Opinion: Marc Bean On Vision For Bermuda
[Opinion column written by Opposition Leader Marc Bean]
This season of graduations represents a period of optimism and hope for so many of Bermuda’s young people. Throughout the island, we are hearing the positive stories of our young people who are thriving in our schools and of those who have completed their education and are returning home to make their mark on Bermuda.
To the young Bermudians who have successfully completed their current educational level, I wish to extend my warmest congratulations and encourage you to be a “life learner.” Someone who is constantly seeking greater knowledge to improve yourselves, converting that knowledge into wisdom and using both to improve your lives and the lives of those around you.
To our university graduates, you are entering perhaps one of the greatest periods of economic and career uncertainty in our history. You will have to work harder, sacrifice more and dig deeper into your reserves of creativity, diligence and patience to make your way in this new Bermudian and global economy. Yet be not be discouraged. As Bermudians, we have displayed an innate ability to adapt, create and patiently create opportunities for ourselves. We have done it before and we can do it again.
It is the PLP’s position that Bermuda must work for Bermudians. That’s why we are constantly pushing solutions to spur job creation, improve our schools, expand training opportunities and build a Bermuda that places Bermudians first in jobs, entrepreneurship and opportunities.
We have an obligation not only to open the doors for Bermudians in terms of world-class education but also to keep those doors open through policies that prevent, expose and eradicate anti-Bermudian hiring practices, expand access to capital and cut through the red tape that impedes Bermudians from starting their own businesses.
This vision is spurred by the anguish of parents who have sacrificed much to educate their children only to hear that they are “overqualified” or “underqualified” when seeking opportunities to use their education in our own country.
This vision is driven by the frustration of our young people who, despite their educational and personal accolades, continue to be forced to train others with less education and ability to one day become their boss.
This vision is a response to the cries of Bermudians who believe that Bermuda never has and never will work for them.
Our vision is a Bermuda that works for Bermudians. Together let us make that vision a reality
- Marc Bean
I got about half way through your article and had to cease reading any further…You are full of it Mr. Marc Bean! If you mean / meant any of what you’ve written then while the Progressive Labour Party were our Government for all them years(14yrs.) then wasn’t that the time you all would have, could have and should have done all the ingenious ideas you lot seem to now acknowledge
Tell me one thing, “why hadn’t you not seen it then?”
Says someone , a Bermudian , whose best years were the years living under the PLP reign . Very hypocritical Mr. Ray .
Are you referring to the BOOM from the PLP overheating the economy from their Boom and BUST approach, or are you just gesturing.
Nope , it’s the fantastic lifestyle Mr. Ray continues to enjoy , which by the way started while the PLP were the government .
So just gesturing it is then
Nope , I’m talking from a point of knowledge .
So am I
Well said Mr. Bean, keep standing strong. Many are with you on this and Bermuda’s Future moving forward. The youth are standing with you !! Well said.
Of course you’re on board with this betty lmao. U are paid to be. Hahaha
The youth were crushed by the PLP, how devious of Bean to try and curry favour with words.
Granted, my life is a life many envy, but the reality of it being this way had nor has anything to do with the Progressive Labour Party and their heyday while reaping the profits of Bermuda and its people…(Now “Coffee” you’ve heard it from the horses mouth)
Coffee, is just another of the Bettie’s, pure nonsense is all you will hear from that troll!!! You are spot on with the plp who in their infinite wisdom, over heated the economy with doing large government construction projects while we already had many large private construction projects underway!! All that did was increase the cost of construction and when it crashed, it crashed big time!!! All the while they were putting protectionist policies in place ( chasing the IB workers out here ) and they thought that would work??? I will not go as far this time in calling the plp bunch of incompetents when it comes to this because, I have a very strong suspicion why they did all the government construction when they did, and it is my and many other people’s belief!!!!
What !
And when you look at the economic policies, or lack there of, of the PLP in those years, you realize that they had very little to do with it. They just indulged in it, when they should have been using it to fix our faltering infrastructures, like education and healthcare. it was IB business and the policies that built the infrastructure for them that created the boom, it was the PLP’s excesses and financial mismanagement that made the bust worse for Bermudians when it came.
