Transcript
Corey
0:02
You're in a room.
Corey
0:03
There's a good din. Now, it's not the din of 400 people, but it's probably the din of like 380. Yeah.
Corey
0:09
It's a little embarrassing for Stephen Carter, who said 400 people would buy tickets, but it's still a very good din.
Corey
0:15
It's not embarrassing for me. Just these are things you need.
Carter
0:18
Yeah, okay. So it's not embarrassing for you.
Corey
0:20
Yeah. So you're sitting next to somebody you like. A
Corey
0:25
No, not a lover, because you haven't enjoyed physical intimacy in years.
Corey
0:28
That's not right. It feels
Corey
0:30
Maybe an acquaintance. Okay.
Corey
0:32
An acquaintance who shares a love of great podcasts.
Corey
0:39
See, that doesn't actually sound right either. So let's say adequate podcasts.
Carter
0:44
you're not really selling us, but okay.
Corey
0:46
Okay. So the two of you are enjoying some of the best seats in the house at the Strategist Live show in
Corey
0:53
in Calgary on April 2nd.
Corey
0:55
These are seats at the back, though, because you've waited to the last minute. but they're all good seats yeah
Carter
1:01
they can see us yeah
Corey
1:03
suddenly the lights dim and they can't see us music
Corey
1:10
stephen carter takes the stage oh
Carter
1:12
oh i like this then
Corey
1:14
then cory hogan takes the stage to wild
Corey
1:18
zane and annalise are there too yeah
Corey
1:20
and it's all you know it's already happening it's the greatest show of your life and it's it's not even through the intro music yeah
Corey
1:27
you learned You've learned so much about the upcoming Alberta election. So much more than you could have learned at the recording of a CBC podcast. Totally.
Corey
1:34
You know, there's the strategies, the considerations, the strategic considerations. It's so rich. It's so deep.
Carter
1:44
Oh, I like it.
Corey
1:46
Yeah. And all of this is only for $37, including facility fees. Well,
Carter
1:52
I'm told that the strategists like only get 30 of that. so it's
Corey
1:57
it's such a bargain yeah
Corey
1:58
does seem impossible right yeah
Corey
2:00
but it is possible it is possible because you bought a ticket to the strategist live show in calgary this sunday you learned how to win alberta elections you
Corey
2:10
you saved alberta maybe maybe
Corey
2:12
and that all happened on you know sunday april 2nd 7 30 p.m tickets still available in part because of course uh stephen carter said tickets would would not be available i
Carter
2:21
i would sell out yeah
Corey
2:23
yeah Yeah, yeah. You know where those tickets are available?
Corey
2:32
So tickets are available at TheStrategistLive.com? Yeah, it's good. How does that sound?
Corey
2:42
Carter, are you going to start this show or what? What's going on?
Carter
2:46
Are we starting now?
Corey
2:48
Well, I already laid in in post the intro music over the point where I said the intro music was starting. So you might as well just tell what episode number we're at and go. Well,
Carter
2:57
Well, this is episode 1045. And Corey, I got to tell you, I am so happy that it's back to you and me.
Corey
3:05
would think when we
Carter
3:07
we have two hosts, it would never be a problem for us to grab a host. You know, how hard could it be to find a host? He said. How
Carter
3:15
We just call hosts. We got two hosts.
Corey
3:19
We have multiple hosts, and we're in the era of generative AI. It kind of feels like that should never be an excuse.
Carter
3:24
We should... You know what we should do? We should totally chat GPT this whole show right now.
Corey
3:29
I mean, that's basically what we've done to date, is it not?
Carter
3:34
that we didn't do it. So I
Carter
3:35
I had an idea today.
Corey
3:38
Okay. Was it to sell tickets to the live show? Because I just tried to do that. Did you?
Carter
3:44
wasn't really paying attention um it's fine so here's my thinking okay
Carter
3:52
a bunch of issues floating around right
Carter
3:56
but i want to talk about things not necessarily in terms of the issues i think we've been focusing too much on the issues lately annalise makes this
Carter
4:03
comment on things like children's medicine and shit are
Corey
4:06
are you blaming annalise for an issues focused podcast Yeah,
Carter
4:09
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Corey
4:10
Yeah. Okay, all right. So what
Carter
4:11
what I want to do is I want to take the headlines of the day, some of the bigger stories of the day, and kind of put them into one of three categories, the first category being an issue, right? So we're talking about the actual issue here.
Corey
4:23
All right. So to be clear, one of the three categories of issues is
Carter
4:27
is issue. Of headlines.
Carter
4:30
All right. All right. Or the thrust of the story, the thrust of the understanding of the public. there are understanding the issue at hand then
Carter
4:40
then another one would be
Corey
4:41
be an issues thrust yeah
Carter
4:42
yeah and another one would be like understanding the process thrush you
Carter
4:47
you know like so the process is where the outrage is generated or the the process is where the discussion is is going but it's all process focused
Corey
4:57
because we kind of meta right
Carter
4:58
right and back in our day you could you know back in my day we used to say we either had issues or process if you couldn't win on the issue you you brought in the process, couldn't win on the process, you brought in the issue. But
Carter
5:09
But now I would posit that there is a third type, and that is the outrage, the outrage issue, or the outrage headlines, the outrage discussion. And I have an idea of what that is today. And I thought we'd kind of talk about three, four, five different issues, kind of in that frame, in that context. So
Corey
5:29
So you're doing like a Zane Velji, he has the strategy scale, and you've got
Corey
5:34
the the thrust scale so so
Corey
5:36
so that seems very on his is made up and
Carter
5:39
and mine is actual real stuff right his is a numeric thing that starts at one and ends at 10 which makes no sense no
Carter
5:47
but mine is like there are three types of you know communications thrust that we're trying to create we're going to try to get people to talk about the issue we're trying to get people to talk about the process or we're trying to
Corey
5:57
to or you're just trying to make them angry or
Carter
5:59
or make Make him angry, you know, just play
Carter
6:01
play on that natural sense of outrage. And I must give credit. I was chatting with Dwayne Bratt today because
Carter
6:06
because he was calling me, MRU professor in political science. He's calling me about a project he's working on. And we were talking about
Corey
6:13
about- He didn't call me. Thanks, Dwayne. It's
Carter
6:14
It's fine. Well, it's because I do things and you
Carter
6:16
just kind of do a podcast, right? Like, I'm still, you know, practicing strategist. You're a communicator. We've gone through this.
