Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is The Strategist, episode 1302. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, and the guy that wouldn't say shit to the Prime Minister if he hosted this podcast, Stephen Carter.
Carter
0:10
Where is the Prime Minister? You've been promising me. I've been writing lines. No,
Zain
0:14
No, no, no. I've been
Carter
0:15
been writing lines. Okay,
Zain
0:16
Okay, lay it on me. If he was hosting right now, if he just made that intro, go ahead. What would you say?
Carter
0:19
It ain't Pharmacare when it's only two drugs.
Carter
0:23
Where's my Viagra? Then it's Pharmacare. That's what I want to say.
Carter
0:31
is our it ain't dentistry if
Corey
0:33
get my fucking teeth. This is our third try at this intro. I beg you both. I beg you both. Keep it on the rails.
Zain
0:41
Hey, Corey, do you want to tell people what happened in the first two? No, no, I don't. Yeah, OK.
Carter
0:45
OK. See, I think that the reference that you were objecting to.
Carter
0:49
I'm not, you know,
Zain
0:50
know, don't make it for, you
Zain
0:52
you know, here's the thing. I've been getting so much feedback from people, which I usually do not get about the show because people don't don't talk. Assume
Carter
0:59
Assume you don't listen. Yeah,
Zain
1:01
assume I don't listen, assume I don't care. And they'd be right. But I've heard so much feedback from people being like, Stephen Carter, that guy's all fucking talk. If the PM were here hosting the show, Carter would not say jack shit. And by the way, just to keep those who do not know what's going on, just to keep you all up to speed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been going on podcasts. And we have put out the official strategist bat signal. The invite has gone out, by which I mean we've been contemplating sending a email to the general info box at Government of Canada to invite the prime minister onto our show, which is a big step for us as it relates to effort. And people are saying, you know, if the prime minister hosted, great, fine. But Stephen Carter is all bluster. He wouldn't say shit. Carter, what other lines have you prepared for the PM? Let's take it from the top. Go ahead. Hey, Stephen.
Carter
1:50
I can't talk to you because I'm not a lobbyist, sir.
Carter
1:53
that's another line i was going to use for the prime minister i was going to i was going to do carbon tax i've got a fucking uh i've got an ev that you didn't even give me any credits for i paid full sticker price for this electric vehicle you bastard that's what i would say to him i
Corey
2:09
i would have been more comfortable if you licked his boot than gave those kind of hack kind of responses i
Carter
2:14
i thought you were going to say balls isn't that interesting isn't that interesting the difference in how you and I responded to that. That's interesting.
Corey
2:23
What was I going to lick? I
Corey
2:25
did not expect boo. I want you to know you're the Drake of this relationship.
Carter
2:29
Yeah, Carter. I want you to know that I'm on Kendrick's side on this relationship.
Zain
2:36
becoming very hostile very quickly. The prime minister. You know what? This is actually the most successful wedge issue the PM has ever...
Zain
2:43
Yeah, that's right. He's
Carter
2:44
He's not really good at wedge issues. Well,
Zain
2:46
he's done it well. all of this podcast uh cory twitter.co is for sale before we move on twitter.co is for sale and it has a lease to own option that i feel like we should take advantage of it's
Corey
2:57
it's only a thousand us a month and i gotta tell you something i think we could afford it i think if we canceled our bus bench in che uh we could probably divert some of that money get it done how
Carter
3:08
how long is the lease because this is something we learned on the bus bench the bus bench was a year and that felt Felt like a long time. And the joke got
Zain
3:14
got old in about a week. So now we just have a bus bench with references even we don't understand. Corey?
Corey
3:21
Corey? Yeah, it's very confusing. It's actually pretty amazing how quickly those references are no longer even scrutable to ourselves. But yeah, 48 months, I think, Stephen. So it's a bit of a time commitment. You'd have to commit to the bit for a while.
Corey
3:38
Think about what you could do with that.
Carter
3:39
Will Twitter still be around in 48
Carter
3:41
Or where will we redirect? So
Corey
3:43
So you thought we were going to buy it to redirect it to Twitter, just so I'm clear?
Zain
3:47
I'm sorry. Carter, explain to us what—I mean, we haven't talked about this, but explain to us your thinking.
Carter
3:54
Well, I thought that that's why you bought
Zain
3:55
bought these— Just to be clear, this is the guy with sharp zingers against the prime minister. Go ahead. Yeah.
Zain
4:02
just wanted to remind people who this was speaking.
Carter
4:05
Let me tell you something. Why else would you buy a Twitter domain name except to redirect to Twitter?
Zain
4:11
let's move it on to our first
Zain
4:12
segment no we're done we're done carter let's move it on to our first segment our first segment steven carter canada's new i feel like i was cut off
Zain
4:21
you absolutely were you absolutely were uh canada's new corporate strategy guys i want to spend a lion's share of this episode talking about a memo and
Zain
4:32
and it's not a boring memo oh it's the memo i
Corey
4:34
i wrote in memo about what the alberta ndp needs to do if they want to be be competitive i
Corey
4:39
i that was like that was like two months ago right yeah
Carter
4:43
was a long time how's that working
Corey
4:46
i i don't know it's not gonna do it it's really it's
Carter
4:49
it's working out as well as my memo to you two about doing a live show that
Carter
4:53
that memo is working out great that
Zain
4:56
that was hey do
Carter
4:56
do you guys want to do a live show you
Zain
4:58
you should have read into the silence you should read into the silence card i
Carter
5:00
i should have read into the silence i'll
Carter
5:03
i'll tell you if the audience comes in big maybe Maybe we'll do a live show. Here's
Zain
5:05
Here's the thing, Carter. We've got a new memo. This one is written by one Pierre Polyev. And
Zain
5:11
And it's written in
Zain
5:13
in the National Post. He's written a memo to Corporate Canada. Sub-headline, fire
Zain
5:17
fire your lobbyist, ignore politicians, go to the people.
