#BTColumn – After Tuesday’s pageantry – then what?

Bruce Campbell, in anticipation of the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Throne Speech following the prorogation of the Canadian parliament, was moved to write at “moments like these — pandemics, depressions, wars — are historical turning points, often marking a time period when fundamental change toward social and economic equality become possible”. Canada like Barbados has to respond to not only the effects of COVID-19 but also to the uncertainty of a global environment. For Campbell, Trudeau needed to “protect Canadians’ health and safety, support unemployed workers and help struggling businesses in this time of pandemic-induced shock”. I had hoped that one of the many paid advisers would have found time to read some of the efforts by governments to move forward after the recent shock. Unfortunately Barbadians were treated to the most boring and long-winded recitation of old promises, vague policy initiatives and a few side attractions designed to divert the public’s attention from the real world in which they live.

The world that confronts policymaking is steeped in growing inequality, race and class divisions, frightening global warming and an uncertain financial and economic options. The MAM administration presented the Governor General with a 55-page document that induced perspiration in an air-conditioned room.

All the stimulus packages were communicated back in May, June and July. Plans for the South Coast’s Sewage Systems have been repeated since 2018. The same is true of water woes in the north and eastern parishes, legislation to address integrity in public life, family court, appointment of public servants, restructuring the sugar industry and the trust loans and enterprise funds. A repetition of the diaspora and its importance, the value of the foreign offices, the pit eradication project, hurricane resistant roofs introduced in the budgets of 2018 and repeated in 2019.

Only once, and that was David Thompson’ 2008 administration, has a Throne Speech gone over 20 pages. What was Tuesday’s exercise about? Surely it provided MAM with an audience, an event to dress up and opportunity to reach the world stage and to remind Barbadians that MAM was Co-chair of the Development Committee of the World Bank and that Barbados will be hosting the United Nations Congress on Trade and Development. Her justification brought memories of the BLP’s opposition to former Prime Minister Sandiford’s efforts to construct the venue of Tuesday’s “sitting” when Barbados agreed to host the SIDS conference.

The opportunity also provided the MAM’s administration with a chance to play politics (never before done within a Throne Speech) and to repeat the absolute misrepresentation of the last decade. The irony of that oft repeated claim of a lost decade is that BLP-labelled chief architect Chris Sinckler, was called into service by MAM herself.

But the speech from the throne was also about deflection. Hence MAM seized the opportunity to return to marijuana, this time not about the promised plantations of the herb but about decriminalization. It also was good ground to raise republicanism and same sex marriages. The latter issue provides for another divisive debating topic that can engage the general public in religious, social and moral arguments that have no end. Republicanism is not an issue, the Stuart administration promised it and the last BLP administration spent money on consultations near and far only to push the issue under the bed. In any case referenda have been promised.

But the proof of any mix is in the eating and in this case the performance. The MAM opposition took issue with the printing of money and made heavy water of the fiscal debt policy of the Stuart administration. It has found a way through the BOSS to print money and will have to run huge deficits. For how long only God knows!  Barbados has borrowed its way to a foreign reserve comfort level but the debt has to be repaid. All these stimulus packages are worth nothing if they do not yield foreign exchange earnings and employment creation regimen. MAM has spent lots of taxpayers’ money on public relations. The news media have been kind if not generous to her. Barbadians have been tolerant accepting all her edges and frills as though they are a new fashion.

COVID-19 has shown the importance of workers to human survival, to health and safety. The ingredient in the socio-economic mix that is important to moving forward is productivity. MAM’s administration’s throne speech took aim but never fired ammunition to get the engines of growth moving forward. After the pageantry, we go not forward but nowhere making the exercise an opportunity missed to make a difference. But that is the nature of MAM just show!

Dr Derek Alleyne is a trade unionist, social commentator and member of the Democratic Labour Party.