Michael Dunkley delivered the One Bermuda Alliance’s platform yesterday morning ahead of what he believes will be better days for Bermuda.

Surrounded by a handful of party members, the Premier outlined what he described as an “ambitious plan” for “more opportunity, more jobs, economic stability, and shared prosperity” just over two weeks ahead of the General Election on July 18.

“It is a plan that reflects the confidence and the promise of Bermuda,” Mr Dunkley said. The roughly 30-page document entitled Our Mission, Our Plans to Move Bermuda Forward Together breaks down priorities into supporting families, education, protecting Bermudians, environment, enriching community life, health and safety, public safety, good governance and the economy.

It pledges to “leverage the recovery in our public finances to launch new infrastructure projects generating opportunity and jobs”.

“We believe that better days are ahead,” Mr Dunkley’s letter in the opening pages of the document reads.

The plan, the Premier said, “will deepen the principles of fairness in Bermuda”, and would include ending discrepancies between Bermudian and foreign workers in housing and compensation, passing hate crime and cannabis forgiveness legislation, lowering taxes for lower income workers, appointing a seniors’ advocate, and balancing the budget.

“This is a plan to progress Bermudian life,” he said.

Nandi Outerbridge described the day as a great one for the country. The St George’s West MP outlined the party’s plan for a Jump Start Savings account of $2,500 that will be given to each newborn Bermudian, and a $2 million grant for the Salvation Army’s transformation of the Bishop Spencer School into an emergency and transitional housing facility.

She also outlined measures to ensure that children “get the attention they need”, including flexible working hours for parents, paternity leave entitlements, and the extension of after-school activities.

Nick Kempe described rectifying the financial situation inherited by the OBA 4½ ago as a “monumental task”.

“It’s very hard to set up a system that protects the most vulnerable in society when debt is crowding out your ability to fund those services,” the candidate for Pembroke West Central said. Senator Andrew Simons outlined some of the measures aimed at supporting seniors, including social insurance enforcement.

“We will allocate far more resources to energetically enforce that legislation, just as we have done successfully with health insurance,” the Pembroke Central candidate said.

Mr Simons also discussed the party’s commitment to protect pension funds, the creation of a caregiver resource centre and examination of caregiver allowances, and the expansion of home hospice care.

“The OBA has made tremendous progress in reining in the costs of healthcare, but also in improving quality,” he said.

Senator Lynne Woolridge likened the state of affairs when the party took power in 2012 to that of an injured patient.

“We’ve spent the last four-plus years stopping the bleeding and getting this island back on a strong financial, economic footing,” the party’s chairwoman said.

“This is the time when we will now touch the lives of each and every Bermudian — young and old and everyone in between, the middle class that contributes to this economy — and help move Bermuda forward.”

Asked about the party’s promise from the last General Election to create 2,000 new jobs, Ms Woolridge said that the failure of the pledge to materialise was due to “pushback” from people who “didn’t want those jobs to be created”.

Bob Richards, Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance, echoed Ms Woolridge’s comments on the difficulties in bringing promised jobs to fruition. “Every initiative that we have put forward for job creation has been opposed or criticised by the Opposition,” he said.

Praised by the Premier as the man who saved the country from the “economic abyss”, Mr Richards said the Government spent its first two years “staunching the haemorrhaging” from the previous administration.

The election, Mr Richards said, was about shoring up the support of Bermudians to “finish the job”.

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