Black Immigrant Daily News
On the afternoon of October 7, 2022, the Leader of the Opposition, Roy McTaggart, and other members of the Progressives held a press conference to discuss the rationale for their absence from Parliament that morning.
In response to questions from the media, McTaggart raised a number of concerns, including who he thought should be sitting in the Speaker’s chair, a change of the Parliament meeting agenda in favour of the government and a lack of consequences of the government’s motion in support of the government.
Each of these issues is examined below.
The Speaker’s chair
Regarding the Speaker’s chair, McTaggart intimated that the proper person to sit in the Speaker’s chair at this time is the Deputy Speaker, Katherine Ebanks-Wilks.
McTaggart said:
The fact is Mr Bush has resigned as Speaker and must demit the chair immediately and the Deputy Speaker sit as presiding officer as required by section 4(1)(b) of the Standing Orders.
Until this happens, it does not appear that the Opposition will entertain the idea of the Speaker sitting in the chair as presiding officer in Parliament.
Change of Parliament’s agenda
In relation to the business of Parliament for Friday, October 7, McTaggart suggested that the PACT government used a numbers game to force a change in the agenda for Friday’s meeting. The outcome of this, according to McTaggart, was that a motion in favour of the PACT government would be heard in Parliament first, rather than the motion of no confidence in the PACT government.
Explaining his position, McTaggart said:
Yesterday, when we went into the business committee meeting, the government used their superiority of numbers to replace our motion of no confidence in the government, which had been filed well over a week ago. Certainly, a week before they filed their own motion of confidence.
And they took and they replaced… we were scheduled to be the first item of business on the agenda on Wednesday when we were supposed to commence Parliament and rightfully so.
And they took it and yesterday afternoon they replaced it with their own motion of confidence in their government.
Consequences of motions
Commenting on the substance of the motion of confidence in the PACT government (now first on the agenda) versus the motion of no confidence by members of the Opposition, McTaggart said that the motion of the members of the PACT government had “very little consequences” and the motion amounted to the PACT government “singing their own praises”.
Our motion had real substance. A vote will have to be taken on people’s positions with regard to their support for and their confidence in the government.
McTaggart continued.
Repetitive arguments
McTaggart then posited that, if the Opposition had been present in Parliament to argue against the motion of confidence in the PACT government, they would have had to repeat the same arguments in the motion that would have followed, being a motion of no confidence in the PACT government.
In dealing with their motion, the principles… or arguments that we would likely make in opposing that motion are the same that we would be making when it came time to debate our own motion.
So, it will be a complete repeat, in my mind, of what would take place in debating the government motion of support for themselves, with no consequences whatsoever.
McTaggart explained.
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