Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Join hands across Par­lia­ment’s aisle and col­lab­o­rate on how to stem crime, now that there are sig­nals from both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion lead­ers that there is a chance of more mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion than be­fore.

Such was the ad­vice from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to the mem­bers of all sides of the 13th Par­lia­ment, which was launched yes­ter­day.

And Kan­ga­loo, re­lat­ing her per­son­al loss of two sib­lings to road traf­fic ac­ci­dents, has plead­ed with Par­lia­ment that what­ev­er is done re­gard­ing the de­mer­it point sys­tem, there is a com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing en­hanced safe­ty on roads and re­duc­ing road fa­tal­i­ties.

The Pres­i­dent’s ad­dress, which con­tained oth­er sug­ges­tions to Par­lia­ment to ben­e­fit cit­i­zens, was the high­light of yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the term at the Red House, Port-of-Spain.

Kan­ga­loo, who in­spect­ed a mil­i­tary guard of ho­n­our out­side of the Par­lia­ment, lat­er ad­dressed the packed House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives cham­ber. She con­grat­u­lat­ed the new Pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers and again con­grat­u­lat­ed the new­ly elect­ed UNC Gov­ern­ment on its re­cent suc­cess at the polls.

Kan­ga­loo said, “You have earned an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment and, with it, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to use your sig­nif­i­cant man­date, wise­ly and ju­di­cious­ly. Spe­cial con­grat­u­la­tions to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter on your his­toric re­turn to that po­si­tion, and on be­ing the on­ly fe­male ever to have held it.”

Kan­ga­loo said now that the elec­tion is over, the coun­try turns its at­ten­tion to its lead­ers, in­clud­ing to all in the Par­lia­ment, to help chart for it a new way for­ward. Cit­ing Sec­tion 39 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, she not­ed that the Par­lia­ment con­sists of the Pres­i­dent, the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“I’d like to think that, as we em­bark on this col­lec­tive jour­ney to­geth­er, the coun­try is off to a good start. The elec­tion of a new gov­ern­ment tends to have the ef­fect of in­spir­ing a new zeal and a feel­ing of fresh en­thu­si­asm. This has been as true, in the case of the elec­tion of this new gov­ern­ment, as it has been fol­low­ing the elec­tion of every new gov­ern­ment since in­de­pen­dence,” Kan­ga­loo said, cit­ing a smooth, seam­less, peace­ful tran­si­tion from the for­mer gov­ern­ment to the new one.

The new Gov­ern­ment has, “with com­mend­able alacrity” iden­ti­fied key ar­eas and ini­tia­tives which it pro­pos­es to ad­dress and im­ple­ment both in the short term and over the medi­um and longer term,” Kan­ga­loo not­ed.

“The Gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled clear­ly what are the pri­or­i­ties it will be fight­ing for, both in terms of pol­i­cy and leg­is­la­tion. One of the ar­eas that Gov­ern­ment has iden­ti­fied for leg­isla­tive in­ter­ven­tion, is the area of crime. I last had the priv­i­lege of ad­dress­ing Par­lia­ment in 2023. On that oc­ca­sion, I called for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to put aside their par­ty ri­val­ries, join hands across the aisle, and col­lab­o­rate on how to stem crime and crim­i­nal con­duct,” Kan­ga­loo said.

“I re­new that call to­day, with even greater ur­gency, but with greater hope—in light of the ini­tial sig­nals from the lead­er­ship of both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion, that we might well be at the start of a Par­lia­ment in which there is the chance of more mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion than be­fore.”

Lat­er in the ses­sion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, in de­liv­er­ing re­marks on the term, each al­lud­ed to the crime is­sue.

Calls for fo­cus on road safe­ty

Kan­ga­loo cit­ed—with apolo­gies—an area of sug­gest­ed par­lia­men­tary ac­tion which she said was deeply per­son­al. She said she had read that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to do away with the de­mer­it points sys­tem.

Kan­ga­loo said, “De­mer­its points sys­tems, in gen­er­al, have the goal of safe­guard­ing road users. Road ac­ci­dents cause death and dis­abil­i­ties. They al­so cause un­bear­able men­tal an­guish and long-last­ing trau­ma. Sad­ly, many of us here to­day have felt this an­guish and still live with this trau­ma.

“In my own case, one evening in 1993, I re­ceived a call from a po­lice­man telling me that my on­ly sis­ter, a da­ta en­try clerk, had been killed in a mo­tor ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent. The an­guish and the pain I felt then, are still with me to­day. In 2012, I re­ceived an­oth­er call, telling me that my broth­er, act­ing chief jus­tice at the time, had been in a ter­ri­ble ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent, which it was not ex­pect­ed that he would sur­vive.”

Kan­ga­loo said her broth­er sur­vived for a year, with se­vere dis­abil­i­ties.

“Even as I speak these words to you to­day, the pain of these loss­es still weighs me down. As I’ve said, I know that thou­sands of cit­i­zens share the same pain. Clerk or chief jus­tice—it can hap­pen to any of us. I there­fore plead with Par­lia­ment that, what­ev­er is done in this area, Par­lia­ment com­mits to en­sur­ing en­hanced safe­ty on our na­tion’s roads and to re­duc­ing road fa­tal­i­ties and re­lat­ed in­juries.”

Kan­ga­loo said she was ex­treme­ly pleased the Gov­ern­ment has, in cre­at­ing a Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, height­ened recog­ni­tion of the im­por­tance of AI.

“For all of its po­ten­tial to do good, re­search shows that, with­out proac­tive reg­u­la­to­ry in­ter­ven­tion, AI can pose a va­ri­ety of so­cial and eco­nom­ic risks. These in­clude dis­plac­ing large seg­ments of the work­force, con­cen­trat­ing eco­nom­ic pow­er in the hands of a few dom­i­nant play­ers, and ex­ac­er­bat­ing in­equal­i­ty. There is, there­fore, the view that, where AI is con­cerned, so­ci­ety ben­e­fits if leg­is­la­tors an­tic­i­pate risks be­fore they ma­te­ri­alise, and es­tab­lish legal­ly en­force­able stan­dards to pre-emp­tive­ly pro­tect against sys­temic fail­ures, un­eth­i­cal prac­tices, and threats to mar­ket in­tegri­ty.”