Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

Lo­cal de­sign­er and jew­eller Gillian Bish­op has sub­mit­ted a de­sign for this coun­try’s new coat of arms. Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell con­firmed this, hours af­ter the Na­tion­al Em­blems of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Reg­u­la­tion) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 was unan­i­mous­ly passed in the Low­er House.

Mitchell said once the bill was passed and as­sent­ed to af­ter the de­bate in the Sen­ate, the change would be pro­claimed on a date to be fixed.

On Au­gust 28 last year, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Bish­op, who owns Sig­na­ture Col­lec­tion and has worked as a full-time jew­eller and craftswoman since 1972, was giv­en the as­sign­ment to draft a new de­sign for the coat of arms.

The Prime Min­is­ter did not re­veal how much Bish­op charged for the de­sign, but he said it would not cost hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. He said the cost of the change was min­i­mal and the on­ly re­al cost was chang­ing the tem­plate.

The de­sign­er re­frained from com­ment­ing when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Mitchell added that the bill al­so in­clud­ed a tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od for the change.

“It pro­vides for the cur­rent coat of arms to be used un­til Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, or such date as the min­is­ter may by or­der pre­scribe,” he said.

Row­ley said the three ships, the La San­ta María, La Pin­ta, and La Niña, should nev­er have been on this coun­try’s coat of arms, con­sid­er­ing they sym­bol­ised bring­ing Africans here like an­i­mals.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while the op­po­si­tion sup­port­ed the change, they had some sug­ges­tions.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Moru­ga/Table­land Michelle Ben­jamin called on the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress suit­able liveli­hoods for pan play­ers by cre­at­ing year-round op­por­tu­ni­ties for pan play­ers.

“We can­not af­ford to let an­oth­er gen­er­a­tion of pan play­ers strug­gle un­der this gov­ern­ment’s in­dif­fer­ence if we tru­ly cher­ish our cul­ture,” she said.

Mem­bers of Pan Trin­ba­go were seat­ed in the view­ing gallery of the Par­lia­ment to wit­ness the de­bate. In a press re­lease, pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore and the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive team proud­ly cel­e­brat­ed the his­toric mile­stone.

“The in­clu­sion of the steel­pan on the na­tion­al coat of arms is a defin­ing mo­ment for our na­tion. It sym­bol­is­es the re­silience, in­ge­nu­ity, and uni­ty of our peo­ple. Born from strug­gle, the steel­pan has be­come a bea­con of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al lega­cy and in­no­va­tion. This is a mo­ment for every cit­i­zen to stand tall and proud,” Ram­sey-Moore stat­ed. 

She said the five-clause amend­ment high­light­ed the steel­pan’s sig­nif­i­cance as a sym­bol of the na­tion’s her­itage, cul­ture, and iden­ti­ty.