Zain
5:22
This two, three-page memo is filled with side swipes on organizations and not general organizations. Yes, he does insult chambers of commerce and business councils. But then he takes a shit on specific organizations like the
Zain
5:38
the Business Council of Alberta or the CFIB or tech telling people to or tech telling people to rip up their memberships or to paraphrase, they should be embarrassed of how some of these companies are pursuing lobbying. He then goes into advice that Carter, I kind of agree with around going directly to the people changing public opinion. But of course, we know that there's limitations there as well.
Zain
6:00
I want to talk about the tactic. I want to talk about the insight, if there is any in here. And then I want to talk about the lessons that corporations, charities, nonprofits, the guy on the street who wants to influence public policy should take from this memo written by the presumptive prime minister, next prime minister, written in the National Post. But before that, let me get your thoughts on the record. Carter, you first, and then Corey.
Carter
6:30
well i mean i read it which i think puts me in an elite crowd uh a small group of people who read the national posts at op-eds uh he did get quite a bit of coverage outside of that um but most of the coverage i think outside of the memo itself the memo exists of course when we read it we read the whole memo we understand the memo but it also exists in the coverage that it gets and the the coverage that it gets wasn't great because people were like picking apart. How many times did Pierre Polyev actually meet with lobbyists? Turns out quite a few. How many times did Pierre Polyev meet with Bay Street lobbyists? They actually put them on a map, Zane. They put it on a map the number of times in the locations of his meetings with lobbyists. And they're picking apart what I think is the hypocrisy of this statement. And, you know, I think that overall, Overall, Pierre Polyev put out a big swing, but he wound up taking a pretty big strike.
Zain
7:29
Okay, I'm interested with that analysis. I'm intrigued by that analysis. I'll dig more into it. Corey, top line for you in terms of what Pierre tried to do here, and then we'll hit on the categories of what I talked about between tactics, insights, and then lessons to be learned.
Corey
7:46
What he tried to do. I
Corey
7:48
think he tried to do
Corey
7:51
do a couple of things with the same memo, which maybe was a bit of a tactical error. Maybe we'll get into it. Maybe we won't. What he tried to do was interesting, though. It was effectively to say, don't
Corey
8:03
don't come crying to me. If
Corey
8:04
If you want me to do something, make it popular. And that's fascinating to me, right? And yeah, he rapped it in a bunch of language like lobbyists suck and how dare you. And there was also some shots across all sorts of bows in terms of you continue to play nice with the liberals while I'm going to hold it against you. And I think he also tried to put some people on notice that playing nice with the liberals would be noticed and would be something that you're held against. But it's
Corey
8:33
it's super fascinating to me. I guess that's what I'd say. There's two things he tried to do there. He tried to put people on notice. He wouldn't tolerate them playing nice with the liberals. Most lobbies will give you advice that's some version of make sure you have friends everywhere and make sure that you're not being too antagonistic with everyone. Certainly, I
Corey
8:51
I think we could all say that from experience. That's advice you give clients, right? So he's saying, no, that's not the rules of the game now. That's fucking interesting. But he's also saying, don't
Corey
9:01
don't come crying to me if people don't like your thing. I'm only going to do it if it's popular. And that's maybe
Corey
9:07
maybe something that's philosophically more fascinating and probably worth discussing almost as a separate stream here. But at
Corey
9:14
at the end of the day, in the National Post, the leader of the opposition wrote a clarion call to corporations to spend their their money on influencing our opinion right
Corey
9:24
if you if you strip out
Zain
9:24
out a lot of the other stuff there and
Corey
9:26
and he kind of took this position i am opposed to corporations influencing public policy i would much prefer they influence public opinion and that's is
Corey
9:36
is that even a good idea is that something we want like most trudeau or not like most trudeau things like most polyev things that are of any length i find myself in equal measures kind of nodding along with yeah that's true and shaking my head vigorously going holy fuck no what are you talking about and this this letter was no no exception
Corey
9:56
exception kernels of truth uh things that i found uh maybe not so true and certainly things i found philosophically
Zain
10:08
yeah let's talk about the tactic here because i i do want to jump into some of the content as well but the
Zain
10:13
the form stephen carter doing
Zain
10:15
doing this as an op-ed Like,
Zain
10:17
Like, we know that this could be pre-election sort of positioning
Zain
10:21
positioning on his part, but the tactic of putting this together as an op-ed, as a one-time, listen up, leave me the fuck alone, I won't attend your shitty dinners, I'm not going to show up, and I know we'll get into the past history here, right, and the accountability mechanism, etc. et cetera. What do you think of that? Did you feel like that was a hit, or did you feel like that was a miss as well?
Carter
10:48
Well, it's so old school. I mean, when was the last time that we actually saw a significant politician putting out a significant op-ed? I mean, generally speaking, op-eds are the tools of municipal politicians, people who are outside of party politics. occasionally you'll see a premier write an op-ed that gets covered in the in the major dailies this feels to me like really old old school like something that joe clark would have done back in the early 2000s not something that is done today i mean what's the what's the readership on the national post opinion page all that seemed to matter was that the other media picked it up and made it into something bigger because if it had just been an opinion piece that didn't go any further it was tiny and compared to the videos that he's done i just think that it's it's something that is speaking to a different generation and
Carter
11:41
and i i was uh i'm surprised by the tactic because i don't i don't think it's
Carter
11:46
it's going to be the most effective tactic that's available to the leader of uh the you know the party that's in first place and on its way to try you know raw
Carter
11:55
raw romping to a a victory, you know, in 18 months or so. Corey,
Zain
12:01
Corey, what did you make of the placement in Post Media? Do you feel like that was right size for the audience he's trying to reach? Do you feel like that's actually the right call in some ways? Are you as skeptical as Carter is? Give me your sense. Well,
Corey
12:12
Well, I'm not as skeptical as Carter, because I don't think he was trying to speak to a different generation. I think he was trying to speak to a different audience. And there are, you know, the National Post is, for
Corey
12:24
for those old enough to remember, it's kind of the expansion of what was the financial post. It was the financial newspaper of this country in the 90s before it kind of expanded out. And it has kind of this legacy readership in kind of business communities as a result. And I think that's who he was talking to. Those two messages I talked about were both squarely aimed at business community members, opinion leaders. They were not aimed at the
Corey
12:50
the general population. And as a result, him just putting out a tweet was not the tactic that was going to happen i mean this is true i of a lot of people that i have worked with in in the past you know it can be very difficult when you're managing media buys where you say yeah we've spent like you know let's just say for fun four hundred thousand dollars on these digital ads here and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on this out of home there and yeah but did you get that full page ad in the Globe and Mail.
