Only two Eastern Canada premiers attend annual conference with New England governors

FREDERICTON — It’s no surprise that most of the key leaders missed an annual roundtable meeting of northeastern U.S. governors and Canadian premiers, says a University of Prince Edward Island political scientist.

Don Desserud, chair of political science at UPEI, said the absences are a sign of the times as a cross-border trade war continues to escalate.

Premiers Tim Houston of Nova Scotia and Rob Lantz of P.E.I. were the only high-level Canadian leaders who attended the 47th annual conference of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers that wrapped up on Monday.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott hosted the meeting and was the only one out of six state governors to attend while the other states sent proxies.

Desserud said premiers currently focused on finding realistic solutions may be uninterested in such a gathering given the state of relations between the two countries.

“The importance of it becomes more symbolic than it does become practical,” Desserud said by phone Monday as the two-day meeting wrapped up.

“And I think we have a generation of premiers now much more focused on the practical and much less concerned about the image.”

Meanwhile, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt’s office said she remained in the province “to focus on priorities here at home.” The province’s trade policy head Serge Breau was sent instead.

A spokesperson for Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham only said he was “unable to attend” the meeting, without providing more details. An assistant deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs attended as Newfoundland’s representative.

And Quebec sent its International Relations Minister Christopher Skeete in place of Premier Christine Fréchette. A spokesperson for Skeete said the choice of delegation was unrelated to the trade war.

Fréchette has also been preparing for an Oct. 1 provincial election.

As for the six New England governors, four of them are facing primaries ahead of fall statewide elections.

Attendance at the conference appears to have declined in recent years.

When the meeting was held in St. John’s last year, three premiers and one governor attended, with lower-level officials making up the delegations from the other states.

At the 2024 conference in Boston, there were two premiers and five governors. Three premiers and four governors went to the 44th annual conference in Quebec a year prior.

And at the last in-person gathering before the pandemic, in 2018, four premiers and three governors attended.

The 2019 meeting was cancelled due to Hurricane Dorian.

But the relationship between Canada and the U.S. is now defined by an escalating trade war started by U.S. President Donald Trump, with a new wave of 50 per cent levies on some Canadian goods planned for Aug. 19.

That could be a compelling reason to opt out of the conference, said Desserud.

“No tariffs, tariffs, back and forth stuff makes any kind of agreement that you might find to be irrelevant. And so it becomes almost an exercise of futility,” he said.

Scott, the Vermont governor, acknowledged the shaky relationship between Canada and the U.S. in a statement released Monday afternoon following the conference.

“At a time of uncertainty and strain in the relationship between our countries, governors and premiers have a very important role to play in keeping those connections strong,” Scott said.

“Over the last two days, we’ve demonstrated that we can continue working together toward our shared interests, regardless of the political disagreements at the national level.”

Over the two days, Scott, Houston and Lantz toured an aerospace business and a farm to explore joint opportunities on clean energy and advanced manufacturing, according to a handout from the governor’s office.

A news release said the group also met with regional industry leaders to strategize on boosting energy security, creating reliable infrastructure and increasing economic growth.

Desserud, who authored a book on interprovincial Maritime politics last year, said while he understands why many of the premiers and governors didn’t go, there is still value in participating.

“I’d be willing to bet that premiers come away from these … with a better understanding of what exactly is going on in the other provinces and those states,” he said.

Desserud added there also could be a day when tariffs and trade doesn’t dominate the relationship between Ottawa and Washington, D.C.

“You still want to maintain those connections because one of these days we will be in a post-Trump world and you don’t want to start from scratch.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2026.

Eli Ridder, The Canadian Press