Boosting the working population with more foreigners would help ease financial pressures on Bermudians claims the Opposition One Bermuda Alliance (“OBA”) party.
The OBA’s reply to the budget has suggested that the ruling Progressive Labour Party acknowledges behind closed doors the need for more expatriate workers in Bermuda despite public proclamations to the contrary. The Opposition posits that the island needs an attractive immigration policy and they expect to see some form of the controversial Pathways to Status policy returned for consideration.
The reply to last week’s budget speech was given by the Opposition’s finance spokesperson in the House of Assembly Patricia Gordon-Pamplin as shadow finance minister Nick Kempe sits in the Senate. When reading the OBA’s response, Ms Gordon-Pamplin warned immigration could be “Bermuda’s Brexit” because it is dividing the country and causing uncertainty in business. She noted that the fundamental inhibitors to growth in the territory remain the same from the OBA’s time in government.
“A clear and welcoming immigration policy is needed to ensure that we can attract the global expertise and capital needed to grow our stagnant economy and drastically increase our working population… Furthermore, it is essential that we arrest the exodus of long-term contributors to our economy.”
Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, OBA Spokesperson
In her 26-page response, Ms Gordon-Pamplin cited the 2018 annual report of the Fiscal Responsibility Panel, which acknowledged that expanding the workforce was the only realistic way to counterbalance the demographic challenge faced by the island due to a rapidly shrinking and ageing population. She lamented the fact that long term residents felt little or no incentive to spend their discretionary income or retain their savings on the island and instead invested these funds overseas. She challenged Premier David Burt to pass the necessary immigration reform legislation.
Ms Gordon-Pamplin acknowledged that at some point the government must allow expatriate workers and their children who have resided in Bermuda for an extensive period of time to formalise their relationship with the territory and suggested that the public face of the government’s political policy did not match what was being said in private and in meetings with international business.
The House heard that an increased residential, working population would help alleviate many issues including debt, through greater payroll tax collection and local spending, a reduction in healthcare costs and could even help to meet the new economic substance requirements as businesses must do more to justify their presence in Bermuda. She argued that encouraging Bermudians who have moved abroad to return would not have the required effect without also increasing the number of expatriate workers.
