Government Backbencher Marsha Caddle is calling on Barbadians to “truly embrace what we claim to enjoy” and to guard against insularity and hatred.
During debate on the Caribbean Community (Free Movement of Nationals) Bill, 2025, Monday night in the House of Assembly, she said there was no rush of people seeking to live and work in Barbados from October 1.
Caddle noted that the “situational analysis from the population policy” showed that with the exception of Belize, the other countries – Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines – also had declining populations and “we are afraid of a bogeyman that doesn’t exist”.
“The simple fact is that these countries are not themselves overrun and over-populated, such that they are all going to seek to flee and come to Barbados. For the period from 2000 to 2018, the average population growth in Barbados was 0.3 [per cent]. Between 2017 and 2018, it dropped to 0.1.
“Similarly, Dominica’s population growth stayed stagnant at 0.2. This is among some of the lowest in the western hemisphere, and [in] St Vincent and the Grenadines, the average was between 0.1 and 0.3. The exception being Belize, which is higher, but still declining. So between 2000 and 2018 [it was] at
2.4 . . . but by the end of 2018, it was declining to 1.9.
“I make that point to say that just as we saw in the first ten days of the new regime from October 1, regrettably perhaps, there does not seem to be any mad rush or mad dash as a part of this regime, for people to have come here because, equally, people also left Barbados and went to other countries to see what fortunes they could make or what they could experience.”
The Member of Parliament for St Michael South Central said what she does not want to see happening in Barbados, as occurred in other parts of the world, was people “being turned against each other and being made to feel as if there is nowhere that they can go to give effect to their own lives”.
“Let us take what is happening as a warning to what insularity and hatefulness can breed. Look at how quickly it happened. A mere month in that place that is just next door that the world has always held up as a stable democracy. Let us understand that the test of democracy is not in voting on Election Day. The test of democracy is the extent to which we can secure people’s rights and freedoms in our community. We are a part of a Caribbean Community,” she said.
Caddle called on Barbadians to not be performative regarding regional events such as CARIFESTA, the cricket tournaments, taking photos and recording videos while there, but turning off the regionalism “when it suits us”.
“I regret that life is not so convenient, and if we give lip service to the sense of freedom and integration that we felt, and if we were honest about that, while our Caribbean sisters and brothers, and sisters and brothers from the continent of Africa and from Latin America, while they were here with us, if we give voice to how much we enjoy that experience, but then we seek to turn it off when we start to feel a little bit insecure.
“My only caution and challenge to us all as Barbadians is to truly embrace what we claim to enjoy. This business of integration and of shared living with our Caribbean sisters and brothers is not meant to and is not just performative. But the fact is that this free movement of nationals bill does not, will not, even, I fear, meet the requirements for the gap that we need to fill with respect to population, because we are talking largely about countries that are already under-populated.” (GBM)
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