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Ministers the Honourable Dr. William Duguid and Peter Phillips of the Ministry of Transport Works and Maintenance, greeting Marie Legault, the Canadian High Commissioner at the Ministry’s headquarters recently.

Canadian High Commissioner meets Transport Ministers

The Ministry of Transport, Works and Maintenance and the Canadian Government have been in discussions to determine ways in which Canada can assist Barbados with technical and financial support in our transportation sector and other areas.

Earlier this week, the Canadian High Commissioner Marie Legault along with the Senior Trade Commissioner Georges Lemieux made a courtesy call to the Ministry’s Headquarters to meet with the Minister of Transport Works and Maintenance, the Honourable Dr. William Duguid and Minister in the Ministry the Honourable Peter Phillips.

During the 45-minute meeting, Minister Duguid shared with the Canadian officials that Barbados is seeking to move away from the use of fossil fuels and move to the use of Compressed Natural Gas and electric vehicles. When asked about incentives the Minister stressed the greatest incentives for Barbadians to convert will be not having to pay fuel tax.

The Canadian High Commissioner Legault, reassured that Canada is committed to providing technical and financial support to Barbados. She stressed that at present Canada had been funding projects that the Ministry have been involved with through the Caribbean Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

The issue of using recyclables was also discussed where the High Commissioner referred to using plastics to help build our roads. However Minister Duguid shared that Barbados is seeking to ban single use plastics and that his ministry has never considered plastic in the construction of our roads. He added that they have considered the use of recycled tyres in our roads.

The Minister also recognised one other area of technical support that Canada can offer to the government through the Minister of the Environment, is through their garbage separation infrastructure. He added, in Canada, bins are provided for its citizens to separate their garbage and two different garbage trucks collect the recyclable garbage. Dr. Duguid believes this kind of support can greatly benefit Barbados and its citizens.

The Senior Trade Commissioner Georges Lemieux officially presented the Ministry with information regarding electric buses for the Barbados Transport Board to consider when making their decision.

The two parties ended the meeting cordially with reassurances of providing any technical and financial support wherever possible.

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