Episode 1085: "Call me Gary"

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1085. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen

Corey 0:07

Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan.

Zain 0:10

July 27th, it is summer. We're hanging out together because

Zain 0:15

we hate our families. Well,

Corey 0:17

Well, you know who wasn't supposed to be here today? Stephen Carter. Yeah,

Corey 0:23

night off. This was supposed

Corey 0:23

supposed to be the

Corey 0:25

the first episode that was Velgie, Hogan, Klingbeil.

Zain 0:31

We were going to nail it. We're going to nail it. I don't even know Annalise had a last name. That's good to know. That's helpful for me to know for a few minutes. I mean, I'm not convinced

Corey 0:40

convinced I'm pronouncing it right. No. It's not real.

Corey 0:42

real. I think that's

Zain 0:43

that's why. I've only ever seen it

Corey 0:45

She was a print reporter, so. Yeah,

Zain 0:47

Yeah, so that's a good point. Yeah, you'd never have to say it. And we won't. Well, it

Corey 0:52

it is banned. And in particular, considering the relevance of print, yeah. I mean, the

Corey 0:57

the odds of you talking about somebody who is a print reporter was pretty low until she became a host on The Strategist, yeah.

Zain 1:02

Carter, what's going on in your world? You weren't supposed to be here. You are here. That has been an ongoing theme of the podcast for years now. Yeah,

Carter 1:10

Yeah, I was going to say,

Carter 1:10

I think that gives you a real sense of what's going on in my life right now.

Corey 1:14

I have never actually logged on to this platform and not had Stephen ahead of me.

Carter 1:20

it's true. I'm always here. most of

Corey 1:22

of the time his audio doesn't work but um

Carter 1:24

um here's what's new here's what's new in my riveting

Carter 1:28

here's what's new in my world you want to hear what's new in my world do

Zain 1:31

do you need me to juice some content yeah because there is some content i can juice yes go ahead heather

Carter 1:35

heather got tickets to the folk festival and

Carter 1:38

and now i have to go to the folk festival which um i've

Carter 1:42

i've never enjoyed there it is i've told the big secret that's the big secret that i have today i've I've never even enjoyed the Calgary Folk Festival.

Carter 1:52

but I'm going. Have you ever been

Corey 1:53

been to the Calgary Folk Festival? I've

Carter 1:54

I've been to the Folk Festival a number of times, more times than I wanted to, but.

Corey 2:00

Well, it sounds like the number you wanted to was zero. Well, no, you

Carter 2:04

You can't be zero because you don't know you don't like something until you go.

Carter 2:07

And then I've gone and I didn't like it. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to try again.

Carter 2:12

I'm going to try again. And then I went again, did not like it. There's many things in my life. core you seem like

Zain 2:18

like you fit into the folk festival demo and i let

Zain 2:23

let me expand the scope uh folk festivals demo yeah i mean these happen all across the country they all cater to men of a certain age which i would now clump the two of you together are you in or out on the folk fest it's

Zain 2:35

you know i'm going to the folk festival are

Zain 2:37

why well you guys are just so disappointing Where

Carter 2:40

are you going? Maybe I'll run India. Here's

Corey 2:47

in charge of my own life. See,

Carter 2:49

See, this is what happened to me.

Zain 2:53

Name me one person playing at the folk. Do you? Okay, let me. I have to get into the white psychology.

Zain 2:58

Okay, let's say here we go. This is a new podcast called White Psychology, where I talk to middle-aged men about their psychology and lack of decision-making that goes on in

Carter 3:09

in their lives. We don't have the ability, we just haven't made it.

Zain 3:13

So does a white person need to know who's playing at a folk festival year to year in order to go to a folk festival? This has been a question that's haunted me forever. I'm so glad I have the opportunity. I

Carter 3:24

I looked at all the artists today.

Carter 3:26

I did not recognize a single one.

Zain 3:29

Yet you're still going. Okay, Corey, answer from you.

Corey 3:34

looked at the artists.

Corey 3:35

It's irrelevant. It's not going to change whether I go or not. irrelevant this is insane is this like

Corey 3:40

like i cannot i cannot well because i look i'm

Carter 3:43

i'm not making let's be

Corey 3:46

yes you're not telling me that you make every decision about i literally do what i literally do what i want oh

Carter 3:50

oh god oh there's gonna be phone calls made after this i'm clipping that

Zain 3:54

literally do whatever i want

Carter 3:58

shows has he missed because he's been in his in-laws cory's

Zain 4:01

cory's really walking on eggshells carter are you noticing that Yeah, I

Zain 4:04

really measured with his language. He's

Carter 4:07

He's like, you know, I'm not going to say very much, but I'll be there too. Very

Zain 4:10

Very measured with his language. Very measured with his language. This is the most restraint I've seen from Corey Hogan in a long time. I did

Corey 4:18

I might actually enjoy it. I don't even know who's playing. Oh, my

Zain 4:22

my God. I might

Zain 4:23

enjoy it. That's meant

Corey 4:24

meant for an audience

Zain 4:25

audience of one. That's meant for

Corey 4:26

for an audience of fucking one.

Zain 4:27

one. Fuck that noise. Carter, here. I don't give a shit, Corey. I'm not letting you get away with more mediocre content. Carter, let me tell you something. Our sponsor has outdone themselves, okay? Yeah. Because a gentleman from Ontario has purchased two tickets to Florida using our sponsor, Flair Airlines. Not

Zain 4:49

sponsor. Not our way. And Carter, guess what? He shows up to the airport. There is no such flight. The flight doesn't exist, Carter. This is better than overshooting the runway. This is better than tarmac delays. This is someone who buys a flight that doesn't exist. Flair Airlines, I mean, a round of applause. If we had our soundboard, Corey, we'd probably do that extended 10-minute round of applause for Flair Airlines. Carter, I'm going to let you react to another bar set by our wonderful partners, sponsors, and close friends at Flair Airlines. It's just not any of those

Carter 5:21

those things. I'm taking inspiration from it. Corey, there is no need for us. Are you? there's no need for us to record uh patreon episodes with quite this i mean we'll still do it i mean it's not like flare allies didn't fly somewhere that day but

Carter 5:36

but every once in a while we'll just you know like we just won't or we

Carter 5:40

we can put up an old episode i mean would people even notice would people even notice i don't think they would probably

Carter 5:46

i can i think that this is just telling us actually an old episode

Corey 5:48

episode this is a very less is

Zain 5:51

uh cory any reaction before before I jump into the content that people may or may not have come for. I

Corey 5:56

I just think this is the end state. This is the platonic ideal of a Flair Airlines flight. Why go nowhere while sitting on the tarmac after paying for a flight?

Corey 6:07

Why not cut out that middleman? Why not just pay and go nowhere?

Zain 6:11

That's excellent. That's excellent. Flair Airlines, Corey, is a wonderful sponsor of the show. show there's

Corey 6:20

there's a i guess this is a patreon so we don't have to worry about like what ads are going to be before or after all of this commentary because uh how

Zain 6:26

how hard are we working on getting our sponsor to be our sponsor can we talk about this for a second carter not hard yeah

Carter 6:31

you need to move on something and uh i sent it to youtube and

Carter 6:36

and i said hey you guys got any comments and i never got it back ever

Corey 6:42

we never think that was a comment yeah

Zain 6:45

actually the comment that was it to proceed and and then

Carter 6:47

then ultimately you never sent it i don't believe it was to proceed no or he's not no comment i guess it's not to be like that my

Corey 6:54

my comments are the opposite yeah

Corey 6:55

my call that's so interesting yeah yeah

Carter 6:58

you didn't even read it they never got it you didn't i looked at because it was one of those shared documents you can tell and uh you didn't even look so

Zain 7:04

so are you telling me hold on just so just so just so i'm clear um flare airlines was expecting something to come to them and it never did i actually did

Zain 7:13

to people. How does it feel? How does it feel? How does it fucking feel? Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, Stephen Carter, a shower and a grower. That is right. The Trudeau cabinet has a lot of new faces. It has seven net new ministers. It has a bunch of changes in terms of who the existing ministers are, but what portfolios they've taken. There's been a lot of swapping of

Zain 7:39

of the chairs, shifting, moving, whatever

Carter 7:41

whatever you want to call it. It's a sex

Carter 7:42

sex club, Zane. No one's back with their regular partner.

