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Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says he was not sur­prised by the move by Gov­ern­ment to in­sti­tute an­oth­er State of Emer­gency, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the re­cent mass shoot­ing in Laven­tille that left three peo­ple dead. It is the sec­ond SoE to be called since the Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice in May 2025. It was an­nounced yes­ter­day morn­ing by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia , Ra­goonath said the de­c­la­ra­tion came in a con­text where ques­tions were al­ready be­ing raised in Par­lia­ment about the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to ris­ing crime.

“It did not sur­prise me that we would have had an­oth­er state of emer­gency in the con­text of the mass shoot­ing when we had the three peo­ple killed in Laven­tille,” he said. He ref­er­enced con­cerns raised by MP Kei­th Scot­land in the af­ter­math of the in­ci­dent and sug­gest­ed that, in the ab­sence of new leg­isla­tive tools, the Gov­ern­ment opt­ed for ex­tra­or­di­nary con­sti­tu­tion­al mea­sures.