Displaying items by tag: jamaica

Police have increased their presence in sections of Central Kingston after angry residents reportedly set a police vehicle ablaze in protest over the fatal shooting of a resident from the community.

MONTEGO BAY, St James — The long-established relationship between Jamaica and Canada, the island’s second largest tourism market, has been strengthened with an agreement to enter a new era of cooperation and collaboration in tourism, resilience and sustainability.

On Thursday, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett and his Canadian counterpart, Randy Boissonnault, agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) when they met on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Boissonnault is Canada’s first full-fledged Minister of Tourism but also holds the portfolio of Associate Minister of Finance. Two other key stakeholders in the Parliament Hill meeting were Jamaica’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sharon Miller and Canadian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maninder Sidhu.

The two ministers agreed on an MOU to share best practices and build capacity in training and human capital development, marketing, investment and the expansion of tourism resilience and sustainability programmes and projects.

Although tourism is Canada’s second largest export and growing, Minister Boissonnault said the industry was never seen as being critical. However, with a changing paradigm, it was now being pursued with new insights and a commitment made to funding and support for a meaningful MOU, recognising the key role that Jamaica and Canada can play in strengthening global tourism.

The renewed partnership has been welcomed by Bartlett who said Minister Boissonnault was a supporter of the new tourism that has been emerging since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and being the first full-fledged tourism minister for his country was an indication of how important tourism was now being seen.

Minister Bartlett elaborated on the MOU, stating that it will focus heavily on building the capacity of tourism workers and stakeholders of the industry “to provide a greater level of service, but more so to be able to pivot and to respond to different challenges and crises that may appear from time to time.”

In a release on Friday, it was revealed that an Employment Charter, being developed to attract and retain tourism workers, has received the backing of the Canadian tourism minister who indicated that he wanted to play an active role in the dialogue relating to the charter leading up to its promulgation at a later date.

“We looked at the wider question of resilience and sustainability, in particular the work of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) and Canada will support the Global Tourism Resilience agenda and participate in the Global Tourism Resilience Day activities to take place in February 2023 at the University of the West Indies,” said Minister Bartlett.

Satellite centres of the GTRCMC are to be established at Carlton University in Ottawa, in addition to the one that already exists at George Brown University in Toronto.

The MOU also calls for exchanges to be initiated with Carlton University, George Brown College, and other key technical institutions that are tourism and hospitality oriented.

Minister Bartlett disclosed that Canada and Jamaica will collaborate on a number of initiatives he did not identify but stated that “this was a great encounter.”

Canada and Jamaica have enjoyed a longstanding relationship spanning over 60 years. Canada is also one of the preferred countries for settlement by migrating Jamaicans, with some 350,000 making it their home.

Government minister Everald Warmington has condemned the protest action taken by public passenger vehicle operators which earlier this week left scores of Jamaicans stranded.

Opposition Spokesman on National Security Senator Peter Bunting has challenged the reasons given by Prime Minister Andrew Holness for Tuesday’s declaration of  states of emergency across seven parishes.

The American Government has increased its funding of programmes designed to help Jamaica and other countries in the Caribbean tackle a number of problems linked to crime and violence, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Caribbean Affairs and Haiti Barbara Feinstein told journalists on Tuesday.

President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Keith Duncan has called for strong security measures to remove criminals, who he called 'terrorists', from the nation's streets.

Jamaica Broilers Group Limited (JBG) is planning on increasing its investments in its US operations as it plans to expand its poultry processing plant in South Carolina, United States of America.

A Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) senior officer who is said to be at the centre of sexual harassment allegations has been recalled from training overseas to enable further investigation, the JDF said.

By Andrew Clunis

Jamaica has squandered a perfect opportunity to send a very strong signal to the hordes of marauding killers in the country, in the failure to sentence and execute Clarendon massacre butcher, Rushane Barnett.