Corey 7:53

Yeah, let's just all sit in that one. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.

Zain 7:58

yeah. I'm not sitting anywhere near that one.

Carter 8:03

so into that? You were just, oh, I don't know. I just popped it in my head. I had a sex club joke earlier, and then I didn't do it. And then I did this one, and I thought it was hilarious. But

Carter 8:11

But it doesn't matter.

Zain 8:12

um cory this is a cabinet shake-up in the middle of summer we can talk about a lot of things we can talk about the timing here we can talk about the the volume of changes this was not a a small shuffle this was what you'd call probably a larger shuffle and we can also then talk about the consequences where do you want to start like there's a lot to pick on your and of course there's the individual names which i'm sure some of us might find fascinating and or or maybe not on so cory guide me where do you want to take this we'll take it from there and then um we'll pick up on some strategy conversations at least two points that i have in my mind that i want to hit before we end this segment yeah

Corey 8:47

yeah so in the past week or or so we've started to get information trickling out that this would be a bigger cabinet shuffle some of the some of the changes under consideration were made apparent when certain people announced they weren't going to run again which is usually a pretty strong indicator and uh

Corey 9:05

you know but i will say it's very different than

Corey 9:08

than what we'd contemplated as potentially being the cabinet shuffle when we discussed this just a couple of weeks ago and i i mean i think this might have been as wrong as anyone could be because i thought ah they'll probably just make it bigger it'll be tinkering on the edges and if there's one thing i'm sure about pablo rodriguez will still have his job yeah

Corey 9:27

who would want to take that on yeah

Corey 9:29

oh for three right now there's there's a little bit more nuance on the rodriguez thing just based on some of the things we've heard out there uh which is basically that he desperately wanted out of the portfolio but um uh yeah it very interesting and lots of things you can read into it uh i think the most obvious interpretation is this is a wartime cabinet this is justin trudeau saying we're gonna fucking shake things up we're gonna go for it we've become a little bit uh a little bit stale and we're gonna shake it up before the next election

Corey 10:02

there are some consequences to that and there's the downside of what we talked about when we talked about it two weeks ago the reasons why i you know in in an even money situation would have said yeah it's probably not going to be huge changes to the cabinet are

Corey 10:17

are the reasons why it's he's now going to be a little careful right like i mean you're starting to see reporting of people saying i didn't know i wasn't going to be in cabinet you're starting to hear the grumbling the risk of doing a big throw like this is if in a year you're still trailing the conservatives by five to ten points what's interesting to me is he is really kind of up the stakes on himself with a move like this oh

Zain 10:38

oh interesting yeah that's an interesting analysis that i haven't heard carter do you agree with let's start there has trudeau up the stakes with this level of move yeah

Carter 10:47

yeah i mean this isn't just let me get through this into the next period of my of my leadership which is you know destined to end at some point before the next election which is kind of the the premise that i'd i'd begun with i mean i wasn't horribly wrong like cory i was just modestly incorrect um but you know this this is a big shake and why is it a big shake up why would you choose to do this at this moment in time and i think the answer to the question came out in the lege poll that was released the day after the the cabinet shake up and the answer is um this is not not a party that is doing particularly well at the polls it is in desperate need of new direction there was a number of things that were dragging them down we have given the advice many times that if you want to change the channel on your you know when you've got cabinet ministers that are kind of drowning cabinet

Carter 11:38

cabinet shuffles are the way out of it and you can have a new cabinet minister come in and say i don't agree with their approach at all and we're going to try something different and that's what the prime minister has done so

Carter 11:49

so he he shook it up and and then you know cory's kind of getting to the end point which is you know why and i think that the why i agree with cory is that he wants to get out of the state that he's in he wants to show canadians that he's still got the passion to govern and uh he is telling us that the the reason that his government is struggling are the seven bodies that he left on the side of the road that's

Carter 12:16

that's why he's struggling and

Carter 12:18

and and if it's not that well it's going to be interesting to see what it was

Zain 12:24

well we'll get into some of those bodies some of which can text the cbc about their surprise and in a second cory tell me this if he doesn't change any of the main economic portfolios So it's Freeland, Champagne, Ing stays on trade for

Zain 12:41

for Champagne on industry, Freeland on finance. Is it really a shakeup? Like, there's a bunch of people who kept their jobs. I guess this is a very, like, but on the main, if this is course correcting for an economic ballot box question, which is an assumption of its own, but let me make it, and

Zain 12:58

and he doesn't shake up any of the, doesn't shake up finance, doesn't shake up industry, is this really a shuffle? that's meaningful in that in that way that it needs to be you

Corey 13:07

know it's a really fascinating observation zane because the the economic portfolios are not actually where i would per se say oh really knocking it out of the park and i think if you kind of want to have a zoom out view of the liberals over decades one of the things that you can say is the liberals have certainly become you know more left wing in in justin trudeau's era in terms of their economic theory and their economic approach. And so it does signal a certain comfort with that. Now, the social things all being mixed up and shaken up and put in a bag and coming out entirely different suggests to me that that's where he thought he had his problems. And that's fascinating to me as well, because I wouldn't necessarily say that's my view of it, right? Now, obviously, there were a lot of those portfolios shaken up, where there were some weaker performers, There were some one-off challenges. But when you poll Canadians on how people are doing on those particular issues, I don't think they give the Liberals particularly terrible marks. Where Canadians do have anxieties are on those economic portfolios, right? Affordability, you know, cost of living, jobs. And yes, there are things like healthcare in the mix there too. But, you know, the anxieties of the nation are actually where he's kept things steady, which is an interesting observation. And it's an interesting story in its own right. And actually, I think is part of why I wouldn't say I'm challenged with this cabinet shuffle, but why I think this was a

Corey 14:39

a cabinet shuffle that, as I said, raises the stakes for the prime minister. Yeah,

Zain 14:43

Yeah, I want to get into the political risk of those stakes in a second. But Carter, same question to you. Is this a real shakeup if the economic portfolios are largely static?

Carter 14:53

Yeah, I mean, I think you're thinking of how, you know, externally it may be viewed. Think of it instead of how you would feel if you were in the, you

Carter 15:04

know, in the cabinet or one of the seven people that are out or one of the, you know, George Shahal wasn't put in. I mean, this was a big enough shakeup that if you weren't put in, it was a deliberate choice. And if you, you know, one of the bodies on the side of the road, I mean, it's very early for people to be declaring that they're done. I suspect that they were told that they were done, and they were given the opportunity to announce

Carter 15:29

announce that they weren't going to be seeking office again. can um this is i think that this is far more significant not because of the uh the

Carter 15:39

the changes you know that not happening to the economic portfolio but just by the changes that were happening to the people themselves this is your team and you fundamentally messed with your team and sure you left your closest teammates because let's be honest that's what they are um your closest teammates didn't get impacted in the same fashion but everybody from like

Carter 16:04

you know wave two down got absolutely smashed

Zain 16:10

let me let me get pick up on this point carter this is one of the two points that i had in my mind which is this does seem fairly early for people to announce their got quit message yeah Got

Zain 16:23

Got quit, of course, a term we've repeated on this podcast, Corey. It's a term you invented when we were at a firm pre-history here where we could easily understand when someone did not leave on their own accord. Yeah, they got quit a lot, right? They didn't get fired. They got quit. There was their own – they had their own agency near the end, Corey, like they did.

Zain 16:44

I've got two questions. Corey, do you agree this is early? Oh, yeah. When did this become, and has it always been the case, that if you indicate you are not running again, your ministerial portfolio gets snatched away from you? And is that conventional wisdom actually wise? I want to actually dissect that a bit and spend a bit of time on that. That if you're saying, listen, I'm not running again, does

Zain 17:09

does your ministry just get snatched away? And is that wise for a government to do? Or is there value in having someone who maybe has nothing to lose leading a ministry in that sense? So first, your question and the reaction to, is it early? And then secondly, kind of the strategy and the conventional wisdom of, you know, yanking your ministry from you.

