Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Wikibon Cube Insights, powered by ETR. In this breaking analysis, we're going to share fresh data from ETR's latest spending survey. In particular, ETR added a drill down question on the impact of coronavirus. Now yesterday, I had the pleasure of hosting ETR's director of research, Sagar Kadakia, who took us through the details of that survey and we're going to bring his comments into this discussion. So today I want to accomplish three things. First, I want to summarize the macro. Where are we at this point on the second day of spring in Massachusetts? Second, I want to assess the impact from COVID-19 on IT spend for 2020. And the third thing I want to do is drill down into the findings from ETR's latest survey. After we do this, I'll summarize and talk about what the outlook looks like. So where are we today? We've gone from the fear of missing out in the stock market to basically fall out fear. Now, as you well know, the economic impact is not pretty. I got to say, this is the first time I've ever seen a government-imposed recession. And rightly so, to save lives. But I've also never seen such an as-cross-the-board double downward shift in both supply and demand. This creates uncertainty and ambiguity and pricing, which makes forecasting anything really, really difficult. The liquidity shock and the credit risks are really of primary concern right now. The price of oil is a huge issue. Why? It's because energy companies account for a very sizable portion of the high-yield credit market, over 10%. So as prices fall, it's going to be harder for oil companies to repay loans. This creates default risk. So this is the markets freaked out in functioning very, very poorly. Now, a poorly functioning market signals that we are not at the bottom. Everybody wants to know where the bottom is. I'm not a stock picker, and I'm not a market technician, but I've seen a lot of downturns. I'll share a quick story. When I was at IDC, we had an exclusive deal with Goldman Sachs. Two of the Goldman analysts were embedded into our Framingham offices. Now, in 1987, on Black Monday, in the following weeks, I would stand at their real-time terminal. There was no internet back then, kids. Nobody had access to real-time trades, but I did. And I would watch the market in free fall, and I would see it bounce back, and then I would see it free fall again. What I will tell you is this. Bottoms are impossible to predict. Everybody says that. Why? Because bottoms are not technical. They're psychological. They're emotional. And in 1987, and then after the dot-com bust, and after the financial crisis, each time you saw the S&P would rally, sometimes it would rally as high as 10%, it would suck people back into the market, and then pull back. And that's going to happen here. The market's not just going to be fine any day now. Now, if you're looking for some positives, there is some silver linings that the canals in Venice are running clear, which is amazing to see. Nitrous oxide levels over China are way, way down. Okay, let's shift and take a look at what this all means for IT spending. What are the industries that are being most affected right now? Now, as I show here, there are some obvious sectors, like energy and transportation, retail, et cetera. But let's listen to Sagar from ETR, what he told me yesterday. Now, pay particular attention to what he says about supply chains. Roll the clip. Yeah, industrials, materials, manufacturing, retail, consumer, the healthcare pharma, those are the verticals from a supply chain perspective that are indicating elevated levels of broken supply chains. And what's actually interesting is we, in this survey, we actually asked not only whether your supply chains were broken today, but do you anticipate or do you continue experiencing broken supply chains in three months from now? And those percentages were up. And I think that really tells us that this is not a one or two month type of recovery. We're gonna see supply chains and demand continuing to be broken, continuing to come down over the next three, four months. That I think is probably one of the biggest takeaways from the drill down study. So, you see in the ETR survey, it really underscores that we are not likely to see a quick snapback. It's not a one or a two month fix. Now, in my own research, I go out to the field, I talk to people on theCUBE, within our network, I can add some, excuse me, some comments and some color here. What we see is that healthcare right now is so swamped that they're not buying anything. I mean, they just don't have any cycles. Most customers are taking their skunk works, putting them on hold, they're narrowing the capital spend and really focusing only on mission critical items. Banks, even though the banks are down, they have capital and they're still buying. They got cash, banks, they're smart and they're negotiating very hard for big discounts. The other thing is a lot of customers have no choice but to buy. Many are on an ARR, annual recurring revenue or annual current contract and have compliance edicts like we got to send out monthly statements. If they don't renew, they can't use their software to do that. It's different but somewhat similar with maintenance contracts. So you're seeing that sales teams are clearly bringing down their forecasts, but they're not cutting them in half. Not yet anyway. All right, but here's what's somewhat counterintuitive and you really, you can really only quantify this with data. Some companies actually believe they're not, they're spending more. Why? Because they're trying to preserve productivity with their work from home solutions. They need infrastructure to do that. So they're pivoting their budget to work from home. They also have to secure that infrastructure. So that means that cyber, cybersecurity is seeing a little bit of momentum. Now let's take a look at the ETR data. This is from more than 1,000 CIOs and IT buyers. It's fresh data right from March. 40% of the survey said they see no current impact on their IT budget. That is surprisingly high. And look at all the green to the right hand side. You know, most are showing five to 10% increase, but more than 20% of the respondents are actually expecting to increase budget in 2020 for things like work from home infrastructure. Let's take a listen to Sagar Kadakia who explains this further. Roll the clip. Yeah, I think that's, I think the positive spend or the no change in spend, I think that is what a lot of the market right now is missing. And I haven't seen a lot of research on that because no one else has really been able to quantify how budgets are changing. And so as you noted, we're actually seeing people accelerate spend because of COVID-19. And the reason is, you know, they're trying to avoid a catastrophe in productivity. They are ramping up all this work from home infrastructure, right? Not just collaboration pools, virtualization infrastructure, increasing VPN networking bandwidth, mobile devices, laptops, security, desktop support, right? You're a Fortune 500 organization and you have 40, 50, 60,000 employees working from home all of a sudden, you have to be able to support those employees. And as a result, you're actually seeing a large number of organizations accelerating spend. And even the ones that are being hurt by the broken supply chains, the demand coming down, you're seeing some of their spendy acceleration being offset by spending a little bit more on kind of what we're calling this kind of work from home infrastructure. So Saga went on to explain that consensus expectations for global IT spend, they were roughly at 4% before coronavirus. And the pullback takes us now to flat of 0%. But what's not been reported is really the offset to the declines, particularly from the work from home infrastructure. Now obviously this could all change and it likely will, but this next chart really underscores that uncertainty and really the dynamic nature of the risk here. What this track charts is the daily impact of the expected retraction. So earlier this month in the ETR survey, you saw about a 2% retraction. And you can see by March 17th it's down to flat. So as we heard from Sagar, the ETR thesis is currently at 0% IT spend for growth in 2020 because of some of the offset. Now, if the news continues to worsen, the outlook is going to follow. I want to wrap up by summarizing and talking about what's next and what you can expect. So the current call, as I said, is for flat IT spend in 2020. It would be worse if not for the uptick in work from home and corollary security infrastructure. Now it's not just collaboration and video tools, it's virtualization solutions, it's VPNs, network upgrades, mobile devices, laptops, and the software to secure all this stuff and make it work. Now despite the work from home offset, we fully expect this picture to worsen over the next three months. You got to watch for the duration of the remote work at home mandates, the travel bans, the no meeting policies. There's little doubt that productivity is going to be hurt. As we discussed yesterday with Sagar, you can't just flick a switch and scale remote worker productivity. That's a real challenge. Now, having said that, the expectation from CIOs is that this spending decline is going to be temporary. What's unclear is the shape of the recovery. Is it going to be a V shaped or a slow slog? You can see the distant rim on the other side of the canyon. It's there. We just don't know how far away it is and we don't know how deep the canyon really is. Now there will be changes in our opinion that are going to be permanent. As we said in our last breaking analysis, over the next several months, organizations, they're going to learn new things and that is going to shape their thinking in the future. I personally expect accelerated digital transformations and a sustained viability of the work from home options. You're going to see new capabilities from distant learning with all the college shutdowns. You're also going to see new risk mitigation paradigms. You know, the list goes on and on and on in terms of what we're going to see here. As I said earlier, there seem to be some environmental benefits. You know, if you're looking for some positives here, I think this next generation is much more in tune with that. And you have my word and my promise and our teams promise that the cube and ETR is going to be here to keep you up to date. ETR survey data keeps rolling in. You can check that out at ETR.plus. They are vigilant on this issue as are we from our remote studios. Look, this is the new normal. Our skeleton crews are in studio and we're keeping the content flowing as many folks on our team, they're working from home and they're on the grid. Currently, our Palo Alto studio is fully operational four days a week, each week and we're capturing remote guests on camera and Boston is open as well. So get in touch if you need anything. We are here to help and we're here to serve you. Okay, this is Dave Vellante for Wikibon's Cube Insights powered by ETR. Thanks for watching this breaking analysis. Remember, these episodes, they're available on podcasts wherever you listen, please connect with me. My email's david.vellante at siliconangle.com. Comment on my LinkedIn post. I always appreciate that from the community. Thanks for watching everybody. Wishing good health and safety for you and your families. We'll see you next time.