Corey
6:26
okay. I'm just going to blame the fact I work at a different institution than Dwayne. and he's yeah
Corey
6:30
it's a little insecure about that that's my assumption you
Carter
6:33
know paul ferry's writing a book maybe you can get mentioned in that book you
Carter
6:36
you know i don't
Corey
6:40
that's a lot of inside ball a lot of calgary academic inside ball yeah
Carter
6:44
yeah well you laughed and that's really what we were after so that's what we're here for what issue do you want to start with you want to start with like uh we can start with the budget tomorrow well
Corey
6:53
well yeah give me an example like so um because Because you've given me this scale, I will say, I think I'm clear on what an issue issue is.
Corey
7:02
I'm not so sure I'm clear on what a process issue is. And
Corey
7:06
And I'm pretty fucking clear because I live in 2023 about what an outrage issue is.
Carter
7:10
Yeah, I think that we got outrage understood.
Corey
7:13
Yeah, I understand that poll for sure. Lay it on me, though. Let's
Carter
7:16
Let's actually use the budget tomorrow as both an issue and
Carter
7:23
and a process style story.
Corey
7:24
story. Oh, fucking fantastic. fantastic so now a thing can be in two categories is what of course it can of
Carter
7:29
course it can i mean there's no rules cory
Carter
7:30
cory there's no rule i
Corey
7:31
i mean it's our own fucking
Corey
7:33
fucking podcast we can do anything we want you don't have a host this nomenclature we don't have a host immediately your very first example is an example that's in two buckets because cory
Carter
7:42
cory i'm multifaceted if you consider
Carter
7:45
the ability to you know step out of your one only one thing kind of thing i i'm i'm
Carter
7:53
I'm working on multiple levels.
Corey
7:55
Yeah, well, no disputing that. Right?
Carter
7:58
tomorrow, let's assume that the government brings forward a budget.
Carter
8:02
Apparently they're going to.
Corey
8:02
to. Well, they're kind
Corey
8:04
kind of planning to. Yeah, I mean,
Carter
8:05
mean, you don't know. I mean, the world could end tomorrow.
Carter
8:08
know, who am I to get ahead of myself?
Carter
8:10
But the budget's going to have a couple of thrusts to it. One of the thrusts, and this is going to be something that the government is pushing, is the issues associated with the budget. What are the things that we are trying to solve, right? Right. So last budget, we had some issues around dental care. We had some health care issues. There's been a big deal with the provinces about, you know, additional funding for health care. All of that's going to show
Carter
8:33
show up in the budget. There'll be some through lines about what does it mean to be Canadian? Those things will be kind of there'll be kind of issue focused budget discussion points. Right. That will be what the budget is designed to do. And you've prepared many budgets. You've done multiple budget communication structures. I have.
Carter
8:53
And I would argue that most of the time when you have done those budget discussions, from the point of view of the government, you're
Carter
9:00
you're talking about the issues that it is designed to address. It is designed to fix certain problems within our society. And this budget will solve those problems. Am I correct in putting those words in your mouth?
Corey
9:13
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this in the past, but budgets are really powerful tools for that because, spoiler alert, that's where the money comes from. And money is used to solve a lot of these problems.
Carter
9:24
Right. And so the money is used to solve problems. And that is what the government wants to be talking about tomorrow and the days after. As you've made an elegant case for before, these budgets don't just live in a single day. They're designed to carry a communications arc. And
Carter
9:42
that's what this budget's going to do is it's going to be trying to carry a communications arc into the future. But I would argue that the opposition don't really want it to be an issue versus issue discussion point. What they want to have is they want to have a process discussion point. They want to undermine the actual issues that are being discussed and focus on things that aren't the
Carter
10:06
the issues themselves. Very
Corey
10:07
Very interesting. So you're actually saying, from the government's point of view, it's a dealing with the issues event. And you're saying from the opposition's point of view, it's a process event.
Corey
10:18
That's super interesting because...
Corey
10:21
Yeah, they got, so two things I've noted that have been teased out in advance of the budget. There's been a few more than that, I'm sure. But one of them is the idea that they're going to spend less on consultants, clearly a reaction to the McKinsey conversations that have been going on, right? And the other is that they are going to make money available for lower income Canadians for groceries to make that more affordable. Now, listen, we can talk about the policies of both of those. We don't have all of the details. I actually have pretty strong opinions about both of them. And I think in both cases, I'm not wild about what the government's proposing. But they are clearly trying to knock off issues, right? Issues they see in front of them and they're trying to deal with it. And
Carter
11:01
And those issues are things that they think they can win on. Right. So they're going after poverty and families. They're going after, you know, these issues are things that they feel they can chip away at.
Carter
11:13
And they, you know, the issue of McKinsey and the consulting companies getting too much money.
Carter
11:19
Easy, easy. We'll solve the issue simply by not giving them any more money. Look at us seeing an issue and addressing that issue. That becomes their primary thrust on their communications pieces. And I would challenge our listeners as they're watching the budget unfold in the next couple of days, can they see those issue thrusts coming from the government, right? What issue, you know, here's the issue, here's how we're trying to solve it. And it becomes almost that formulaic style of communications. We issue solution, issue
Carter
11:51
issue solution. We are the solution for you. you that
Carter
11:55
that is a very simple communication structure that they will be employing in in my ever so humble opinion but it looks like i've already got you agreeing with me at least on some levels yeah
Corey
12:07
yeah yeah like i'm i think i almost feel where this is going and i'm i'm kind of keen to talk about the process part yeah because if you're the opposition can i try this on yeah i'm loving this
Corey
12:19
so you're the opposition however and you don't you don't want to talk about how they've solved an issue you want to talk about the process you want to talk about how the government ended up there in the first place and these two examples are actually kind of perfect because why do we need to deal with consultant fees because they've let them get out of hand why do we need to deal with the high cost of groceries because this is a government that has made it absolutely unaffordable um thanks to just inflation or whatever the kind of commentary is there and so you're wrapping this in a bigger process story along the way about how the government made the decisions they did and what that says about government well
Carter
12:53
well and you wrap it in as big as big a bow as you possibly can so you're now saying we would not even have had to address this issue if we were in government because we would never have allowed the inflation to to take hold and to get this deep and it's because the the the trudeau government hasn't had the inflationary you know processes in place to stop this inflation that we have to see such extreme measures from this government of the day they are literally using your money to buy back uh your goodwill right so the process becomes the center part of the actual discussion instead of the uh issues that they're trying to solve in part if you you know in part because you can't win you can't say well we wouldn't give that money to poor people right
Corey
13:47
right that would be the so So you're backing it up to the process and you're saying, well, how did we even end up here in the first place?