Corey 17:26

Well, I think it's early if it's the 2025 election. So obviously, this has begun a certain amount of speculation that maybe the starting pistol has been fired here. I'm less convinced of that. I think that would be a little bit suicidal based on the current state of polls. But obviously, that is one interpretation that perhaps this election is coming a little bit sooner. it is a face-saving measure that's pretty common right like when you leave cabinet you leave cabinet because you're leaving politics and that leads pretty naturally into the flip side your question of people do tend to be removed from cabinet when they're not running again uh and so if you're not running again and you leave cabinet it looks a little bit i think you've got a little more agency in that scenario or in that view than if you just leave cabinet interestingly enough enough though zane there are we we've seen cbc reporting here there are former cabinet ministers who have said they

Corey 18:22

they didn't know this was going to happen to them they were surprised that this happened to them so this doesn't seem to be something that was offered to absolutely everybody yeah

Corey 18:31

and and it is possible that at a certain point the call went out from the prime minister to the cabinet minister is really common for a first minister to do this at certain points and say like you got to let me know your plans and this is the moment like you're in if you're in at this moment. And certainly, if you're doing big cabinet shuffles, and you're talking about creating the cabinet to take you to the next election, believable that that conversation would have occurred in one way, shape, or form, right? So, I

Corey 18:56

I got to tell you, though, one of the reasons why you tend to just not be in cabinet and be done when you announce you're not running again, is that's a pretty big chip. Like, that's something you can put on the scale that can help you win a close election that can make you a personality that is more valuable in the media when you're out there communicating during an election and you're not going to be out there in the media communicating during an election if

Corey 19:22

if you're not running again and so as a party you lose a little bit of something when you let somebody who's not running again maintain one of those roles in an electoral sense in a broader air war communication sense fair enough and so So you just, you don't do that, I would put it this way, it weighs heavily on the consideration. There are certainly times, and I'll look back here in Alberta, in our home province, from 2015 to 2019, the NDP governed, don't know if you read about it, it was in all the papers. Yeah, it was a big thing. Brian Mason wasn't running again. You know, he wasn't dropped from cabinet. Now, Rachel Notley just didn't make changes like that in general, but there was some value you there, because at a certain point, you also need somebody to stay there and kind of watch the shop, at least partially, with the public service. And having like one eminent former candidate current cabinet minister, that's a useful thing to have too. So, you know, it's not a one size fits all answer to this, I suppose is what I'm trying to say. But generally speaking, if you're not running again, you're probably not going to get to be in cabinet if there's active cabinet decisions coming. Carter, I guess the question

Zain 20:31

question I have at the heart of it is, is there any wisdom?

Zain 20:36

I get why this is conventional wisdom, but is there any wisdom on the other side of that? Which is, if you're not running again, that you don't have this marker of re-election, you're not looking at decisions through that sort of lens that you're able to just fucking operate. Is there any wisdom in that? Or do you think that's a totally bullshit argument? Well,

Carter 20:54

Well, I think that you're actually describing a reason to get that person out of cabinet i mean every because

Zain 21:00

because they're because they're not re-election sensitive yeah

Zain 21:02

you're right and not pmo sense

Carter 21:05

yeah suddenly the prime minister is on the other line the discipline doesn't

Carter 21:08

taking the call you

Carter 21:09

you know oh yeah well thank you don't

Carter 21:12

i'm not running again anyway and keep in mind our it's you don't like you

Carter 21:17

you don't form if you're the minister responsible for something you don't formally need to sign off of the prime minister you're the minister you're the person responsible This kind of new way that we've been doing government where the prime minister's office, the first minister's office is in charge of everything, doesn't actually reflect the way the government works. If a minister tells their deputy minister to do something, that

Carter 21:38

that gets done. done so

Carter 21:39

so the the prime minister has a weak force control over the minister not a strong force control and it becomes exceptionally weak when the minister is like fuck it i'm not running again i don't need this guy to sign off on anything i mean sure he can try and fire me but i'm going to try this thing out and get the world okay

Carter 22:01

so yeah no you got to get those people out

Zain 22:05

you know and there's also something to be said and carter you alluded to this that that the ordering or the sequencing here could have been the opposite of what's been portrayed, right? And by that, I mean it's not someone arriving at a decision that they're leaving and thereby, extension, leaving cabinet. It's someone being told, you're not going to be in cabinet, so you've got a choice whether to stick around as a backbencher or signal to the public that you're leaving. Isn't that right, Carter? I

Carter 22:30

I mean, there's multiple ways of doing this. One is in a general cabinet meeting. And I want—this is what I'm getting into.

Zain 22:35

In general— Explain to me how you get into this.

Carter 22:37

this. General cabinet meeting. You say to everybody, listen, we are going to shuffle.

Carter 22:41

If you're not going to run again, would you mind talking to Katie Telford over there? Katie's working on a plan right now. We're going to do a shuffle. And of course, as you know, we love you guys. We love you all. But changes will be made. And if you're not able to commit to the next election, would you let us know right away? That's one way of doing it. The other way of doing it is to pick up the telephone and call, um, Carolyn Bennett and say, Carolyn, listen, love you. Um, I'm

Carter 23:10

So you have two choices right now. And choice one is that, uh, you just, you know, I'll just move you and, and you take the hit. Um, or you can say that you're not running again. I'm good either way.

Carter 23:23

So it's, it's in your hands now, whatever messaging makes the most sense for you and your family. You've been there for me, and I'll be there for you.

Zain 23:32

And Carter, who are you role-playing here? The chief of staff or the prime minister? Prime

Carter 23:35

Prime minister primarily usually tells the ministers.

Carter 23:40

Usually we insulate the prime minister from bad

Carter 23:43

bad news like that, but when

Carter 23:45

when it's a sitting minister, you generally would have the... It

Corey 23:49

It would look cowardly

Carter 23:50

Yeah, you'd need to have the first minister making the calls.

Zain 23:55

Corey, you know, the other part of this that I find interesting is another point you brought up, which is those that were caught off guard, or at least say they were caught off guard. When you're announcing a cabinet change, if you're using Carter's model of a, you know, I'm shuffling, things are happening, let me know.

Zain 24:12

Are you always given the courtesy of knowing that you haven't made it if you're already there, so to speak? Like, is that like, is that common HR HR courtesy from the corporate world translate to politics. Give me your thoughts and experiences around that or what you've seen in the past. Because we're referring to David Lamedi, the former justice minister who said by text to CBC News, yeah, it caught me off guard. I'm paraphrasing, but it was a text that was simple as that saying, yeah, I actually did. I expected to be on there. I wasn't. Caught me by surprise. So tell me about like the human touch around this. What generally happens, and was this Lamedi sort of text a signal that the Trudeau government may have done this, may have skipped a step?

Corey 24:54

I would find that very hard to believe. Like, generally what happened, and look, there's, I'm sure there's been fuck-ups in the past, people who forgot. Maybe Lamedi's out because he's so forgettable they forgot to call him. Maybe this is kind of like a self-affirming thing, right? Right. But generally what would happen is you would be aware that a shuffle was going to occur. Right. Phone calls would start to happen. You would basically know you're

Corey 25:20

you're going to get a phone call that night if you're in or not. By the way, like a version of this happens with deputy ministers after an election, too. I had to wait for my phone call. Right. right? And the basic structure is like, you

Corey 25:34

you go through the people you're offering the jobs to, and then you're going to talk to the people who didn't make it at the end. There's a couple of reasons for that, right?

Corey 25:42

One of them is, what

Corey 25:44

what if something goes wrong on the calls? Now, they generally won't, like, you know, by then, it's

Corey 25:49

fine, it's going to be in, but it's not inconceivable. And it's not unprecedented that a cabinet minister says, I

Corey 25:54

I don't want that that portfolio, I'd rather be out, I quit, right? And you might need to move somebody from like the kind of the bubble into cabinet there. And so you don't want to fire somebody and then just have to call them back two hours later and say, Oh, actually,

Zain 26:08

actually, you know what, I could use

Zain 26:09

as a cabinet minister.

Corey 26:11

Yeah, by bad, right? So the sequencing is generally you'll talk to the people who are kind of like new and shuffled in the order that makes the most sense for your situation before you talk to the people who didn't get in. And then you just say, like, listen, decisions had to be made you know we're in tough uh we love you uh we've got to consider regional considerations though we've got to consider the next election and what's going to be most likely to play and um and we believe that you're going to continue to provide incredible service in the government caucus there's no such thing as backbenchers there's just government members and we'd also like you to chair this particular committee as well and your uh your seniority here uh is uh is really really vital to the overall operation of the place and look uh this is the decision today um who knows what the decisions will be in the future i don't want you to think this reflects on like my my feelings for you personally but a lot of things go into these decisions thanks so much david it's david right i i think i've seen your name

Zain 27:12

carter explain to me do people get a heads up if they're not going to make cabinet if they're already in no

Zain 27:17

mean if they're already a sitting minister do they get a heads up that their portfolio is being yanked from them they

Carter 27:21

they they generally don't i mean i think that most people are bright enough to understand that you know it's it could be them this time um you know uh

Carter 27:32

there are all kinds of considerations and if you're not talking to people then it probably is a fairly significant sign that things aren't going your way um you know if you're not hearing from anyone then then things are are probably going to be problematic now i i only did one cabinet and that cabinet was during a you know the beginning of a government right like we were um you know we were a new government now there were lots of that's a little

Corey 27:58

little bit yeah so that's like everyone's baseline is you're not yes

Corey 28:02

right that's a little bit yeah

Carter 28:03

yeah and that and so it made it so much simpler because no one was like oh no um but yeah we still had people that we had to call i know that there were phone calls made to um some ministers that have been ministers since like dirt and we're out um but to cory's point you certainly don't want to tell people they're out and then make the telephone call an

Carter 28:24

an hour and a half later that they're back in because someone told you no i don't think anybody told us no but uh no

Carter 28:32

no i'm pretty sure no one said yeah

Carter 28:35

you want to protect against that particular eventuality.

Zain 28:40

You know, Corey, there were some 2015 folks who got elected first in 2015 that finally made it to the cabinet table this time.

Zain 28:49

If you're also part of that 2015 cohort, what message does that send to you if you're still sitting on the sidelines yearning for a cabinet position? That it's possible or that, you know, I'm getting pretty old. like if it hasn't happened now and this guy got it like there's only like what is that vintage you know what i'm trying to say yeah there's

Zain 29:06

there's a there's there's that's probably another stratification that we don't talk about enough we talk about age we talk about gender we talk about but that vintage of like hey you've been one of the old school trudeau era from the beginning you've showed your loyalty you're still here you got re-elected thrice i guess 15 19 21 um but you haven't gone cabinet what message would that send to you if you're one of those folks on the outside side looking in now?

Corey 29:27

Well, if you're in the class of 15 and you're not getting one of those jobs, unless you happen to, I'm struggling to think of a specific MP. Me too. I don't have someone in mind, but there are folks. Our

Carter 29:37

Our old colleague, Steve McKinnon got government whip and half. McKinnon's

Corey 29:41

McKinnon's a good example.

Corey 29:43

McKinnon's a good example. Actually, that's a great example for a different thing than I was going to say, but I want to jump back to Steve in a second. If you're in that class of 15 and say you were were elected at 30 you know the age of 30 and and maybe you didn't have a ton of seasoning and you were still learning in the job or whatnot i don't know if you can take it too personally i think that's just sort of the reality here um if you are somebody who's been elected three times and this is clearly your last term i think you have to be like well i'm not fucking making it to cabinet or like even if i'm gonna run one more time it's not likely to happen if you're a guy like steve mckinnon i mean the one so steve mckinnon for those who don't know is an ottawa area mp yeah right yeah and get problem is if you're an ottawa area mp like there's a lot of them and you only get one or two in cabinet right yeah i actually don't know how many there are right now but the point would be that's that's tough like that might not even be a competence thing that excludes you so the way you're going to observe it is in part based on some of those other dynamics and and steven mentioned him in passing but one of the things that certainly raised my eyebrows is Calgary MP George Chahal was left out of the cabinet. He's the only Liberal MP from Calgary.

Corey 30:52

Obviously, some challenges with, you know, him removing literature from a mailbox, which became a thing, which precluded him from the initial cabinet here. yeah

Corey 31:01

but for him to still be excluded at this point i

Corey 31:06

that's a sign that's a signal and so if you are someone who seems like a signal of though okay go step further that's where i'm going like if this is if you are like an on paper no-brainer to be in cabinet and you're not in cabinet whether

Corey 31:21

whether you're the class of 15 or the class of 21 zane you start to say like Like, huh, huh,

Corey 31:26

huh, maybe this is just not going to happen for me under Justin Trudeau.

Zain 31:30

And listen, I say this with no additional knowledge at all, right? And I'm not insinuating this about any particular person. But I think it's worth discussing on the terms of strategy, Carter, which is between the time those – when Corey kind of mentioned the process where you kind of like hear the rumblings that there's a cabinet shuffle or that the principal tells you that I'm doing it, right? right, or more specifically, and the time that people get phone calls, there's also that like additional vetting process that it needs to happen, right? Like the additional sort of, okay, is this person, and I assume like they've been cleared by the party, but is there an additional vetting? I guess the question I have is if you're one of those folks being like, I didn't get it, like, and I've heard from a few folks across the country being like, why did this person not get it? Are you worried now that there's something more more systemic or chronic about your candidacy for for for for ministership? Or are you is that is that just like a train you should not think about at all? Because it's it's you're just trying to like convince yourself of something that doesn't exist? Like, how would you process it? Is my main question, Carter, right? If you were sitting in the shoes of someone who are like, why hasn't happened for me? Right? Whether you're you're sitting in a swing riding, whether you're sitting in BC right now, where they lost a couple of MPs, you're sitting in an area be like, guys, you need my seat. I'm capable. My resume is amazing. I've been loyal as shit. Like I should be a shoo-in. Is there something chronically wrong with me to ever make it to cabinet? Like, are you worried about that?

Carter 32:52

No, I mean, the good news for each of these people is that they've been blessed with an ego that tells them that they're the best in every, in any given field. So they don't, they absolutely do not have this, this sense that, oh my goodness, maybe there's something wrong with me. Here's what's happening. And I'll pick on the class of 15, right? The class Massive 15 is saying, let's do it. Okay, I'm not going to make cabinet under

Carter 33:17

I'm not going to make it. This is why this is such a dangerous game, right? You got seven bodies on the side, you know, in the ditch. You've got another six bodies in cabinet still that are pissed that they got moved or that they, you know, they don't feel like they got moved for the right reasons. They weren't given the opportunity that they needed to succeed. They didn't have the support of the prime minister. Prime minister told them what to do. They went out and did it. now they've been hung out to dry god damn it and they're still in cabinet but they're pissed and there's you know there there's 120 mps that are sitting there going why am i not taking this i i'm the one i've got this capacity and suddenly whispers will turn to to outright conversations in hallways about well you know um we're

Carter 34:03

we're 10 points down now and if we're still 10 points down in march that's the ball game guys we're gonna have to start pulling a trigger because we can't continue to prop this guy up and those conversations that were being whispered a few you know a few weeks ago are now out now conversations um and you know

Carter 34:24

know if you and i'm not saying that george shahal is having this conversation right now but he is certainly more likely to be having this conversation than if he was a brand new cabinet minister um brand new cabinet ministers don't have this conversation so there are going to be some people who you

Carter 34:40

you know as we mentioned at the beginning about how dangerous this is for trudeau they're looking at these signs that caused the shake-up and say get it we got it we see why you did the shake-up now you've got what six months to get yourself out of this shithole or or and there's now an else attached to it or else

Zain 35:01

cory is there an extra layer of vetting in between in from your understanding and then And how would you be processing it if you were someone who felt like, even with your healthy ego trying to objectively process it, saying, I'm left out, is there something more systemically disqualifying about me?

Corey 35:20

Well, if they were kind of even potentially under consideration right after the election, I think the lion's share of the vetting would be done there. You think so? When you're in the public eye and things continue to move forward, there's generally an assumption that, you know, a lot of the things they would vet for, you would kind of see in real time. I don't know what protocol is at the federal level. Perhaps they're going and doing like a full CSIS RCMP rundown, like at the moment, see if their finances have changed, anything like that. That's quite possible. But I think to get to the heart of your question, Zane, when people don't get into cabinet, my

Corey 35:56

my experience and like my observation working in these places is not that they just go, oh, okay.

Corey 36:02

It's that they actually go and harass the chiefs of staff and they say, well, why not me? What do I got to be doing differently? What is missing? What is the component that is keeping you back from putting me into cabinet? And then the chief of staff will say, like, well, listen, it was a tough choice. It's nothing about you. We had to do the regional considerations. Or they'll say, look, there's a lot of people we have to choose from, and they just proved to be more of a leader here. And if you want to do this, we are looking for these things from you. Or they'll give a bit of a roadmap, and they'll talk about how you get there. And to your question, Zane, if you've been disqualified on security grounds, they'll

Corey 36:37

they'll tell you. You would think they

Zain 36:38

Oh, you, okay. I

Corey 36:39

I was going to be like, follow up. A hundred

Zain 36:40

hundred percent, too. How about not security grounds? How about something like, less simple as, the leader doesn't like you and they're never going to put you in cabinet?

Corey 36:49

No, seriously. Sometimes it's as subjective as that. Okay. They're not going to say that. They're the worst chief of staff in the world if that's the case. I actually have that conversation. Would you? No, of course

Zain 36:59

course they wouldn't say it.

Corey 37:01

look it down. I have to.

Corey 37:04

Case closed. No, I want to hear this story. Yeah, no. But, like, part of the job is actually to say.

Zain 37:09

I'm not saying you say it that way. Would you ever say to someone, dude, it's never going to happen for you, man? Like, would you even put, like, oh, you would never say that.

Corey 37:17

that. No. So, I personally wouldn't. I'll tell you why. A, never is a long time. And who the hell knows what's going to change. Sure, sure. Fair.

Corey 37:24

B, there is an immense capacity for humans to improve and change and grow. And I actually have seen a lot of people who I thought were a bit of donkeys become really strong performers given time. Don't close those doors. right you just don't close those doors cory's

Zain 37:38

cory's a measured person carter you and i not so much see

Corey 37:43

you are essentially taking a pin out of a grenade you're you're making them a person with nothing to lose they're gonna make your life fucking miserable they are gonna just be in the halls complaining they're gonna become drew barnes in alberta for those albertans who understand that reference right they're gonna be a fucking thorn in your side all the way along and by the way if you're the chief of staff who delivered it they're gonna be a fucking thorn and your side you were the messenger that just gave it to them in that sense yeah i mean with all that

Zain 38:12

that all that being said why why did you do it why

Carter 38:14

want to do it wanted the person to leave caucus so

Carter 38:19

so really wanted them to leave that's

Corey 38:21

that's the only reason you would do it they

Carter 38:23

they we wanted we wanted their their seat and we needed them to leave caucus and keep in mind we had an election six months ago you know we were six months and i'm sorry did you say

Zain 38:33

say that the leader that it's not happening with

Carter 38:35

with this leader like it's not going to happen period

Carter 38:40

it's you know I

Carter 38:41

don't make the rules I'm not I'm just the messenger it's not going to happen for you and if if you want to transition to something else we'd be very thrilled to find you something you're a great person you are

Carter 38:53

completely talented in these other areas and we will get you another gig

Corey 38:57

hey hey totally unrelated Stephen how long were you chief of staff

Carter 39:04

do you think I just did that on my own accord? Do you think I thought to myself, you know what? I don't. You know what I should do? I'm just going to give this a fucking freelance. I'm going to freelance this fucking decision, and I'll see how it works out.

Carter 39:17

Of course not. You're only doing that because you were told to do that. That's the only reason you're doing that. I get

Zain 39:23

get it. So don't

Carter 39:23

don't be all like, oh, how did you even get that job, you fucking moron? We'll not be putting up with that today. I mean, I

Corey 39:31

say that. You were implying

Carter 39:32

implying it. I'm not an idiot, Corey. I was thinking it. Why is

Carter 39:36

is my watch... Oh, my watch just dinged because I got my bedtime reminder.

Zain 39:40

Here we go. Segment brought to us by Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines, it's not happening for you, Corey.

Corey 39:45

It's not brought to... Okay, go on. Hey,

Zain 39:52

I'm actually very intrigued. You know they talk to advocacy groups, like they as in folks like us often, right? We talk to advocacy groups. If you're asked, it didn't work out. If your law being asked didn't work out, if you never got it into the budget, here's what you do afterwards. Here's how you go in. Here's the strategy to figure out what happened, how you improve. Can we write a bit of an on-the-fly guide for someone who didn't become a minister, Corey? What would their next steps be? What would their effective next steps be? Because you said that they go, you know, not crying to the chief of staff, but they ask, what can I do better? They come off pretty thirsty. What would you actually suggest? Is there like any sort of, as a former political staffer, both of you? What would you actually suggest that folks do if they didn't find themselves in that role this time?

Corey 40:37

So, I actually think asking is a good first step, right? Like, hey, you know, I want to understand, I want to advance in this, I think I have a lot to offer. It's clear just based on the decision that you had to go different ways. But, you know, I feel if I could deliver at the level I know I can, and you were seeing that, you would put me in cabinet irrespective of perhaps some of the considerations you have around region or age or whatever it is here. So, like, let's talk. What do I need to do both to grow as a person and show you that I've grown as a person so I can be under consideration here? and i would probably like look let's be really clear they're not going to say like if you sell 10 000 memberships you get to be a cabinet minister they're not going to say if you move this thing forward you get to be a cabinet minister and so you're not going to be able to pin them down on like give me five things i need to do and once i've checked those boxes i get to be a cabinet minister but a pretty good start is to ask them what those things are and then go do them right like to then go show and then remind them that you did it but you've got to do it in in a way that's not utterly obnoxious and and that's i think where politicians fall down an awful lot it can't be going to them every week it's got to be like you do the conversation you say okay and

Corey 41:50

and the next time you're chatting with them you say look i really took to heart what you said i've taken these steps tell me what the next steps are you know don't don't assume as though the boxes are checked and now it's there say what else can i do to make this party stronger to make this leader stronger what can i do carter

Zain 42:07

need to show up carter do you need to ask the question or is it so obvious that you should just do the work and present it later or

Zain 42:13

is is the conversation of like what i need to do i've done it what i need to do i've done it rinse repeat actually fundamentally important so you get an opportunity to show said work i

Carter 42:22

i mean if you were coming to my office with that type of conversation i would say here's the first thing i need you to do get

Carter 42:28

get the fuck out of my office and let me do my work because

Corey 42:31

because you uh steven how long were you uh you're killing

Carter 42:34

killing me here just there you know there there it's a complex structure i mean what am i going to tell you no you're not in cabinet you're not going to be in cabinet no

Carter 42:43

no i had people come up to me and ask these questions too dave quest would come up and kind of be like how can i get into cabinet dude you're never going to get in it's just not gonna it's not gonna happen i can't tell him that what am i gonna do now i have to have these fucking conversations with him all the time like i can't you know like i

Carter 43:00

i i just think you know what this is what would you prefer okay Okay, okay. What the fuck would you prefer

Carter 43:05

You want to get into cabinet? What would you actually prefer? You want to get into cabinet? Get really close to the next leader. Pick the next fucking leader. Because if you're not in cabinet now, you're not going to make it into cabinet. You're already about picking the next leader? Pick the next leader. Oh my lord.

