And throughout this article, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration cry about the population decline, a concern he has been raising for a long time. As far back as 2012, 14 years ago, he stated:
“I need more than 40,000 people in Dominica,” Roosevelt Skerrit said, adding, “I am concerned about this one child, one child that we have per home in Dominica. Back in the days when we had no road, no schools… people were having 17 children, and you have big people now with one child in the house, and they have a big house. We have to fix that.”
Why do you think Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration work so hard to try and get the next generation to get into farming, carpentry, and masonry? Because these are jobs that keep you home, keep you dependent, and keep you exhausted. When you spend all day working in the sun for poor pay, the last thing on your mind is politics – you simply stop caring because hope is gone.
A hard-working population, surrounded by poverty even after earning a living, is easier for a government to control. There is no argument to that. Look at any country with a dictator: the people work hard and have nothing. Sound familiar?
Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration does not focus on innovating the country, creating jobs, or educating children with real-world skills that would allow them to succeed and be self-sufficient. In fact, just last year, he cut funding for school sports programs. Why? To make the next generation less active, less healthy, and easier to control.
Childhood obesity in Dominica is already a serious crisis, with roughly one in three children affected. Data shows a high prevalence, with up to 31.98% of girls and 24.3% of boys impacted. Key factors include high consumption of unhealthy, sugary foods, combined with the fact that fewer than 25% of children engage in sufficient physical activity.
And yet, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration cut funding for school sports and physical activity programs – while claiming they “care.” This is not care. It’s neglect dressed up as concern, and it directly worsens a public health crisis they helped create.
Out of 195 countries in the world listed for their obesity rates, Dominica genral population ranks 53rd – placing us just above the top 25% of the world’s most obese countries. And my female population ranks 27th, in the world, that is in the top 13% world wide, and our male population ranks 116th, around the top 60%.
So the numbers clearly show what is going on. This is not accidental, and it’s not random. When a population becomes unhealthy, overweight, tired, and unmotivated, it becomes easier to manage, easier to distract, and easier to control. An exhausted population does not organize. An unhealthy population does not mobilize. A population struggling with basic survival does not have the time, energy, or clarity to challenge power.
Keeping a large portion of the female population unhealthy and overweight – while cutting physical education, sports funding, and preventive health initiatives – has long-term consequences. Poor health leads to lower energy, higher stress, increased dependence on the state, and reduced political participation. When people are battling fatigue, illness, and financial pressure, civic engagement becomes a luxury they cannot afford.
At the same time, working the male population to the bone every day achieves the same outcome through a different route. Long hours, physically demanding labor, low wages, and constant economic anxiety leave people exhausted and mentally drained. Their focus narrows to one thing: keeping food on the table. Politics becomes background noise. Accountability becomes irrelevant. Survival takes precedence over resistance.
This is how control works in practice, not through force, but through exhaustion. Not through open repression, but through managed scarcity and declining health. When people are tired, unhealthy, and financially insecure, they disengage. They lose hope. They begin to believe that nothing can change and that everyone in power is the same.
A healthy, educated, financially stable population asks questions. It demands better. It organizes. An unhealthy, overworked population does not. And that is why cutting funding for sports, ignoring childhood obesity, suppressing wages, and pushing people into exhausting low-pay work is not just economic mismanagement, it’s political strategy.
Roosevelt Skerrit stated “I am concerned about this one child, one child that we have per home in Dominica. Back in the days when we had no road, no schools… people were having 17 children, and you have big people now with one child in the house, and they have a big house. We have to fix that.”
That statement should stop people in their tracks – not because it is insightful, but because it’s deeply disturbing. Roosevelt Skerrit openly romanticizes extreme poverty as a virtue and uses it as a benchmark for what society should return to. People did not have 17 children because life was better. They had large families because they were poor, uneducated, had no access to healthcare, no family planning, and no economic security. High birth rates were a symptom of deprivation, not success.
To frame a time of “no roads, no schools” as something to admireor worse, something to replicate is not just bizarre, it’s dangerous. That era was marked by high infant mortality, low life expectancy, chronic hunger, and zero opportunity. Families were large because children were labor, insurance, and survival tools in a system that offered nothing else, it was called slavery. To suggest that modern
Dominicans having fewer children in better conditions is a problem to be “fixed” completely inverts reality.
What makes this even more troubling is that instead of asking why people today choose to have fewer children – high living costs, low wages, lack of opportunity, uncertainty about the future – the focus is shifted to nostalgia for hardship. Rather than building an economy where people want to raise families because they feel secure, the implication is that hardship itself should push people into having more children. That is not population policy. That is poverty management.
When you start piecing Roosevelt Skerrit’s statements together with his actions, the picture comes sharply into focus. This is not a series of accidents, miscalculations, or unintended consequences. It’s a pattern. And once you see the pattern, it becomes impossible to ignore what is really happening
At its core, this is not just an economic issue or an immigration issue. It’s a democratic crisis. Free and fair elections cannot exist in an environment where large segments of the population are economically trapped, socially dependent, and psychologically exhausted. Democracy requires choice. Choice requires independence. And independence requires opportunity.
While Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration engineers conditions where people are too poor to risk dissent, too tired to organize, and too dependent to vote freely, elections become a formality -not a reflection of the people’s will. A ballot cast under fear of losing housing, permits, employment, or basic survival is not a free vote. It’s a coerced one.
This is why the destruction of Dominica’s economy cannot be separated from the political strategy that follows it. Poverty weakens resistance. Dependency dulls accountability. And a population struggling to survive is far easier to manage than one empowered to demand change. That is not accidental. That is design.
A healthy democracy produces upward mobility, informed citizens, and leaders who can be replaced without fear. What Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration have cultivated instead is a system where hardship is normalized, dissent is punished economically, and loyalty is rewarded with survival. That is not democracy – it’s soft authoritarianism dressed up in elections.
History is very clear on this point: governments that rely on poverty to maintain power cannot tolerate prosperity, because prosperity produces confidence, and confidence produces resistance. That is why opportunity is suppressed, dependency is expanded, and every policy seems to move the country further away from self-sufficiency and closer to control.
Dominica does not suffer from a lack of people. It suffers from a lack of honest leadership. And no amount of imported labour, moral posturing, or manufactured gratitude can hide the reality that this strategy is not about dignity, compassion, or growth, it’s about power.
And that statement proves that Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration have be killing our economy and our health and education system on purpose.
A government serious about population growth would invest in wages, housing security, healthcare, education, and opportunity – so families feel confident bringing children into the world. Celebrating an era of extreme poverty as proof that people “used to do better” reveals a mindset that sees suffering not as a failure to correct, but as a tool to exploit. And that should alarm everyone.
And let this next part sink in.
Roosevelt Skerrit, the leader of our country is telling ordinary Dominicans to have more children – not because it’s in their best interest, or the country’s best interest, but because he needs them. “I need.” them. Again Not “Dominica needs.” Not “our country needs.” “I need.” This is not a policy proposal – it’s a personal demand.
For at least 12 years, Roosevelt Skerrit has seen this reckoning coming and has been trying to figure out how to brainwash the next generation that never came.
Here’s the kicker: Roosevelt Skerrit and his wife, Melissa, have deliberately chosen to have their children born abroad. Both Dmitry and Isabella were born in the United States, securing American citizenship and passports. This is not just hypocrisy – it’s a clear message. While ordinary Dominicans are told to expand their families under financial strain, the Roosevelt Skerrit ensures his own children have options and security outside of Dominica that you and your children will never have. Should we talk abiout the travel bans yet?
Dominicans aren’t refusing to have children because we are “too busy” earning degrees or advancing careers. In reality, Roosevelt Skerrit has done everything possible to prevent people from bettering themselves in the first place. The truth is much simpler: we do not have the money. People are living hand-to-mouth, struggling to feed their families, pay basic bills, and simply survive. In that reality, bringing more children into the world is not a choice made lightly – it’s an impossible burden.
Forcing population growth under these conditions does not grow an economy. It grows poverty, debt, and long-term dependence on a government that has repeatedly failed the very people it now lectures.
The numbers tell the story. Dominica ranks as thesixth poorest country in the Caribbean, behind Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Saint Vincent. Populations alone do not bring prosperity; good governance does.
- Mexico: 133 million
- Venezuela: 28.6 million
- Haiti: 11.7 million
- Dominican Republic: 11.3 million
- Cuba: 11.2 million
- Puerto Rico: 3.2 million
- Jamaica: 2.8 million
- Trinidad and Tobago: 1.5 million
They all have millions of people. But without competent leadership and functional institutions, their economies struggle. Dominica’s poverty is not the result of a lack of population; it’s the result of decades of corruption, mismanagement, and elite enrichment at the expense of ordinary, hard-working Dominican families. That is undeniable.
Roosevelt Skerrit’s “more children” plan is worse than mere bad policy, it’s a deliberate political strategy. Forcing families to stretch beyond their means, high taxes, high cost of living, high feees, ensures greater dependence on him and his administration. Those who rely on him for housing, permits, jobs, or survival are far less likely to vote against entrenched elites.
In short, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are gambling on manufacturing a class of voters who cannot survive without them.
Meanwhile, he and his wife enjoy the privileges of power and wealth, exempting themselves from the very rules they impose. This is the classic pattern of authoritarian governance: one set of rules for the elite, another for the poor people. The children of Dominica are not a tool for personal ambition, yet that is exactly how Roosevelt Skerrit speaks and treats ordinary families.
Shall we call it what it is: this is not about national development, economic growth, or family welfare. This is about self-interest, manipulation, and control. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration would love nothing more than to burden families rather than govern effectively. The people of Dominica need to wake up. Need to be tired of hearing his empty rhetoric, hypocrisy, and leadership that puts itself above our people, whom he claims to serve.
Population growth does not fix a broken system. Only competent, accountable governance does. The Dominica Reform Party does!
Roosevelt Skerrit says he wants more children, but he and his wife are careful not to have them here. That speaks volumes about his true priorities. The question is simple: if he and Melissa are not willing to live under the same rules and conditions as the rest of us, why should we?
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