Carter
13:52
Right. So you don't want to go to the process or you don't want to go to the issue and say we would never do that. Right. Instead, it's we wouldn't have had to do that because the process that the liberals have used is so fucked up. And that's why, you know, the liberal government is buying it back with your own money, whatever language they choose to use. Now they're using process oriented language and that becomes the budget communication cycle for them. so
Carter
14:17
so that that structure of what is a process issue versus what is a um an issue issue
Carter
14:28
using the word issue and i probably shouldn't i should probably be using the word communication strategy right this is an issue communication strategy for the government it is a process communication strategy for the opposition two different sides you
Carter
14:41
you you may see some opposition elements that are issue oriented, right?
Carter
14:46
right? They take issue with the fact that they're spending money on this issue, right? Or on this particular thing, but the more powerful ones I would propose are going to be the issue or are going to be the pro the process ones. So that's what I wanted to kind of, that's why I wanted to break this down a little bit today, because I thought that that was a good example that will show two different arcs right off the bat that That we'll be showing a different structure and a different strategy for communications around a budget.
Carter
15:14
Pretty good, hey? Not bad for
Carter
15:15
for not being a host.
Corey
15:17
Not bad. You know what? You've got your thesis now.
Carter
15:22
So now should we try and pick it apart a little bit? Should we show some other examples?
Corey
15:28
Yeah. I mean, I'd be curious to. But before we even get there. Yeah.
Corey
15:33
What? Okay. So it just so happened the two examples I threw on the table were both issues. where the government is for sure arguably on the defensive but there are well
Corey
15:42
well maybe by nature if it's like a an issue issue which i'm going to keep using because that yeah
Corey
15:47
like that delights me yeah yeah um
Carter
15:50
yeah it makes me look better i like that too sure
Corey
15:53
yeah like if we were to talk about child care and the investments that were made a couple of budgets ago in child care right yeah
Corey
16:01
is that like what is that to you in your little terminology here because arguably it's It's like an event. It's an issue issue. We're putting money into this thing and we're doing this thing, but it doesn't necessarily.
Corey
16:13
I don't know. Like, how does that fit into the frame? Does the opposition still go to process and say, we only have to do this because the government hasn't done
Corey
16:20
done X or like what? Like, how's that look?
Carter
16:22
Interestingly, that seemed to have been an issue communication strategy that was met by the opposition with their own, um, with
Carter
16:34
with their own issue communications. they did not feel that this was the best thing for canadian society and they they kind of tackled it more more head-on on
Corey
16:42
on an issue level right
Carter
16:43
right on an issue level because they disagreed like like so it's not formulaic it's not the
Corey
16:49
the like you're not always responding to an issue no
Carter
16:52
no in this particular case in the case of the uh in
Carter
16:56
in the case of the uh child care the
Carter
17:00
the opposition the conservatives have have a different view of what society looks like they aren't going to just simply say government funding for child care is perfect this is they don't want that type of governmental intervention into free enterprise structures into our into our home lives into how we how we raise our children they see it as an unfair advantage to certain subsets of groups not a societal advantage as the liberals may see it so because of that they will take the issue communication strategy coming from the liberals and hit back with an issues communication strategy around child care does
Carter
17:37
does that make sense am i making sense yeah
Corey
17:39
yeah so so i guess i have two questions coming from this just to flesh out your model here one is does
Corey
17:45
does you know so issue doesn't always need to be met with issue we agree on that right you can go to process that's super common in politics just to say i don't know what i don't want to fight on this ground so i'm going to fight on kind of meta of ground i'm going to go to like how did we even get here in the first place right um
Corey
18:02
um but issue can be met with issue if you want could
Corey
18:05
could the liberals have met their issue rejoinder with process like does process always trump issue i guess is my first question to you well
Carter
18:13
well i think we can leave that to the to the uh to the listeners to decide i
Corey
18:18
i wouldn't do that oh
Carter
18:19
oh yeah i mean you
Corey
18:20
you you met our listeners you're going to meet like 400 of them you
Carter
18:24
you know what this weekend
Carter
18:24
now that I'm thinking about it, it
Carter
18:26
it will take some extra explaining.
Carter
18:28
So let's give it to them. Let's give them the answer.
Carter
18:33
people are more inclined to understand process arguments because they no longer have to identify specifically with the issue.
Carter
18:40
So one of the things that we talk a lot about on this particular program is the GAF, the give a fuck factor.
Corey
18:46
Yeah, we haven't in a while, but I like that it still has a place in our hearts. That was like in 2015, we talked talked about that i
Carter
18:53
i talk about it all the time cory i think if you listen to the podcast you would learn that i
Carter
18:57
anytime i get the chance to insert a swear that's what i go for right
Corey
19:01
right oh wait a minute so so are you mentioning this during the times that you're talking yeah
Carter
19:06
that's probably why i
Corey
19:06
i don't listen to that part yeah okay yeah probably
Carter
19:09
probably why you're missing it anyways
Carter
19:10
anyways my point is that during the the idea of the give a fuck factor is very simply um we We don't care the same about all issues. Some issues we care deeply about. Some issues we don't care about at all. Some issues we're aware of. And some issues we're not even aware of.
Corey
19:28
I just feel like if you talk about this all the time, you wouldn't need to restate it like this. You know what? I'm starting like
Carter
19:33
like the audience are dumb, is what I'm trying to do.
