It’s a ubiquitous scene in many major North American and British cities, the home away from home for the Caribbean diaspora, Bajans among them.
Politicians, most of them Cabinet ministers, routinely head these days for New York, Miami, Toronto, Houston, Boston, Montreal, London or Birmingham to meet and greet nationals. Opposition figures who must pay their own way are seen less often, although some of them do appear occasionally at townhall meetings or party political gatherings.
In the past 12 month the leaders of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines have travelled to New York to talk about government plans, answer questions and defend or explain their administration’s track record at home.
So it has been with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart. In the past eight months he has addressed Barbadians in New York, Washington, DC, Toronto twice, and this weekend he is to speak at a social function in London, also given by his party’s branch there.
“I have been invited by our [Democratic Labour Party] branch to speak and I have accepted the invitation,” Stuart told the Sunday Sun.
With an election due in Barbados by mid-April, the appearance of Barbados’ Cabinet ministers in the diaspora is increasing. Earlier this month, Denis Kellman was in Brooklyn to speak at a meeting of the Friends of Barbados DLP Association and Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite came to New York City last month.
Stuart was in Toronto last weekend where he addressed at least 200 Bajans attending the Errol Barrow Memorial Dinner at the Saints Peter & Paul Banquet Hall in Scarborough. It was arranged by DLP Barbados (Canada), the ruling party’s five-year-old arm.
“The birth of this branch has created a strong platform for Barbadians all over Canada to come together, united by shared objectives, for the development and growth of our beloved country,” said Stuart.
In his speech, he traced the record of successive DLP administrations, beginning with that of the late Errol Barrow, focusing attention on the range of programmes and social legislation they introduced, including free secondary and tertiary level education, the National Insurance Scheme, school meals, free bus fares for school children and leading Barbados into Independence.
“Against the background of all the party has done, I drew the conclusion that the party has served Barbados well. Its fingerprints are all across the country in every sphere of human and national endeavour,” Stuart said after the dinner.
“We have not, for a moment, broken our connection with the broad mass of the people of Barbados. Our policies must continue to be people-centred; our approach must continue to be humanistic; and, of course, the goal must always be the development of Barbados.”
While avoiding any mention of the major issues that may dominate the upcoming election campaign, whenever Stuart sets the date for people to go to the polls, he told the gathering that although the current economic climate, triggered by the global financial crisis, “imposed limitations on our ability to pursue our agenda as vigorously as we would wish” what “we must do is not waste the present economic environment, but we must use it to do the necessary restructuring so that when the crisis comes to an end we are ready for an energetic take-off.”
Stuart was introduced by Barbados’ High Commissioner to Ottawa Evelyn Greaves who in a printed message praised Barrow as an “outstanding Prime Minister, who introduced measures in the economic, social and political life of the country that cemented Barbados in the annals of developing nations as a significant leader”.
Reynold Austin, president of the 150-member DLP branch in Canada, said that in addition to supporting the party, the group had made “valuable contributions” to students and had given beds to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Although “young and vibrant” the Canadian branch had “a significant role to play as the party prepares itself for the most important event”, the Prime Minister said.