Considering the rich interactions and the tight and multi-faceted links of European history with the history of the populations of all continents, to broaden the scope of the programme by opening it to extra-European countries. Have a sort of positive plan of action? Something that you can take back with you to know how to engage? These insured citizens feel responsible and appropriate their history. We need to revisit primary historical sources and use new tools to make them more accessible and attractive. We should search for an inclusive way to tell history. Making history a personal experience? Looking for a balance between professional work and citizens' participation and focusing on multispectorial partnerships, educational systems, museum, city concepts? Recommendations for future include transnational dimension topics in local initiatives and environments. They propose STRIF to use the most cost-effective tools available, Google Translate and network capacities while encouraging multi-lingualism. Members of the less represented groups from the beginning in an equal representation or inventing a sense of co-ownership of the project from the beginning as well. The recommendation is to strengthen the tides with the different stakeholders. Thank you to the facilitator and thank you to everybody to commit in participating in the workshops.


Hello students. In the previous lecture, we had set out to solve the problem of Brownian motion in the presence of an absorber. We formulated the Fokker-Planck equation including a drift term. This is one level of complexity higher than the free particle Brownian motion in the presence of an absorber which we read earlier than that. To repeat the purpose of solving these equations which are basically the same problems done in biased random walk problem is basically to not to arrive at any dramatically different solutions, but to learn the methods of solving differential formulations of Fokker-Planck equation. We will get more or less the same results. In fact, the asymptotic results will turn out to be exactly the same. However, the approach of solving the Fokker-Planck equation teaches us to handle certain linear differential equations. Advantages we can then apply it somewhat more complex problems, more time dependent problems which cannot be done by the which cannot be easily done by the random walk method. So, accordingly we had set up the equation. We made some transformations of from the W function to the Y function and that is written here. The original equation as you can see includes a drift term nu is a dimensionless velocity scaled with respect to true velocity by diffusion coefficient. So, that has that formulation and then you have scaling of tau as a measure of time. It does it as a dimension of time it is actually tau equal to d into t. So, notations become simpler, then we transformed it to get rid of the first order term by defining the quantity y equal to w e to the power minus nu x by 2. So, then y becomes an equation continues to remain a second order, but the first order term gets removed instead we get a term which is proportional to y itself. So, it is more like a decay term with the boundary conditions which are slightly changed now delta x minus x naught becomes e to the power minus nu x naught by 2. Now how do we proceed further? So, this second order equation with the is basically in the domain x greater than 0. So, we can specify this entire solution is valid for all x greater than 0. So, we note that this is not like a free particle case the motion is in the finite domain. If it is an infinite domain we could have directly applied Fourier transforms to the x variable because we know that this Fourier transform of transform of the second derivative becomes an algebraic function. However, we cannot apply Fourier transforms because the function does not exist in the domain x less than 0. However, there is a good fortune the good fortune is that there is a another transform very closely related to Fourier transform. In fact, there are two such transforms known as the Fourier sine and Fourier cosine transforms. Let us talk of Fourier sine transform. Fourier sine transform in the convention we use we can define for example, if f t is a function or f x is a function then we can say f carrot denote by s for sine of let us say variable k will be simply defined as 0 to infinity sine k x e to the power of sine k x f x dx. So, it is just multiply the function by sine k x and then integrate and this is valid of course, our function f x is defined f x defined for x greater than 0. So, once a function is defined only on the positive interval and this transform also refers to only that interval. This can be derived actually by through the Fourier transform only by defining a function which is identically 0 on the negative side and all. We do not go into the derivation let us assume that this transformation law exists. Only thing we should know is how do we invert it? So, we can come back to f x say inverse sine transform inverse inverse Fourier sine transform that is simply 1 by 2 pi here it comes to 2 by pi. Since it is half domain the inversion comes to 2 by pi 0 to infinity again sine k x and here it is now f carrot sine transform that we adopted k dk. So, this is both forward as well as the inverse is simply multiply by sine k x first time you integrate over x and the second time you integrate over k and get back to the original. We can prove that this is completely consistent in fact, the double integrals turn out to be delta function and give us the results. The advantage of using a sine transform and correspondingly there is a cosine transform also are this. If your boundary condition of the function at x equal to 0 is 0 the case that we are having here then sine transform guarantees it automatically when we invert it. As you can see when we are multiplying by sine k x and inverting automatically f x is guaranteed to be 0 at x equal to 0 which is what we want. One can show that if your boundary condition at x equal to 0 has its derivative 0 then cosine transform way more appropriate. So, here since our boundary condition is 0 at x equal to 0 we decide to use the sine transform. So, accordingly we multiply equation the differential equation here is differential equation. We multiply this differential equation by sine k x and integrate over x and note that the Fourier transform of is Fourier sine transform of let us note the following result note Fourier sine transform of d 2 of d 2 y by dx square x to k x to k is simply minus k square y carat sine transform with respect to k. So, if you make use of this rule the differential equation here just reduces to the following. We get for the transformed equation carat s time derivative remains the same equal to minus you get k square here and there was already a nu square by 4 and that remains as such. So, it will be carat s k. Now we can we can denote these arguments as k tau it is a function of 2 variables here also it is not t we decided to use tau where tau equal to d into t. What happens to the boundary conditions? Now the second order differential equation as partial has become almost an ordinary type differential equation that to first order that is because when we did the Fourier sine transform we have to do the Fourier sine transform of the boundary condition also. So, you can see that the y carat sine transform of k at t equal to 0 or tau equal to 0 will be multiply 0 to infinity where rule is that we will multiply sine k x to the initial condition if you go back the initial condition is delta x minus x naught e to the power minus nu x naught by 2. So, that will be delta x minus x naught e to the power nu x or nu x naught by 2 dx is the definition. So, it simply will become sine k x naught e to the power minus nu x naught by 2 because of the selection property of the delta function it the value of the multiplying functions at the point x equal to x naught is realized. So, you get this. So, this being a first order equation has a very simple solution. Solution is y carat k tau sine transform will be we can take out the other terms e to the power minus nu x naught by 2 sine k x naught e to the power minus nu square by 4 plus k square tau. How we wrote this? Let us go back. So, this is the differential equation this is a dy by dt equal to some constant into y whose solution is y equal to some a unknown into e to the power minus that constant into time. So, that is what it is and unknown is nothing, but the initial value ys k 0 which is sine k x naught e to the power minus nu x naught by 2. So, when we plug all that in we will get the solution the initial value multiplied by e to the power minus nu square by 4 plus k square into tau. So, the formally the problem is completely solved in the domain of the transformed space. Now, we have to go back to the original solution. Hence by inversion we have y x tau will be 2 by pi 0 to infinity again sine k x now if the integration is going to be with respect to k. So, all the rest will wherever k comes we will keep it out. So, we will keep it as a sine k x naught e to the power minus k square tau and the other terms will stay out. So, we will write them as minus nu x naught by 2 minus nu square tau by 4 just stay out of the integral. Here of course, we should not forget to put d k the integration is with respect to k. So, we can write by taking out all other terms as 2 by tau 2 by pi e to the power minus nu x naught by 2 minus nu square by 4 tau. Now, to save a step we realize that sine a sine b can be expressed as a cosine function.  