The newspaper headline in relation to the poll conducted by Narrative Research read “Survey: 72% thinking about leaving Bermuda”. The headline should have read “International business eats Bermuda”.

This is what Jason Hayward, David Burt, Jarion Richardson, Marc Bean, Wayne Caines, Ben Smith and Curtis Dickinson — yes, him, too — don’t get because they lack the requisite critical and/or analytical skills; no less the proper ideological lens. Mr Hayward and Mr Richardson, in particular, fall in that category.

Then you have those who actually do get it, but who are absent the courage to acknowledge it publicly because they do not want to make the new foreign-born oligarchs of the international business sector and assorted developers that dominate our government unhappy. The gaslighter-in-chief, David Burt, unfortunately falls into that category. Clearly, this is an example that demonstrates once again that our Black leadership class is not in power; only in government.

Both Mr Burt and Mr Hayward mimic my talking points by reciting the mantras “cost of living” and “cost of doing business” every chance they get. But what they don’t do is look at the other side of the ledger and acknowledge that both of those critical issues and their adverse outcomes — including the significant exodus of Bermudians overseas — are directly tied to the so-called phenomenal rise in the growth and expansion of the international business sector on island over the past quarter-century, with particular spikes post-9/11 and post-Hurricane Katrina.

As previously stated, one would call this a paradox. The renewed growth of this sector over the past two years against the backdrop of a hard pricing environment in the global insurance industry has once again led to a growing boom in that sector locally. But to actually see that, of those polled, 48 per cent may seek to leave Bermuda at some future date in search of better job opportunities and a higher standard of living is telling.

It is the canary in the coalmine.

I already know, as many of you do, that existing in a country with the highest cost of living in the world is tough — and getting tougher. But growing numbers of young adults seriously considering the above, not to mention the 24 per cent who had already made such a decision, only confirms that this trend of the past decade and a half is growing. This year will see even more economic pressure, as this revived boom driven by international business continues with more of the consequences I have outlined.

The finance curse

As per Jonathan Bell’s ground-breaking piece in the Gazette last year which highlighted that between 2010 and 2021 roughly a parish’s worth of residents had decamped to Britain to live permanently, I am of the view that we have lost at least 5,000 Bermudians up to this point. The Narrative Research survey indicates that trend is growing, but it does not include the mostly dual-nationality crowd — those Bermudians who have gone westward to Canada, the United States or the Caribbean, including Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, Dominican Republic, and perhaps Costa Rica, largely for the same reasons.

This is our future.

I had a discussion about two years ago with a good friend who has lived and worked on the island since the late 1970s. He is now somewhat semi-retired and serves as a chairman of three or so global insurers on island. He was originally from Britain and came here as a young professional within the insurance industry. He would go on to become a head of one of the largest insurers globally, which is still based here today.

I said to him one day that I had been thinking about Bermuda’s future and which direction it was likely heading. I told him with some regret that with some exaggeration Bermuda seemed to be heading in a direction where increasingly it would be a place only for very wealthy, high-net-worth individuals and that the goods and services they require would be provided by a growing a number of low-cost, low to medium-skilled foreign labour. At the time, both trends were already evident to me.

His response? “Rolfe there was no need to use the word ‘exaggeration’. That is precisely what is occurring and it will continue.”

He then added: “Now that Brexit is done, those European Union citizens who had a variety of jobs in the UK are now gone. Those Bermudians who will continue to be displaced here can relocate to the UK and take on some of those jobs.”

Of course, I was not happy to hear that, but he meant it as well-meaning. He was simply affirming my analysis. Finally, he would add that it was likely that trend would result in worsening Bermuda’s demographic profile, as the population is already rapidly ageing. He would go on to state that the hotel industry would not necessarily be an option for those who find themselves economically marginalised in this economy, either, as I will address.

Even within the hospitality sector in terms of employment, our Bermudians — particularly our Black Bermudians who may have no more than a high school degree at best — will find it difficult to find employment that provides a living wage in that sector.

This government led by Mr Burt, Mr Hayward and former labour minister Lovitta Foggo — with assists from Bermuda Industrial Union president Chris Furbert and the One Bermuda Alliance by way of their complicity, along with Cordell Riley, whom I recommended for the job of Wage Commission chair — ensured that despite the call for a living wage and a higher minimum wage for the hospitality sector, save for wait staff and related occupational categories, they continued to allow the employers to retain a business model predicated on paying poverty-level wages. They ensured that those mostly foreign workers in fact would be earning less.

Imagine that a Progressive Labour Party government, with an assist from the Opposition, mandated that employers in that sector could use gratuities in the calculation of basic pay. Or that a decline in occupancy to 85 per cent would trigger lay-offs throughout the hotel industry. What they did with respect to holiday and sick pay was just as bad.

All of the above while being blind to the consequences of the social and economic harm this would cause to their own Bermudian communities. In other words, their misguided policies would only ensure that Black Bermudians could not afford to work in this sector — a state of affairs that is driving increased emigration from Bermuda.

Tomorrow: Part 2

• Rolfe Commissiong was the Progressive Labour Party MP for Pembroke South East (Constituency 21) between December 2012 and August 2020, and the former chairman of the joint select committee considering the establishment of a living wage