Corey
13:22
I didn't, because that's not where anybody actually reads anything these days. Ah, but you know, like that's a real big signature piece. That's the kind of thing that person X is going to want to see or person Y is going to see.
Corey
13:34
To a certain group of people of a certain income class and of a certain age, that's how you make a statement. It used to be even corporations when they were making statements would buy the full page ad that says, we promise I promise to do X, right? And Pierre Polyev is very aware of that. Pierre Polyev is essentially saying, I promise to do X. And X in this case is, I promise to hold it against you if you continue to play footsie with the liberals. I think that was an important message. And I promise I'm not going to listen to you unless you spend your money to get involved in changing public opinion towards what we think are good policies, right? Right. And it's actually quite a fascinating, quite
Corey
14:14
quite a fascinating, like high road, high minded framing for I'm trying to skirt election finance laws. Right. Like it's weird to me. It's a very weird
Zain
14:24
thing. And I can push, push conservative friendly policies using your own dollar so that I can stand in front of the parade and celebrate with you and lead that said parade. Well,
Corey
14:36
Well, and that's a very poor read by me in the sense of like, not at all charitable to them. But yeah, like... No, no. And I mean, same
Zain
14:42
same with my interpretation of like being very reductive about on purpose, for sure. Like, but there is an element of that.
Zain
14:50
To this point, Carter, you know, we'll get into the content, we'll get into the audiences, we'll get into the specific side swipes and what you guys found to be strategically interesting or strategically, like troublesome. some but
Zain
15:03
but but i have to ask you the question which is the
Zain
15:07
the fact is you have when
Zain
15:09
when you kind of reduce this you
Zain
15:12
you have a conservative who's
Zain
15:14
who's going to more than likely take on this chair of prime minister with the party that is arguably the most friendly with big business historically telling big business and their associations to outright fuck off that's
Zain
15:27
that's not how i read it
Corey
15:29
it but keep going interesting
Carter
15:31
yeah Is that how you read? That's how I totally read it. Interesting. I read it the way that Zane's describing it, because I read it like you're not going to have any sway with us unless you go and find those those people to make it popular. You've got to lobby the general population because I'm a populist. And don't worry about my connections or our party's traditional connections with big business, because now we are only connected to the voters. We're not the least bit interested in big business big business you can go fuck yourselves we're not interested in you we're interested in only the things that are popular because we're a populist government and we're and we're not that old party that was worried about how corporations felt we're instead we're we're the party that's going to be interested in how you feel and
Carter
16:15
and i thought it was a big middle finger to the the corporate world i'm dying actually to see how how uh cory is interpreted it yeah yeah
Zain
16:24
yeah give me give me a read cory because i think my question that follows it up holds regardless because but i am curious to get your read yeah
Corey
16:29
yeah it's not fuck off it's it's game on right it's it's you don't change my mind by going and doing the uh what did he talk about like the committee uh appearances and the hill days and meeting mps and senators and the chamber the chamber dinners that's just that's
Corey
16:45
that's just fucking about right uh if you want to actually get the things you want he's given a roadmap to business how to get the things they want which is go make them popular stop meeting with people who are also friendly to the liberals and that is that is not saying i'm not going to work with business that's saying business i i need you to really put some things into the game and work for me you've got to work for me that's exactly right and again probably not how he would put it but of course you've got to isolate the liberals you can you've You've got to stop giving them cover for policies, and you've got to spend some of your time, sweat, and money on changing the opinions of the population as a whole.
Zain
17:28
Here's a question that I was going to ask, because I appreciate both of the interpretations, and I was a little bit more leaning towards Carter, although I share elements of what you're saying, Corey. I think this question still holds. What does him
Zain
17:41
him putting this piece out, Corey, I'll start with you on this, say about his relationship with that business community? community what
Zain
17:48
what does it say about the power dynamic between him and that community and and is that a historical new
Zain
17:54
new that we are seeing like because it could be read as fuck off or it could be read as game on either way it wasn't read as come meet with me i love you whatever you need i'm here for i'm your guy and
Zain
18:07
and we have seen politicians do a version of that yeah so what do you think it's what what is the insight you take away as around the power dynamics that it leaves between him and arguably his closest allies, so to speak, from an electoral, from a financing, from an outright even policy direction angle.
Corey
18:28
Well, I don't know that they're the closest allies. I think that there's some philosophical commonalities, but certainly he is a populist and certainly businesses tend to prefer stability over populism, right? At the end of the day, they'll ride that populism bull until it bucks them. But generally speaking,
Corey
18:46
you know, slow and steady, you know, stable government, don't mess with my tax structures. Don't make me think you're going to mess with my tax structures. Just keep them low is a general business vibe here. When I think about what it says about the dynamic, there's
Corey
19:02
there's a couple of ways to read it. Certainly, when I read it the first time, I was like, holy fuck, is this guy arrogant?
Corey
19:09
arrogant? Like, he really thinks he's got this in the bag. And
Corey
19:13
And the way I read it- In terms of like winning. Yeah, yeah. Like the next- Yeah, he's not thinking, man, if business is not with me, I lose the next election. I actually think he's thinking three moves ahead.