Carter
19:37
And you were the one who set up that principle. So I'm just, I'm filling into the principle.
Corey
19:43
I mean, I like the audience. I think that they should support me and what I've got to say. You've never liked
Carter
19:50
Oh, should we tell them that if they come to the live show, they get to vote for either you or me?
Corey
19:55
That's true. Yeah, I mean, I guess we just did.
Carter
19:57
did. They can destroy one of us.
Corey
19:58
Congratulations, you did. One
Carter
19:59
One of us will get destroyed.
Corey
20:01
Our egos are pretty fragile. Very
Carter
20:06
My point is that with issues, you
Carter
20:08
you may care, you may not care about the specific issue. But with process, you can be enticed to care about the process, even though you may not care specifically about the issue. The process has a certain value, where you can prove a, you know, you can prove a negative, you can prove that a government is incompetent, you can prove that a government doesn't serve you in a way that you can't necessarily with an issue. issue because the issue you'll just say oh that doesn't impact me and you just even if you think it's a bad idea you don't spend a lot of time breaking it down because that's the nature of our human of the human condition um we don't spend a lot of time breaking down things that we don't care about okay
Corey
20:51
okay well let me ask you this then this is question two or
Corey
20:54
three i don't know my counting is a little you're doing a
Carter
20:56
a great job thanks
Corey
20:59
the idea of a process perhaps being available to you when you don't care about the issue your give a fuck factors low all of that Is that really
Corey
21:08
really true of everyone? Or is that just something that's hyper true of political watchers? Would you potentially try to bring in this process lens to a voter who doesn't obsess about politics and they'd say, I
Corey
21:22
I don't give a shit about that. I want to talk about healthcare. I want to talk about education. Is process maybe catnip to media, catnip to politicos, but not as interesting to the lay voter? Well,
Carter
21:32
Well, I think that the interesting thing with the lay voter is the catnip you're describing works for them on a very superficial level. So when we're talking about process, that process can be understood at a very simple level where people will be like, yeah, I don't really understand that, but I know that it's bad, right? Right. Whereas the issue, you feel like you need to actually understand it on a different level for it to actually have the same meaning. So in my experience, what we see is that the issues tend to not tend to be less
Carter
22:08
less resonant regardless, you know, even with the give a fuck factor issues. And this is why I think that issues are often trumped by process. Because the person, you
Carter
22:20
you may not care as much about the issue, and it requires a higher degree of investment for you to actually understand the issue. And
Corey
22:27
if you don't understand it,
Carter
22:28
it, you're never going to be the same kind of outraged. It's
Corey
22:31
good point you can retreat to process too. I mean, how many times have we seen versions of a conversation where somebody comes in really hot on an issue, somebody more informed on the issue, puts them in their absolute fucking place, and then they retreat to, well, you know, the very fact that I thought that might be the case is because they did bad communications on this particular matter, or the only reason why we're even arguing about this is because they screwed up the thing in the first place. or like this absolute broadening of the field when they get killed in the individual battle.
Carter
23:02
In fact, it's a simple rule in political communications. If you are losing on the issue, go
Carter
23:09
It is that immediate. Like it is, we can't win on the, and there's another way that we can't win on the issue. You
Carter
23:16
You know how hard it is to get the media to report on an issue?
Carter
23:19
Like it is super hard to get the media to report on an issue. Issues are this thing that, you know, we want to talk about i mean i i think i've talked about the fact that we released 14 big ideas for for nenshi and we got exactly um
Carter
23:36
one of them covered in the news media through the entire campaign that we did with him i mean how does that even happen how do you wind up with one news article when you've done you know this whole campaign was supposed to be about who was the smartest candidate and and in the discussion of who the smartest candidate is is that smart candidate can only get one, one issue discussed about in the mainstream media.
Corey
24:01
But, but to your point, I think, how many articles were written about him being the smart candidate and the guy with the in-depth policy that nobody read and nobody reported on? Because
Carter
24:11
Because we actually reported on, we had them reporting on the processes of how we made the policy. We had them reporting about the processes around how we were disseminating the product, you know, the policy. While we're talking to people in their homes, you know, we're going, what did Nenshi say? Nenshi said, we
Carter
24:27
go to where they are, right?
Carter
24:29
right? We go to where they are. So if they're not at the news media, we're going to them on social media. We're going to them on a website. Now we didn't tell them the click-through rate on the website was like 1.5%. Like no one moved past the headlines, right? Almost
Carter
24:44
Almost everybody stuck at the 15, you know, the six word headline and the 15 word description, but
Carter
24:49
but that was enough for them.
Carter
24:51
That was enough of them for them to think that he was the smartest that was the process that we we were able to convince them of as we were going through that that that campaign so i and i think there were multiple times i remember there being multiple times when we actually moved it to process instead of issues we did get more coverage of the um september 11th vandalism of the campaign office uh then we got uh coverage of the policies that released that week um
Carter
25:21
um you know kelly kreiderman wrote an article about how you know nancy being a muslim no
Carter
25:27
no one wanted it to be an issue during the campaign right
Carter
25:29
right she wrote that article right
Carter
25:32
you know perfect process
Carter
25:35
process not issues hey
Corey
25:37
hey so you were about to give a bunch of other examples i think but you haven't even put the third leg of your stool on
Corey
25:45
on the stool yeah like
Carter
25:46
like what's the metaphor i don't know i actually put the so instead of going to outrage because outrage is so easy okay it's so easy everybody sees outrage now i wanted to do another example of the process discussion and
Carter
25:59
and that is and you brought this to my attention i
Corey
26:02
probably made you smarter as a result yes you
Carter
26:05
you did you you did and i i was like this is the best example of a process story there is you were amazing thanks
Carter
26:13
thanks jugmate singh was is not satisfied with the confidence and supply agreement the eve of the budget eve
Carter
26:20
eve of the budget this
Carter
26:21
this is coming out and
Carter
26:22
is the the story um that singh is peddling i mean is there anything more process oriented than to go back and re-explore the process the entire process um by which you're supporting and building up this government i mean it's it it just on
Carter
26:40
on all levels it's just a complete process story it has no fundamental substance to it except he doesn't like the government anymore he thinks he should be prime minister sure
Corey
26:51
sure so if we're gonna be give it the most charitable read why would we do the substance i don't know it's sometimes i like to pretend i do this but if we were going to do that what he says is effectively yeah actually it's a great point steven because like the thing that he says is effectively um yeah
Corey
27:09
yeah you know i i'm just a little disappointed with it now don't get me wrong everything awesome the liberals have done is because of me exactly i'm awesome but it leaves me a little dissatisfied because i know i would be a better prime minister i'd
Carter
27:21
i'd be a better prime minister i'd do all the things that justin trudeau just did because i asked him to better
Carter
27:27
better than justin trudeau i mean it's just right like what evidence like what substance is there to the claim except that he knows that a rift in the you know in the in the confidence and supply agreement a rift in what is ostensibly keeping the trudeau minority government to float um that rift uh is the only story he's going to get he
Carter
27:51
he doesn't get a story this week on his dental care he doesn't get any like he doesn't get any stories this week because he's out of the cycle because the cycle is entirely being dominated by justin trudeau and pierre pauliev because pierre pauliev will have the process stories about the budget and uh justin trudeau has the issues stories that jagmeet singh so desperately wants so
Carter
28:13
so that that to me is just kind of it's showing um singh's weakness which we've discussed ad nauseam through the
Carter
28:21
the supply agreement and how he's now trying to find a way to make himself look stronger.
