Smith's vision in sync with the PLP

If you know two things maybe you know he’s the crime guy —the former police commissioner brought into the Senate to help get to grips with gangs.

He’s both of these things.

But the businessman and father-of-three — who is not ruling out a run for parliament at the next election — hopes Bermuda can move beyond that superficial assessment of what he brings to the table.

Let’s start with the ‘white guy’ thing. He’s by no means the first, but he’s certainly in a minority.

Still a big deal in 2011? In some ways.

Mr Smith, whose brother stood as a candidate for the UBP, might have been expected to follow suit.

He says there are some people that have stopped talking to him since he was appointed to the Senate by Premier Paula Cox.

Not the majority, but enough to know that race is still a factor.

Ideas

Critics have accused the PLP of being an insular party, not welcoming to whites, and courting an almost exclusively black voter base through the politics of racial division.

Mr Smith sees it a different way.

He believes the only way Bermuda will move beyond racial politics is for more white people to take the course that he and Health Minister Zane DeSilva have taken.

For him it wasn’t a matter of black or white. It was a matter of choosing the party whose ideas tallied with his own.

“Which party is on record as having demonstrated a commitment to social justice, a commitment to the working class, a commitment to economic justice, right back to its early days?

“There was only one choice for me. It might mean some people don’t talk to me any more. That doesn’t faze me in the least.”

He said many politicians on the opposite side of the aisle had welcomed him to the fray and accepted that it was a good thing for politics to move past race.

But he said it was surprising that more whites had not taken the decision to join the PLP, or at least to vote for them.

“Our politics is divisive because so few whites have taken that route and seen the Progressive Labour Party as a political option.

“We will see at the next election how far we’ve come in that respect when we look at the extent of cross-racial voting.”

Whether Mr Smith is a candidate in the next election remains to be seen.

The PLP is still going through its complex selection process.

He admits he is interested — if a branch is prepared to back him all the way.

He’s keen to emphasize that his credentials go beyond the stereotype of a police commissioner ready to get tough on crime.

“There is part of me that is conservative when it comes to sentencing and holding people to account, absolutely.

“But there is a big part of me that is concerned with the social side. I’ve seen the most deplorable living conditions anyone could have seen in Bermuda.

“As a young detective knocking down doors the imperative was to catch the criminal and lock him up. When you do that for enough years you start asking questions. What made that family a multi-generational crime family? You start to look at the causes and the answers are not so easy.”

He sees his step into politics as a return to public service — an attempt to answer some of those questions and improve the lives of ordinary Bermudians.

He’s started his political life in a familiar field — National Security.

But while he believes he can bring strong ideas to the ministry he is keen to diversify.

Transferable skills

“I don’t want to be a single issue politician. What I can bring to the table is someone who has worked at the executive level in public service, has experience managing budgets, dealing with critical incidents. A lot of those skills are transferable to other areas.”

So that’s race and crime? What else is there to know?

Mr Smith is also a businessman. He runs Central Filing — a records storage and management company.

He’s vice president of National Limited — a development company currently working on a $7m project to build new warehousing in Southampton.

One personal area of interest is youth development.

“My wife and I have three sons, all of whom have grown up in Bermuda. Through them I’ve developed a real interest in youth, education and sports and how those three things can be brought together to help produce individuals that a society can be proud of.”

Whatever role he plays for the PLP going into the next general election, Mr Smith is absolutely confident that he is part of the political organization that has the right ideas for Bermuda.

He defends the government’s record on the economy: “If it’s a local problem, why is every European country and the US having the same issues? Bermudians aren’t stupid, they realize that.”

And he is confident the PLP’s record is better than its opponents would like you to believe.

“There is an impressive list of accomplishments for the PLP, even since 2007. I honestly believe had it not been for the global economic crash, which has impacted every country across the globe, the debate would be very different today.

“A Government that was committed to reform had to spend money both on capital projects and social programmes.

“The ability to service that debt would not be the challenge it is now if it had not been for the global recession.”

He added: “Whenever that next election comes you will see a PLP that has a clear vision about the economy, about job creation, about tourism growth, educational reform and how we continue to reduce crime.

“The choice will be between the PLP, the remnants of the UBP and an OBA that appears to be something new but has already been exposed as a consultant-fabricated entity, comprised largely of UBP people who transitioned in 24 hours.”