Corey
19:23
I think he's thinking, I'm
Corey
19:24
I'm going to win this next election. I'm telling you exactly how I expect you to get my attention. And it's spending a lot of money supporting conservative ideas, small business ideas. And making those ideas
Corey
19:36
Exactly. If you're not going to make them popular, I'm not going to stand up with them. And that's where I go back to roadmap. map and i think my
Corey
19:42
my interpretation is the right one because of the things i said about audience as well like steven you're looking at it and saying subject matter wrong uh you know channel wrong but if if you're wrong about both those things it's actually all right it all aligns perfectly there and there
Zain
19:59
there is a slightly different interpretation of the strategy is what
Zain
20:02
what i'm saying carter
Zain
20:03
carter is he is cory persuading you in terms of his line of thinking he is to me a bit Not in
Carter
20:07
in the least. Oh, interesting. No, you're weak.
Zain
20:11
you're stubborn, and you would never say anything to the prime minister. If he asked you that question
Zain
20:15
right now, what would you say to him? If
Carter
20:15
If the prime minister was here right now, I'd say, you know, what you need is more corporate lobbyists lobbying you. This is actually designed—I don't believe this is designed for the corporations. I think this is designed for people who think that the conservatives are in the back pocket of corporations. corporations i still think that the audience of this is the voter because i don't think that pp has decided that he's going to win the next election i still think he's in the midst of trying to win the next election he's not signaling he doesn't need to signal 17 months before the election how he's going to behave after the election he needs to send a signal to the voters saying i'm not brian mulrooney that's that's
Carter
20:54
signal that he said
Zain
20:54
said it's interesting carter i actually think your interpretation holds a lot of you know what's fascinating is that like totally totally right what
Carter
21:01
is it popular what
Carter
21:02
it say that there's more
Zain
21:03
more to be popular what's it he wants what's it say to those multiple reads here cory like i think that on his own as we're trying to dissect this and having multiple critical credible i would say interpretations coming out of it what does that say about what he's what he's trying to do or perhaps a tactical error or or uh
Corey
21:22
uh feature no i would say that there's only one credible read and it's mine and and steven's wrong i
Zain
21:28
But I think Carter's most recent sort of comment around this is positioning rather than hubris is a fair one. No. It's a fair one around trying to distance. Do
Carter
21:40
Do I think he's got hubris? Yes, I do. Do I think he's an arrogant prick? Yes, I do. And I'm not talking about the prime minister, although they do share some of those attributes. What I'm saying is that Pierre Polyev is still fighting the election. He is in the middle of an election campaign. campaign. He is not signaling to people how he expects them to behave afterwards. Now, is he signaling them, make these ideas popular during an election? Maybe. Maybe I can get there. But I'm not. Because ultimately, that's not the problem. The problem that he has is that people may think that he's in the back pocket of big business. That's the conservatives' ongoing Achilles heel. No,
Corey
22:16
No, it's not. Go ahead. No polling. I mean, you're not going to find a lot of evidence that's a big anxiety. And all you need to do is actually read the words in front of you here. And I'm going to read you one sentence. Your communications must reach truckers, waitresses, nurses, carpenters, all of the people who are too productive to tune into above mentioned platforms. Now, yes, he flattered people with the productive, but he didn't say your policies must support truckers, waitresses, nurses, carpenters. He said your communications must reach truckers, waitresses, nurses, carpenters. He is talking very explicitly and very specifically about the things that he wants them to do. He is not using the platitudes and the language of elevating these groups and their issues. He's saying the opposite. He's saying, you've got to make them care about your issues, not that these issues must matter to them. You have to read the words in front of you on the page, Stephen. This is basic stuff. Basic stuff, Stephen.
Corey
23:15
Just the words on the page, page steven let me do a dramatic read the words as they are steven the
Carter
23:20
the trudeau's government tax hike on capital gains as investors and business leaders blowing up my phone they yelp what are you going to do about this my answer no what are you going to do about it most are
SPEAKER_02
23:32
are stunned by the stunned silent by the question okay fuck
Carter
23:37
fuck off cory this is designed to put a wedge between uh pierre Karapaliev, you know, and to show people that he's on their side, not on the corporate side.
Zain
23:47
side. I mean, that was, of course, for anyone wondering, a one-man monologue.
Zain
23:55
Carter's frozen because, I mean, what's left after that? Yeah. He's left it all on the field.
Zain
24:00
Let's talk about this, Corey. You're a lobbyist who has corporate clients. Sure. You wake up and you read this. What's your reaction? I
Corey
24:08
I call all of my clients and say, wow, you really need my help now. No. Look how tough this government is.
Corey
24:13
No, look, I mean, for
Corey
24:14
like a long time, when we were at Hill and Knowlton, we were telling clients then, you don't send lobbyists in, right? You've got to build the parade. We've been saying build the parade, and not just us. Lobbyists have been saying build the parade forever. This is not actually something that should scare any competent lobbyist. um in fact it sounds like you know what i i hear those old-timey cash register sounds going if i'm a lobbyist because you know what's yeah a lot more fucking expensive than a day on the hill meeting parliamentary committees
Corey
24:47
big-ass campaigns that change public opinion hey i don't know i don't know guys of dollars i don't know guys have we spent millions of dollars doing that tens of millions of dollars maybe
Carter
24:57
maybe we should plug ourselves a little bit here We are available to corporations, and they want to build a parade. You can reach out to us. I'll also let people know
Zain
25:06
know I'm the most credible and the best at this, but I will probably more than likely not work with you. So that's – Okay. But
Carter
25:13
you have this kind of like, I just want to work with a nonprofit. Steven, you kind of have this corner like
Corey
25:19
Carter, your brand positioning is mine. I'm in house.
Corey
25:22
Zane is allergic to money, and this
Corey
25:24
this is you, bud.
Carter
25:25
This is me. Yeah.
