SVG looks to Canada for airport aid

St Vincent and the Grenadines has petitioned Canada for assistance in the construction of the international airport and leadership training, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves announced yesterday.{{more}}

At a press briefing last Monday, Dr Gonsalves said that he pitched these ideas to Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week when he along with eight other CARICOM heads met with the Canadian leader in Barbados.

Dr Gonsalves said that he had already had advanced discussions with the former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin about the assistance for the airport.

“Before his (Stephen Harper) government got into office, we had had advance discussions with the liberal government headed by Paul Martin, The liberal government fell and this conservative government came into power, and the discussions in terms of airport assistance went into abeyance,” Dr Gonsalves said.

Dr Gonsalves said that while there were no concrete commitments that Prime Minister Harper was receptive.

He said that any assistance from Canada would be part of the EC$41.3 million that he wants to raise from the “coalition of the willing”: Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the recently established CARICOM Regional Development Fund (RDF).

He further noted that he has been able to put the issue of the airport at the heart of the policy of CARICOM, and said that he was encouraged by CARICOM chairman, Barbados’ Prime Minister Owen Arthur, to raise the issue with Harper.

He said that in the CARICOM forum he has not only been concerned with St Vincent and the Grenadines but also Dominica, which also needs an International Airport.

Speaking on the issue of leadership training, Gonsalves said that while many Vincentians are returning home as university graduates and are technically equipped for the various jobs, that leadership skills are found wanting.

“There is lacking in many, a sense of leadership, and in our country, in addition to issues of manning the system with technical skills, it is important that people have initiative; that people show leadership to get things done quicker and better,” Dr Gonsalves said.(KJ)