Since taking office, the One Bermuda Alliance has demonstrated that its priorities are out of step with Mr and Mrs Bermuda.

From breaking promises and being repeatedly caught in untruths, to implementing policies that have made it harder for Bermudians to get employment in our own country, the OBA has shown itself to be out of touch and out of ideas.

Recently, Junior Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs Ms Nandi Outerbridge revealed that the High Risk Programme, established under the Progressive Labour Party to offer counsel to families and young people who have been affected by traumatic firearm and other incidents, has been “realigned”. MP Outerbridge, herself, seemed unaware that the OBA’s definition of realignment was the termination of this essential family resource and community programme.

The OBA’s termination of the High Risk Programme has left over 400 young Bermudians without the necessary resources to assist them with addressing potential antisocial behaviour and keeping them on a path of positivity, productivity and good citizenship.

The OBA believes that our at-risk youth simply are not worth the annual $419,000 cost of keeping this highly effective programme operating. Yet the OBA has managed to find $77 million for the America’s Cup and millions of dollars in tax giveaways for their friends in the business community.

Millions which, to date, have had no impact on the quality of life and pocketbooks of the average Bermudian. Combine this with massive OBA cuts in college scholarships, financial assistance and other helping programmes, and a clear picture is being painted of a government that has very different set of priorities from most Bermudians.

The PLP’s position is that our Bermudian youth are just as valuable and vital as the wealthy, the privileged and the elite.

We believe that we must invest in our young people and their families on the front end by preventing antisocial behaviour, as opposed to on the back end through policing and incarceration.

The decision to cut a $419,000 programme for Bermudian youth while tossing millions to the already prosperous shows a lack of foresight, a lack of vision and is — as the older generation says — “penny smart, pound foolish”. The OBA should ask itself how much more might we all pay if our young people are marginalised, disaffected and not given the counsel and support they need.

Let’s look at who is involved in this programme — children whose parents, and in some cases their grandparents, have been caught up in gang violence or other criminal or violent behaviour.

It is young people who have demonstrated that they need extra help, extra guidance and extra care to keep them from becoming a future problem for themselves and others. Left to their own devices, some would make it and become positive contributors to society and role models to other Bermudian youths. The vast majority, however, would slip through the cracks and become lost.

The High Risk Programme is working and is making a major contribution towards ending the cycle of violence, despair and hopelessness that has hurt our society and damaged the lives of countless Bermudians.

It is giving Bermuda an opportunity to tell our youth that they do matter and that our country is too small to throw any Bermudian aside.

Bermudians need a government that believes in Bermudians and that believes that investing in our youth has equal value to catering to the elite and privileged.

Unfortunately, that is what Bermuda is sorely lacking today.

• Michael Weeks is the Shadow Minister of Community, Culture and Sport