10 of the PLP’s biggest blunders in History;
1. Dr. Brown
2. T.C.D
3. Uighurs.
4. Term Limits.
5. Taxes.
6. Cruise Dock.
7. Colonel Burch.
8. BHC
9. Faith Based Tourism.
10. Berkeley.
iT is the PLP’s position that Bermuda must work for Bermudians. That’s why we are constantly pushing solutions to spur job creation, improve our schools, expand training opportunities and build a Bermuda that places Bermudians first in jobs, entrepreneurship and opportunities.
We have an obligation not only to open the doors for Bermudians in terms of world-class education but also to keep those doors open through policies that prevent, expose and eradicate anti-Bermudian hiring practices, expand access to capital and cut through the red tape that impedes Bermudians from starting their own businesses.
This vision is spurred by the anguish of – Marc the PLP should have seen the anguish in Bermudians faces and lives when your party was looking out for somebody elses interests not those of Bermudians thus causing our jobs, homes, families, Education You may forget but we won’t we will always remember
World class education? Can you name one thing the PLP did to improve our public education system? Kids are leaving school without the ability to do basic arithmetic. What did the PLP do to change that? Besides blame the mess on something the UBP did back in the nineties (something they did NOTHING to undo while they had the opportunity).
Vision…no plan.
If that is what he qualifies as a vision, it is incredibly short sighted. A vision should be a defined plan, not a fluff references to what we already know needs to happen. For 14 years they lived of the success of an economy that was booming with little work from the government, and when it went into decline, the only economic plan we received was ‘wait and see’, ‘we will ride this out’. After this fluff piece I have even less faith that they have put anymore thought into what to do, than they did then, it reads like a rally speech designed to appeal emotion rather than intellectual and that is all I have come to expect from the PLP, which is a crime as Bermuda and Bermudians need more from a party that wants to be Governement.
Yeah, he needs to sit back and let the OBA take care of business.
Drywallers and nail technicians were among the brilliant ideas of the PLP.
14 years of playing silly buggers with Education and you suddenly now are the all-caring party. Please….
Don’t forget the long-line fishing industry and deep sea-bed mining for all those unemployed Bermudian mining engineers. And how can we forget the Dockyard Airport proposal for times when the St. George’s airport is socked in with bad weather.
Oh yes. And all the while feigning support for the Blue Halo Project and the “No take” concept to show how environmentally conscious they are.
Aceboy, hello? Did you just say something rooted in reality?
Yes you did.
We are experiencing the PLPBIU “vision” quite sufficiently at the moment, thank you.
Sounds like a borrow spend policy that put us in this mess. The PLP have learned nothing.
SMDH
Great, I am Bermudian born and raised, and I find Bermuda is working great for me and my family. Vision accomplished.
I attended the best public school on the island in the 80s and then Bermuda College – CHECK
I received a first class university education – CHECK
I was short listed for all job interviews because I was Bermudian – CHECK
I received on island and overseas training from my employer – CHECK
I worked under a foreign manager for two years and then became that manager in year three – CHECK
I left that business and started my own business which continues to this day – CHECK
It would seem the system is working great for Bermudians.
I trust that it worked great for you because you expected to be given nothing and worked hard for everything you have. Sadly many of us have this silly sense of entitlement and want hand outs and to be babied.
Work hard, and the rewards come.
Pretty much right on, a top class education is about as worthless as the paper it’s printed on if you don’t have the professional personality and work ethic to back it up. Entitlement doesn’t work, the past generations had to work hard, the present generation has to work hard, and the future generations will have to work hard, there is no let up. You are a failure to yourself, your parents and your community if you think you should just show up and get a job because of where you happen to be born.
You’re so full of $***, Bean!
Lot of hot air!
One significant reason we don’t have sufficient jobs is because of the former government’s (PLP) policies – anti-foreigner policies. Mr. Bean were you not a central figure of the past government? Now you’re suggesting we should continue the same policies? You cannot achieve different results using the same policies and same rhetoric!
All growth in Bermuda comes from foreign investment (and foreigners that live and work here too). We don’t produce anything! That doesn’t mean we have to give it all away! It’s the fine balance that the PLP got wrong! The PLP pandered too much instead of making sound decisions!
