Last week, Premier Susan Holt launched her weekly livestreamed press conferences on her government’s tariff “action plan.”
New Brunswickers got to know the media room Holt was using — and the image of leadership in crisis — during Blaine Higgs’s frequent pandemic briefings, fed into laptop computers and smartphones.
The premier instead adopted the role of therapist-in-chief, pledging to use the weekly briefing to respond to questions sent to her office by anxious, frustrated New Brunswickers.
I honestly agree with pretty much everything you say here, good comment. I certainly don’t envy any of our politicians right now, having to deal with this mess of a situation.
However I do think at this point it’s starting to look inevitable that ultimately, we are going to become less friendly and inter-dependent with the United States, whether we want to or not. Trump seems intent on destroying the many years of goodwill and friendship between our two countries.
Trying to maintain stability for our citizens is a noble goal, but I’m starting to think now is the time to start planning on how we’ll deal with the future instability of our relationship with the US.
Oh yeah. In official public messaging and private dealings we need to appear friendly, welcoming, and beyond reproach from the perspective of international leaders and reasonable Americans. The objectives are: to avoid both escalation and giving the impression bullying us is a free action; and to slow-roll the impact on Canadians, buying time to adjust and build internal industry.
In reality, I think the friendship is already gone for good.
I also think/hope that our federal leadership secretly knows it. They have to at least know most Canadians do not want the previous status quo long term, even if it was freely offered.