Yes, they should be free. But like everything else in the Bahamas, what "should be" simple "isn't".
One has to wonder why Bahamians keep giving childbirth here, condemning more innocent souls to live on these barren rocks?

What a sad story.....the grief hits you just in the first three words of the headline.

If he goes then we will just have this same conversation 5 years from now with the same rule. What should happen is Chester Cooper should put to the floor the exact wording of an amendment to the House rules for all to debate and consider. That way if the recommendation comes from the Opposition then there can be no opposition to it - inless the majority want to admit we areva dictatorship.

It's like these guys lose all connection with the planet Earth after election is over.

Hopefully every volunteer will use their $300 to buy a one-way ticket to Miami. God almighty, the things you here every single day in this country makes your head spin.
Problems like these solve themselves. As word spreads amoung the volunteers, it will spread amoung the potential new ones as well.
If it's too inconvenient for them, then they will just stay home.
If i go to Disney World and they request a blood sample, then i will go to Rapids Water Park instead. Easy.

Perhaps all doctors and nurses could abstain from using underarm deodorant, cologne and perfume, and keep their hair in an untidy condition, and have nasty large stains on their lab-coats and uniforms? Just look like a bunch of vagabonds and derelicts - since that's what they are being treated like.

Show up to work though. Be on the plantation. Just look like slaves instead of doctors. This thing is real. The VAT money is still missing - so they have no excuse not to pay you guys properly. Money comes into the Treasury and goes ..... where? We don't know. There is a BiG difference between a "Budget" and a report of "Actual Expenditure". We never see the latter.

Government doesn't seem to understand that we are ALL (at least 95% of us) are good, loyal Bahamians. We understand money doesn't grow on trees, and everything you think of, the government can't just spend money to fix it if that money isn't there. however, all we see is money going in - and we never see the specifics of where the money comes out. It's like the old roach motel commercial.

Excellent points. At the moment, I am against WTO for the Bahamas - however the points made by Mr. Leonard are the first time anyone has said anything positive or given any kind of concrete information about how WTO would help us. Defending against the OECD would have certainly been good. We have been playing silly bank games for over ten years now. Every time you turn around, you need something else to open a simple bank account. I moved from one island to the next about a year ago and had so many issues banking that I decided to go in and go through the LONG process of transferring my account to the new island. I thought that was worth it because now everything would work smooth. no i was wrong. i had an issue with my atm card a few weeks later, and needed them to send a new one. Guess what? It had to be send to the first island because "they were the issuing bank." I was like, "Are you kidding?" I just brought in a DNA sample from the dead great grandmother 5 weeks ago (had to dig up her grave at 3am one night) in order to change my account here and now you're saying there is still something in that computer tying me to the original island where I still cant receive direct service?
Sure enough. There was. They had to call and make special arrangements for the overnight bag to be re-routed here.
This is the kind of outright stupidity that prevails everywhere you turn in this country - and at the end of the day it costs us all a lot of money. My time (just like anyone else's) is valuable. If we are all standing around for a few hours out of each week being engaged in lunacy like this - which is non-productive - that adds up to a whole lot of unproductive hours. Those zero dollar hours affect our GDP bottom line. They cause us not to have tar to fill pot-holes and that causes us to have to by CV-Joints to fix those car steering mechanisms unnecessarily because they keep hitting pot holes (as just one example.).
There is just too much nonsense in this country at every single point - and if WTO can fix all that without taking away "our birth right" - then I would agree with it.
The problem is - NOBODY will provide a TRUE list of all the pros and cons of the damn thing without including their own personal bias and trying to rig the game. If Bahamians at large, and the chambers of commerce and others can be given the real information then we can make a real decision based on facts. So far, all I've hear out of Laing is a bunch of fluff - completely void of facts. He huffed and puffed about a year ago and said he was going to provide some kind of list of something-or-other - but I don't remember ever seeing it come to light.
Darkness. Sweeping under rugs. Avoiding facts. If those were sports in the Olympics, Bahamas would get all gold medals every four years.

Also - how will they get back? These people have no money. They were taken over free of charge by Celebration Cruises ? They went with the shirts on their backs and the documents. Now all of a sudden they can buy plane tickets? And plane tickets from Florida into Freeport on what airline? None are flying into Freeport.

"... the US would have given them a certain length of time and many of them will be accommodated if they’re from Abaco. They will be accommodated in the family relief centres that we’re constructing and similarly in Grand Bahama.:

...... why "many of them"? Why not "all of them" ? What is the deciding factor/s to determine who gets accommodated and who gets kicked out on the streets with the rats?

How can they be accomodated in structures that the govt is constructING. That's ING. In other words, they have not been constructed yet. So where are they going to live NOW.

Why is he ordering people to return home (like they are communists by the way) - when they have nowhere to live EVEN IF they had somewhere to live in Abaco - where will food and water come for them to drink?

Also, Iram Lewis must not be aware of the reason "Spring City" was called Spring City. That's where the water "springs" are. That's where the underground water caverns are. So putting structures there (like there have been in the past) for people to be throwing garbage on the ground including batteries (both car batteries and nickel-cadmium batteries) to rust away and go into the water table, and people changing oil in their cars and pouring the old oil on the ground to go into the water table, and people having leaking car radiators for the radiator fluid to leak and go into the water table, and people having leaking transmissions (plenty) for tran fluid to leak and go into the water table ....

Where does he believe the drinking water in Abaco comes from?

Also, why do they say only 2 years? If the tooth fair planning to visit and put money under all these people's pillows so they can buy houses?

He is saying they should come home. Why? Should they come home and live in this disgusting 4th world (&#*@@() along with the rest of us? How will that help?

A PM under our Constitution has to be selected from the PARTY who holds the majority number of seats. He cannot be selected by a majority vote of members of Parliament. Only the Leader of Opposition can be selected in that way.
It would be interesting to see 5 members of PLP, 5 members of DNA, 6 members of FNM, and 23 independent members of Parliament elected next time. The PM would be FNM (assuming they replace Minnis, otherwise I would prefer one of the other 2), BUT they wouldn't be able to pass any legislation without the approval of the majority of the independents.
A lot of dynamics would occur and a lot of learning would take place by the people, and a lot of good things would get done for all.
Of course, Bahamians - by and large - are two much like lemmings walking over a cliff to do something sensible like that. I'm sure they are anxious to get rid of Chipman who is trying to help them. God forbid, anyone should help a Bahamians, legitimately.