The PLP needs to better recognize how Bermuda Inc. works, as it’s the only way out of the current economic crisis created by the PLP government’s financial imprudence.
As you always say in reference to the OBA/UBP (which is a disrespectful naming), a leopard doesn’t change it stripes. Does then the same apply to the PLP? And if it doesn’t then it also doesn’t apply to the OBA. Political rhetoric for political gain only?
Has the leopard changed its stripes? Doubtful, as it has yet to openly acknowledge its folly; the FIRST step in its needed 12 step program!
After the past several months, very few people believe the PLP is capable of getting Bermuda back on track. It has not focused at ALL on debt and unemployment (major issues) but unbelievably on SCANDAL ONLY! Last week in Parliament several PLP parliamentarian spent significant time discussing some investigation into EB medical practice. Who cares about that when Bermuda is almost broke? IT IS NOT the people’s business!
Consequently, many believe a PLP government will be much of the same as the previous PLP government! Prove us wrong!!!!!!!
For my kids sake, God help us!
Smiths
Umm umm, I get what you’re saying but … leapards have spots not stripes.
Was reading it until he made the article about our young bermudians into a political pro plp add …just congratulate the young bermudians with out the extra stuff
PLP made this bed that the graduates have to struggle in.
No apologies from Bean, just pretending the PLP had nothing to do with it.
SMDH
nothing but lip service
Marc, time for another tea break!
“Bermuda must work for Bermudians”; PLP will “expand access to capital”; exactly how Mr Bean? You see if Bermuda works for Bermudians, then the remaining overseas investors and those pesky PRCs will eventually leave and us remaining Bermudians will be tapped out of cash…….. because we’ll be out of work. So how do you plan to expand your access to capital? Print more money?
Just remember what Bermuda was like before IB? It was a sleepy little island catering to the aging US tourist. Those tourists have long since died and we’re just not that appealing to the new generation, so where is ‘access to capital’ going to come from? Farming? Fishing? Dr Brown’s Health Clinic? look at our history……… Actually we were pirates once …… is that the plan?
Operation Pressure Cooker; Part 1- Chapter 2.
Stay tuned.
Not looking good folks.
More like operation “easily bambozzed by Manipulative Opposition”
PLP currently working on swaying support from PRC holders, yet spouting Bermuda for Bermudians.
You can’t make up this level of deceit.
Good advise on the part of the opposition leader Marc Bean. We must continue to encourage our young people so that they can take advantage of all educational opportunities which will allow them to take their rightful place in their country-Bermuda.
Bollocks!
Thankfully Alvin they can avail themselves of QUALITY (heavily subsidised by UK tax payer) university education in the UK.
Then once educated they have the option to stay in vibrant, multi cultural UK where people look FORWARD and don’t pi$$ and moan about the past all the time.
Or they can return to Bermy where an older generation of entitled, over paid, paper shuffling civil servants have bankrupted the Islands future.
Good luck to them.
Campervan, great response.
Amazingly I agree with Alvin lol, the reason young bermudians are not doing well is that they are not educating themselves to make them competitive.
If only we did encourage young people to take advantage of FREE education, unfortunately there are homes where education is ignored, TV is on 24/7, no books in the house, inappropriate music is played in cars with young people in the back (not in proper car seats).
Alvin while trying to be his usual aggressive self has admitted that the real reason Bermudians are not taking their ‘rightful’ place is because of their failure to embrace education, thanks Alvin. A bermudians success has nothing to do with PRCs, the education system, IB, foreign investment etc. and everything do do with unprepared parents who do not value children and their positive development.
Alvin conveyed more sense and reasoning in two sentences than the whole of the PLP Opinion Piece written in the name of Marc Bean.
That’s the problem …most of us are encouraged to WORK hard for what we have, you seem to think we have the right to TAKE.
I don’t know a single employer with foreign staff that enjoy paying out the extra cash for work permits, and enjoy the pleasant experience of dealing with the efficient (not) Dept of Immigration. If anyone is willing to go through the expensive and painful experience it is because they y have to.
Many of us expect to be given a job instead of earning it! We are owed nothing in life. If you have that, still back and wait the employers will beg you to come to work mentality” you will always fail.