So, half I can take out first and the whole thing can be written as cos of k x minus x naught minus cos of k x plus x naught e to the power minus k square tau d k. So, this now each of this integrals cos k x e to the power minus k square tau d k is actually a Fourier transform once again of the Gaussian function. We have done it several times over just for recalling we just use the result here which can be proved by recall that integral 0 to infinity cos k z some z e to the power minus k square tau d k is going to be half root pi by root tau e to the power minus z square by 4 tau. You can actually convert it into a full integral from minus infinity to infinity since cos is a even function and k square is an even function it is a totally an even function.  As a result if we apply this rule using the above we get y x tau we have to note the various numerals that come. So, while the half there is a 2 by pi and there is going to be 1 more half. So, we are going to get 1 by if we put together all of them then e to the power minus nu x naught by 2 minus nu square tau by 4 and since these are 2 different Gaussian integrals here in the first one the z is nothing, but x minus x naught. So, we are going to have e to the power x minus x naught square by 4 tau and the second one e to the power x plus x naught whole square by 4 tau. We can see that the 2 terms emerge in the case of an absorber problem 2 Gaussian terms not a single Gaussian term. If we go back to our lectures L 27 and L 28 we had discussed the absorber problem by using the random walk picture by the method of images where we introduced a reflective a mirror or image walker on the other side of the absorber and subtracted trajectories which would be otherwise killed because of the absorption point absorption behavior. Here we get those 2 terms e to the power minus x minus x naught square by 4 tau and e to the power minus x plus x naught square by 4 tau apparently without using any image principle by just as a mathematical solution to a differential equation. However, certainly speaking both are equivalent in some way when we decided to impose the absorption boundary condition and follow through the sin Fourier transform we have implicitly assumed an equivalent of an image absorber they are mathematically equivalent. That is why we will get exactly the same result as we got earlier, but in the former case we had to make a asymptotic approximation using the Stirling's approximation from discrete to a continuous case. So, accordingly we the solution why now that we have can be converted to the full solution w and that solution is going to be upon using upon going back to the w variable and using the transformation between y and w we will get this whole thing as square root of 4 pi tau e to the power minus e to the power plus let us say e to the power minus nu x minus x naught by 2 minus nu square tau by 4 e to the power minus x minus x naught whole square by 4 tau minus e to the power minus x plus x naught square by 4 tau. You can check by inspection that at x equal to 0 automatically the solution becomes 0 because these 2 terms cancel each other x naught square and x naught square. So, this is this solution is the same same as the asymptotic solution obtained in lecture 28 we might have to appropriately identify nu with gamma etcetera. There we had at a bias factor called gamma and here that bias is represented by the velocity and velocity is nothing, but is related to nu because nu equal to u by d. So, there is a connection. We can proceed in the same manner to obtain now further results w is the full distribution. So, we can work with it to obtain all other quantities of interest. The first quantity of interest is the survival probability. What is the probability that the random walker continues to survive up to time tau. So, that survival probability for example, s tau would be the probability that the walker has not been absorbed that is his occupancy exists. So, the occupancy probability wherever he is along the positive line the existence is guaranteed by the value of w and integrated over x will give you the survival probability. And you can integrate this Gaussials and we have we have seen this seen this earlier it comes out to be half into 1 plus r f of error function of nu tau plus x naught divided by square root of 4 tau close minus e to the power nu x naught here it will be 1 plus r f of nu tau minus x naught divided by square root of 4 tau. In deriving this we are skipping this result we have done these integrals before in the previous lecture. In any case they are Gaussian integrals and the integrals of Gaussians turn out to be some error functions. So, it is only that we have to choose the correct representation. So, just for your reminder let us define where the error function of any quantity z is defined as 2 by root pi integral 0 to z e to the power minus u square d. So, this is the definition of the error function. From this we can ask the question asymptotically is there a chance of survival at all is it possible that the random walker or the diffuser or a Brownian particle is not absorbed in the boundary. Because there is a drift sort of perception tells us that if the drift is towards away from the wall not towards the drift is away from the wall there may be a possibility of absorption. But if the drift is towards the wall there is no chance because even without the drift the Brownian particle is going to be absorbed eventually. So, with the drift towards the wall chance of survival is 0. Hence, accordingly just like earlier we have the result that S infinity probability that the walker survives is 1 minus e to the power minus nu x naught if nu greater than 0 this is 0 if nu less than 0. So, if nu is greater than 0 the further the walker is from the further the walker starts from the absorber higher will his probability of survival. If he starts from very very far then his survival chance is almost 1 whereas, if he starts closer to the absorber his survival chance is going to be less and less and will eventually will increase only as he moves away from the absorber. So, this brings us to the end of the one dimensional absorber problem one dimensional single absorber problem. We can even calculate the distribution of contact probabilities the f function we called it as the first contact time distribution function all that was done previously and it shows it t to the power minus 3 by 2 behavior and all that. Just to summarize this this talk. So, you would sometimes wonder what is it that we achieved by deriving everything from differential equation approach when we already knew these results by the discrete jump method by the random walk method. The solution we are presenting is only an illustration of the methods such as Fourier transforms Fourier trying to sign transforms and many others which we are going to do. Supposing I have a problem in which the random walker of course, he has a diffusion he has also let us say a drift and on top of it let us say he has a decay property that he can disappear randomly in the course of his motion. You can imagine that the my random walker is a radioactive particle which as it is walking can decay. Now, I want to capture this particle before it decays onto a surface it has an advantage for me. Then I can genuinely ask a question what is the probability that ultimately the walker will be absorbed onto my surface before it decays. Now, this is somewhat difficult to do by random walk methods, but much easier to do by the differential equation methods. I do not propose to solve that problem for you because this is now a very area specific formulation. But let me assure you that the differential equation method that we proceeded same can be applied wherever the term new square comes the new decay terms get added. So, we will see that the ultimate solution will have almost the same form as what we got, but with the decay correction included. The ultimate result of the whole thing is there could be a non finite there will be no asymptotic survival of course, particle has to decay, but here you can ask the question of the probability of being absorbed onto the surface and that would be quite an interesting question to ask and answers out of this study could be quite interesting. From this point we move over to a description of Brownian motion based on velocity fluctuations. This will help us establish a mechanistic framework of positional fluctuations based on what is known as Langevin dynamics. Thank you.