Corey
28:28
Yeah, well, and you know, you and I disagree a little bit on this, because I think he does have more range of motion than you think he does, right? Although reading that article really felt like somebody who was protesting a bit too much about an agreement that he himself signed. I mean,
Carter
28:46
the strength at any moment, if he thinks he'd be the prime better prime minister, to pull his support of this government and immediately force, you know, at least a confidence vote. I don't know that necessarily the Bloc Quebecois will let it fall. You know, there's many, there's many different
Carter
29:02
different ways to keep this government alive, perhaps. Not as easy as the NDP have been.
Carter
29:08
But that doesn't mean that, you know, Jagmeet Singh, if he wants to be the prime minister, he can certainly look like
Carter
29:14
like a leader this week. Instead of complaining, he could actually do something. thing
Corey
29:18
so this is a point to underline yeah
Corey
29:20
yeah this is a good point to underline because of course implicit in the criticism of they
Corey
29:25
they did a bunch of things i'm disappointed i think i'd be a better prime minister but i'm still gonna prop him up here right i mean if you want to pretend there's this lawyerly reading where he can't find his way out of it and his ethics say well shucks i don't think he's good enough to be prime minister i think i'd be better but i gotta got to support him because i made this agreement and i'm a man of my word well first of all i have a bridge to sell you jesus
Carter
29:48
jesus that's just the way i mean that sounds pathetic and it's not just your reading of it it's pathetic well
Corey
29:56
well and so this is the this is the other point implicit in all of this if you don't believe in fairy tales if you believe that singh does have the ability to find a reason to exit his his agreement at any point and he does like there are so many lines in it 100 you could find a way out of it right absolutely it would be so easy to do you could do it on the foreign interference and i actually think that would be quite an election that would be very bad for the liberals but if
Corey
30:24
if you believe all
Corey
30:26
all of that and he's still going to be sitting there and not getting the prime minister out of office right not calling for an election
Corey
30:34
in there implicit in all of there is that at best what sing is saying is justin trudeau is a good prime minister but i could be a great prime minister which is super weak like it's a very weak place to be because he's ultimately saying it's okay but it could be much better right is that not what he's ultimately saying in that messaging and that's not very great messaging if you truly aspire to be prime minister well
Carter
30:56
well and and so let me go back to where i said the process Trump's issues um good process Trump's issues the
Carter
31:04
problem with this particular process story is that it's just not it's not well considered it's not well thought through because from the beginning of this process story I've always felt that way that that Singh weakened himself to the point where he was no longer able to function as a as a essentially a political party the NDP put put themselves in as, as a, um,
Carter
31:29
a small part of this liberal government. I mean, at the very least get one fucking ministry, get
Carter
31:35
get one fucking minute, like one thing that you can put your stamp on and say, this is some, have we ever had an NDP minister, Corey? I was thinking about this the other day. I
Carter
31:45
mean, what would it
Corey
31:46
it be like? I mean, the last time we had a coalition government was during the first world war right and that wasn't really a coalition in the conventional sense because it was
Carter
31:56
was you know wartime uh
Corey
31:59
well you know so it's funny because there is i hate i fucking hate i'm about to say these words but there's this there's this thing that happens in the show the west wing uh during the debate right which and by the way that whole episode is utter garbage utter
Corey
32:16
garbage all of its trash completely utter garbage we
Carter
32:18
we all agree that
Carter
32:19
going to use an example okay bartlett
Corey
32:21
bartlett goes hard against richie yeah he just he just goes for the jugular he decides he's going to be a bit of an arrogant prick and just leave a stain on the floor and the rationale that's given after is he's like well it was already costed in people already thought these things about me so i was going to use them right
Corey
32:38
right i wasn't going to pussyfoot around them i wasn't going to be trying to avoid this idea that i was this arrogant professor i was going to be that guy right
Corey
32:46
there is something to be said for that from the ndp's point of view when you talk about coalitions if the conservatives are going to scream coalition anyways why not get the benefits of a coalition why not get a minister why not get some of these trappings of power that would allow you to make a bigger difference than the difference that your confidence and supply motion provides you yeah
Carter
33:06
yeah i mean i just don't understand it it makes sense to me as a good deal-making principle that if you are going to support the government of the day and you are We're going to ensure that the government of the day stays whole and is in a position where they can be making
Carter
33:22
making these decisions, then you should at the very least be asking for a position at that table. And if they won't give it to you, that's fine. Don't do a supply agreement.
