Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell, came un­der fire on so­cial me­dia and from the Op­po­si­tion yes­ter­day for im­ply­ing that cit­i­zens trav­el out­side of T&T for a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion of how good they have it in this coun­try.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mitchell said that noth­ing he said was in­cor­rect, and there was noth­ing to “take back”. But he was will­ing to clar­i­fy the state­ment to en­sure it’s tak­en in the spir­it in which it was said.

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic of ex­act­ly what was said in Par­lia­ment on Tues­day. He said, “You have to talk to those peo­ple who trav­el out­side of T&T, or you have to trav­el your­self to the Caribbean, or to Cana­da, the US, or the UK; trav­el and go and see in those coun­tries what the high cost of liv­ing re­al­ly looks like and feels like.”

Many of the com­ments on so­cial me­dia fo­cused on his use of the word “trav­el,” with many call­ing it tone-deaf and not ac­knowl­edg­ing that trav­el is a lux­u­ry.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts was one of those call­ing the re­marks “elit­ist” and “out of touch.” While speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Roberts said that 29.6 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion lives be­low the pover­ty line, earn­ing less than $11,000 per month, and can­not af­ford to trav­el. He said that on­ly six per cent of cit­i­zens can af­ford it, adding, “un­less they are a PNM min­is­ter.”

“They can­not even trav­el from Matelot to Port-of-Spain to col­lect a food card or fill out a form. Peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go who want to reach a meet­ing on time have to leave three hours ear­ly be­cause of traf­fic,” Roberts said.

He blamed the Gov­ern­ment’s elit­ism for the na­tion’s strug­gles, say­ing, “This kind of out-of-touch elit­ist at­ti­tude is what has us in this prob­lem.”

Roberts men­tioned that he reg­u­lar­ly walks around the coun­try and hears the pain of peo­ple strug­gling with is­sues such as the forex cri­sis, crime, school bul­ly­ing, and low ed­u­ca­tion pass rates.

MP for Moru­ga/Table­land, Michelle Ben­jamin, in a state­ment, said that in­stead of ad­dress­ing is­sues like un­em­ploy­ment and crime, Min­is­ter Mitchell point­ed to for­eign lands as a com­par­i­son, ig­nor­ing the need for re­al so­lu­tions. She sug­gest­ed that a bet­ter ap­proach would be to boost the lo­cal tourism sec­tor, which has vast un­tapped po­ten­tial.

But Mitchell said the state­ment wasn’t en­cour­ag­ing trav­el but was sim­ply meant to com­pare the qual­i­ty of life lo­cal­ly and abroad. He said that it was not just about look­ing at the num­bers, per­cent­ages, and how the macro­eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors read, but about be­ing in the sit­u­a­tion and com­par­ing lo­cal cir­cum­stances and ex­pe­ri­ences with those in Cana­da, the US, and the UK. “The best way to do it is to speak to peo­ple who have trav­elled in those coun­tries and get an un­der­stand­ing of how as­tro­nom­i­cal­ly high the cost of liv­ing ac­tu­al­ly is in those coun­tries,” Mitchell said. “When you take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the cost of fu­el, the cost of util­i­ties, the cost of rent, and the cost of food, it is high, and they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in­fla­tion rates of 7% and 9%. Or if you have trav­elled to any of the Caribbean coun­tries, or to the UK, the US, or Cana­da, you will see for your­self how high it is.”

Mitchell said that when com­par­ing the costs of liv­ing with re­spect to the sub­si­dies, as well as with those in the “so-called first world coun­tries,” “we are blessed.”

“While there’s al­ways room to im­prove, we of­fer free health­care. In many oth­er Caribbean is­lands, they don’t of­fer free ed­u­ca­tion at the sec­ondary school lev­el. We of­fer free ed­u­ca­tion. So that too is not a cost. There’s a suc­cess­ful rental book pro­gramme, and we of­fer free lunch­es in schools. So those things are not costs that are borne by the cit­i­zen­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“And it is re­al­ly sweet, sweet Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

—With re­port­ing by Kevon Felmine