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Madam Speaker,
I rise today with a heavy heart, and I ask this Honourable House to rise with me.
In recent days, our nation has lost five of its young people.
Five young Bahamians, taken from us far too soon.
These were not strangers to promise.
They were the very young people in whom a small nation places its largest hopes.
And so I ask this House to pause, to bow its head, and to grieve alongside the families and the communities that are now in mourning.
Five young Bahamians. Five families broken. Five futures we will never see unfold.
There is no speech that can fill the space these young people leave behind. There is no policy that can answer a mother who has lost her child.
All that this House can honestly offer today is our presence, our prayers, and our promise.
The promise that we will do everything in our power to protect the young people of this nation, so that fewer families are made to grieve as these families.
On behalf of the Government and the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, I extend our deepest and most sincere condolences to each of the five families that bear an unbearable loss.
We grieve with you. We hold you. And this nation will carry your children in its memory.
Madam Speaker,
I turn now to another matter before this House. I do so fully aware of the weight of the moment we have just shared, and I ask the House to carry that feeling with it, not to set it down.
For I have learned, in this office and in this life, that we are never meant to carry our heaviest days alone.
In our darkest hours, it is our friends who stand beside us. It is friendship that carries a people through the night. And so it is fitting that, even on a day of mourning, I rise to speak of one of the oldest and truest friendships our nation has ever known.
This year, the United States of America celebrates two hundred and fifty years of independence.
On behalf of the Government and people of The Bahamas, I offer to the President and the people of the United States our warmest congratulations on this historic milestone.
Madam Speaker, allow me to take this House back to one particular morning.
On the tenth of July, 1973, our flag rose over these islands for the very first time.
On that morning, The Bahamas took its place among the nations of the world. And on that very same day, the United States of America was among the first to reach out its hand and call us friend.
President Richard Nixon sent word to our first Prime Minister, Sir Lynden Pindling, formally recognising the new Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The American mission that had served in Nassau for generations was that day raised to a full Embassy. The friendship our two peoples had already lived for more than a century was, in that moment, written into the law of nations.
Consider what that means, Madam Speaker.
On the very first day of our nationhood, we were not alone. A great nation stood beside a small one and said, in effect, we see you, we respect you, and we will walk this road with you. That is how our formal friendship began. Not in suspicion. In welcome.
Fifty-three years have passed since that morning, and in that time, the friendship has only deepened.
Today, the United States is our closest neighbour and our most steadfast partner. Ours is a partnership of equals. It is built on mutual respect, and it is renewed by each generation.
We share more than waters and weather. We share a way of seeing the world.
We believe, as our American friends believe, in the dignity of the individual. We believe in the rule of law. We believe that government draws its authority from the consent of the governed.
These are not borrowed ideals. They are the common inheritance of two free peoples, and they bind us more closely than any treaty ever could.
Our people live a great part of their lives in one another’s company. Americans come to our islands in their millions, and we welcome them as family.
They walk our beaches. They dive our reefs. They sit at our tables.
And generations of Bahamians have studied, worked, worshipped, and built their lives on American soil, and come home the richer for it.
There is scarcely a Bahamian family without a loved one in Florida, a friend in New York, or a memory waiting somewhere along that eastern shore.
And Madam Speaker, let us never speak of this friendship as though it has run in one direction only.
We have not merely received from America. We have helped to build her.
Long before Miami rose into a great city, Bahamian hands were already there.
From the eighteen-seventies, our people crossed that narrow sea and made their home on the Florida shore.
They cleared the land. They worked the fields. They laid the foundations of Coconut Grove, which is honoured to this day as Little Bahamas.
When the City of Miami was incorporated in the year 1896, Bahamians stood among the men who signed its Charter.
Our carpenters built homes so wisely and so well that some still stand after a century of hurricanes.
The grandeur of South Florida rests, in no small part, on Bahamian labour, Bahamian skill, and Bahamian endurance.
We did not come to America as strangers. We came as builders. And what we built together still stands.
Our economies move together, as the tide moves the boats in our harbours. When America prospers, The Bahamas feels it. And in the harder seasons, we have always found in the United States a partner willing to weather them at our side.
That is the quiet, daily substance of this friendship. It asks for little, and it gives a great deal.
Our bond is built on more than commerce. It is built on trust. Our officers stand shoulder to shoulder against those who would traffic in drugs and weapons through our waters.
Through Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, our forces have guarded both our peoples for decades. When danger comes to one of us, the other does not look away.
And when the worst came, America came too. When Hurricane Dorian laid waste to Abaco and Grand Bahama, United States Coast Guard helicopters flew into the wreckage.
American hands reached down and lifted our people from the water. American hearts broke open for us, and American help poured in.
They did not wait to be asked. They came because that is what neighbours do.
That is what friends do. We have not forgotten. We will never forget.
That is what real friendship is. It is not measured in the calm. It is measured in the storm.
So, Madam Speaker, let there be no misunderstanding.
The friendship between the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the United States of America is not a passing season.
It does not begin or end with any one government, or any one administration, or any one election. It is woven into our geography, our history, and our blood.
It is inseparable. And it will endure.
Madam Speaker, the friendship between our two countries is strong, and the trust between us is deep. I say it with confidence.
From time to time, two friends will see a matter differently. There will be moments when our interests do not perfectly align.
Let no one mistake such a moment for a fracture. A disagreement between friends is not the breaking of a friendship. It is the proof of its maturity.
Madam Speaker,
Today, this House has held two truths in the same hour.
We have held grief, and we have held gratitude. We have mourned young lives ended far too soon, and we have honoured a friendship that has stood the test of time.
Perhaps that is the deepest lesson of this day.
Life is fragile, and friendship is precious. We must hold our children close, and hold our friends closer still.
To the President and people of the United States, on two hundred and fifty years of liberty, we say congratulations, neighbour and friend.
And to the families who grieve today, we say, once more, that the love of an entire nation is with you.
May God comfort the bereaved.
May God bless the enduring friendship between our two nations.
And may God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.