2021 to be exact, we heard of one brother killing another brother I don't have a name but I remember that incident So Mr. Speaker, this issue of domestic violence have caused significant pain to families and it has caused significant loss of lives to our dear country So presenting this bill today in addition to acknowledging and remembering some of the victims what I want to do today is to also acknowledge some of the champions who have caused the work upon which we have that first tuition today I want to recognize in a very big way our sister member of Babono for her work in ensuring that this bill gets to the house today I want to thank our Honourable Prime Minister and our Cabinet colleagues for ensuring that that work came to fruition But Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the current Attorney General and past Attorney Generals Attorney General and their staff for ensuring that we have this bill In expressing words of commendation I want to salute Justice Madam Lorraine Williams who is present with us in this August assembly for tabling this bill some 27 years ago I want to thank you I want to recognize as well Senator Alvina Reynolds for the effort that she has done on this particular area I also want to recognize our past Minister Honourable Gail Ruggerbut and also in the house with us today we have Mrs. Romelia King and we have Ms. Catherine Sales of Raise Your Voice and I want us to acknowledge the fact not only Catherine's institution is called Raise Your Voice she continually on her own raises her voice on behalf of women and she has as well Mr. Speaker from time to establish a national network of supporters so if Catherine has a call today from Cassie she knows where to call somebody in Forsajak if there is a woman in Forsajak with a problem she knows who to call if there is a woman with a problem in Grusili so again today I want to say thank you to Ms. Sales and her organization also in the house some ladies who have done significant work on behalf of women the late Ion Ellinger Ford but in this house today we have Mrs. Romelia King we have others like Clamentia Eugene Elizabeth Lewis Champs Gasper Afusa Simay Lior Pascal Lindy Ariste Marcia Lesmond Jenny Joseph Anadas they took the challenge and they continue working today Mr. Speaker I believe I also want to recognize the staff of the family courts the police officers and staff of the support services who have all worked tirelessly to deal with family disputes Mr. Speaker one may ask another question how this current domestic violence bill make a difference in the lives of the people Mr. Speaker I take comfort in knowing that this bill has received significance take a whole discussion I have been told that support groups such as raise your voice the legal fraternity various government ministries and agencies as well as international bodies such as systems for change or contributed to the peace of legislation that is before us Mr. Speaker based on what we've heard and what I know in community I believe that it is critical as we pass this domestic violence bill that we must ensure that we focus on gender equity we must focus on women empowerment especially as well economic empowerment and that is why I am happy as well today that we are going to have a bill on the community tourism bill because that too will contribute to a reduction in domestic violence because women will be able to start their businesses men will be able to start their businesses and the whole issue of financial strength and stability they will be able to walk away from a bad relationship if they so desire Mr. Speaker I believe that we must focus on only identification of abuse in our school system and the only way we can do this is to train and train and train our teachers we must focus on strengthening our counseling services and that means we must invest in our counselors you cannot have a school of hundreds of children with one counselor yes we must we must we must focus on national training first take over the groups we must refocus our police and train them differently we must invest in training of our social workers themselves we must invest in training the community so that we know when we look at a situation we know what is happening on the ground we need to know the content we need to train our community in the content of this bill so that a neighbor who is hearing every minute that something is happening needs to know how to react I am very much aware that now when any incident happens we are very quick to use our cell phones always for the wrong purposes but if we educate the community properly we would be able to identify the signs of domestic violence and know the steps that they could take so that in the end they might save lives Mr. Speaker the passing of this domestic violence bill is a first bite at this huge elephant for effectiveness and a reduction in domestic violence all the units private sector public sector must work in unison we are stronger only when we work together Mr. Speaker we must start with strengthening and supporting our family units we must invest in social services but more than anything else we must invest in parenting we must invest in parenting because when you have two young people having a child you do not know how to raise a child we, I believe that is another beginning that is an area we need to pay significant attention to I am aware at one point that we had a unit teaching young people how to be paired we need to invest in it but Mr. Speaker in saying all of this we recognize that we are a government, a country with very limited resources and that is why I believe the passing of this bill will enable us to have friends who can support us in addressing some of the social aims so Mr. Speaker as I support this domestic violence bill I pray that God will give us the strength to understand that where there is love and where there is respect where there is love where there is respect there will be peace so I pray today for peace in our families peace in our country and peace in our world Mr. Speaker our government put in the people of Centrusia face our government put in our women face our government put in our children face our government put in our men face let us work together for a better Centrusia and a better world I thank you The member for I remember just allowing me to turn off the mic so you'll have to put yours back on Thank you Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker I thought after the the barrel of the bill you know we would have gone for lunch so that we would have come back a little energized to contribute to this bill because some of us Mr. Speaker need to have lunch at a certain time or that in itself is an abuse Mr. Speaker I ask leave to express sentiments on two matters which everybody seem to have contributed to this morning the first is to express my deepest sympathy to the team at family the gentleman actually has his immediate roots from my constituency and so I sympathize with the family down in Choiselle Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker if you allow me just to you know when this happened a number of people you know as a parliamentarian as a parliamentary representative a lot of people would have called and expressed concern and one of the things Mr. Speaker that many people seem to seem to think Mr. Speaker is that a lot of these people are emboldened because there seem to think that there is no punishment Mr. Speaker and we in this parliament are the lawmakers and I want to give the prime minister my assurance that he have my full support to come to this house to make certain adjustments to ensure make certain changes to ensure swift justice and for any perpetrator to think twice Mr. Speaker because among the opinion Mr. Speaker that we cannot have a system where people commit gun crimes Mr. Speaker and they back on the street Mr. Speaker we cannot have a situation where people feel that you know there is no no punishment where prisoners are bodily regardless of the rights that they have can demand that they want something better to be done right Mr. Speaker we have to Mr. Speaker to make it a point that if you commit a crime Mr. Speaker you have to face a very stiff penalty and swift penalty Mr. Speaker so Mr. Prime Minister you have my full support in bringing you know stronger measures to ensure in committing various crimes Mr. Speaker I also want to congratulate all the women of St. Lucia on the day that we mark as International Women's Day Mr. Speaker but Mr. Speaker I have a concern because year after year when we celebrate International Women's Day you get the feeling that it's a sort of a tokenism sort of celebration Mr. Speaker and you get the feeling also that people want to put women in position because they are women and I don't subscribe to that women work very very hard for where they reach in life Mr. Speaker it's not a charitable position the Honorable Lauren Williams is in the house Madam represented from Souffre who I work with for many years a tough lady we didn't get to the positions by any sort of charitable means they work hard and we need to stop given the impression that because you're a woman you're supposed to be in a particular position women work for what where they have attained and where they reach in society Mr. Speaker and we must stop giving that impression that we recognize women to be in certain positions changing that Mr. Speaker but we also need to recognize Mr. Speaker and you know Mr. Speaker do you think women are under threat in St. Lucia? I don't think women are under threat in St. Lucia as it relates to they graduating into various positions in various establishments women Mr. Speaker forward thinkers, forward movers I look at households where a boy and a girl a brother and a sister and whether because of various situations in the house the guy goes a certain way and the lady elevates herself to a why is that Mr. Speaker and I think now we're making it a little bit more putting a lot more pressure on our boys to Mr. Speaker because we seem to be marginalizing them when we continue to you know and I'm not saying that in any way you undermine women in any way Mr. Speaker I want us to recognize Mr. Speaker that in all of the celebration of women we must recognize also that our men are sleeping because women are very strong when we look at the rate of suicide when we look at the various things usually it's men Mr. Speaker and so I just thought you know in all of the congratulatory messages to the women which they rightly