The leader of the Progressive Conservatives is defending his party’s line of questioning after they did not ask any questions about tariffs during Question Period yesterday.

The Trump administration’s 25 per cent tariffs came into effect first thing yesterday, making the Canadian response a focal point of many conversations throughout the day.

However, the issue was not brought up in the provincial legislature until NDP MHA Jordan Brown asked about it after 25 minutes of Tory questions.

That is something that surprised both Finance Minister Siobhan Coady, and Jordan Brown.

“This is unprecedented, this is a very difficult time for a lot of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians…It was very surreal to know that the (Progressive) Conservatives, a party that’s supposedly for business, never mentioned it once in the House of Assembly… It just blows me away to think that this is where we’re to.”

PC Leader Tony Wakeham defends his party’s approach, noting that they put out a statement on the fishery and the impacts of tariffs on that industry “first thing” yesterday morning.

“What we’ve done in the legislature is continue to focus on issues…we deliberately did that this morning, to issue that statement, so that we would have an opportunity to speak to it, because it is an important issue.”

Wakeham argues that they are asking questions; they just decided to issue the statement so they could get out on top of it.