Carter
25:27
It's all me. I have a medium-sized
Zain
25:28
but a noble cause uh give me uh so
Zain
25:33
so I agree with you but Carter your interpretation lobbyists within in-house like at a at a big oil and gas company I say that because we're in Calgary or a finance company uh or that's the that's your that's your business you wake up and you read this how are you interpreting it I'm
Carter
25:50
I'm saying okay it looks like we're gonna have to shift some of our money into uh community building and we're gonna build you know the the advocacy the community we're going to make sure that our letter writing campaign is more um more powerful than it's ever been by the way cory and i have a solution to that so send us a note we can help you on your letter writing campaigns um but this is this is
Carter
26:14
this is just lobbying in a different form in fact i believe that lobbying the individual population is still mentioned under the lobbyist act it's just no one ever registers on
Zain
26:24
on the the grassroots side of things yes yeah it is interesting around what he's proposing here the question i have then kind of extending from that cory is how he defines it one of the things i really thought was interesting was near the end of this memo talking to ceos directly in a couple of ways and oh you mean not the
Corey
26:44
public the way stephen thought no
Zain
26:46
no definitely not the general public but this was just near the end my god telling
Zain
26:49
telling them that you fuckers need to to understand politics, you guys don't know what's going on. And secondly, your lobbyists are often have interests that are not aligned with yours. What do you think he meant by that latter point? And then let's go back to the executives learning politics and don't be allergic to this stuff. I'm fascinated by that because we've worked with clients, regardless of what the scope of the file is, where the most senior people want to keep their hands away from the politics rather than lean into it. And I'm wondering if this is a sea change in a certain And are we going to see it? And what will that mean for organizations going forward? But the second one first, what do you think he meant about the divergent interest between one's lobbyist and one's executive
Corey
27:32
goal? So I interpreted that as an attack on lobby groups, which are expected to be perpetual and sustained, and they want to sustain for their own existence between governments, right? They don't want to just be relevant when there's a conservative government. They don't want to just be relevant when there's a liberal government. So they are regularly making sure they have supporters everywhere.
Corey
27:53
everywhere. And supporters isn't even the right word. People who are willing to listen to them everywhere. And they're going to have those conversations, and they're going to build those bridges. That's part of their job. And it's not just because of their clients' interests, I guess, is what Pierre Polyev is trying to say. It's because of their interests in self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. The other, I guess, extension of that is at most lobby firms, there
Corey
28:19
there are people of different political persuasion, right? There are conservatives, there are liberals, there are new Democrats. And what those firms have interest in is making sure you're getting counsel from all of these people, I
Corey
28:33
I believe, because you do want to build bridges with everybody. But what Pierre Polyev seems to be suggesting is they're
Corey
28:40
they're doing it because they're trying to pad their bottom line. And what actually is in their interest is even if it burns two out of three of those lobbyists at that firm, the one that's doing it on the side of truth, justice, and the Canadian way is the one you want to hear and listen to.
Carter
28:57
What if we're both wrong on the audience, Corey?
Carter
29:01
What if the actual audience was just Jenny Byrne and
Carter
29:04
and her lobbying firm?
Carter
29:07
if that was the what if she was the audience of one and he chose to do it through an op-ed instead of a telephone
Corey
29:13
telephone i mean that's what we call broadcasting to narrowcast
Corey
29:15
that's not not usually recommended yeah not
Carter
29:18
usually recommended but i'm still thinking like he might have done it because it's not like and my point is this it's not like pierre polyev is not associated with the lobbyists it's not like he's not going to meet with cap when they call right the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. He
Corey
29:33
He may not meet with CAP when they call. He's saying spend $20 million on an advocacy
Carter
29:37
advocacy campaign. I am willing to go on the record right now and say there will be the same number of lobbyists registered in the first year of a Conservative government as there are in the last year of a Liberal government. I am also willing to go on the record and say there will be just as many lobbyist meetings after the election as there were before the election. Because it's not about the government, it's about the people who are trying to bring the message. and corporations you know it's not just corporations that have lobbyists firefighters have lobbyists nurses have lobbyists like everybody has a fucking lobbyist this is what makes the world go round this is why uh lobbying is like the activity that all all political operatives do except me because i'm dumb yeah
Corey
30:21
yeah well like and you know and they don't like to think of it necessarily as lobbyists and lobbyism it's it's advocacy right it's making sure you know the important things that they're doing. There's a million ways people interpret these things and move on with them. But one of the bigger points that
Corey
30:39
that Pierre Polyev's memo here pulls out is this idea of you've
Corey
30:44
you've got to hold
Corey
30:46
hold the liberals to account. It's your job to deliver consequences on
Zain
30:51
right? Can we talk about this? How is a business supposed to interpret that carter they've been told like cory mentioned earlier on the pod that you're supposed to be friendly with everyone yes you know ultimately you may have positions but you should be able to work with everyone if it's a liberal government you got to work with the liberal government
Zain
31:08
right right now he's telling you the liberals are in government the liberals are government and what you need to do business is tell them to write the fuck off because they do not have your interest in mind in fact he goes specific and i'll get to the specifics around the two organizations in a second. But he's got that general principle. And then he also tells CEOs and executives, you guys need to learn how to play the game. Like, get your shit in order, learn what's going on. How are you interpreting that, Carter, if you're advising the C-suite of an organization today, when you've been telling them for a long time that it's about sprinkling all over, it's about good relations everywhere. And now you have a guy being like, if the liberals fuck you, you tell them that they're fucking you, and you hold no bones about it sort of thing.
Carter
31:51
Here's what I would say. I would say that's a really interesting message that Pierre Polyev put in there, but it's not actually for you. What he's trying to do is distance. He's trying to communicate with the general population. He's not communicating with us.