Carter
33:34
and do a negotiation issue by issue, which is so much stronger for the NDP. But it's also so much more work. And I just feel like the part of me feels like, honestly, the reason they're staying away from a piecemeal negotiation is it's just too much work for a caucus
Carter
33:54
caucus that is small and they don't have the resources. horses i
Corey
34:00
think you're kind of forgetting where they were when they got that deal because and we talked about this at the time there was an asymmetry that the ndp seized and and this is part of why i've never been as negative on the deal as you because at the time it was clear that trudeau was in the mood to make a deal right he just wanted an effective majority regardless
Corey
34:21
regardless of how he got there and that's why the confidence and supply motion came through there were a number of things in it that the liberals were going to do anyways but if you're the ndp you can push it a little bit further and you can try to take credit for some of the things the liberals were going to do that was my thinking at the time i think that they could also perhaps have pushed further and got some of those other things we've talked about like cabinet seats but you
Corey
34:43
you know i mean the reality is there is a kind of a walkaway position i'm sure uh for the liberals too and they might not have been inclined to do that and they might have said no you know we'll play this issue by issue you hard to say yeah
Carter
34:55
yeah but none either way you still wind up in my opinion if you're saying you look stronger and i think that this is one of the things that i don't understand about saying i don't think that he wants he i don't think he feels the need to feel strong in the same fashion that most politicians feel the need to be strong i
Carter
35:15
i think that the ndp in general would rather stand behind and beside their principles than stand for power and that is well so a foundational difference in politics in the way that i think about politics and the way that that especially that side of the of the uh aisle
Carter
35:32
aisle thinks about politics i
Corey
35:34
i think you got to acknowledge that that's not necessarily a terrible thing is it an impractical thing is it a naive thing I would entertain arguments that it is in both cases. But the idea that he's so principled, he's willing to do these things, shame on him. I've got a little bit of a challenge going that far. Why?
Carter
35:55
mean, especially when he has the opportunity
Carter
35:57
when he has the actual opportunity to be powerful, right?
Carter
36:01
right? When your opposition is weak, when your opposition is weak, you have the ability and arguably the responsibility to be strong. because
Carter
36:12
because if you really believe in your principles the only way that your principles are going to be followed the only way that your principles are going to become um you know the the
Carter
36:22
ideas of the day is for you to be strong enough to actually implement them and
Carter
36:26
and right now he's
Carter
36:27
he's not strong enough to implement them he has to rely on however the end however the liberals feel that they should be implemented
Corey
36:34
well yeah but hold on because a lot of the ideas the liberals are now implementing are in part because of this confidence and supply agreement. But it's
Corey
36:41
it's not going to give him
Carter
36:42
him anything. Is he going to get more
Carter
36:45
more seats or fewer seats? Is he going to be in a position of more power or less power? Because it's not just the power that you have today. It's the power that you're able to accumulate in the future.
Carter
36:56
Future power will matter to the NDP, and they will have less of it.
Corey
37:01
Ah, fine. We could go on this for a while, but I'll tell you. What happened to our
Carter
37:03
our topics? We had a whole topic and everything, I mean, we
Corey
37:07
have a host. We don't even have the weak hand of Zane Velji on this particular show. Oh, my
Carter
37:12
my God. This is ridiculous. I mean, what a mess this
Corey
37:16
happy with it. Okay, but actually, wasn't this even— I'm
Carter
37:19
Yeah, it's going the way I wanted it to.
Carter
37:24
we should probably talk about outrage.
Corey
37:28
There's a few examples in the news, in the tubes, in the papers. bruce you
Carter
37:35
a few which one do you want to pick yeah
Corey
37:36
yeah i don't know i mean we could talk about well
Corey
37:40
don't actually know if it's a process or outrage we could talk about israel we
Corey
37:44
we probably won't uh
Corey
37:46
uh we could talk about uh tiktok in the united states and the outrage against china's involvement in basically anything we could talk about i want to talk canada and foreign interference i mean okay
Corey
37:57
okay the chinese let's use the chinese thing so you didn't want to swing at at israel you didn't want to you didn't want to walk you're going to be you're going to
Carter
38:04
to be shocked to find out that in general i try and avoid issues around israel you're
Corey
38:10
to be shocked that's going to be clipped and taken out of context now and yeah see
Carter
38:14
see now that's why i try and avoid those issues that's
Corey
38:17
that's a great point you
Carter
38:18
you know way to go i think
Corey
38:19
think that is real situation fascinating fascinating situation for about 30 different reasons well
Carter
38:25
well do you want to do
Corey
38:25
do that we'll have to come back to no no no okay we'll
Corey
38:28
we'll come back to that another day maybe when there's another person when
Carter
38:32
again which apparently it's going to happen okay
Carter
38:36
just hope i just hope that uh annalise is well by the time we do the live show i
Carter
38:42
mean what a show that
Carter
38:43
that could be oh
Corey
38:45
oh right oh my god i mean she will be if not we have a backup host in zane velgey if
Corey
38:51
if zane velgey's not there there are going to be 400
Corey
38:54
400 people in the audience who might be pressed into service oh my
Carter
38:56
my my god that would be the best show ever we just take yeah
Corey
38:59
yeah that is the remember that
Carter
39:00
blind date that uh that zane was uh one of the dates for rebecca
Corey
39:06
rebecca wasn't there but you and uh you went you and zane went to it in toronto yeah and
Carter
39:09
and zane had to do like an hour and a half improvised show on stage alone that's
Carter
39:14
that's what we could do with one of the audience members we just make them a host i mean they couldn't be any less informed than zane and
Carter
39:22
and they couldn't be any less less enthusiastic than annalise i think this is working out perfectly
Corey
39:32
point yeah i think all good points
Corey
39:36
outrage you want to talk out you want to talk tiktok i
Carter
39:38
i want to talk tiktok because tiktok to me is the most manufactured outrage uh i think that we've seen in a long time because it you you know obviously the the uh i
Corey
39:51
there are so many manufactured outrages that's really tough to back up but keep going here's
Carter
39:56
here's well here's okay it's the most manufactured outrage that we're seeing right now how's that um
Corey
40:02
because when i wouldn't even say that you are aware in the united states there are people protesting well here in calgary people protesting drag queens like you are aware of that right okay
Carter
40:13
okay you've made another excellent point which is very frustrating um yes Yes, the drag queen outrage is possibly as big as the TikTok outrage. How about this? The hypocrisy
Carter
40:24
hypocrisy associated with the TikTok
Carter
40:27
TikTok outrage is perhaps unique.
