Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly blot­ted tears, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is re­ceived sup­port as she fought hard not to break down and Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan has mourned the fact that he’ll be launch­ing late MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s “pet project” next week with­out her.

This, as min­is­ters and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley gath­ered yes­ter­day at the Par­lia­ment’s Red House ro­tun­da to sign the con­do­lence book for their de­part­ed col­league.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren, Je­si­ah, six, and Xi­anne, 25, per­ished when an ear­ly morn­ing fire rav­aged their Ari­ma home on Mon­day. Mor­ris-Ju­lian had been the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) D’Abadie/O’Meara MP since 2020. The depth of the trag­ic cir­cum­stances has plunged the PNM in­to deep mourn­ing and cast a pall of sad­ness over T&T.

The Par­lia­ment’s con­do­lence book was opened yes­ter­day, with pic­tures of Mor­ris-Ju­lian along­side. Host­ing dig­ni­taries were House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George, deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas. Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo signed the book in the morn­ing. Af­ter pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers, the first min­is­ter to sign was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Fitzger­ald Hinds.

Gads­by-Dol­ly, with whom Mor­ris-Ju­lian worked, was sad-faced as she wrote her con­do­lence note. As grief over­came her—halt­ing her writ­ing briefly—she was giv­en a tis­sue to dry her tears.

Al­so sign­ing the book were At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour and Min­is­ters Paula Gopee-Scoon, Amery Browne, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Symon de No­bri­ga, Allyson West, Has­sel Bac­chus, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Kaz­im Ho­sein and Mar­vin Gon­za­les, plus Sen­ate vice Pres­i­dent Dr Muhammed Ibrahim and MP Kennedy Richards.

Robin­son-Reg­is, who ar­rived at 12.27 pm, was on the verge of tears as she was em­braced by Browne, Sinanan, Ho­sein, Gon­za­les and Min­is­ter in the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry Avinash Singh.

Robin­son-Reg­is, who heads PNM Women’s League, had worked close­ly with Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who was league vice chair­man. Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Robin­son-Reg­is is al­so Gov­ern­ment’s leader in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, where Mor­ris-Ju­lian rep­re­sent­ed an­oth­er east­ern con­stituen­cy, D’Abadie/O’Meara. Gon­za­les, arm around Robin­son-Reg­is, led her to the desk where the con­do­lence book was lo­cat­ed. She was hugged at length by De Fre­itas, com­fort­ing her. Robin­son-Reg­is be­gan to write but over­come with grief sound­less­ly, she laboured to con­tin­ue.

Forde, An­nisette-George and De Fre­itas laid sup­port­ive hands on her and de­spite at­tempt­ing to con­tin­ue, she bowed her head and was again over­come with emo­tion. They sup­port­ed her through the on­set of tears. Robin­son-Reg­is swal­lowed hard.

Deyals­ingh pat­ted her back and she tried to re­sume writ­ing but dropped the pen and was again over­come with grief. She nod­ded her head sev­er­al times with eyes tight­ly closed. Cum­mings put both hands on her shoul­ders and bowed his head as if in prayer. Robin­son-Reg­is re­gained her com­po­sure short­ly af­ter, ris­ing from the seat. Ibrahim aid­ed her, clasp­ing her hand. She walked slow­ly away. Cum­mings re­mained at her side and she laid her head against his, both in sor­row

Robin­son-Reg­is was al­so deeply em­braced by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who ar­rived and al­so shook hands with Cum­mings and oth­ers.

Af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley ar­rived and greet­ed min­is­ters, Robin­son-Reg­is stood at Row­ley’s side as he wrote for sev­er­al min­utes. He sub­se­quent­ly spoke to Robin­son-Reg­is and An­nisette-George and re­spond­ed to Browne, who spoke to him as he left. Al­so sign­ing the book were Min­is­ters Bri­an Man­ning, Kei­th Scot­land, Stephen McLashie and tem­po­rary PNM Sen­a­tor Ndale Young.

Ro­han launch­es MP’s pet project next week

Works Min­is­ter Sinanan said his last rec­ol­lec­tion of Mor­ris-Ju­lian was dur­ing their at­ten­dance at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Christ­mas par­ty last Sat­ur­day and their con­ver­sa­tion had in­volved plan­ning their launch of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s pet project- the O’Meara Road Widen­ing ini­tia­tive.

Sinanan said, “Lisa was re­al­ly a livewire amongst us. Last Sat­ur­day, we hugged and gave each oth­er ‘fa­tigue’ and we al­so spoke about cut­ting the rib­bon for the O’Meara Widen­ing project. That is sup­posed to be next week.

“This was her ‘ba­by – a project she was re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to in her con­stituen­cy, a beau­ti­ful project. She and I turned the sod for it two years ago and the plan was to com­plete it be­fore this Christ­mas and open it. So, when we cut that rib­bon, she’ll def­i­nite­ly be up­per­most in my thoughts.”

“But when I cut the rib­bon to open it next week, I’ll be do­ing it in Lisa’s name,” Sinanan added.

Sinanan said it took him a while for the tragedy to sink in.

He said he didn’t re­call any­thing like Mon­day’s tragedy hap­pen­ing to a sit­ting MP or min­is­ter.

“That’s why at the end of the day any life that’s lost, some­body feels the pain. In this case, it’s some­one we in­ter­act with dai­ly and it re­minds us of what oth­ers have to go through. That’s why we must al­ways be sen­si­tive to oth­er peo­ple’s pain.”