Carter
32:04
We are the ones that are going to we're still going to be here. we're like fucking cockroaches after the apocalypse lobbyists will still be there after the after the the government changes and they may change their tactics minimally but they what they're probably going to do is that instead of sending in the liberal in the firm they're going to send in the conservative in the firm and they're not going to call it lobbying they're going to be calling it reporting back on our advocacy efforts like
Carter
32:29
like honest to fucking god you know like well let us let me show you where the parade starts sir okay okay that's how it's going to be fucking done now interesting
Carter
32:37
we've managed to change we've managed to change public opinion on this oh four points for pollsters if
Corey
32:42
if i was a pollster yeah
Corey
32:44
good how are you going to show there's a parade if you're not you're just going to show them
Corey
32:47
them polls the parade exists we're actually
Zain
32:49
we're actually launching a polling firm on this show right okay you can find us at twitter.co uh
Corey
32:55
you know when you mention the domain and
Zain
32:57
to buy it this is an expensive version we need a minimum of a thousand us dollars of business a months so don't let us down uh don't let us down or else this podcast will disappear at
Zain
33:07
at our own peril uh
Zain
33:09
uh cory here here's an interesting question for you or maybe it's not interesting who knows you'll decide um is
Zain
33:16
there a new set of rules or
Zain
33:18
or is carter right i think carter's wrong on who this memo was for but i'm gonna put put that aside because he's doubling down for no reason now he's at the point where you know he's doing this for his own entertainment so we can ignore him
Zain
33:28
him on on that podcast in
Corey
33:28
in a nutshell i'm
Zain
33:29
i'm not that being said right he he brings up an interesting notion
Zain
33:34
do you think this is just positioning and posturing or do you think do you firmly believe that this roadmap is going to enshrine a new set of rules and some might say we've always been following these rules so not much of a change but others might say well fuck we have to make things popular uh and he's telling us to take political positions and he's telling us to do X, Y, and Z. New set of rules or just new paint on the same set of rules that define conventional modern day advocacy and lobbying?
Corey
34:07
I think this is a bit of a Pierre Polyev wants to change the world memo.
Corey
34:12
The thing about memos like that are often, the world's different than you think, and maybe even a little closer to the common sense that you feel you bring to it than you think a lot lot of the time right like when people are like well what about x y and z you're
Corey
34:26
probably not the first person who's thought about x y or z right the
Corey
34:29
the other thing i'd say is the world is harder to change carter's point about like the lobbyist registry will probably not shrink any is is probably true unless the government makes that a metric in which case all you're going to do is being pushing lobbying into kind of like dark shadowy uh locations in my strategic
Zain
34:45
council locations and whatever yeah whatever yeah
Corey
34:47
yeah but it could be a good hearts law thing where like the minute the measurement becomes a target it ceases to be a good measurement right um i
Corey
34:55
don't know i mean like it's such an interesting play by him i i do wonder if it's not if
Corey
35:02
if it's not a little bit delusional because a lot of lobbying already happens along these lines like you
Corey
35:08
you know he he named trans canada for example right as like somebody who's got to go and build a parade a fucking okay well we're all familiar with edelman actually being like this is all publicly reported edelman was fired from trans canada because they were building a parade right because they were accused of astroturfing and building all of these groups that were going to work with people to try to create a parade so like you can't tell me that
Corey
35:34
that like people aren't out there trying to build parades people are trying to build parades all of the time like that's a huge part of lobbying that That was literally what the three of us did when we worked at Hill & Knowlton.
Corey
35:45
That was our practice.
Carter
35:46
We did it so well. We did it so good. Well, I'm saying. Campaigns, baby.
Corey
35:51
It's not crazy to think that that's just like, they're just going to focus things a little bit different and move on. Some
Zain
35:57
Some of us were more talented than others and never got the recognition we deserved. You know, Carter.
Carter
36:03
You were hired. That was the recognition you deserved. Okay, that
Corey
36:05
that sounds. You were hired. I would not. You know what? You were so talented. Did I manage to get you hired over the objections of the then national campaign director? It wasn't
Carter
36:13
wasn't objections. It wasn't objections. Every time you say that, I feel guilty. I need to
Zain
36:18
to read you a paragraph. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business once gave an award to Trudeau's then national revenue minister for letting businesses distribute T4s electronically. Wow, big deal. Just a few weeks after the Liberal government in the fall of 2017 had unleashed a wicked tax assault on small private business passive investments and income sharing with families. recently the business council of alberta held a big ticket event to suck up to the federal liberals who then killed two major pipelines violated the constitution with their anti-resource law c69 and imposed a hated carbon tax on small businesses with no rebates for over five years now all alberta businesses should cancel their membership and stop giving money to the business council and small businesses should stop supporting the cfib holy
Corey
37:02
shit i think that any of that Well, it's wild. I mean, that was certainly the paragraph I read where I thought,
Zain
37:09
What the actual fuck? Like, okay, there's the calling out of the organizations. Then it's not just a calling out. It's the starve these organizations of oxygen, money, and their life supply. Like, kill these organizations. It's like, not just calling them out. It's, they should be gone, and you should suffocate them to death.
Zain
37:27
Talk to me about the strategy here, Carter. What do you think he's trying to do?
Carter
37:34
don't i mean outside of trying to communicate to bit to people that this is uh him trying to the lengths
Carter
37:41
he would go to the
Zain
37:42
the lengths i would
Carter
37:43
yeah he is like saying don't worry i am i am i am doing a scorched earth policy but i i honestly would love to hear from those two organizations did their membership change you
Carter
37:56
you know did they see a significant shift because
Carter
37:59
because i don't think they did And I note that he didn't call out Cap. He didn't call out the big kids. He called out a couple of the small kids. CFIB is relatively big, but still, I mean, no
Carter
38:11
one's going to change these things. Look,
Corey
38:12
Look, again, he is communicating to business. He's explicitly saying, businesses, I'm asking you to do these things. And he talks about, like, if there is no political price to pay for a bad decision, expect more bad decisions. Now, what he means by that is, if you're not willing to fight the liberals when they do things, I have no time for you. and he's much more interested in direct action by these groups and a more hostile stance with with people who have what he perceives as anti-business agendas so like it's so fascinating to me and actually i gotta say there's so much in this letter as i read it i think you
Corey
38:50
you probably don't want people thinking too hard about the thing you just said there like if there is no political price to be paid for a bad decision expect more bad decisions okay
Corey
39:00
and if there is is no political price to pay for people acting badly expect more bad action right like do you really like i i don't know actually know if you want to be encouraging such consequence um given given just your
Corey
39:14
your exposure on this front shall
Carter
39:15
shall i say but
Corey
39:16
but um yeah it's it's a really really aggressive letter but it's a really aggressive letter designed to deliver two messages well
Carter
39:25
well Well, it's still a bad tactic.
Zain
39:28
Yeah, and I want to focus less on him and more about the organizations mentioned, not because we have some familiarity with them, but more so about, from a crisis comms perspective, how do you deal with them?
