November 2, 2012Dear Sir,Last week I attended a forum held at Pembroke Sunday School. Five panellists spoke on the topic of term limits . Tree of the panellists, Larry Burchall, Shawn Crockwell and Richard Winchell, spoke in near unison that term limits must be abolished. They each gave their spin on how it was hurting Bermuda. Two other panellists, Walton Brown and Chris Furbert, gave their positions. Bermudians must come first in Bermuda when it comes to employment. There is, however, room for further tweaking of the policy. During the questions period some interesting comments were raised by members of the audience. Two Bermudian gents spoke passionately of how they have been marginalised in their profession by employers giving guest workers higher wages and exposure to higher skill set training. One of the gents nearly brought the room to tears speaking of his frustrations with being treated as a second-class citizen in his profession. It would be safe to say he was not in favour of term limits being scrapped.Another gent, a corporate lawyer asked Mr Burchall why does he think Bermudians by-and-large are in favour of term limits? Mr Burchall strained to find an answer that matched the question. Sister Molly Burgess was the last to speak. She spoke passionately about the fact that the panellists in favour of term limits being scrapped, seem to have little to no empathy for the common Bermudian, as the cut and thrust of their pitch was that we need to get more guest workers in here ASAP. After the forum was over a small debate broke out between OBA candidate Andrew Simons and Brian Holdipp, a Bermudian corporate lawyer. Andrew gave his reasons for toeing the team line, stating why term limits should end. And Brian spoke passionately of why it must stay in place.Playing the role of moderator I listened intently for two hours while these young Bermudian professionals pitched their case. One of the interesting revelations was that it would appear IB is some sort of old boy’s network, in the sense that they prefer to employ persons that they have attended university with. Essentially IB wishes to hire who they wish to hire hence the exclusion of many Bermudians from these inner circles. If I recall, Bob Richards did state: “We will suspend term limits and figure something out later.”Fairly safe to say the OBA game plan is to now abolish term limits altogether. Term limits are to do with persons being prevented from having a reasonable expectation of living in Bermuda and gaining citizenship. So why is the OBA advocating the removal of term limits, unless they wish for guest workers to have a reasonable expectation of gaining citizenship? Stand Stronger FamilyTHOMAS CHRISTOPHER FAMOUS