I was pleased to hear that People’s Campaign have finally acknowledged that Bermuda really does need a new airport.

However, placing an infrastructure project that will benefit all Bermudians plus our leisure and business visitors in the context of slavery is unfortunate, misplaced and deliberately inflammatory.

I wonder if those Bermudians who will leave the ranks of the unemployed to return to the dignity of honest work will consider themselves enslaved.

I wonder if those Bermudians working at the airport, whose working conditions will be vastly improved, will consider themselves enslaved.

I wonder if those Bermudians who are relieved that their government has found a way to stimulate the economy, and create jobs without increasing the national debt, will consider themselves enslaved.

The issue of having the management of the airport under “foreign control” is misleading. This is a deliberately misleading statement and an indication of the People’s Campaign’s carelessness with truth and facts. As I have explained in my many presentations around the island, the Government of Bermuda will set up a wholly owned Quango to manage the manager. So there will be no unfettered foreign control of our airport. In any event, the agreement calls for the Government of Bermuda to have a profit sharing agreement with the management company.

There was a question about the cost of the project and the value for money, referencing $1000/sqft as “outrageous.” Let’s deal with facts:

• Fact:  23% of the cost is for aprons, taxiways and so called Airside Civil Works, which contain complex underground structures – so comparing the cost of the facility using a calculation based on a simple square footage of the building is faulty analysis.
• Fact: the terminal the PLP proposed in 2008 was expected to cost $514mn versus our $250mn – less than half the price.
• Fact: their terminal was unnecessarily much bigger - 33,000m2 versus our more modest 25,000m2.
• Fact: in spite of the bigger scale, their terminal would have cost $11,500/m2 compared to our $7,500/m2.
• Fact: compared to the PLP proposed solution in 2008, Bermuda is definitely getting much better value for money under this government.

There was a question about transparency. Here are the facts:

• Fact: we have been much more transparent on this project than any other major project in Bermuda’s history,
• Fact: compared to the new Acute Care wing at KEMH, where virtually all the negotiations were held in secret (in Toronto to keep it that way) key covenants as to the duties and obligations of the Government of Bermuda are still, to this day, redacted (blacked out) in the version that’s available to the public. So the charge of lack of transparency either holds no water, or is hypocritical.

The Government of Bermuda has been accused of “snubbing demands to basic questions...”

• Fact: I, along with other members of the airport redevelopment team, have made many, many presentations around Bermuda to various clubs, associations and groups in an effort to explain the project and answer people’s questions.
• Fact: I am also committed to continue to have such meetings to expand the understanding of what the GOB is doing as it relates to this project.

Finally, and ironically, I don’t recall the BPSU or BIU ever challenging a public project before – certainly not Berkeley, Heritage Wharf, TCD, Port Royal, or Dame Lois Brown Evans building as ‘bad deals’, deals that we know cost Bermuda taxpayers hundreds of millions of extra dollars that in no small way contributed to the mountain of public debt we now have. The Bermuda public can draw their own conclusions from that. Again for the sake of Bermuda, let's focus on FACTS and not divisive language that is FALSE.

This is about jobs.