Shediac — After losing the confidence vote on his throne speech Friday morning, former New Brunswick premier Brian Gallant is still an emotional wreck. He shed a few tears in the legislature when stepping down, then promptly ran home to have a good cry and spend the weekend moping and feeling sorry for himself.
On Saturday afternoon, Karine let our reporter into the couple’s Shediac home, where Brian was lying on the couch, absently stroking Blaze’s head and staring at the TV, which was playing old episodes of Dawson’s Creek.
“He refused to come to bed last night,” Karine told us. “He stayed on the couch with the TV on, replaying his speech. I told him that watching that wasn’t going to help him feel any better or make him premier again, so this morning he put on Dawson’s Creek. Not sure if that’s an improvement or not.”
“I’m barely watching it,” Brian said.
“I think it’s the one where Joey goes back to her waitressing job at the yacht club, but who even knows,” he added, dabbing the corners of his eyes with a Kleenex.
The former premier had made his way through most of a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough Ben & Jerry’s, and was elbow deep into a bag of Storm Chips.
“Brian, you can’t eat junk all day just because you’re heartbroken,” Karine said, in a loving but stern voice. “Why don’t you sit up and talk with this nice reporter about what’s been going on? You need to pull yourself together, for my sake if not for yours.
“It’s not healthy to be shut up inside in the dark,” she added, opening the heavy drapes as Brian squinted against the grey November light.
We asked him what he plans to do now that the election is over.
“Jeez, can you get off my back? Can’t you see this is a hard time for me?” he said. “For now I’m just going to watch this show. Maybe next week I’ll be up to taking Blaze for a walk, or applying for E.I., but it’s all just way too much at the moment.”
Because talking with Brian proved futile, Karine took our reporter into the kitchen, where she poured two large glasses of red wine.
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I called his mom. She’s on her way over,” Karine said, taking a big swig. “She can rub his belly, and sing to him. That always makes him feel better. And if that doesn’t work, I’m just going to have to download Tinder and ‘get back out there.’
“This is not what I signed up for.”