Opposition Leader Craig Cannonier delivered his Reply to the Throne Speech on Friday.It was also his maiden speech, which is a first for Bermuda, and an unusual event in parliamentary democracies.The speech shows that the One Bermuda Alliance plans to spend its time this year focused on three things: the economy, crime and good governance.This may seem obvious, but it is easy to get distracted by other issues as they arise. They deserve attention, but there is a risk that they will take away from the main challenges facing the Island.Of those, the major issue remains the economy, because almost everything else flows from that. Without a strong economy, the options for all the problems facing the Island, including crime, education, healthcare, the elderly, transport and so on, are severely limited. Bermuda has demonstrated all too often that throwing money at problems is not a solution, but that does not mean that the right solutions will not cost some money.And the only way to start to generate that money is to get the economy going again. As such, the ideas put forward by Mr Cannonier and the OBA are sound and sensible. A good deal of time is spent on how it would liberalise immigration rules and rolling back some of the damaging restrictions that have been put in place by the Progressive Labour Party Government. The fear on the part of many Bermudians that liberalising immigration regulations will cause Bermudians to be displaced is reasonable and needs to be addressed.The point that needs to be made clearly is that non-Bermudians should be granted work permits or some form of residence rights as both parties are now proposing where doing so will help the economy to grow and therefore will add to Bermudian employment, in addition to the general rule that a work permit should only be granted where there is no qualified Bermudian applicant.The major weakness in the Reply lies in the promise to eliminate the employee portion of payroll tax for those earning less than $50,000 a year. The principle is sound, in that the money thus released will flow through the economy and should boost growth, while also bringing relief to those who most need it. But the problem comes in determining how the revenue shortfall will be made up, especially given the OBA’s other spending plans and the fact this proposal does not give employers a direct incentive to increase hiring.This newspaper believes that a broader payroll tax cut, with assistance for employers and employees would have a stronger impact on the economy and on employment, and would offset some of the Government revenue shortfall that would naturally occur.Despite that, the rest of the OBA plan makes sense and would go a long way to helping the Bermuda economy to recover. Certainly, it is a more realistic and comprehensive approach than the Government’s which, while waking up to the scale of problems facing Bermuda, is too little too late.The OBA addresses one significant omission in the Throne Speech, which is the still evolving debate on universal healthcare. Given that a great many significant and potentially extremely expensive decisions are going to be made on this issue in the coming months, the Throne Speech is ominously silent, especially on the controversial question of whether people will be charged based on their means. The big danger here is that since both parties now recognise the need to bring wealth creators to Bermuda, the last thing that is needed is an expensive system of healthcare that appears to punish the very people Bermuda is trying to attract.That does not mean that the whole problem of affordable healthcare does not need to be addressed; very clearly, it does. But its absence from the Throne Speech is worrying.Bermuda is now entirely in pre-election mode, and every statement and idea will be examined in that context. The OBA has laid out a plan in response to the Government’s, and has added a good deal of detail to its proposals, especially on governance and the economy.At the very least, this should lead to a serious debate on the Island’s future, and that alone is worthwhile.