deserve Mr. Speaker we recognize that it's not an issue of tokenism Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker on the substantive bill it's a bill that we support the opposition supports this bill Mr. Speaker and I would have when you did speak to whether the bill should have gone through all stages you would have recognized that I said no Mr. Speaker and the reason I said no Mr. Speaker because and if I'm wrong and I'm subject to correction but I remember at your very first sitting you spoke to bills that are very substantive very urgent and will affect micro section of society that you would like to put it out there into the society for some discussion I am not sure whether that bill has been circulated among various civil groups Mr. Speaker if it has then I take back my comment that we should not go through all in one sitting Mr. Speaker because this bill affects men it affects women it affects children Mr. Speaker and I thought we should have that discourse out there with various civil groups to get feedback get feedback on it Mr. Speaker but Mr. Speaker passing a bill in itself is not the end to it all we I heard from Madame from Souffre and she mentioned a list of names obviously there are quite a few that you missed Mr. Speaker but we have become a society we forget very fast when this one happens after a day or two it gets under the carpet you know the perpetrators are not brought to justice Mr. Speaker we as a society have to demand on our governments to ensure that certain things are in place to catch some of the perpetrators particularly of domestic violence particularly of crimes of abuse and I am very happy that we I am speaking to the past administration we ensured Mr. Speaker that certain equipment was brought to speed at the forensic lab and where we were able to identify a serial rapist in a number of rapes that were occurring around the island so these are the kind of things that need to complement this bill in terms of the government's action to beef up certain institutions that can ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice Mr. Speaker but Mr. Speaker I am going to speak on a matter which some of my colleagues might take offence too but there is another kind of abuse that is happening and that is Mr. Speaker when we put people out of work when people lose their jobs Mr. Speaker particularly women because now these women who were independent and could have fend on their own who have lost their jobs and hundreds of women have recently lost their jobs around the island now have to go back to an abuser to get a monthly allowance or to get something you know we have to be mindful of that and the Honorable Prime Minister you know in his quest for his you know to get into government he made certain promises he made certain promises that he would do things differently you know and that he would ensure Mr. Speaker and I understand that there is a economic factor in it but in terms of showing good faith and going forward you know Mr. Speaker that he could have and showed that he changed things as he promised Mr. Speaker so these things we have to bear in mind when we speak about abuse we have to think of some of the actions that we take as a society that place women in positions where they can be abused Mr. Speaker so we cannot just pay lip service to certain things that we bring forward Mr. Speaker Mr. Speaker you know Ms. Catherine Sealy's name was mentioned and I have a lot of respect for Ms. Catherine Sealy in terms of what she has been doing over the years Mr. Speaker but Ms. Catherine Sealy as an individual she has to ensure that her voice is loud and her voice is for everybody Mr. Speaker okay she maintains that sort of neutrality when it comes to speaking on matters of that so I hope that we continue to see that sort of you know forcefulness across the board when it comes to bringing government and bringing the authorities to account for various things that are not being done I'm hoping too Mr. Speaker that we take a very serious approach as it relates to the number of children who are getting pregnant by various members men in our society that these are things Mr. Speaker that we have to come down and come down hard Mr. Speaker we cannot be saying something and then we don't act upon it we have to show force we have to show people that we are serious it's not just another bill coming to the parliament it's not just a thing that we grant stand we have to show the government that we are done by this government we have to show Mr. Speaker and you know Mr. Speaker one of the things that when we speak about women in position and women in power there would have been a lot of women very certain around this parliament but you know why Mr. Speaker because our women are our women's biggest enemies our women are our women's biggest enemies for political you know life our own women abuse them our own women raise all kind of things about them Mr. Speaker you know and it's not just about being a woman that you want to represent because you have the capacity to represent you know to represent your people Mr. Speaker so Mr. Speaker this is a bill that I support I know it was one of the things that as a government we had to bring forward there were certain things Mr. Speaker that the the Egypt chambers were swamped with we had the black listing the financial act had to take place we had COVID that we had never dealt with before a lot of these things you know Mr. Speaker you know and I don't want to it will appear that the domestic bill was put on the back burner but these are things that just came up on us Mr. Speaker and we had to address it but I think the opposition supports this bill as I said Mr. Speaker I think you know we should have been put out there for additional discussion I you know I applaud all those who have been consistent in ensuring that the bill comes to the house and I hope Mr. Speaker that we as a society will speak out most forcefully of matters of domestic violence as a parliament we will you know we will stand united regardless of who we will stand united in calling out to portrays as Mr. Speaker on behalf of the opposition I support the domestic violence bill I thank you the member for Viewfort North Mr. Speaker thank you very much I wish to stand in support of the domestic violence bill as presented by my colleague minister with responsibility for gender affairs gender relations gender affairs but before I do so Mr. Speaker I wish to join my colleagues and to express sympathy to the families of both the deceased officer and the injured officer and to offer prayers to those who are suffering at this time as a result of violence I wish to also join my colleagues Mr. Speaker to wish all women happy international women's day I salute first and foremost my mother Lucila Jebatis with a woman of great strength and courage who told their night to ensure that her children got the best of life my wife and my daughter and all the strong women in the politics of my life Mr. Speaker those who continue to assist me in my growth and survival those who have remained at my side for many years even now Mr. Speaker on this international women's day I also salute all of the women who are in this house my colleague parliamentarians and also those who have joined us in the gallery and there are many the names have been mentioned before I wish to salute every single one of them those who are in politics and those who are in civil society I wish to reach out if you permit me Mr. Speaker also to the many leaders in the constituency of V4North the women of many years who brought a brunt of leadership in the communities the farm shy of many years ago some parents who took the brunt of caring for the children the teachers the school principals early childhood education center leaders all those women if you go to the communities and I'm sure for your community also colleagues if you go to the communities most of our groups the cultural groups the mothers groups the church groups most of these groups are led by strong women who sacrifice every single day and every single year most of them Mr. Speaker after they sacrifice every single day and every single night they wash their hands and their feet and go to bed no one in the next community would know of them but they are the ones who also keep the glue of these communities together they have kept them together for years and years and years they will probably die without a mention I wish to say to every single one of them that today is your day and we salute you for keeping our communities together I wish Mr. Speaker just to spend a few minutes not very long but just to spend one or two minutes to say that this bill is a very powerful statement of action it relates to once again to the people of Saint Lucia about the intents of this government the member for Babu who went through the various aspects of this bill she went meticulously through them and I will not do the same however I wish Mr. Speaker just to reiterate a few very important aspects of this bill some of the definitions domestic violence which relates to the means it means an action sorry which harms, injures or endangers health, safety, life, limb or well-being whether mental or physical I wish to say to Mr. Speaker I wish to say to the people who went through the various aspects of this bill some of the definitions domestic violence which relates to the means of theoof it relates to domestic violence as we know what what violence what did men and women fight? mostoule in boxing in b Concept violences通lägio ivention I want to just remind Mr. Speaker for the benefit of all that threats of sexual abuse, sexual abuse.   Mr. Speaker, the law speaks a lot to children and dependents, and I am very interested in that aspect of it. Mr. Speaker, harassment, it means conduct that induces fear, or fear of harm. It includes watching or loitering outside, near buildings where a person, a child or dependent, of a person resides, works, carries out business studies and so on. Mr. Speaker, I'm the leader of the MFA. If you don't have the power, you'll be punished. If you have the money, you'll be punished. If you have the power, you'll be punished. Everyone knows that. Telephone calls. You'll be put together. You'll be put together. You'll be put together. So, Mr. Speaker, all of these things I just wanted to repeat because it's very, very important. And as my colleague's sister from Sufra indicated, it is a step in the direction which causes us to change the way we see life in St. Lucia. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to end, and this is just coincidence. I discovered something in my little research for this contribution called the voiceless victims, domestic violence and children's rights, a panel led by a wonderful lady called Felicia Brown. And in this panel, it included experts on the Caribbean and so on. The public launch of Decides Caribbean, and there are some very important quotes there. I just wanted to quote some of what Ms. Felicia Brown wrote. And I quote, and I can make it a document of the House, Mr. Speaker. In many Caribbean societies, there is an aim to primary focus on the victims and the nature of the deaths rather than the deep and fundamental causes of this inhumane acts against human life. Many of these victims are women and children, some of whom were known to be victims of continual abuse of violence within their respective homes and communities. In such human tragedies, it is very alarming that in many of these cases, children are involved whether directly or indirectly, unquote. To end, Mr. Speaker, I want to go to continue to indicate that in this very discussion, they spoke about a very important study by UNICEF in 2015. And listen to that, Mr. Speaker. And it relates to this bill because the member for Babuno indicated the impact that these actions can have on children. And I want you to listen to this because I'm very interested in how children are impacted by domestic violence. And I quote, Mr. Speaker, a child's developing brain can mistakenly encode the violence. Listen to that, says children of domestic violence are in that case can grow up believing that violence is the norm and that they are to be blamed for it. The statistics and studies show and it reinforces that belief that stopping domestic violence long term and breaking the cycle of violence relies heavily, it heavily relies on the raising of children in environments free of violence, unquote. In other words, Mr. Speaker, what this discussion led by Ms. Felicia Brown indicated was that children, when they see, when they experience violence, somehow they believe it's normal. And later on in their lives, they continue to copy it and possibly this is what we see happening in our society. So I wish, Mr. Speaker, to support this bill and to say to the people of St. Lucia that we are very committed. Though it may be a long process, we are very committed to ensuring that our social systems are strengthened. And that, Mr. Speaker, we continue to give our women strength and that the men, although we laugh at it, because it's the cultural thing that men don't report and men get their licks too, so the men will not report it. But we want to develop a society where we respect each other and we continue to grow in love, as the sister from Babunu said. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support this bill. Thank you. Member Vakashree South. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I proceed for the point raised by the member from Sousal Saltibus, I think he was under the impression that we would have broken for lunch and, like he said, come back, energize to contribute to the debates. I probably need to just explain to honorable members that we had intended to break earlier. And, of course, with your permission, and Prime Minister asked that we invite the ladies who are here with us, the women who are in first today, to lunch with us. But based on the numbers, we felt that we would not have had enough lunch, so we had to order extra food and it would not be here until after two. So it did not make sense for us to break, to have lunch, and the ladies don't sit with no food for them. When we are ready to resume, then the lunch would come. So we thought that we would, even the importance of this bill, we would continue to debate until the food arrives, where we can invite them to share with us downstairs. But, of course, for honorable members, the lunch is downstairs, and if you feel it is necessary to have lunch now, you are free to do so. Basically, this is the reason why, and we want to take this opportunity, and I'm sure you, Mr. Speaker, will invite all the women who are here with us. And, being here since morning, do I please join us with lunch when we do break for lunch? So, Mr. Speaker, I want to join my colleagues in, first of all, offering condolences to the family of the officer who lost his life, Officer Timet, and to express on behalf of my constituency, Mr. Speaker, the hope that they will find the strength to deal with the situation that they face, the Prime Minister has spoken on the situation of crime, and, therefore, I will lend support to his words. Of course, today is International Women's Day, and, like colleagues before me, we want to certainly pay homage to all the outstanding women that we have in St. Lucia over the years, have done so much to nurture many of us. Some of us, our mothers, were also our fathers, and, therefore, our mothers really prove how extraordinary they were in not just being mothers, but also being fathers for us when the strength of a father was needed. There are many outstanding women in St. Lucia, and colleagues before me would have, you mentioned some of them, those who certainly prepared the path that many women of today's generation are following. For my part, my political survival, and I've said so over and over, depends so much on my women's group. They're the most active individuals, and it's certainly the ones who carry me through a lot of the trials and tribulations that I have to face. I think we all know in politics that if you don't have women supporting you, then you're going to lose. There is no winning campaign that is not driven by women. They're the most dependable, the most reliable, and the most astute when it comes to politics. I have learned that over the years. Some of my colleagues may not agree with me, but I always feel more comfortable when I know my women are in charge. As a practicing politician, I can attest to the value of having women in the political process working with you. Today's International Women's Day, so we all pay homage to women for their contribution to the development of St. Lucia. I was really inspired by the presentation by the Minister of Sports, the honorable member for Bruce Lee this morning, as he really demonstrated our commitment to women in sports and the achievement of our women in contemporary times in relation to sports. But of course, that can equally be done for agriculture, for business, and many other sectors in St. Lucia. But today has an added significance. Today is a day when we are finally getting through this honorable house, a new domestic violence bill. They've been one for many years, and in the briefing notes that I saw, it was really significant that for years, our women have been calling for a reflection and a review of the domestic violence act that existed in St. Lucia, that there are so many deficiencies in them, that they had to be an amendment and an updating of that act. And for anyone to suggest that it is not important enough for there to be a debate, today for us to close this chapter is a bit short-sighted. We have to do so. This has been going on for too long. And I was really pleased when I listened to my colleague minister yesterday at cabinet explaining the bill to us. And she was making some very significant points, and in my short contribution, I just want to highlight them, which I thought were really critical. A point was made to us that one of the greatest deficiencies of the previous bill is the fact that women have difficulty in getting action taken, well, not just women, but the predominance is women, have difficulty in getting action taken as victims of domestic violence. And we believe in many ways, and I have asked many of my colleagues as some of the activists to ensure that in this bill that they feel comforted, that there is enough in there to ensure that persons who are engaging in domestic violence face justice. The victims must know that they can get justice what has been done to them. It has to happen. And we know too often, and a colleague of ours was making a point that one of the challenges is that a complaint will be made, a case commences, and then one partner decides they do not want to go any further. And he gave us a startling experience he had. The first time he said he was reported as an officer was in a domestic violence case. The lady who was a victim reported him for abusing her partner because he got involved in trying to settle the matter he happened probably to have had some engagement with the gentleman involved, proceeded in a case, they made up, fell in love again, and then she wanted to press charges against him for assaulting her partner. And he did, I mean he, you know, I won't tell you all the story in there, but the point is he was actually charged for that. And it really reflected a very deep structural issue as it relates to domestic violence. We're not blaming the lady who was the victim and who eventually took action against him because sometimes the circumstances that they find themselves in lends itself to the needing to make up and the needing to go back into the situation that they were in and needed to take the action that they took. Too often, we find situations where women have to find themselves going back into the abusive environment that they were in. And sometimes they don't have the strength to get out of it, to break the cycle. We're hoping that creating a new environment for dealing with domestic violence can protect both men and women when they feel empowered and they feel strengthened that as a victim they can stand up and say, wasn't for all it has to end. And the member from Babylon said to you, she had to see to the gentleman, the gentleman is asking her to tell his wife to come back. And she had to say to him, if she has decided to move on, let her move on. This bill has to create an environment where victims can feel comfortable that they can say enough is enough and they can move on with their lives. I also noted, Mr. Speaker, that there are added definitions of relationships. And the point was made that there were severe limitations on what can be done because of the definitions of what relationships were and what would be the standing of a victim on the basis of the relationship that they had. And I feel very comforted by this. There's another point that really struck me. And it's a very serious one that you appointed a challenging times ahead for us in implementing this bill. When I read the definition of what abuses, and I hope all solutions read it, Mr. Speaker, because, you know, for example, a repeated exhibition of possessiveness or jealousy is abuse. Now think about that. This is deep. A repeated exhibition of possessiveness or jealousy can be interpreted as abuse.  