Corey
40:31
How's that? Okay, well, I'll entertain the argument. Here's my
Carter
40:35
The TikTok outrage, for those not paying attention, the American Congress, those who believe in free speech above all else, who believe that free speech is the undying
Carter
40:47
undying wish of their forefathers to the point where they allow hate speech actively on Elon's platform and on Zuckerberg's platform. Both of those platforms, it is fine to post hate speech because the First Amendment. And what makes that okay is that they are owned by Americans. TikTok comes along, gathers essentially the same data from the users. The difference being, instead of collecting which posts I
Carter
41:17
I am liking, which posts I am viewing online on Facebook, this is actually just measuring which videos you actually watch, which in my case are no longer thirst traps, because I've got all Taylor Swift all the time. So also probably a
Corey
41:36
a little bit of
Carter
41:36
of a thirst trap, but at
Carter
41:40
I feel better about it. but
Carter
41:41
but this this medium just simply gives us more of what we want it gives us by using an algorithm that gathers data analyzes the data and then makes choices about which video you are most likely to watch all the way through in the next the next iteration that algorithm
Carter
42:01
is very very good and provides very uh engaging content that
Carter
42:06
that is almost the exact same as the youtube algorithm i think think we can agree right the youtube algorithm gives you the next thing that you should speak about and about a month and a half ago the youtube algorithm was under a lot of pressure because it was actually feeding hate speech to american children so
Carter
42:26
so while it's feeding while youtube is feeding hate speech tiktok
Carter
42:30
tiktok is fading is feeding primarily um well
Carter
42:35
well in my feed taylor swift um you know uh kids trying to dance and uh lots of singers that really shouldn't be singers um it's it's essentially american idol without simon cowell you get to play the role of simon cowell and
Carter
42:53
now they want to ban it they want to ban it because it's owned by china because they've got in their head that in some fashion this data is going to be used against against American teenagers in some nefarious fashion. Whereas the data that's actually been used by Facebook has not been used to be against American children. It's been used against the American political system.
Carter
43:18
Right. And so the outrage that has now been generated over and over the wrong issue. And this is, again, part of the outrage machine. The outrage machine, machine, in my mind, is
Carter
43:29
is designed to generate outrage about the wrong issue for people who are susceptible to falling for that outrage. And we see purveyors of this outrage, whether it's the Republican Party and TikTok, whether it's Donald Trump, whether it's Pierre Polyev, it is the creation. And you know what? Justin Trudeau, to a degree, right?
Carter
43:51
Because we on the the on the woke center left are also are also prone to using outrage as a tool to to get around thoughtful thought and to ensure that we have so
Corey
44:05
so just so i'm clear is this thoughtful thought about issue issues or that's
Carter
44:11
that's really upsetting it's
Carter
44:13
it's really upsetting i mean i'm
Carter
44:16
i'm trying my best here i'm
Corey
44:18
i'm trying my best anyways
Carter
44:21
point is a good
Corey
44:21
good head of steam before
Carter
44:22
before i had a good it's like
Carter
44:24
like a balloon it's gone all the energy's gone that's
Corey
44:27
that's gonna happen at the live show too get your tickets now yeah
Corey
44:31
yeah the strategy is live when you
Carter
44:33
you vote against me uh and say that my strategy sucks and would ultimately sink the ndp um
Carter
44:38
um this is what oh we
Corey
44:41
what you know that's like this is part of it oh yeah
Carter
44:44
yeah we only told the patrons
Corey
44:47
you yeah are going to present a strategy for the ndp yeah
Carter
44:51
yeah it's gonna be great
Corey
44:51
great because there was a vote of the patrons and they wanted you to present the ndp strategy yeah
Carter
44:55
yeah and like an alarming fashion right like like
Corey
45:01
yes i mean you know that's extensive
Carter
45:04
making me nervous yeah
Carter
45:06
like what do they know that we don't uh
Corey
45:08
well our far right patron fan base wanted me to do the ucp being the stronger of the two strategies i see
Carter
45:14
see what you're i see what what you're doing there yeah
Corey
45:17
have we so i am doing a ucp strategy have
Carter
45:19
have we offered free tickets to lou and rachel uh
Corey
45:24
uh lou who and rachel who uh rachel notley
Carter
45:26
notley you may be familiar with they're listening to the show right now this is why i'm at well
Corey
45:30
well what about what about danielle is she getting tickets too oh
Carter
45:34
know what let's do it right now free
Carter
45:36
free tickets comp tickets to danielle danielle smith and
Carter
45:41
and uh rachel and rachel notley you may be familiar with her okay
Carter
45:49
and uh their respective spouses so
Corey
45:52
there is a um there's a like
Corey
45:55
like a gallery like what do you call it the top area you're the theater nerd it's a mezzanine
Corey
45:59
the mezzanine yeah there are seats we can see danielle we can see you and rachel across from each other on opposite mezzanines this is the best
Carter
46:09
is the best idea
Carter
46:11
okay so we're doing that so now we've offered offers
Corey
46:13
offers on the table uh
Carter
46:13
uh lou just text me and um danielle just text me ironically they both have my text anyways
Carter
46:23
anyways um that's weird okay we'll move on uh outrage good stuff yeah yeah where were we on the outrage machine uh
Corey
46:31
uh i think you were making the point that sometimes times you can just wind people up and they'll just be mad and it trumps everything like it's this thing that like they lose all reason they go to their corners they're just on their team and
Corey
46:44
and they lose their minds about something and
Carter
46:46
and they they don't put any critical thought into it one of the great things about outrage is that it doesn't require critical thought it doesn't so you don't need to care about the issue you don't need to understand the process all you need to do is know that your side was wrong or that your side is taking this position on this particular issue at this particular time. And it has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all. It is not a wise strategy. It is not a, you
Carter
47:19
