As Nova Scotians braced for the impact of U.S. tariffs, which took effect at midnight Tuesday, business expert Ed McHugh urged people to stay positive and focus on the future.
“When you have a big issue like this, it feels like the world is falling apart and it’s a bit of a scary day,” McHugh said. “We’ll work our way through this somehow.”
McHugh was a business professor at Nova Scotia Community College for 25 years. He continues to teach at several universities in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
“There will be some short-term pain, there’ll be some unemployment, there will be some inflation and of course, the stock markets have taken a bit of a hit,” McHugh said. “We just got to stay focused on the future, stay focused on the positive, we still live in a free and great country.”
McHugh believes that addressing interprovincial trade barriers is a positive outcome of the U.S. tariffs.
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“They’ve kept prices of some products artificially high because of supply and demand,” McHugh said. “It’s a good move to get rid of those interprovincial barriers and see where it takes us.”
He said about one in 11 jobs will be affected and the province will feel the impact, but ensures Nova Scotia will recover and the situation will be back under control eventually.
His advice for battling a negative mindset in the meantime is to redirect the focus elsewhere.
“It’s very overwhelming but just listen to people who spend their time on these policy issues,” he said. “Otherwise, if you’re feeling that things aren’t so good in the world right now … don’t watch it.”
McHugh said the premier’s message Tuesday morning was “quite forthright” and had the right tone.
“Hopefully in four years’ time we’ll start to see another redirection, we might even see redirection in the next month or two,” McHugh said.
“You just can’t predict right now, you can’t look for logic.”
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