That's abuse. Repeat it. And it really makes you question how will some of those incidents really be determined? I'm not a lawyer, judge by district of the imagination, but you know, there are some very interesting days ahead in terms of how some of those incidents can really be proven. And maybe it's new wrong for us, new areas of jurisprudence and whatever. But the definition of abuse has been surely strengthened or in some would say expanded. But it's needed. It's needed because it's very easy for us to escape as a society by believing that what somebody is going through is not detrimental to them, the individual. And if somebody is being repeatedly subjected to acts of jealousy, that whatever they do is a problem, they on their phone it must be a man they speak into or it must be another woman they speak into. That if they, whatever they do, they come home half an hour late, you might have been by the field watching football is another woman you have by the field.  And this bill speaks to that. So in many ways, Mr. Speaker, I want to say to you that I feel comforted by the fact that this bill will go a long way in creating a very protective environment for both men and women who are sufferers and victims of abuse, Mr. Speaker. It is far reaching. It is transformational. But I also see it's been very challenging in how we can execute some of the provisions in there. So I want to stand and lend my support, Mr. Speaker, for the bill and to say to all the women who fought so hard and men to ensure that we reach where we are today, that it is a journey that is worth taking, still a long way to go to actually see it's been implemented in the way in which it is intended and the spirit of the bill. But we have as a government ensured with taking it to this point, let us continue to work together to take it further and to ensure that both men and women can feel more comfortable in the relationships that they exist in. So thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Member for Grozile. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a couple minutes to send out condolences to the family of Officer Timet. Of course, strong ties with former Senator Terence Sinclair in Grozile. I also want to take this opportunity to lend my voice and support for this bill before us today, considering some of the experiences that have been faced by women in the constituency of Grozile over the last five years. Mr. Speaker, the Member for Grozile made a couple of statements intimating that there is additional abuse ongoing in the constituencies due to the fact that some women are out of work. I wanted to say to the Member for Grozile Sautibus that I observed a five-year period of silence when it came to domestic abuse in that sense when it came to employment. Mr. Speaker, that same Member for Choson Sautibus said nothing when the former MP for Grozile said that 90 percent of the women employed under NICE were SLP. Mr. Speaker, that same Member for Choson Sautibus said nothing when that Member for Grozile corrected himself and said in fact that number was 95 percent. Mr. Speaker, I remember shortly after that 100 percent of anybody considered to have any leaning towards the Saint Lucia Labour Party being out of work under that very same programme. And I remember how disgusted I felt, how hurt that these women had no form of employment. Mr. Speaker, during that same period, no word, not a word, not a word, not a word from the Member for Choson Sautibus. Mr. Speaker, I also listened attentively as the Member for Choson Sautibus mentioned again about unemployment and abuse. I remember Janine Compton, Mr. Speaker, somebody who is qualified, went through the process of applying for a job that she has all the knowledge for. Somebody who was then given that job by those who interviewed them being robbed of that opportunity simply because that individual did not agree with some of the policies of the government. Mr. Speaker, what was the outcry then for a woman subject to abuse of being unemployed? Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the women of Grosley, thank you for all what you've done. Thank you for the contribution you continue to make to the economic stability of this great nation. We've seen you wake up in the morning and go to the communities of cap estate as cleaners. We've seen you wake up in the morning and go to businesses as business women, as accountants, as doctors. And we want to say to you that this Labour Party government will continue to support you in every which way. Mr. Speaker, as the member for Castro himself said, it is the women who drive the campaign. And so I want to say thank you to even some of those that are here with us today from the community of Grosley, who fought, who went door to door and ensured that I was elected parliamentary representative for Grosley. Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Schoesel, so to speak, mention of Catherine Siles and raise your voice. And I shook my head when the members intimated that on some level she should go in both sides and speak on women and justice for women. But Mr. Speaker, this is the same member for Schoesel who said nothing when Catherine Siles as a member of the former UWP. Was pushed aside because she refused to toe a particular line. Nothing was said. And the same can be said for Paul Alcindor. Nothing was said. And so today with this bill, this bill does not warrant any political football. None at all. As I said earlier, our women are doing very well in sports and that is where it should be. No political football. And I advise any member of this honorable House to speak the truth, to be objective, and stand up in support of this domestic violence bill. I thank you. The member for Castries East. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this domestic violence bill and join my colleagues in wishing all the women of St. Lucia, the women of the world, the women of the Caribbean, Happy International Women's Day, Mr. Speaker, and wish the women in my life Happy International Women's Day, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these my colleagues sing differently. I do have two women in my life. One of them is my daughter. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill, Mr. Speaker, is to provide for the protection of victims of domestic violence. I mean, Mr. Speaker, I recall some time Catherine Silas came to my office with, I think, two or three other ladies and told me that there was need to review the laws as he related to domestic violence. And she literally threatened me. I'm not a victim of abuse. Telling me that if God forbid on me won elections and I didn't pass the bill, she would be the first one to be on my case. But I'm happy that when we go into government, there were two ladies in the cabinet who were equally on my case. So Catherine's threat did not materialize. But, Mr. Speaker, the bill kind of replaces the domestic violence summary proceedings Act, Mr. Speaker, of 1995. And it seeks to improve on the acts to make, to provide a more expansive definition of domestic violence. And it doesn't limit it, it may need to act of physical and verbal abuse, Mr. Speaker. It also, in the Act, Mr. Speaker, it is not sufficiently captured the change in nature of domestic violence, which can take the form of sexual abuse, molestation, stalking, and coercion. And the member for Kashmir South made the point that there are different types of abuse, which is not necessarily physical abuse. There's verbal abuse. There's abuse of, there's intimidation. There's withholding people's freedom. All that is abuse. So the domestic violence seeks to put all these things in perspective, Mr. Speaker. So having said so, Mr. Speaker, this bill will repeal the acts and bring it more in terms of modern life, Mr. Speaker. The member spoke about abuse of phone calls, threats, Mr. Speaker, because several times we inadvertently abuse people and we've not realized that we abuse in them. And the police before only had the criminal act to act upon. So in several situations where there was abuse, there was an act of criminality, but the police only use the criminal act, the criminal code to deal with that abuse. So the domestic violence bill seeks to make these acts an offense, which is punishable, Mr. Speaker. But Mr. Speaker, in acting the bills are fine, but we have to police them and we have to make sure it works. And I think domestic violence stems from the whole, Mr. Speaker, because several times we set examples to our children and we do not even remember or understand that we are setting the example, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can proudly say that my mother and my father have never seen, have never seen, and they're dead, they're dead now. I never saw my dad ever raise his hands on my mother, never, Mr. Speaker. And when they needed to quarrel, they waited when they saw that I was asleep. They waited when they saw that I was asleep and they began to have their discussions. And when they got up in the morning, it was as if nothing happened, Mr. Speaker. And this is why possibly today I'm a pacifist and people think they can, people think that they can take advantage on me and they underestimate me and they did that so much that they put me where I am today. Mr. Speaker, so this idea of violence is something that we have to stop, Mr. Speaker. We have to stop. We have to stop the abuse, we have to stop the intimidation, Mr. Speaker. And sometimes a lot of it comes through selfishness and arrogance and the belief, the belief that we always have to be right and we cannot see, we can't admit that we're wrong. We can't admit that we've made, we can't admit that we've made a mistake, Mr. Speaker. We can't admit that. So we end up, no one wants to say, I'm sorry, no one wants to say that I'm wrong. But Mr. Speaker, so I'm saying that whereas this bill has all the requirements, it's a modern legislation. And as the minister said, it will possibly help me in that I hope she can bring some money in into the coffers so we can assist more, Mr. Speaker. Because as you know, the fiscal realities are real, Mr. Speaker. Speaking about fiscal realities, I want to compliment the staff of the Minister of Finance because only this morning we got the information that St. Lucia is still considered as a country that is not on any so-called blacklist, as far as Europeans are concerned. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment all the people, the ladies and the men and the gentlemen who made this bill possible. I want to say that we have to enforce it. We have to make sure it works, Mr. Speaker. We have to make sure that we give, that we educate the police in how it works. And because all violence is wrong. And there are certain acts of violence that we have to stem at the bottom, Mr. Speaker. The obscene language in public, the abuse of people, the threats in public, Mr. Speaker. They want to be able to run radio stations without licenses. These acts of criminality. And we have to stop these things, Mr. Speaker. It has to be a holistic approach to this entire thing. And finally, I would have hoped that the member for SHUZELL would not have brought the politics into this discussion, Mr. Speaker. I would have hoped that he would have forgotten the cut and thrust of politics. And at least for once in this honorable house, come away from it. But he had to open the door, Mr. Speaker. And since he opened the door, it's my duty to defend the government that I have the privilege to lead, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just very, very quickly. Mr. Speaker, do you know that for our eight months in office, we have been the only government that has not sent, I want to use my words correctly, one public servant home because of the political affiliation. Not even at the level where we have, where we can do it, Mr. Speaker. I'm talking at the level of cleaner, of driver, of office assistant, we have kept every one of them, Mr. Speaker. Every one. Gain an example, Mr. Speaker. There's a program called NAPS in Vuford. Everybody in there is a political appointee. One of the people who work there every day, she's on Facebook using her name, saying the worst things about me and the worst things about the government. We've kept her there for the last eight months. And in fact, she boasts on Facebook that they can't do anything, Mr. Speaker. She remains there because we believe that people must own a living in this country, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you something further. The last government, Mr. Speaker, there are some traditions that we hold dearly. This government refused to keep any of these traditions, Mr. Speaker. The post of cabinet secretary is a sacred post. The cabinet secretary is the highest serving civil civil, Mr. Speaker. This government, the last government, forced the parliament secretary out, forced the cabinet secretary out of office, Mr. Speaker. And he comes in and he speaks about victimization, Mr. Speaker. This we can tell you something further. The ambassadors, we allowed every ambassador to serve their term till the contract ended and they left in dignity. The ambassador to Taiwan, he sent a message. He even had the opportunity to give a farewell address, Mr. Speaker, because we cheated him with dignity. The ambassador asked to extend her stay for four months because of family concerns. We allowed that to happen, Mr. Speaker. The ambassador, the high commissioner in England, we allowed him to stay to complete his domestic affairs. The ambassador to New York, Mr. Speaker, we allowed him to stay till the end of his affairs and gave him some more time to compete with him, Mr. Speaker. So we have treated these people with dignity, Mr. Speaker, with the dignity that they deserve. And I want to thank my cabinet colleagues for agreeing to treat people with dignity and respect. That is what we are about, Mr. Speaker. We are about the government of dignity and respect. So when the mayor of Ocasio-Zell wants to follow his leader and speak about these things, Mr. Speaker, I have to defend this government. I have to defend the honor and the integrity of this government, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to end by commanding all the people who made this bill possible, the attorney general's office, Mr. Speaker, the people who work in the ministry of gender affairs and those who work in the other ministries before, and everyone who made it possible, and people in civil society who also helped make it possible. Let us make it work. Let's make St. Lucia a less violent place. Let's make St. Lucia the best place to live and work in the Caribbean. I thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I beg to move that down. Member, I recognize you. I wish to recognize you. I can't remember what I see myself. Mr. Speaker, I beg to move that this house stands suspended until 3.30. Before I put the question, I just would like to ask members to while we are paid tribute in words to Officer Timit, I would like for the house to stand with me for one minute of silence in sparsing. Thank you, members. Members, the question is that this house do stand suspended until 3.30 p.m. I now put a question as many as of that opinion say aye. As many as of a country opinion say no. I think the ayes have it. The ayes have it. House suspended. House of assembly standing suspended there. Going in for the lunch break, we've seen the completion of the morning session and very, very lively debate there, very personal debate and moving as well, a debate on the domestic violence bill and the bill being heralded as one of the most progressive, if not the progressive in the Caribbean amongst the women who have been applauded this morning is Ms. Lauren Williams and certainly she had been recognized as one of the leading forces, having been at the helm as Attorney General and Minister Senoucha's first female Attorney General and well as the First Minister for Women's Affairs, having overseen the Domestic Violence Semi-Procedents Act and this domestic violence bill is what is going to replace this act and the bill says a name as was described by Minister Honourable Dr. Virginia Arthur Pollard is one that is a very significant step towards combating crime in St. Lucia. It is going to provide further training of medical doctors, police officers, human services officers and so forth. It's also going to provide for the support services. It's going to improve on the police powers. It's going to speak to bail and protection orders, the conduct of court proceedings as well. The bill the Minister indicated has absolutely no tolerance for violence in the home. It also speaks to the breach of protection orders saying that the breach of protection orders rather was the only charge that could have been preferred to onto someone under the 1995 Semi-Procedents Act. However, this domestic violence bill has broadened what that can be and the Minister indicating that the definition of abuse under the act as well has been expanded. It also speaks to the intent of committing a violent act. So the definition of abuse has expanded to include cyber stalking, stalking, the economic abuse which is the withholding of financial support, harassment, coercion and so forth. There was also the statistic that on average three women per year die at the hands of intimate partners here in St. Lucia and so the bill is seeking to be able to prevent such situations by delivering a robust and coordinated approach to preventing domestic violence as well as towards the prosecution of those engaged in domestic violence. We also heard a very moving contribution from the Minister for Equity Honourable Joachim Henry when he spoke to sort of individual and community responsibility to the prevention of domestic violence and dealing with domestic violence and he did indicate that some 30 million dollars is being spent by the state to maintain public assistance and 500 seniors who have been abandoned by family members. The state has to spend like an annually eight million dollars to help before their care and he was indicating that that within itself is a form of abuse, a form of abuse that the society is not speaking about and that is adding to the cost ballooning the recurrent expenditure of government and certainly eroding the sort of social fabric of the country when it comes to family relations and family ties. So debate on the domestic violence bill is going to continue into the second session, the afternoon session, along with the debate on the Community Tourism Development Bill, the Agriculture and Fisheries Incentives Amendment as well as Customs Control and Management Amendment, Eastern Caribbean Centre Bank Agreement Amendment. Just to also just to recap a little bit early on in the morning we did see the Honourable Minister for Youth and Sports, Youth Development and Sports rather, Honourable Kenson Kasme paying tribute to the Seymusha's sports women and we did have the team members of the senior national network team right here in the house, they know to a standing ovation and certainly applauding them on their recent success in the OECS competition and so the Honourable Kasme indicates in there like you know Seymusha's national flag is continuing to be flown high by the nations of women and so government has pledged government support to ensure that this continues. Just to also tell you that the Prime Minister in the statement made a statement to the House on the recent killing of police officer, police constable Nathan Tamat as well as the critic did an injury there to his partner Isaac King. The Prime Minister indicated that violence is a result of long festering issues within the society and he didn't ascribe any blame to any single entity. The Prime Minister called for the country to come together to be able to tackle this scourge that we are all facing. He indicated that his government is going to continue to provide the necessary resources that is human and as well as training for police officers and he indicated that the fight for those against the scourge must be a lawful one and the Prime Minister's indicated that so serious is the government on providing all the necessary resources to the police force that in just the eight short months that they his administration has been in government some 16 vehicles have been distributed to the Royal Sinusia Police force and so the House there just before going to break taking a moment of silence a minute of silence to really honor the fallen police officer Nathan Tamat that will do us for the roundup of the first session or for the sit-in of the House of Assembly and the Prime Minister Hutchinson is going to be back with you during the lunch session I am Lisa Joseph see you next time