Corey
39:41
I mean, before we even get there, let's be really clear.
Corey
39:46
If he had written this letter without naming specifics, this letter wouldn't scare the shit out of people. And he needs this letter to scare the shit out of people. He needs people to- He means it when there's consequences. Not only does he mean it, he's just laid down consequences on the Business Council of Alberta. He's laid down consequences on, you know, CFIB, and he's laid them down on tech, and he's laid them down, you name it, he's laid down consequences on people here. And that was really important. He laid down consequences on two businesses that he saw as not being willing to spend money on advocacy. And he laid consequences down on two advocacy groups he thought were not willing to fight the liberals enough there. And so that's what this letter is about. It's about layering in with specifics, things that make it seem like he means it. But it's not actually about the companies. I do agree with Stephen on that one. It's about saying, I will let you all burn if you don't support me.
Zain
40:45
but but carter talk to me about this which is he's got his strategy if you're one of these organizations that's named business council of alberta let's use them as an example yeah
Zain
40:55
what are you doing because
Zain
40:56
because you're in this really interesting position he's and if you buy cory's premise because let's do it for the this exercise that this is a letter to business is a memo to business as stated literally in the headline okay but this is a memo to business and yes it could have a dual meaning about trying to distance himself from business but let's say it's the a roadmap. He's telling these people, starve this organization of money.
Zain
41:18
Okay? Starve this organization of money. So you have a lot of folks who are going to literally take that as a call to be like, fuck, if I ever meet with Pierre or see him, I don't want him to know that I actually still give to the business council or CFIB, et cetera.
Zain
41:29
How are you dealing with this if you're the business council of Alberta? How would you think about it? Give me a roadmap for them to think about something like this when they've been named. Is this a crisis comms hat? Is this Is this a strategic planning hat? Is this a take a beat and this will all go hat? Because this is pre-election posturing. Give me your framework of assessing and analyzing after you get specifically named in a letter by arguably the future prime minister.
Carter
41:59
I'm going to do better than that. While you've been talking, because it was quite a while, I was able to search for the Business Council of Alberta. And I was able to look for any news articles. I was able to look for any statements that they were able to put out. They put out no statements. They ignored the thing completely. And again, I am willing to bet that they have seen virtually no attrition of their membership. Because even if what Pierre is saying is true,
Carter
42:28
reasons why they did what they did. It's never going to be a forever government for the conservatives. There will always be someone who replaces them, unless we go Trump. Trump, and
Carter
42:38
and we decide we're going to be a dictatorship for life. But I just don't think that Pierre Polyev is that guy. So if it's going to change back to the liberals, then you know at some point you have to make sure you have relationships with the liberals. No one is going to respond to this memo in the fashion that Pierre Polyev ostensibly
Carter
42:55
ostensibly wants them to respond. But I reiterate, he doesn't expect them to respond. He may have named names. I bet you he he even called them and said i'm sorry man i'm gonna name names adam leg is the is the person who runs the business council council of alberta scott crockett uh the the son of uh joan crockett a former conservative member of parliament is their media relations person i just don't think that i i would be willing to bet he's called all these folks and said i'm gonna screw you a little oh you think this choreograph don't
Zain
43:27
don't worry about oh man
Carter
43:31
to no responses responses no response hold on
Zain
43:33
i need i need to pause on this for carter are you just playing with us no
Carter
43:41
is not about cf i guarantee that they're not seeing any membership drop so let's call adam right now i'm calling out hang on okay
Zain
43:49
okay do it do it do it call him right now
Carter
43:56
it might it's gone to sleep so i i can't do that siri
Corey
44:00
you know what this will be a patreon exclusive you getting adam on the phone don't uh i'm
Carter
44:05
i'm not gonna do that i'm better not actually because i'm not sure i have his telephone number hang on let me see anyways
Carter
44:10
anyways my point is simply this i'm willing to bet significant dollars that it was it was choreographed to some level and uh the
Carter
44:19
the people were told not to respond we
Carter
44:21
we do have anything cory
Corey
44:24
that's i find that hard to believe really hard to believe me too that adam would give steven his number is just showing some very poor judgment oh
Zain
44:32
oh i mean he was chief of staff at one point steven that is um a car cory yeah how
Zain
44:40
how are you thinking about this if if you're and we're not to pick out the business council right
Zain
44:44
we know these folks we uh i'm friendly with them i i like them i i like
Corey
44:48
like the problem value of their work some some woke trudeau like you true
Zain
44:54
yeah probably exactly i
Corey
44:55
i fucking hate scott and adam okay there
Zain
44:57
there you go there you go you guys hopefully that's the credibility they need in their choreographed stage play with pierre paul yeah fucking bullshit carter cory how are you thinking about this and not to pick on them let's move into the cfib also not a small organization yeah
Corey
45:11
yeah so you know it's very funny because on one hand
Corey
45:15
pierre pauliev is is basically saying stand up for yourselves right and and yet i can guarantee you the smart and only play here for them is to not say a word about this and you think that is the right oh my god what are you gonna do like like the more you elevate this the more you make it uncomfortable for your 135 members by the way they have a member page so let's check in on it in six months and see if it's still 135 members but yeah i mean that's uh that's that's just not in your interest like you are not going to go down that road if you're um if you're them you are going to you are going to talk to your members who like reactively who come in right i don't even know if i would do proactive communication that just sounds like begging for it you're going to thank your lucky stars that membership fees tend to come you
Corey
46:02
know not you know they're not paying and monthly i'm sure i'm sure those are annual fees for all of that and you're going to deal with them as they come and you're going to hope things cool down and you're definitely not going to bring it more into the limelight and you're going to have a great answer for them when they say what are you doing to make sure you're on side with pierre poliev because
Corey
46:19
because it clearly he hates you guys and you say oh yeah i know but that's why we uh we
Corey
46:23
we just hired jenny burn and associates for yeah
Carter
46:26
don't worry about it i got a call from them before it happened that's what what he's going to say both
Corey
46:33
of our answers are wrong but bullshit
Carter
46:38
they've got advocate i mean there's no way that this is actually going to be a thing oh
Zain
46:41
oh my god you do i i don't know yeah carter you have zoomed them um here's
Zain
46:47
here's the thing they're
Carter
46:48
they're gonna call i'm gonna call them all tomorrow i'm gonna find because cfib didn't respond business council didn't respond there's been plenty of time to respond it
Corey
46:57
just makes it worse it just elevates the fight it
Carter
47:00
doesn't make it worse because it doesn't fucking matter they're
Carter
47:04
they're not getting calls from their membership we
Carter
47:06
we can go on the wayback machine and see if anybody's canceled their members do you think do
Zain
47:09
do you think pierre is going to use this as a litmus test cory i run into him he's not going to meet with me but he's like hey did you cancel your cfib membership do you think he'd actually use that as a litmus test hey
Zain
47:20
hey you're a business no i
Zain
47:22
don't know i don't know if you're right carter
Carter
47:25
oh my god seriously corey's
Corey
47:27
corey's not speaking yeah i don't think he's necessary i mean maybe he will he did write the letter but like i i can easily see if somebody's asking for a meeting or whatnot be like well you're a member of the business council of alberta have you asked them what they've done to make this more popular uh
Corey
47:42
uh as you know they had these you know you think you could easily restate all of the things that were said in there in terms of i
Corey
47:48
i don't know some sort of dinner or something i wasn't even 100 clear what the event was or the timing because he said He said recently, and then he talked about two pipelines being canceled after, which makes me think it couldn't possibly have been that recently. But
Zain
48:01
Let me talk about the world going forward. Corey,
Zain
48:05
Corey, what happens in your world, let's just accept one premise, that folks in the business sector take this as a roadmap?