you know, it is just simply taking advantage advantage of people's individual outrage and their individual feelings in in any specific moment and it makes me crazy it is the lowest form of political discourse and it is possibly the most the most powerful right now and i think that i used it and the reason i thought of this is when i was talking to duane brad today i thought about the outrage that we generated in 2021 for joe tegondek around the pandemic and
Carter
47:51
the way that we took advantage i think of some of the outrage that that existed around the best summer ever and
Carter
47:59
and then the i can't remember which variant it was delta or omicron or whatever the hell it was who
Corey
48:05
remember that was the one in the fall when i
Carter
48:07
i was talking to duane it kind of brought back these memories of yeah that was the most powerful kind
Carter
48:14
kind of opiate, if you will, that we had to anger and upset the masses. And as long as we kept their anger properly pointed away from us and at Jason Kenney, it gave us the political
Carter
48:32
political advantage that we required to move Jyoti Gondek from 7% name recognition, 2% in the polls to, you know winning winning a three-person race with uh a very sizable uh uh
Corey
48:47
yeah plurality i said
Carter
48:48
said plurality you thought i was gonna
Corey
48:49
gonna go with majority
Carter
48:50
majority but i said plurality
Corey
48:51
i yeah i did think that yeah i was i was preempting yeah but then you did
Carter
48:56
did it right i saw that yeah
Carter
48:58
does that make like you can see why i was thinking about that right like it's
Carter
49:01
it's sure you know guilt guilt i'm guilty at this stage i'm feeling guilty okay
Corey
49:05
okay but you know i guess here's the thing i would say is i got i've got a few thoughts on this one is that it's not like new like i remember in the early 90s mid 90s do you remember people arguing and being outraged about people wearing turbans in the rcmp do you remember when that was like the cultural it was
Carter
49:23
was a kirpan wasn't it that people were oh
Corey
49:26
oh a kirpan yeah that's right that was probably 10 years after that yeah
Carter
49:30
people who were going to be carrying guns might actually be carrying a knife as well i mean mean yeah
Carter
49:38
uh and now i don't think any
Carter
49:40
of us know i mean i think we've seen but but but
Corey
49:45
you're describing something more
Corey
49:46
more at this point fringy
Carter
49:47
fringy isn't it or what am i just misremembering it i
Corey
49:50
i don't know if it was more fringy i i'm not entirely sure it was a it was a long time ago right it's 30 years ago um
Corey
49:57
um and i guess what i'm saying it like that was just an example i picked i actually have no idea why that popped into my head i
Corey
50:04
assume it's because there are examples in the i
Corey
50:07
well the 50s the 60s the 70s you know you can you can go back and find some pretty strong examples of people saying well just bust the hippies heads in you know and and conversations like that so like outrage has always been kind of there and some people are just triggered by certain things and people have been triggering them i mean this is always
Carter
50:24
the politicians themselves was it always a politician that took the lowest like i feel and again this This might just be the way I'm remembering it. I don't feel like the
Carter
50:35
the politicians triggered the outrage in the same fashion to the same degree as we're seeing politicians trigger outrage today.
Corey
50:43
Hey, Stephen, I have a question for you. Okay.
Corey
50:46
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Carter
50:49
Oh, my God. First of all, never.
Carter
50:57
But I feel like you have to lead with that. like you can't uh you can't leave it open for interpretation you
Carter
51:04
you have made that's
Corey
51:05
that's probably smart but
Carter
51:06
but is it possibly the most annoying um counter argument i've ever heard um that's very frustrating because that is bang on so
Corey
51:14
we're in another era very clear calm we're
Carter
51:17
we're in a very we're in another era of mccarthyism yeah
Corey
51:22
yeah well i mean does that shock you is this like a big spoiler to like a life that you were blissfully walking through gonna watch later or something did
Carter
51:30
did we did we when we went from mccarthyism so
Carter
51:34
so mccarthy is what the 1950s yeah
Carter
51:39
we have a moment where we
Carter
51:42
we were zoomed normal politician normal quote-unquote normal politics or
Carter
51:49
kind of slide through i
Corey
51:52
i don't know what normal is like i i think we tend to like make these things seem much nicer but the 60s were a chaotic time the 70s were a chaotic time the 80s had its own brand of chaos the 90s was this kind of bubble which seemed great for some people it was actually pretty fucking terrible for other people like i i guess you know we're
Corey
52:14
we're in outrage heavy times and we're all sort of confronted with the outrage on a daily basis and And people are seeming to be much more comfortable on the drop of a hat pulling outrages out.
Corey
52:27
my point would be not a super new tactic, you know, maybe one of the oldest tactics. Like, just hit that thing where all of a sudden people are mad and say, well, you're just a godless homosexual or something like that, right? Like, you know, this has been around forever. And so
Corey
52:47
so that's kind of the first thing I would say. The second, I can't remember because I had like a head of steam, but it's
Carter
52:54
Both of us have had that issue, and I think it's because we
Carter
52:57
we were so focused on preparing our PowerPoints for the live show.
Corey
53:01
That's a great point. We do have PowerPoints. We have PowerPoints. I haven't actually started mine yet.
Carter
53:05
I don't like to brag or anything, but I thought about mine today instead of actually doing it.
Carter
53:09
So that had to count for something, right? Like, I
Carter
53:13
thought about doing something. I
Corey
53:14
I mean, I worked with you, so that's more than I've ever seen you do. Right.
Carter
53:18
Right. well and to be honest you worked with me and i actually thought maybe i could just get cory to do mine up for me um because
Carter
53:27
because as i recall that would be pretty on brand um
Corey
53:32
it was kind of my i
Corey
53:34
drew this thing on the whiteboard yeah
Carter
53:36
i'd like to do a powerpoint oh no let me do that because you suck at powerpoint okay
Corey
53:40
yeah that sounds about right well you know why because we were consultants and if i let you do it we wouldn't eat our families would starve right right?
Carter
53:48
That's really upsetting. I'm really good at this, Al. Yeah, it's
Carter
53:51
We've been through this. We've been through this.
Corey
53:56
I'm not going to
Carter
53:57
to lie to you. I feel like that was a really good episode.
Corey
54:02
Yeah, we're kind of at the end, aren't we? Hey,
Corey
54:04
do you want to do a bit of a lightning round?
Corey
54:09
See you later. Bye.