The annual ordeal by tedium that is the Parliamentary Budget debate is now behind us. As usual, there was much in the way of grandstanding, sub-Gilbert & Sullivan political slapstick and contrived emoting.

But precious little was heard about practical methods for moving Bermuda beyond the dire financial straits where we remain stubbornly mired, despite having already endured seven years of recession.

Throughout much of the two-week debate, Parliament became an echo chamber where the same stale political verbiage and the same limited fiscal ideas we have been bombarded with since 2008 were repeated, recycled and endlessly rehashed.

The almost complete absence of fresh perspectives on a longstanding economic decline which continues to blight the prospects of Bermuda and Bermudians was as disheartening as it was predictable.

Original thought has never been a strong suit of most Bermudian politicians, after all. So they tend to fall back on what they know best. But banalities masquerading as meaningful fiscal insights are still banalities and learned-by-rote economic platitudes certainly do not denote a comprehensive grasp of the subject matter.

The only cogent proposals on how to reconcile our obstinately flatlining economic vital signs with our ever increasing needs were provided by the Finance Minister himself.

He offered a guardedly optimistic prognosis for the economy in his Budget statement, one predicated on Bermuda staying the tough financial course he set for the Island upon taking office almost three years ago.

His stoical overview of the Island’s deeply entrenched fiscal problems went largely unchallenged by fellow MPs: namely that our difficulties are structural rather than cyclical in nature.

The Minister repeatedly emphasised any long-term recovery will require discipline, compromise and a genuine willingness on the part of Bermuda residents to not only accept new realities but to make the necessary adjustments.

Interestingly, the Finance Minister’s comments on one of the most unwelcome of these new realities, an international regulatory environment increasingly hostile to Bermuda’s low-tax business model, produced their most resounding echo not in Parliament but in the offshore financial services sector.

John Charman is one of the grandest of our International Business Grand Panjandrums. He is also one of the most plain spoken, pragmatic and decisive of our offshore corporate chieftains, one with ties to the Island that go well beyond the purely financial.

His blue-chip corporate credentials cannot be gainsaid.

One of the founding fathers of the modern Bermuda re/insurance market, Mr Charman is not just a key player in the Island’s economy but has been recognised as one of the hundred most influential power players in international finance. But he has an outsized sense of romance for his adopted home, along with an equally outsized sense of duty to the global industry he helped to establish here.

This week, Mr Charman suggested that Bermuda might want to neutralise its international critics by introducing some of the very reforms they are demanding — including a tax on corporate profits — before they could be used as flails to drive us from world markets.

You knew a trial balloon the size of the Hindenburg had just taken flight.

For one of the leaders of the notoriously tax-averse offshore sector to call for what amounts to a fundamental rethink of the way Bermuda does business signals a potential watershed moment in the Island’s modern economic history.

Although stressing he was speaking only for himself, not his industry, there can be little doubt that Mr Charman’s proposal had at least the tacit support of some leading figures in International Business (even if others reacted with near-apoplexy to his remarks).

Given an international regulatory environment which is only likely to grow more, not less, hostile to Bermuda and similar jurisdictions in the years to come, Mr Charman argued that by seizing the initiative now, the Island could dictate terms rather than have them imposed upon us.

“In order to rebalance our global financial status reputation we need transformational change in Bermuda,” he said. “In my view there is, and should regrettably be, an inevitability about Bermuda introducing some form of corporation tax.”

He recommended a 25-year phasing-in period during which a progressive tax on corporate profits of some 10 per cent be introduced — a move he predicted would silence the increasingly vicious carping of critics in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and foreign governments (a US Treasury Department official recently declared open season on domiciles such as Bermuda, telling the media: “To be blunt, we really need to kill zero-tax jurisdictions” — as the Finance Minister said, the message could not be clearer than that).

“I truly believe that such a transformational change would square away many of our external issues and pressures and enable us to be on a more level platform with our heavyweight international critics,” he said.

Such a change would also, of course, square away many of our internal issues and pressures, transforming a sea of red ink to black overnight. And therein lies the rub.

The administration, at least in own fits-and-starts manner, is committed to achieving sustained financial growth by introducing structural reforms to the Bermuda economy and cutting both Government costs and red-tape.

But the same might not hold true of future Cabinets. Too many lawmakers from across the political spectrum would likely view the substantial new revenue stream created by such a tax as the equivalent of Bermuda having won the lottery. They would be sorely tempted to put the necessary and long overdue reforms to our economic infrastructure to one side and continue with business as usual.

However, continuing to subsidise a top-heavy civil service and attempting to sustain unsustainable levels of public spending based on the proceeds of a corporate tax would not be options for Bermuda.

Official inaction on those fronts would eventually destroy the Island’s financial services-dependent economy as completely as any edicts handed down by the OECD or antagonistic foreign governments.

Mr Charman said as much when outlining his tax proposal.

Itemising the competitive advantages Bermuda would still enjoy as an offshore jurisdiction even after introducing taxation on corporate profits, he underscored the fact that Government waste, mismanagement and inefficiency would remain the most implacable enemies of sustainable private sector growth.

“Bermuda is fortunate to possess a proven infrastructure that companies value,” he said. “It provides both legal and political stability; it is geographically convenient for Europe and the US; and it is and will remain extremely tax efficient even if it were to introduce some measure of corporation tax.

“Of course, there would be a lot of noise around the introduction of the new tax but I believe that the initiative will be quickly recognised to be in the best long-term interests of the Island while still keeping its globally competitive edge.

“The worst result that could occur from the introduction of this new tax would be the resulting revenue being squandered by Government, something that would be completely unacceptable to the business community and would be the catalyst for the mass exodus.”

In other words, the structural nature of our deep-seated economic woes would still have to be addressed as matters of urgency.

Ultimately, no matter if long-depleted Government coffers were suddenly to be filled by a rich new source of revenue, Bermuda has no choice but to stay the Finance Minister’s tough course.