaica Mr Speaker during COVID and the ITEL call center got shut for a while they created an opportunity we made phone calls and luckily for us two of the companies came here right away I would not want to know what would be happening in the south today if the Ojo Labs and ITEL BPO jobs were not there and can we not continue it's not just in training of persons but it's in putting physical infrastructure in Mr Speaker to facilitate the growth of that sector we took old warehouses that were empty producing nothing and converted them to call centers why can't more of that happen all around the St Lucia when was the last time the minister had a meeting with the call centers when she was minister last time she refused to meet with them excuse me no I am not Mr Speaker I've realized I've realized I've realized Mr Speaker I'm starting to realize more and more that when we speak here there are so many people of wisdom that they all had the ideas but the difference was they may have had ideas but they couldn't execute it and that's why we always say that SLP suffers from labor pains and now you've got the captain of all captains the lazy roller himself so that's why with roads you think you all have any moral authority to come to this house or even publicly and speak about roads you're the ones who said people can't eat roads and now you want to come and talk about a special fund a special fund, everybody knows what you're going to be doing you're going to take CIP funds our passport money and put it so that you can now go and do infrastructure and ports and you're going to give third party people the money so why don't you collect the money yourself and fund the roads yourself why are you having to go and do a third party the same thing the former prime minister said with OECS why do you have to go and find the third party dude what but that's what we were doing an economic fund come on so now you know people sit there people are so foolish you're going to go now and create through the enterprise program a new project, a new thing that people can now do donations and put monies into an enterprise and who's the enterprise going to be? Galaxy or GPH which one? any third party you want and so you're going to take monies that should be going into your own account Mr. Speaker and putting it into the hands of a private sector person on the hopes that they're going to build something at what cost and that's even if the CIP program is going to be there for much longer because the way that they're managing the CIP program it's not long before they shut it down just like what happened in Dominica Mr. Speaker this is a government that is void of a plan is void of ideas and while I so much welcome this initiative I am scared that a great opportunity that is being presented to us is not going to be used correctly because they don't have a plan they have no idea who they're supposed to be training what they're supposed to be training young people for where is the linkages where is the where is the synergy on developing our country but you see the problem is they maligned foreign direct investment they demonized tourism they did all of these things while they're in opposition and now they're having to come back and eat humble pie just like with the Pantry Building well when you all break down the Pantry Building break this down and break the Ministry the courthouses down as well go and look at the plans that were put on paper as to how to develop castries but no again you all think you all know everything but you all know nothing and whether you want to accept it or not Mr. Speaker it's not my word just go and speak to the people and hear what they think about your administration think of what the mal-administration and for a later date we'll talk about healthcare we'll talk about security in this country Mr. Speaker but today a very important component is education I want to come here like you did something to get this loan the World Bank recognized 12 years ago that both health and education needed to be treated as capital investments if you're going to grow your country you have to grow the capacity you have to make sure they're healthy you also have to make sure they're well educated but that takes a plan it takes a commitment and it's not about just words it has to be much more significant and I have not heard anything here today Mr. Speaker that would give me any comfort nor should it give any other solution comfort that they're going to use this opportunity that they found on their lap appropriately and to make sure that the young people of this country and the workforce of this country are going to get jobs that they have great careers of jobs they can raise their families on jobs in which yes they can become international and raise their own standard of living that should be the aspiration and I did not hear any of that today Mr. Speaker thank you