Carter 43:17

Okay. You know what? It takes years to be ready to pick the next leader. You got to assemble networks. You got to make sure you got networks across the country. You got to make sure that you are ready to build a leadership campaign for someone. one and that is infinitely easier than trying to suck ass into this you know existing campaign leadership structure that doesn't fucking like you that you did nothing for in their own leadership they got people to pay back and you ain't one of them baby you ain't one of them jesus

Corey 43:45

jesus christ fucking right okay now i've no now i'm back on

Carter 43:49

i like the initial get

Zain 43:50

get the fuck out of

Carter 43:51

of my you're not gonna get there move

Zain 43:55

it would require it would make me imagine having a job with an office uh but it's

Corey 44:00

it's hard it's hard for me to process that steven has ever worked in a corporate environment with this just kind of general approach you

Carter 44:06

you know it's the truth this is the truth if you want to be in cabinet work on a leadership campaign get your leadership candidate elected that's how you get you think that's it carter it's but no but that's it carter what that's how you get this is a this is a trudeau government that what's he going to stay for another 40 years there will be a time when there's a leadership be ready for that time that is your That's your most successful way of

Carter 44:27

of getting into capital. Your

Zain 44:28

Your takeaway today, if you are one of the folks that said, across this country, that was a sitting MP as part of the Liberal Party, was like, I

Zain 44:40

I need to start planning for the next leader.

Carter 44:42

leader. How many leadership shuffles did Trudeau get left in him?

Carter 44:45

How many did he get left in him?

Corey 44:47

I'm guessing one small one. One

Carter 44:49

One small one. Oh, I'm hoping I'm in that next one. or

Carter 44:51

or do i help get the next person elected where they're gonna have like 15 fucking people there are 15 cabinet shuffles and i can be a part of that okay okay he's starting to make a bit more sense

Zain 45:01

sense cory cory i'll let i'll let cory get into this is actually yeah go ahead all right

Carter 45:04

right actually right is what the words are you were looking to say i

Corey 45:07

i will say contextually i contextually i see what you're contextually i see what you're saying as well i will say as general advice if people believed that was the only way to get into cabinet you would have knives out for leaders even worse

Corey 45:20

it's actually really important for a leader to keep an open mind to talent and people who are trying to be team players and moving forward but

Corey 45:27

but these people and and so that's exactly why i think your dave quest advice well probably good for dave quest is not generally good advice it's just not it's not good advice and the party office the leader sorry the leader's office does need to keep

Corey 45:43

keep an open mind to people who might be cabinet material you're

Zain 45:46

you're cory i want to come back i want want to come back can

Carter 45:49

barf into my mouth keep an open mind for people

Corey 45:51

people who might be fuck that

Carter 45:53

that i'm paying back to people who got me here you're your own person i'm paying back to people who got me here and then i'm getting ready to make sure that the the team is strong enough that we can win the next fucking election i don't have time to manby pamby around hell let's

Carter 46:06

let's make everybody feel like to give them a baby

Zain 46:12

cory regardless of ego regardless of ego people fuel themselves on hope hope right

Zain 46:17

right regardless of ego people feel themselves on hope sure they do um if you had that nagging feeling that

Zain 46:24

that i haven't gotten in it's been a couple of rounds i fit the demo i fit the i fit the geography i i hit check all the boxes would you ask the chief of staff the question no

Zain 46:34

is there anything fundamentally disqualifying about would you this this is once again let's frame this again this is advice to someone who would say who thought they could get into cabinet but but didn't, would

Zain 46:44

would you have them ask the chief of staff that question? Is there something fundamentally disqualifying about me? Tell me now. I

Corey 46:50

I mean, I wouldn't do it like that. What would you do? At most, I would ask along the lines of,

Corey 46:57

are you under the impression there's something fundamentally disqualifying? I probably wouldn't even put it like that. Like, what is your hangup? What is keeping you here? Let's just talk about it. I'd rather, I'm not in the room when those decisions are made. I'm not asking to be, but I want to be able to answer the questions you might have, because it seems to me that it's a a bit of a bit

Corey 47:13

bit of an odd duck george

Carter 47:14

george do not listen that's do not listen yeah

Corey 47:17

yeah i i was listen up listen up i actually think that's very dangerous and i wouldn't necessarily do that because that's how you sort of get a view you're basically asking people to tell you what's wrong with you and that that's gonna they're gonna stick with that like they're gonna be like well you know i

Corey 47:32

i said he was a sack of garbage so i guess i have to decide he's a sack of garbage now like you don't want to put someone on the spot and and make them tell you it

Corey 47:39

it doesn't show vulnerability

Zain 47:40

vulnerability it doesn't show any of those things

Zain 47:42

that you feel like people look for

Corey 47:43

for in the human quality. There's a psychology here. You're basically

Corey 47:45

reinforcing it in their own minds, you know? So I just, I wouldn't go down

Carter 47:49

down there. Discord's going to pop off tomorrow about how great and how wonderful and how smart I am.

Carter 47:54

going to pop off. You're

Zain 47:55

You're crazy. Carter, would you ever ask a question about if there's anything disqualifying about you that's preventing you from being in cabinet? Would you ask a chief of staff that question? No,

Carter 48:03

No, because the chief of staff's never going to give you the right answer. They're never going to tell you. They're not that invested in your success. I mean, how invested do you think we are as a chief of staff in like like you got 20 30 ministers you have to take care of do I need to wipe your ass too Hogan like it's just it's impossible to imagine this is something that's actually going to matter

Zain 48:25

would you use any would you use any of your very limited time with the leader to ask about your cabinet positioning or your lack thereof or is this all chief of staff talk it's

Corey 48:36

it's not even chief of Corey I'll let you answer no

Corey 48:39

no we're trying to put this guide together i think this

Zain 48:41

this is a terrible

Zain 48:44

is a terrible idea

Corey 48:46

into oblivion apparently so to recap steven's guide is just start conspiring against the leader no

Carter 48:53

no do the work build your networks get yourself ready for the next leadership it doesn't have to be conspiratorial it just recognize you're not going to get into cabinet without the relationships the relationships are the primary way that you get into cabinet period period end of sentence you can make up some other way in the cabinet oh you're really smart fella you know it's just not going to get you there just

Carter 49:16

just not going to get you there how

Carter 49:18

how sad for you you

Corey 49:20

think that a lot of the people that have been put into this particular cabinet have deep relationship i mean i just i fundamentally disagree with you are

Carter 49:27

are you in cabinet there are ways that you

Corey 49:29

you can prove there

Corey 49:31

don't know i'm still waiting to hear yeah

Corey 49:34

keep going Keep going, Corey. Keep going. I want to hear the rest of your answer. Yeah, look, there are ways you can fundamentally prove your worth to the system. The irony of all of this, well, I don't know if irony is the right word. The funny thing about you and I having this argument is we're actually arguing, we're saying you should do the same things. Go out, build your network, become important, make yourself relevant to the party, make yourself relevant, period. You just don't think it will ever happen with a leader because you think leaders are apparently so firm and locked down that they

Corey 50:04

growing and beating by asking

Carter 50:05

asking people you know what do you think will i ever make cabinet what do you think hey what do you think do you like my chances oh i don't like my

Zain 50:12

in the future listen listen up not speculative not speculative listen

Corey 50:15

listen up this is like this is like a serious flaw in approach to governing if you're taking the steven carter i'm dead serious right now when you're in government your circles get smaller smaller smaller smaller and if you are not actively trying to expand them actively trying to expand your networks actively trying to expand your alliances you're fucking doomed and if you want to be a leader that lives long term you don't freeze someone out because they weren't there with you on day one you are constantly building the next coalition you are constantly making sure you are ready to fight the next election you're not making your world smaller by freezing people out and giving them the sense that their only way to advance people out is the next you didn't

Carter 50:55

didn't put them in cabinet it's done it's over move on okay

Carter 50:59

okay if you want to know why you're not in cabinet go get someone go figure out another leader that will put you in the cabinet jesus christ like what what colors the sky in your world hogan like

Carter 51:09

like this is just embarrassing for all of us this stage this is the worst episode we've ever helped us worst

Carter 51:15

worst it started with your sex club joke zane everything

Carter 51:19

everything went downhill after that went

Zain 51:21

went went downhill just to remind uh steven and the listening audience uh he wasn't supposed to be here today uh

Corey 51:30

I wouldn't even have time for my second topic. Hold on. We can't go on. Okay. Actually, I do want to get. We haven't talked about the most fucking important thing here. The most important thing. We'll talk about the political risk. Yes.

Zain 51:41

Yeah. Is this what you wanted to talk about? This is what I want to talk

Corey 51:43

talk about. I'll close the

Zain 51:44

the bracket. Don't worry about it. This is why I'm moving on. I'm going to say I'm moving on to the next segment. I'm moving on from this. I never

Corey 51:50

All right. Who does?

Zain 51:51

Who's in charge of this shit

Zain 51:53

People love my hosting of this show. I feel like now that they've been given an opportunity to listen to someone who just asks the questions, is coming prepared, knows what they're talking about, they love what I do, Corey. They really love it. That's fair. Hey, Corey, you said first, this, very early, this increases the risk. This puts Trudeau, puts his neck out there. Let's talk about the political risk. Give me your assessment why and what would you have done to minimize it? Give me both of those packaged together.

Corey 52:20

Okay, well, there's two main components here, right?

Corey 52:25

And both of them sort of lend to an internal audience, but let's talk about it. The

Corey 52:30

The Liberals are down in the polls. Let's say six points. There was a Leger poll, there was an Abacus poll. there's some significant daylight forming between the conservatives ahead of the liberals ahead of the ndp and

Corey 52:43

and it's not really clear to me how the seat counts would come down from all of that but what is clear is that the the ndp and the liberals are losing ground to the conservatives right

Corey 52:53

so you want to change that you're the prime minister you want to shake this up you say this isn't fucking working i'm going to shake this up so here's my play i'm going to change cabinet cabinet here's

Corey 53:03

here's the problem zane you

Corey 53:05

get to do that once if

Corey 53:06

if in a year it's still not working you don't get to do another cabinet shake-up like this to try to change the channel and say we're reinvigorating at that point it looks like you just it didn't work and

Corey 53:17

and the thing is it's kind of like um it's it's a version of the sit down write two letters story which i'm not gonna bother recapping yet again here you get to say i'm reinvigorating my team i am changing my team and that is going to fix things once and if

Corey 53:33

if it doesn't fix things what's

Corey 53:35

what's the problem if the problem's not the team who's the problem zane cory

Carter 53:40

oh no and that's

Corey 53:41

that's the child and

Corey 53:43

that's the challenge that justin trudeau has when he makes big showy moves like this he removes his ability to make those big showy moves in the future and if those big showy moves don't solve the problem it starts to look more and more like he's the problem so that's that's why it's elevating the stakes in one sense the other sense we've kind of danced around here which is you've now got people not in cabinet who were in cabinet you've

Corey 54:06

you've now got people who have been excluded from cabinet are thinking they're never going to get into cabinet and

Corey 54:11

and they are going to start grumbling and they are going to start saying things like steven said steven hit the nail on the head it was the one time he was right all night here and that's where he said i

Corey 54:22

i was just doing what the prime minister fucking told me to do and he fucking fired me what an asshole and they've now got reasons for grievance and lest we all forget big

Corey 54:32

big salary difference between being a minister and

Corey 54:34

and an mp right from a strict livelihood perspective you're feeling that you are feeling that when that change happens so i

Corey 54:42

i gotta tell you you've got an interesting combination of things here you've got a prime minister who's running out of levers to pull and you've got a party that's running out of patience. And both of those things are more true today as a result of that cabinet. This

Corey 54:55

This big swing could still pay off. He could actually rejuvenate things. It's why he did it in the first place. But it's no means given. And so he has upped the stakes in a pretty material way with this week's actions. Carter,

Zain 55:07

Justin Trudeau denied in the press conference afterwards that this was to fix things. Should he have accepted? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. Should he he have accepted the premise, Carter? Would that have been politically advantageous? And you don't obviously use the words, but would you have accepted even a portion of that premise to say, we're tweaking, we're focusing, we're doubling down, we're clarifying, we're like any good executive, we're optimizing. Would you have leaned into that at all to signal that this could be some elements of we hear you, right? And we're trying to make things work. Or was he right to reject the premise not make it a story he was

Carter 55:45

was right to reject the premise i think that what you would do is you'd say you know we owe it to canadians to um produce the best government possible and over the last you know 18 months i felt that this this new team that i've just put together and just announced uh would be the best government possible um you

Carter 56:03

you know no disrespect to the people who are who are leaving they are spectacular people who took us exactly where we needed to go and we are are on the right track but this next group is is going to take us to the next level and i'm i'm excited about it and i think they're excited about it the next level is just going to be even better for canadians cory

Zain 56:23

cory over to you like trudeau ultimately said listen this is uh you know this is not an admission that this is a government that's slumping that we need to fix things he said oh on the contrary right that this is this is this is really uh you know he just said no that's That's not what's happening. Would you have accepted the premise if you were Trudeau? Is there strategy in accepting the premise to say we're optimizing, we're tweaking? Yeah, we might be fixing a bit.

Corey 56:47

Yeah, I mean, I would have gone a little farther than him, but it's basically the right message track. You say, listen, the cabinet was created at a time we were facing very different challenges. We were going to face new challenges going forward. I owe it to Canadians to always make sure we're matching expertise and talent and ambition and energy or whatever you want to throw on there. with the challenges of the day and that's why cabinets change um it's uh you know it's a really exciting group we have for it you'd always cast for it and you'd be talking about that you know like the energy and the excitement and the the things that they will be able to do but

Corey 57:24

like a good company and a good government is always disrupting itself too right thinking about what it has to do next and it's very easy to get comfortable that i've now out of trudeau voice to to be clear right yeah

Corey 57:35

like it's very easy to get comfortable and it's actually it's actually bolder to make the change if you don't think there's a problem frankly but know that you just need to stay on top of things but frankly i just think he thinks there's been problems like he knows they're stuck in the mud he knows where the poles are he the thing

Corey 57:53

thing that kind of i think goes to your question zane is it is a lie we all tell each other and we all expect certain people to to say their part in the lie, like, oh, no, everything was great. I am going to fundamentally change everything, but it was fine. But we all see the polls. We know things aren't great. We hear the stories. We've got the reporting. We've seen the fuck-ups. But yet a government has to continue to pretend as though this is all just part of an unbroken chain of excellence. It is kind of dumb, but the alternative isn't great either.

Zain 58:26

final question to you on Trudeau. So does this signal to you that he's staying, that he's running the next election? Is there a signal? Let's end on the overarching story here, right? This is the headline that many inches have been written about, column inches, this week. What is the signal to you about this Trudeau cabinet? If you were to give a top line to it, what does it mean to you?

Carter 58:50

I think it says he wants to try and lead this government into the next election. um but he knows that if he wants this then he needs to elevate his numbers um prime

Carter 59:01

prime ministers aren't gods they're not kings they they have to respect and respond uh to their to their constituents to their audience and that audience is the elected mps the elected uh their members and i'm not sure that if if they're 10 points back in march uh you know i thought he would be taking a walk in the snow in December, January. But I think that by March, if he's not changed things, then that's maybe when we'll start to see this Prime Minister think that his days are numbered. But he wants to do it. He definitely wants to lead them into the next election. I've been told that he thinks he's the one who can beat Pierre Polyev.

Zain 59:46

Corey, what's the headline? What's the message you think he did send? Regardless of what he wanted to to send what's the message you think he did send with this cabinet yeah

Corey 59:54

yeah um i think he sent that he he intends to kind of fight and keep going and he's he um he needed to shake things up and he did shake things up the message is like we got to change he might not have intended for it to be that way but that's what he's intending to do and the message as steven said is also he's sticking around for this next election now again

Corey 1:00:15

again as steven said if in march he's 10 points back people

Corey 1:00:18

people are are going to start saying, fuck,

Corey 1:00:20

fuck, you know, didn't work. This guy seems to be the kind of core challenge, the central element that's causing us problems. I want to remind people that we already have polling that shows the majority of liberals want him to step down as leader.

Corey 1:00:36

If he's 10 points down in March, that's

Corey 1:00:39

that's a really fascinating thing to contemplate, because I don't know how he sticks around. I don't know how his party doesn't start just nudging him towards the door at that particular moment because they'll have a year before the next election and that's kind of the last exit. That's when you get rid of him or you don't.

Zain 1:00:56

I'm going to leave that segment there, Carter. Moving on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, we do everything for you. This podcast is entirely made for you, even when you're not supposed to be on it. We just do it now. You're not supposed to be here. We do it for... Again?