Hollow
Just makes me want to gag. Can he possibly believe what comes out of his mouth??? What a joke.
Luckily Marc has now lost what little credibility he might have had once, except by the easily fooled and naive, like Alvin. How anyone with a any common sense can’t think this lot care anything about Bermudians is beyond me.
There is hope for Bermuda if the OBA stay in government!
correct me if I am wrong, but this whole PRC/Status debate is about race. The PLP think the majority of these potential new Bermudians are white or non black and hence likely to vote for the OBA.
From reading the message boards, the PLP are being labelled xenophobic and divisive.
I wonder if these same status supporters and message board posters would have the same opinion if the majority of these new potential Bermudians were black or it was believed these new voters would likely vote PLP….would they still be as supportive of granting PRCs status?
I wonder….
Flikel, that is correct. It’s about race and votes as for some reason PRC are all deemed to white future OBA voters. The PLP are masters of manipulation and know if they play the “real” Bermudian card they get a response. I do think though that the average Bermudians are too smart to vote PLP again, even if they didn’t turn up to vote last time, because they can’t imagine the likes of Bean, Burgess, Burt, Furbert, Brown(s), have enough business experience and knowledge to be able to dig us all. Out of the deep hole they left us in. If not, will the last one please turn off the lights. Becareful what you wish for
” I do think though that the average Bermudians are too smart to vote PLP again”
Your comment can be viewed as very offensive. I have read similar comments from OBA supporters (I am not suggesting that you are OBA as I do not know you).
Such comments openly suggest that ‘smart’ people do not vote PLP, and only stupid people vote PLP.
I do think such comments actually take potential votes away from the OBA. I am no PLP supporter, and I still take offense to people calling my PLP voting friends and family intellectually inferior or not smart.
I do ask myself if I want to be associated with such an arrogant bunch of people. How can people claim others are dumb, not smart, stupid, like sheep, kool aid drinkers for voting for a different party?
If the OBA supporters wanted to appeal to PLP voters, OBA folk should not be calling the PLP folk dumb or suggest they lack the ability to think or are a bunch of kool aid drinking sheep.
@flikel, while I understand were you are coming from and what you are saying, but what other term could be used for a bunch of brainwashed xenophobe people that will vote no matter what for the plp??? These people have suffered tremendously under the policies of the plp and yet they would rather die first, before they voted any other way, all because of race!! There was a very small few plp supporters that benefited under their plp ( friends and family ) but the vast majority of them loss their jobs or are making less $$ a week if they are lucky enough to still have a job, and let’s not forget the ones that actually owned their own home which is worth a lot less now or they have lost it due to foreclosure, yet they will still vote plp??? Not Smart and Stupid is the only terms I can come up with????
The very definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. The PLP have not changed their policies, they have not changed their political strategy of divide along racial lines to conquer, and as we know, a PLP Government in a financial crisis is disastrous to the country. Since they have not changed, I do not see the outcome of them governing changing either. Even a PLP government during a financial boom was a failure, they failed to tackle the education system, they failed to tackle the healthcare system, they denied there was a gang problem and they implemented many policies that inhibited our ability to act competitively in the business market when the economy finally started to falter. The PLP are counting on flogging their members emotions to keep them in line, that is their only means for keeping support, because they have yet to provide an intellectual argument for it.
@kangaroocar–mostly all oba supporters are xenophobic, they would never vote for anyother party based on where their race is as we see with the switch from ubp to oba. and you best believe some of us would die rather than vote at all or die rather than vote oba . would stick to plp like glue if there were no other choices in life, the verbal spu by oba supporters is childish and transparent and we don’t need PATI for that! true non-colors are showing all the time, everyday, all day all night, we can see right through oba supporters!
Oddly enough, to detract from your argument, the OBA has a more diverse voter base than the PLP
And that just killed el’s whole post. The PLP one dimension and not divers at all.
LOL by the way Im white I’ve voted for both parties but after wieghing it all out the PLP lack what it takes to get my vote plain and simple. Add in the additude of the main PLP support base towards me based on a stereo-type there leaders keep pushing which are very racist by the way how can I vote for them really? El talks about “true colors” but ignores that he seems to just like those he describes. Then I start asking similar questions to fikel’s remark above. Do I want to be in with a group that would stab me in the back on a moments notice?
