North Side’s Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly, Ezzard Miller, is on the attack again.

Whilst I have supported him in nearly all his previous tirades against government shenanigans (my word) and bringing to light corruption that would have probably passed us all by, recently I have been very disappointed.

His march against government’s extension to the expatriate workforce term limit was one and even when the first one failed to spark much support he went on with even less support with the second one.

It his opinion and he is entitled to it.

Over the years he has had an opinion that most people have respected and listened to because it has made sense.

Unfortunately, his recent posturings haven’t.

They are beginning to look as having opposite opinions just for the sake of it.

There were warnings even before the new government sat down in the Legislative Assembly that all was not going to be well when he did some tactics behind the back of the Progressive’s Leader Alden McLaughlin, supported by his East End Independent colleague Arden McLean, that lost a lot of my respect.

McLean then wondered why McLaughlin had not spoken to him when the various committees were being formed. It looked like betrayal to me and must have seemed the same to our premier.

Now Miller has openly come out against government’s proposed conservation bill saying it is being enacted too fast.

Too fast

We haven’t had a conservation bill debated let alone passed for over TEN YEARS!!

And then to contradict himself Miller says he is keen to go green.

He says it is too little too late so his answer is to do nothing? Wait another ten years?

What did he do about conservation during those ten years? I didn’t see any sign of ‘keen to go green’.

Miller says the public meetings the government has initiated to explain the conservation bill is a waste of time because “they’ve [government] passed it through Cabinet, they’ve gazetted for presentation in the LA….”

Wayne Panton, the Minister responsible for the Environment has said the meetings are to explain the bill to the public and put right the gross misconceptions some MLA’s and the media have said about it. If the majority of the public, he said, have real concerns an amendment to the bill would be tabled.

In iNews Cayman’s publication on December 2 we published a letter sent to us from The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) – Europe’s largest conservation charity – asking everyone to support Cayman’s Conservation Bill (see “RSPB says Cayman’s Conservation Bill doesn’t go far enough but must be supported” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/rspb-says-caymans-conservation-bill-doesnt-go-far-enough-but-must-be-supported/).

The RSPB says it doesn’t go “as far as much modern nature legislation” but “the Bill will establish an effective, reasonable and necessary environmental management regime and will fulfill Cayman’s international obligations”.

They also point to the bill being “VERY FAR from the extreme environmental measure, which some parties are trying to paint it to be”.

“The RSPB works actively across the UK Overseas Territories, promoting sustainable development and funding local environmental protection. This balanced and relatively modest Bill, having undergone a decade of consultation, only serves to bring the Cayman Islands up to the environmental standards, which many other Territories already enjoy. I hope therefore that it may now, at last, be passed.”

Miller is very outspoken on protecting Cayman and Caymanians. It is a shame he is siding with a group of people who are opposing the bill mainly through their own selfish and greedy agenda.

It is a shame that it takes an outside organization to state the obvious:

“Above all, it [Cayman’s Conservation Bill] will help ensure that future generations of Caymanians will be able to enjoy the islands’ world-class natural environment, which is otherwise at risk of disappearing forever.” – RSPB Dec 2 2013