Bermudians need to lose their sense of entitlement and wake up to the economic crisis rocking the Island, former Premier Sir John Swan told a public forum yesterday.Repeating his call for a big conversation on the economy, Sir John said Bermuda will plunge into worse financial turmoil if Government doesn’t fix its relationship with international business and Bermudians don’t improve their attitudes.Policies over work permits and land licences are hurting international business, he said, while foreigners are made to feel so unwelcome from the moment they arrive at the airport, many don’t want to come back.Speaking at a Chamber of Commerce panel discussion at Fairmont Hamilton, Sir John said: “The biggest threat I see is a lack of information, communication and assessment, in a non-partisan way, of where Bermuda is.“You can’t run a business without partnership. Government needs to have a good relationship with business and the community, but that process is not taking place.”He added: “Everyone feels they are entitled to something because they are Bermudian. Well everyone who is non-Bermudian is slowly pulling the plug on Bermuda.”Remarking that many Bermudians believe they should get jobs over non-Bermudians whether they’re qualified or not, Sir John warned: “Are we going to raise the noise level enough that international business decides ‘we are not going to argue with you any more’? Most are going to pack up and leave Bermuda.”Sir John said visitors are often grilled at the airport as they are told of the disproportionately high tax they must pay on arrival, claiming: “It makes them feel as though they are being interrogated.”This is often followed by impoliteness from the taxi drivers taking them to their hotels, he said.“They get to the airport and are not treated with the courtesy they get in their own country,” said Sir John.“We are not very pleasant people. We used to be very pleasant; we are not any more. We are not pleasant to tourists or international business.”He also spoke on Government’s land policy, which requires Bermudians with non-Bermudian spouses to obtain licences to buy property.“First of all, we should recognise we are all human beings. The Bermudian married to a foreigner should not be discriminated against as a result of that marriage,” he said.“Our law allows them to get married and stay in Bermuda. We should not be saying to them, you are no longer a Bermudian. That’s not right.“What’s worse is even if that Bermudian wants to put property in their own name, they say you can’t do that. That’s against the Human Rights Act. I suspect anyone who took it to court and got as far as the British court, they would laugh at it.”Fellow panellists Larry Burchall, the political commentator, and Bermuda College economist Craig Simmons gave the audience of about 200 people figures illustrating the Island’s decreasing population and expatriate community, and expressed concern at the growing debt level.Sir John said on top of private debt of $5 billion and public debt of $1 billion, Bermuda faces further financial woes because of underfunded pensions, a Sinking Fund which has not been kept up, and costs incurred by the hospital rebuild.“We are in a crisis. We need to have a conversation about that,” he said.Recalling the Big Conversation on race by former Premier Ewart Brown and consultant Rolfe Commissiong, Sir John said: “I don’t know where that took us, but while we were having that conversation we were convincing other people to pack up and leave Bermuda.”Mr Burchall said Bermudians need to understand tourism has been replaced by international business as the key pillar of the economy.“We have to get Bermudians as involved, as supportive of Business Bermuda as they were Tourism Bermuda,” said Mr Burchall.“That requires a huge psychological shift; it will be done against the racial legacies of the past and the present.“They are here 365 days a year. Under the older regime, they came, we smiled for five days and they went back home. We have to adjust. We Bermudians have to do something.”He said Bermuda should replace its system of heavy taxing at ports, imposed during the Victoria era, with Value Added Tax on goods.Mr Simmons suggested one way of helping the Island prosper financially would be to move towards renewable energy.