I don’t think you know what the word xenophobic means.
Thank you for confirming what I said!! I always find it very interesting that so many of you plper’s are so against the UBP??? They gave you 110% employment, we had no debt to speak of and most travelled multi times a year!!! After the 14 yrs of the plp incompetence/fiscal terror, we now have huge debts and massive unemployment!! I will ask you el, what did the UBP do to you that was so bad??? How is your personal financial situation now that we have had plp government, are you better off now or were you better off then??? I bet I know the answer!!! Anyway to call OBA supporters xenophobe, is totally ignorant to say the least!!!! When race is a reason to vote one way or the other, it proves there is no helping the person doing it !!!!
Yes
I support it no matter what the color of the PRC’s are. If you have been here over 25yrs you should get status. End of story.
People that are born here don’t even get automatic status we still have to prove and take papers of parents etc.. No Prc has any rights that we as Born Bermudians are obligated to consider!We are not a nation and this is known beforehand.. blame your parents if you don’t wanna hear the whinning from anyother group than zip it! What does your birth certificate state! or passport? thats how you know where to go.Especially if you consider yourself a citizen anywhere!
YES, we would still be supportive, because for us, its not about race.
More pablum for the simple minded to drink up.
Bermuda could not afford the first PLP Government. It certainly cannot afford a second one.
What the heck is Marc Bean even talking about?? This opinion piece is not rooted in reality at all. It’s very easy to say that some graduates are “overqualified” or “under qualified” but what if they actually and genuinely are? It’s no one’s fault, certainly not their’s or the employer. No one is taking jobs from anyone.
As said above: A VISION IS NOT A PLAN.
More anti-PRC & anti-foreigner, anti-Interntional business propoganga from the esteemed Leader of the Pot Loving Party
Please Lord,provide for my children if the PLP ever become the government again.Please,I beg you,please!
It could happen in the next election if the OBA fails to for-fill several promises that they made – also if they make Black Bermudians feel
that specific policy’s are put in place to even or increase the OBA voter base by allowing thousands of workers
to have Bermuda status – and make an attempt to bust the BIU — got a feeling that things are just warming up here.
I travel Island wide every day and come in contact with all sorts of people – which means I hears the talk!
On a more serious note, let’s be completely honest: Bean is talking about only some Bermudians, and he and his party represent a sectarianism that if effected will destroy the country for all Bermudians. His is an extremism that must be marginalised.
I guess the Americans are xenophobic they have built a wall to keep out would be immigrants; they stone buses full of women and children who hope to cross the American border to get a piece of that American dream. Most American politicians would not dare speak of immigration reform except Barack Obama; but than he is the president of the United States nearing the period of his second term in office where he will soon be considered to be a lame duck president with nothing politically to lose. Australia now there is a country that most definitely xenophobic with all that land mass; they pay poor island nations in their area to take in and intern any would be immigrant. Recently the Prime Minister of that country authorize it’s immigration department to interview would be immigrants by cell phone on boats that not only will the see Australia but most definitely will not set foot on land.I wonder what the reaction would have been if the Aborigines had their own immigration department to block the British from dumping their poor and those from British prisons on their shore. And of course Bermuda is xenophobic back in the days of slavery when blacks rebelled;if you didn’t get executed or burnt at the stake like Sally Bassett; you were put on a boat and sent into exile. Of course the PLP is xenophobic that why the late Dame Lois Browne Evans took up the cause of Portuguese nationals when they face discrimination in Bermuda and the black community as a whole is xenophobic; but it can not be explain why they excepted Portuguese children in their schools when they were ban from attending the white schools by their white northern European brothers(British). Speaking further about the PLP as xenophobic as they are; it can never be explained why they went against their political interests and their own political supporters and created the term PRC in the first place when the than United Bermuda Party refused to touched the issue and in an ironic twist of fate they and their political heirs the OBA government stood to reap the political benefits. Xenophobic I guess it mean something entirely different in the Bermuda contexts?