Zain
48:13
Okay. What does a world of multiple campaigns look like? Is it the world we're experiencing today that, you know, only a few of them will have enough budgets to really penetrate and only a few associations, industry and otherwise, will actually catch the public consciousness on issues? Um, are we expecting to see a
Zain
48:35
a slightly different advocacy comms world?
Zain
48:39
Give me your take on this.
Corey
48:41
Well, I think that's what Polyev is calling for is a different advocacy and comms world, but there's
Corey
48:47
there's going to be an awful lot of work put into, it's
Corey
48:51
it's like water going downhill. It's going to find the path of least resistance, right? And what's going to end up happening is corporations that don't want to spend money unnecessarily are going to say, okay, well, if his metric is he wants to hear about it on the doorsteps of, I don't know, Hinton, Alberta, he listed a couple of places, but well, I can help him with that, right? I'm just going to target specifically in these areas around the MP's office, and I'm going to ask them to knock on their MP's door or whatnot, right? It's not going to look that different. They're just going to have to adjust tactics. I doubt they're even going to to have to adjust spends in meaningful ways corporations will find a way they're like life in jurassic park it's kind of no stopping them on this kind of stuff so that's
Carter
49:36
that's where we agree
Carter
49:37
there's no stopping them this is why this this whole thing didn't matter and pierre can do whatever he wants with impunity i
Corey
49:45
don't think he knows it doesn't matter oh
Carter
49:50
like so you're You're saying that Pierre Polyev is an idiot.
Zain
49:52
Explain that. Explain that. No, no, that's a fascinating statement. Why do you think he doesn't recognize that?
Corey
49:58
Well, it goes back to what I said. It came off as a very arrogant statement. I think he has a sense of how lobbying works that is not accurate, if I'm
Carter
50:09
I'm going to be totally direct about it.
Corey
50:11
It's like a fish in water. You don't know you're in water. A politician doesn't
Corey
50:16
doesn't even necessarily know when they're being lobbied. lobbying is so perpetual around them and yes they see the most obvious things in lobbying right they see those committee appearances they see those mp days that's not modern lobbying by and large that's just part of it you know you're always working on building remember we used to talk about concentric circles remember that right here's the decider here's the people who directly influence the decider's decision here's the people who influence the influencers the decider And how do we spend as little money as possible to get all those fuckers lined up, right? That has been lobbying for a very, very long time. And it's very sophisticated business. And you're just seeing this thing above the waterline. You're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. And so that's where I say, I
Corey
51:07
I think he's being a bit naive about what lobbying is right now. Now, so I believe a few things. I believe he is actually calling for a change in lobbying, and
Corey
51:15
and I believe that change has already occurred. And he just doesn't see it because old lobbying still goes on as well.
Zain
51:22
Or, you know, to make this an incredibly meta-analysis, he knows it's already happened, and he just wants to get in the front of that parade to take credit for it. I don't think that's
Zain
51:31
what's going – I don't know. Dude. But, you know, guys –
Carter
51:34
But it was a good meta-analysis. I
Zain
51:36
I thought it was excellent.
Zain
51:37
Arguably the best point made on the pod thus far. The three
Corey
51:39
three of us on this podcast have spent tens
Corey
51:44
tens of millions, probably into the hundreds of millions, on these types of campaigns, right?
Corey
51:50
right? Tens, for sure. They are happening. Well, don't forget my numbers are added to your numbers, too. Oh,
Carter
51:55
Oh, yeah, your numbers. And don't forget, I play
Corey
51:57
play with some huge numbers, too. Yes, yeah. I
Corey
52:00
I hear you had a $30,000 campaign the other day, Stephen. I'm really proud of you. That's
Carter
52:04
That's a pretty big campaign. Or Zane, yeah.
Zain
52:06
Hey, um... Oh, thank you. I have got a question for you. I agree with Corey that the strategies here may not change. And in fact, in many ways, we've already gotten to this new reality. That being said, I have a question for you guys on both analysis and decision making going forward on, are we going to see the kill switch on certain tactics? tactics, rubber
Zain
52:27
rubber chicken lunches, hill days, testimonies to committees, whatever, sometimes requested, other times engineered. Would it be, are we going to see it? Question one. Number two, if you're advising clients, would you say Peer doesn't want it, so you're not doing it? