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Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 leg­isla­tive agen­da in­cludes a pro­posed law to hold par­ents legal­ly ac­count­able for their chil­dren’s in­volve­ment in bul­ly­ing, vi­o­lence, and re­lat­ed mis­con­duct, es­pe­cial­ly in schools. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed last week, on pre­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da in Par­lia­ment for 2026, that “it is part of the broad­er pol­i­cy of this Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress ris­ing con­cerns about school vi­o­lence, gang in­flu­ence, and the lack of ef­fec­tive de­ter­rents. Par­ents must be more en­gaged in their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour, es­pe­cial­ly when schools alone can­not man­age es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence. The threat of le­gal con­se­quences may push par­ents to in­ter­vene ear­li­er in cas­es of bul­ly­ing. Un­der this bill, par­ents could face fines or penal­ties if their child is re­peat­ed­ly in­volved in bul­ly­ing or vi­o­lent acts.”

Pro­posed laws al­so seek to es­tab­lish a pa­role sys­tem, ex­pand the cri­te­ria for Firearm User’s Li­cence (FUL) ap­pli­ca­tions, fa­cil­i­tate equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­abled peo­ple in the labour mar­ket—and strength­en “var­i­ous ar­eas” of the min­i­mum wage law.