Leader Perry G Christie Speech South Beach on March 9th 2012

Mon, Mar 12th 2012, 12:07 PM

Perry Christie Leader, Progressive Liberal Party Remarks: South Beach Candidate Launch Friday, March 9, 2012

GOOD EVENING SOUTH BEACH – CAN YOU HEAR ME? SOUTH BEACH -- I HEAR YOU ARE GOING GOLD THIS TIME! SOUTH BEACH -- I UNDERSTAND YOU’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN BAHAMIANS! SOUTH BEACH – YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE HERE IN HAMILTON? SHE’LL CARE FOR YOU LIKE A NURSE BUT SHE’LL FIGHT FOR YOU LIKE A LION!

Cleola Hamilton has it all – she is smart and she is tough and she is compassionate. You know, my mother was a nurse. Nurses are often the unsung heroes – the ones who combine the science of medicine with the love and caring that really helps patients heal. As a nurse and an advocate for nurses and for Bahamian workers, Cleola Hamilton is fierce and relentless.

They tell me Hubert Ingraham is afraid of her. I’m not speaking about her opponent down here now – I said Ingraham is afraid of her. She is relentless on behalf of those she represents, a warrior with the truth on her side, she won’t back down and she won’t back away! Isn’t that the kind of representation you need in the House of Assembly, South Beach? You all look so wonderful tonight – you look like Bahamians who deserve a fighter on your side! And it’s a good thing she’s used to working with doctors – we have six doctors on our team this year – with six doctors and a nurse we’re going to heal this country!

He joined us in voting for National Health Insurance in Parliament when I led the nation then abandoned it and now Bahamians are still holding cookouts to pay for medical procedures. Now, just before election, he wants you to believe that he will implement it. Of course, there’s no problem in The Bahamas that Ingraham won’t blame on the PLP. He’s been Prime Minister for 15 out of the last 20 years but all the bad stuff’s someone else’s fault. Does that sound like leadership to you, South Beach?

He won’t admit his terrible failure on crime. He won’t admit selling a majority share of BTC to foreigners for a fire sale price was a crime in and of itself. He won’t admit the roadworks in New Providence are the worst-mismanaged infrastructure project in the history of The Bahamas. The FNM slogan is “We Deliver”. Can you imagine that, South Beach? How out of touch do you have to be, to be surrounded by piles of rubble and closed roads and closed businesses, and still come up with a slogan like that? The worst cost overruns in the history of The Bahamas! I’ll tell you what they’ve delivered: Terrible incompetence! Endless delays! Missing accounts! Shady backroom deals! And no end in sight! They hired a foreign contractor instead of dividing up the work for Bahamian contractors….Bahamians on the sidelines when we needed jobs the most! They sent their Attorney General to court to fight small business owners who wanted to be compensated for the harm this government caused them! They deliver? They deliver pain and misery, that’s what they deliver. Hundreds of jobs lost -- they turned a project which was supposed to be a stimulus for the Bahamian economy into a jobs killer! They have delivered for foreign contractors and for special interests, but they have not delivered for Bahamians.

$93 million over budget! Hubert Ingraham strolls into Parliament and asks for tens of millions more like he’s asking for more peas and rice, like it’s no big deal whatsoever. As if adding nearly one hundred million dollars to the national debt is no big thing. As if having been caught violating the specific terms of international agreements is no big thing. Do you know how much work we’re going to have to do to clean up after him, South Beach? Almost a hundred million dollars overbudget. Do you know how urgently that kind of money is needed to address other needs in our nation? We need a major new investment in education and training, not just the crumbs they’re throwing your way now it’s election time. But when it comes to you, my friends, the cupboard is bare.

Don’t ask him to support real intervention for at-risk youth to prevent crime – oh no, he doesn’t have time or money for that, or any interest, either. You know, South Beach, Hubert Ingraham should be asking you for forgiveness, not for votes. He cancelled anti-crime initiatives like Urban Renewal and Witness Protection because they were PLP programmes. He made the recession worse by raising your taxes. He made the recession worse by failing to put Bahamians first. He hasn’t invested in you and he doesn’t believe in you. And their campaign – it’s disgusting. It’s a scorched earth campaign – with one lie after another churned out to avoid dealing with the real issues.

A murder record which has doubled, a decimated middle class, one in three young Bahamians out of work, our borders not secure, too many Bahamians without the skills or training they need to compete in the 21st century.

That’s what this campaign should be about – about the future, about how we build a safe and prosperous Bahamian nation. Instead, it’s one baseless attack after another from them. Weapons of mass distraction, I call them. You can picture it, can’t you? They’re sitting in some backroom with their lie machine fired up and ready – where do we aim it now, sir? One joker after another coming up with one distraction after another. They’re failing on the big issues so they want to have a campaign about their little lies.

The FNM may be rich in special interest money, but they have a poverty of ideas. SOUTH BEACH, HAVEN’T YOU HAD ENOUGH OF THIS WRECKING CREW? ARE YOU READY FOR CHANGE? ARE YOU READY FOR A NEW GENERATION OF PLP LEADERS? Ready to bring back Urban Renewal? Ready for all the innovative new ideas in the PLP’s Project Safe Bahamas? Ready for the PLP’s plan to create Career Path Academies? Ready for a government which will believe in you and invest in you? Ready to make sure Bahamians have access to the best technology, the best education and the best training? You should be ashamed of yourself Hubert Ingraham. Imagine bragging about how much unemployment benefit you’re paying to Bahamians, when your policies and your actions helped to put them out of work. Your bad decisions made the recession so much worse.

Imagine bragging about how many lights you put back on when your government told BEC to turn them off, in the first place!

DO YOU BELIEVE IN BAHAMIANS, SOUTH BEACH? WELL IF YOU DO LET ME HEAR YOU MAKE SOME NOISE FOR NURSE CLEOLA HAMILTON! I CAN’T HEAR YOU SOUTH BEACH … PLP! PLP! PLP!

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