Zain 1:01:07

We did, Carter. Welcome to

Carter 1:01:08

Strategist. Annalise does three segments

Carter 1:01:11

all the time, you know? Very shallow,

Zain 1:01:13

shallow, I've heard. Extremely shallow. Very

Zain 1:01:16

shallow. Inch deep. Oh, my God. I mean, does she produce guides about

Carter 1:01:21

about what a losing... You know, I'd

Carter 1:01:21

be really upset about you dissing her, but there's no way she's going to listen to this podcast.

Zain 1:01:26

No, not at all. Neither of us listen. That's a quality we share. Corey, I'm going to start with you. Just because Carter told me what to do, I'm going to start with you on this one, even though we do it for Carter. give the trudeau cabinet a letter grade give this shake up a letter grade a to f what are you giving this thing or a plus to f cory what are you giving it it's

Corey 1:01:46

it's about a seven it's fine like i actually look there's nothing about it that i sit back and go fuck that's inspired but there's also nothing about it that seems like egregious um i i well you know there are there i would make different moves in some places but by and large i think it's going to be forgotten and the real question is can these people deliver and i'm just not in a position to know i don't know that most of us are because a good chunk of them were never in cabinet before carter

Corey 1:02:12

carter give me your letter grade i

Carter 1:02:14

i think it's a pass uh zane i think that you know this is something that makes a lot of sense if you know now especially in hindsight when we're looking and seeing you know it he is signaling that he wants to try and and uh you know be a player in the next election this is the way that he needs to do that so i give it a passing grade uh

Zain 1:02:36

uh carter um this one's just for you uh what's the full first and last name of our new crowd indigenous relations minister yes

Carter 1:02:42

yes uh i couldn't quite hear you there zane you broke up um there

Carter 1:02:47

there was some uh static on the line cory did you hear what he said because maybe you could answer maybe you could answer that question i i i i'm just getting a little bit i just

Carter 1:02:57

want car i'm just getting a little bit of answer

Zain 1:02:59

answer though i'm fine with cory i know cory can say it he's a man of the northeast i just want i want i want carter to getting a little feedback um

Carter 1:03:08

hear the question you

Zain 1:03:11

you you want to you want to give it a shot carter i

Carter 1:03:14

i don't know the name man like what do you want me to do here yeah

Zain 1:03:18

let me text the name right now we've got time we've got time on the show no there's this this platform has a texting function right cory uh

Zain 1:03:26

uh it does yeah yeah okay perfect i'm just gonna do it right here everyone or

Carter 1:03:28

or the stage here's

Zain 1:03:30

here's the name coming here

Zain 1:03:31

here we go here we go and you'll see it and you'll see it right here okay oh here

Carter 1:03:33

here we go oh

Corey 1:03:45

this is this is wonderful what

Carter 1:03:47

what are you trying to get

Carter 1:03:48

get me on gary

Zain 1:03:50

you got it right you nailed it carter you nailed it uh cory uh in or out on the on the the, I guess, the analysis that is now being provided, that Anita Anand got demoted, that Treasury Board is a historical demotion. I wasn't aware of this, that this is where someone gets taken out to pastor. But Andrew Coyne and others have talked about a long list of those that have hit Treasury Board and then have kind of been bounced out of government. This has been a minister that, for all intents and purposes, at least from the external perspective, has been been celebrated for her competence. Do you feel like she's gotten demoted with her appointment from defense to Treasury Board?

Corey 1:04:30

Well, look, there have been powerful presidents of Treasury Boards in the past. And I think it's a relatively, well, not relatively at this point, but you know, as the finance minister's power climbed, the Treasury Board minister, you know, the Treasury Board president's power sort of declined.

Corey 1:04:47

It's hard to argue otherwise. It certainly doesn't look like it's a position of great prominence these days. It certainly doesn't have the shine that Minister of Defense does. But that said, it really depends on what Justin Trudeau wants from his president of the Treasury Board. My

Corey 1:05:04

My suspicion is it

Corey 1:05:06

it is a bit of a demotion, but I don't know that for sure. Carter, what do you think? Treasury Board, is

Zain 1:05:12

a demotion from your perspective?

Carter 1:05:16

Yeah, I do think so. I think that it is a a, it's

Carter 1:05:21

it's a very, you know, there is no particular upside to being the minister, you know, the treasury, the president of the treasury board. You know, you don't get to buy new shoes. You don't get to make the budget speeches. You don't get to make most of the announcements. You manage meetings, you manage money. You are seen, I think, to be a key to getting the money. You are the controller of the purse strings to a degree, but you're not writing the budget. You're just kind making sure that the budget gets implemented properly so i think that um it was coin that was kind of picking on on uh anand and i i i think that he was probably pretty correct

Corey 1:06:03

here's the thing like so the way treasury board works you know treasury board president can be a very powerful position i

Corey 1:06:09

i just want to say but how would general you know you've got you've

Corey 1:06:13

you've got You've got the budget

Corey 1:06:14

budget that the finance minister puts out. But there are all sorts of requests that come to government for spending throughout the year that Treasury Board sort of takes on and debates and discusses and sees how it's going to be.

Corey 1:06:26

It's not as though the position is

Corey 1:06:30

is destined to have no authority. In practice, what's largely occurred is that Treasury Board rubber stamps decisions that the PMO has decided on, that the finance minister has decided on. In more modern times, it doesn't need to be that way. So it really does depend on how this is implemented. But certainly, in these more leader-centric models that we've enjoyed for the past several decades, President of Treasury Board is not the big deal it used to be.

Zain 1:06:54

Carter, I'm going to end with you to

Zain 1:06:56

to start. Last question, I'm going to start with you on this one. Most intriguing cabinet pick by Trudeau? Could be someone who swapped chairs, could be a net new add to the cabinet table. Who is it for you, Carter?

Carter 1:07:08

I think keeping Chrystia Freeland where she was is actually one of the more interesting, like,

Carter 1:07:13

like, and I pick on Chrystia Freeland. I think there was probably four or five, I think seven people stayed in their portfolios. but uh christopher freeland is you know kind of a star in the government and um but she's disappeared over the last few months or you know like she has not had the same uh elevation and in fact to the point where people are speculating that maybe she's not going to be around uh for much longer and she not only held her position she did not get put into a better position she didn't and and some could argue there is no better position in government uh and i'd be open to that that argument i wouldn't i wouldn't reject it but she's not she's

Carter 1:07:53

she's not getting the media attention she's she's still the right hand of of justin trudeau and you know they're they're i'm not sure that that's the place for example to launch a leadership campaign from uh and maybe that's why she has stayed where she is and i find that i found that very interesting as uh i was looking through the lists cory

Zain 1:08:13

cory you said you found no one inspired so i'm going to maybe use a different one One that's interesting, intriguing from the list that we have here. Who is that name for you, Corey?

Corey 1:08:23

Yeah, I guess I would say it's either Pablo Rodriguez leaving Canadian Heritage or Pascal Saint-Ange joining

Corey 1:08:33

Canadian Heritage, right? Because that is a very live file right now. And obviously moving Rodriguez out almost looks like an admission of defeat

Corey 1:08:42

defeat or wrongdoing, but it really depends on what comes next. by the new minister and and that to me is one i'll be watching in particular just because i think that's such a fascinating well

Carter 1:08:52

well and i don't think st. onish did a very good job in sport i

Carter 1:08:55

i think that she struggled to deal with that's interesting i mean we did a whole episode on national sports organizations and the struggles that they were facing uh the challenges that the sports ministry was having with that and you know the the olympics the commonwealth games problems you know we there's all kinds of different things that she's supposed to be tackling as a sports sports minister that i think she didn't do a particularly good job of and now she's been promoted into um well frankly into a very difficult spot so maybe that's going to be a back down opportunity for the liberals i don't think they're going to back down but i'm not sure that pascal said all she's going to uh rip

Carter 1:09:35

rip it up i

Carter 1:09:36

i was that that's a very good choice cory that is a that's very interesting yeah

Corey 1:09:43

yeah well it's either that or anandasagari so it's it's one of those ones i'm just not really gary

Carter 1:09:50

gary is in a great spot

Zain 1:09:55

we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1085 the strategist my name is with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time Thank

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