Good afternoon, and thank you all for being here.
We are standing beside a pool that belongs to every Bermudian. The National Sports Centre - Aquatic Centre. From today, getting into it is far simpler for many more of us.
This lift is a modest piece of equipment. But what it does is not modest.
For persons with disabilities, older adults and others who need assistance entering or leaving a pool, accessibility is not an added convenience. It is the difference between being included and being excluded, between taking part and being asked to watch from the sidelines.
That is what accessibility really is. Not a courtesy we extend or a door we stop keeping shut.
Picture an ordinary Saturday morning at this Centre. Children in the shallow end learning to swim. Someone doing slow, patient lengths as part of a recovery. A group of seniors who have been meeting here for years and will tell you the conversation matters as much as the exercise. From today, that Saturday morning is open to more of us.
Time in the water eases pain. It builds strength. It rebuilds confidence after injury or illness. And an afternoon at the pool is one of the ordinary pleasures of life on this Island — the noise, the company, the neighbour you happen to run into. No one should be kept from that by a set of steps.
Bermuda stands behind the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 9 calls for equal access to the physical environment and to facilities and services open to the public, including the identification and removal of barriers. That obligation must guide how we plan, design and deliver public services across Bermuda.
Article 30 of that Convention recognises the equal right of persons with disabilities to take part in sport, recreation and leisure — and to get into the places where those things happen. Today we honour that in the most practical way available to us. We bought the lift, and it was installed it.
My thanks to the National Sports Centre, Minister Owen Darrell- Minister of Tourism, Transport, Culture & Sport (who sends his regrets that he could be here with us today) my Government colleagues, the technical teams, and to the advocates who told us plainly, and more than once, what was needed here. You were right, and we listened.
As we continue implementing the UNCRPD, the question before every policymaker and every institution must be:
Who is still being left out, what barriers remain, and what must we do now to remove them?
Today, at this Aquatic Centre, we are answering that question with action.
But accessibility cannot be treated as a one-off project or an afterthought. It must be designed in from the beginning—across our policies, programmes, public facilities and services—so that inclusion becomes the standard by which we govern.
That is how we honour the principles of the UNCRPD, and it is how we build a fairer Bermuda in which persons with disabilities can exercise their rights, pursue their ambitions and participate fully and equally in community life.
Above all, this is about the people whose lives will be enriched by having equal access to this facility.
It is about the child with a disability who should be able to learn to swim alongside friends.
It is about the adult who should be able to join an aquatic programme with confidence and dignity.
It is about the older adult who should have every opportunity to remain active, connected and independent.
And it is about families who deserve to see their loved ones welcomed, supported and included in the same opportunities as everyone else.
This is one lift, at one pool. There is more to do, and the question I keep in front of my Ministry is a simple one: what else stands in the way, and how quickly can we move it?
That work is for tomorrow. Today, the water is open to more of us than it was yesterday — and that is worth standing here for.
Thank you.
Now, I am pleased to invite you to witness the lift in operation. We will have Cornell Bailey Jr., client of the K. Margaret Carter Centre (KMCC), demonstrate the lift and provide an opportunity to see firsthand how this improvement will support greater access to the pool.
