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A heat­ed con­fronta­tion broke out in the Low­er House yes­ter­day, af­ter the Gov­ern­ment moved to abrupt­ly end de­bate on a pri­vate mem­ber’s mo­tion, trig­ger­ing a dra­mat­ic Op­po­si­tion walk­out and ac­cu­sa­tions that the ad­min­is­tra­tion was sti­fling dis­sent in Par­lia­ment.

The mo­tion, first brought by Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle on Jan­u­ary 26, sought to have the House take note of the so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact of ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment in com­mu­ni­ties fol­low­ing mass ter­mi­na­tions and the non-re­new­al of con­tracts.

It al­so called on Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly re­spond to what it de­scribed as a de­vel­op­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis by pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate and mean­ing­ful so­cial re­lief mea­sures.