A call was issued last night by David Burt, the Leader of the Opposition, for supporters to demonstrate today at Parliament as MPs prepare to debate the controversial airport development legislation.

The call was made in an e-mail and reiterated at a People’s Campaign meeting on the airport project which featured Mr Burt as a panellist alongside Bermuda Industrial Union president Chris Furbert, Larry Burchall and moderator Reverend Nicholas Tweed.

“Our call is simple,” Mr Burt said at the packed meeting at St Paul’s Centennial Hall, which was also broadcast on Magic 102.7. “Submit the deal to an advance review by the office of the Auditor-General, let her give her independent assessment of the cost to taxpayers of this deal and then, and only then, should Parliament, the representatives of the people of Bermuda, be able to ask the Government as to whether or not we are going to privatise our airport to this Canadian company and export our profits overseas.”

And responding to members of the public who voiced their frustrations and called for less talking and more action, he said: “I hear your frustration, I hear where you are, you are tired of marching. But tomorrow is a day where the One Bermuda Alliance is planning on using their very slim majority to sell our airport, to privatise our airport to a foreign company and we cannot let that happen. So I hope that you will heed the call.

“At the very minimum, the people of this country deserve an independent review of this deal. And if the Government is not prepared to commit to that, then there’s going to be no negotiation on our side.”

Noting that “we have exhausted the political options”, Mr Burt called also on Randy Horton, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, to reconsider his position, saying it is only because of where he sits that “the One Bermuda Alliance is still the Government of the day”.

“I would hope that this evening, the Speaker of the House would consider the fact that the people voted for him, voted for the Progressive Labour Party and would consider the fact that if he decided to come home to the PLP, the One Bermuda Alliance’s plan’s would be derailed. Because we can march and we can make our voices heard, but the actions of one man would be enough to stop this entire thing.”

Mr Furbert also called on the people to send a clear message “to Michael Dunkley and the OBA Government like they did in the early 1970s when the UBP was trying to implement the payroll tax on the hotel workers’ grats, then you show up tomorrow in full force and I can tell you, the OBA will have no other choice but to turn that bill somewhere else”.

Referencing the protests in March, which he said saw about 15 per cent of the workforce come out, he added: “So instead of taking five days, if we had 80 per cent out, maybe it takes one day to resolve.”

And Reverend Nicholas Tweed, who pointed out to much laughter that he had “exercised tremendous discipline and restraint in his neutral role as facilitator”, added in closing: “On the dawn of the 39th anniversary of 1977, we must decide whether we are going to continue to address symptoms and get tired of walking, tired of marching, because we are addressing symptoms and we have to decide whether we are ready and committed to fix the problem. You think on these things. Your destiny is in your hands.”

In an e-mail sent last night from the Progressive Labour Party, Mr Burt called today “a pivotal date in Bermuda’s history” — noting past occasions when mass protests had caused the Bermuda Government to backtrack.

On March 14, demonstrations outside Sessions House blocked legislators from the building, and Mr Burt pointed to that showdown as well as mass demonstrations on furlough days as occasions when the One Bermuda Alliance “wouldn’t listen and the people forced them to listen”.

Mr Burt also reiterated his call for the Auditor-General to review the proposal in advance and to give an independent assessment of its cost to MPs — a request that was earlier turned down by the Government. Michael Dunkley, the Premier, has stated that the project has already been assessed, and that the Auditor-General’s office is unsuited to evaluating projects in advance.

Mr Burt’s message called on all Bermudians to come to the House of Assembly from 9am to demonstrate.

The statement added: “Now it is time for the people to demonstrate our strength yet again because you know, as we do, that ‘the power of the people is far greater than the people in power’.”