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.
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.