Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it's very much so. The national leaders really are the ones who are the dominant leaders. We have typically mainly two entities here that are the leading parties in Trinidad and Tobago. Just as a bit of background, we have two major ethnic groups in Trinidad and Tobago. We h

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Just to add, the commissioners all understand that they have to pitch in and do work as well. During the election, nearing the election, the commissioners also have rules and responsibilities.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There's the Elections and Boundaries Commission, which is a government entity. They administer all the elections. They would ensure that there are polling booths all through the country. They would ensure free and fair election voting right throughout the country. The responsibil

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it's appointed by the president of the country but in consultation with the prime minister.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We see that role as critical. We see them helping us with the entire production of the debate; but more than that, we see them from now until the general election in 2020. We see them as building awareness of debates, of the issues, and of the need to have your leaders out there

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They do because two members of the media association are on the commission itself.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What we are thinking is that, through the moderators and researchers, through the university and our alignment with the university, we can actually.... The right issues will be researched. So you could influence politics, you could influence democracy by having the right issues b

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To add to that, in forming our commission we looked at different representative interests. For instance we looked at legal, communication, civic society, business, and citizen representation for Tobago. We looked at the different representative interests to make sure that we had

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I just wanted to add one point on the funding. There is no branding for corporate T & T when they fund the debate, so they get no acknowledgement, no branding at all. This was their return to building democracy in the country.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think that would definitely be something that should be done, to poll the views of different segments of the public. Obviously at the end of the day a decision needs to be made because you will get some people thinking debates are very important and others thinking they are not

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good morning. You hit the nail on the head there, because I think the public outcry has not been loud enough to get the leaders to debate. That is where we realized we did not get the media involved early enough, probably, or give them enough of a seat on the commission. The onl