339 Leave of Absence Wednesday, January 12, 2011 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Wednesday, January 12, 2011 The House met at 1.30 pm. Madam Clerk: Hon. Members, the Speaker has been unavoidably detained and the Deputy Speaker would be presiding. [MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair] PRAYERS LEAVE OF ABSENCE Mr. Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, I have received communication from the Hon. Dr. Rupert Griffith, Member of Parliament for Toco/Sangre Grande. The hon. Member is presently out of the country and has asked to be excused from sittings of the House during the period January 08, 2011 to January 23, 2011. The leave which the Member seeks is granted. CONDOLENCES Sir Ellis Clarke (Former President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago) Mr. Deputy Speaker: Hon. Members, this is the first sitting of the House of Representatives since the demise of the First President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Ellis Clarke. I now invite the House to extend tributes. The Prime Minister (Hon. Kamla Persad-Bissessar): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is undoubtedly no one who better symbolizes the aspirations and achievements, the optimism and the objective of Trinidad and Tobago through its modern national passages as does Sir Ellis Clarke. So it is for this reason and, of course, with your kind permission that I rise to pay tribute to Sir Ellis Clarke, who passed away after a lifetime of devoted and incomparable national service. Whilst we offer our condolences, it is our respectful view that it is insufficient and almost unfulfilling to simply express condolences and to say that Trinidad and Tobago has lost one of its noblest, brightest and statesmanlike sons. Sir Ellis fits comfortably all of these depictions, but in a substantive way he represented much more than a competent and illustrious national who rose to the highest offices, one who served the people with honour and excellence, wrapped in a personality of effortless simplicity. Sir Ellis was that and much more. 340 Condolences Wednesday, January 12, 2011 [HON. K. PERSAD-BISSESSAR] In a practical manner he embodied and spearheaded the critical political transitions of his beloved Trinidad and Tobago as it smoothly moved from colonialism to independence, to republicanism. He was a backbone visionary and personification of a timely twin-island state as it chartered an ambitious course away from the shelter of a colonial empire to a nationhood and then to its own identity and attributes as it acquired republican status and fitted among the countries of United Nations. Mr. Deputy Speaker, through it all, Sir Ellis was an unequal statesman, a repository of the ideals and traits that define the purpose and goal of this young aspiring society. To those qualities he added the values of graciousness, good humour and humility, and I am sure we will all remember his graciousness, his humour and his humility. His extensive and exalted role in the development and progress of our country is unique and without question. Indeed, for his vast contributions it may be said that there is no one in the annals of the modern history of Trinidad and Tobago who is more deserving of being acknowledged as a national patriarchal figure. Our country was indeed blessed to have had the loyal and devoted public service of Sir Ellis when he could have easily swapped his extensive knowledge and experience for wider gains in the private sector or in the international community. He was an incredibly rare human commodity who emerged and faithfully, served the most essential crossroads in Trinidad and Tobago’s modern history. In the other place I have indicated the unparallel manner in which the legacy of a supreme and consummate national, will be honoured and preserved. Mr. Deputy Speaker, in this regard you may recall that the Government has been deeply conscious of Sir Ellis vast contribution to Trinidad and Tobago, to the Commonwealth, particularly in matters dealing with constitutional reform, that we have announced outside this House and now to place on the record of this honourable Chamber, that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago will endow the Sir Ellis Clarke Chair in Commonwealth Parliamentary and Constitutional Issues. This Chair will be a major centre of learning available to and serving only Trinidad and Tobago but the entire Commonwealth as well as students of constitutional studies all over the world. It will be of immense value as governments everywhere seek to reform and adapt their constitutions to meet national needs, the pioneering work of our own Sir Ellis will be brought to bear 341 Condolences Wednesday, January 12, 2011 on future generations. This endowment will honour not only his work in a major field of government endeavour, but his legacy will continue to benefit students, researchers, scholars and Members of Parliament from all over the world in a field of study that was literally his passion and which is embodied in the essence of this House of Representatives, the seat of our democracy. Indeed, this is a way for his legacy to endure and continue to instruct for generations to come. Today, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I simply wish to herald and acknowledge a man who diligently and honourably served this nation and made it a better place for generations to come. On behalf of the Government and people of Trinidad and Tobago, we pay the highest possible tribute to one of our society’s greatest nation builders and the quintessential national spirit. May he rest in peace. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Dr. Keith Rowley (Diego Martin West): Mr. Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the PNM Opposition, those of us on this side, I would like to associate with all of the comments made by the Government on behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago on this occasion when we acknowledge the passing of, easily, probably the most unique of our citizens. It is quite likely that there may never be an opportunity again for an equivalent to Sir Ellis Clarke to emerge in this country. Sir Ellis Clarke did not only serve in high office, he actually conceptualized, helped to create the institutional framework within which those offices came into being and were made to serve our country. In his own life, as an individual, he came from that era when this country’s best offering as an opportunity for a young person was an island “schol”, and he obtained that distinction and proceeded not to use it for his own benefit, but to transform a colonial society and to live to see that transformation resulting in a situation where independent Trinidad and Tobago went on to become a republic with a republican Constitution wherein his fingerprints were also present. I do not believe, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it is likely—certainly not in our lifetime or in the foreseeable future—that a similar situation could ever arise where one of our citizens could be so called to act in such a situation and to have so distinguished himself as Sir Ellis did. We take pride as a people to have produced such a citizen and when we acknowledge that the Australians, who own a continent, are still striving with the opportunity and the thought of moving from a colonial status to a republican status, had to ask him to advise as to how Trinidad and Tobago did it, we speak, as the Prime Minister just spoke, about 342 Condolences Wednesday, January 12, 2011 [DR. ROWLEY] how smoothly we did it. The only reason we can speak now of it having been done smoothly is that of the input and the guidance of Sir Ellis Clarke and some of his contemporaries and for that we would be eternally grateful. Mr. Deputy Speaker, there are those who believe that the public service is where people go to have a good time; Sir Ellis Clarke would put the lie to that. Public service is where one can go, being the best that the country has to offer, and go there and change the country. He was the example of an individual change in a society, if not a region. Now we talk about a contribution to the Commonwealth as a whole, because we are not too small to give knowledge to the Commonwealth even though from time to time we learn from the Commonwealth; if today that Chair as offered to the Commonwealth comes to pass, as I expect it would be, we would once again be offering the best of Trinidad and Tobago to the world. So on this occasion, on behalf of all of us on this side, and I dare say on behalf of all of our colleagues in this House, we would want to say to Sir Ellis Clarke's family, thank you very much for the support you gave to him so that he could support us in the way he has done. He stands head and shoulders above most citizens as an exemplar to whom we can tell our children to aspire to that level and there is nothing higher. We say to those who believe that public service is not a good thing, there is honour and there is distinction in public service and we hope that there are people in our society today, even in the schools as I speak, who will see public service as a place to contribute to this country. May he rest in peace and thanks to Sir Ellis Clarke. [Desk thumping] Mr. Patrick Manning (San Fernando East): Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It would be very remiss of me if in circumstances like these I did not make a very brief contribution to the tributes that we are paying as Members of this honourable House to a son of the soil who almost had no other equal in Trinidad and Tobago.