My understanding is that the broad gist of PRC legislation was drafted by the last UBP Government in 97/98. As with so many things the PLP took credit for the other guys’s work, especially the economy set to blossom from sound UBP long term policies and management.
Actually, the PLP did create the PRC legislation, the UBP created the Long Term Resident (LTR) that the PLP rebranded as PRC with their legislation, and created a secret back door for status when they did.
You are quite correct about the policies for that resulted in our economic boom, the legislative infrastructure that made Bermuda a great model for international business came from policies that had been built and refined for more than 2 decades prior to the PLP’s win in ’98. And as those policies came into fruition, the PLP banqueted the rewards on themselves and their friends and family program, and tossed the odd bone to the masses in symbolic benevolence.
Well done Mr. Bean, yet again another well written comment from the book “The bleeding obvious”
About Half of the opposition Leader words has a posittive message the other half is just political tactic.
If the opposition leader kept all his speaches on a positive note if could prove fruitful for the PLP but
most of the stuff coming out of Marc Beans mouth appears to be on the negetive side most of the time.
The only thing the Pot Loving Party succeeded at was dumbing down sufficient people to vote for them.
You people are funny as hell no matter what in your eyes the UBP/OBA where and are soöooo wonderful even when history shows you the truth of how one sided their policies and laws are that benefit one segment of Bermuda and crushed the other your reply is that it was not so bad stop talking about how do you all sleep at night SMDH
Evie, don’t be so gullable. The PLP caused the damage that the current Govt are working to repair.
I stand by my comment. PLP was voted in my people who didn’t know better. Half the population is below average intelligence – but have an equal vote and are more easily led to vote on irrational emotion. This is politics 101 and not only applies to Bermuda. Getting stupid people to vote for you, is easier than getting smart people to vote for you. Ask any politician.
Thing is, almost everyone (but the completely brainless) have figured PLP out.
Not about being gullible just facts that people just seem to not want to address they are prepared to leave all the biased laws biased hiring practices that benefit the same segment and keep the other segment down in place IMO that has damaged Bermuda beyond repair and until the same people who screams that all this has nothing to do with them the benefited ones their will be no progress in Bermuda Wake the hell up SMDH
A Winston Churchill quote went something like this.
“To see how bad an idea Democracy is, spend 5 minutes talking to the average voter.”
In other words, the average voter is generally clueless about how the world works around him. These days they know all about the latest in Hollywood, who is who in music & all about their favourite sport.
Ask them how an economy works….not a clue.
The PLP knows this & they are very good at showmanship that appeals to the average voter who will gobble it all up because they don’t have the slightest idea of what it is that they don’t know & when somebody tries to explain some of the complexities of managing an economy it all goes way over their heads.
What !
Mr. Bean your party took Bermuda to the Brink of Bankruptcy. Your party mortgaged the future for the youth you now pretend to care about ! Your comments are an insult to the intelligence of all Bermudians !
A real loss in every sense that the LGBT evidently has no place in Bean’s so-called vision.
Ganga,Ganga,Ganga tea!
Mr Bean is 100% positive proof that Diapers and Politicians should be changed often – for the exact same reason.
Be quiet Beannie!
You are so disconnected from reality it makes those of us who have never tried ganga tea or giving it to minors (which must be against the law somewhere – so why are you still walking the streets?) afraid to try it because we might inherit your views on reality.
You need to get off your ganga kick and come down here with us little people who voted for you and get your head in the game! We dont have time – you are not in power – but you can help if you really wanted to!
Stop pushing the rhtetoric around – we dont care who is to blame at “our level” – we need help! From anyone and everyone who can!
Now shut up and pick up a shovel and get jobs, gaming, pensions, and affordable healthcare for us seniors / PLP supporters going – NOW!!!! or the only one not getting elected is going to be YOU and the rest of the people on the PLP who are obviously drinking the ganga tea!
I have NEVER been more embarassed or disappointed for being a steadfast PLP supporter – we need our more senior and seasoned reps to rise up and take control from you young, distracted people – you have NOT made the investment that we seniors have made in Bermuda, yet you want to take it all for yourself and throw my grandchildrens futures away?
We will rise up against you at the next election – just watch Beannie! Time for an old fashioned PLP butt whooping (for all of you)!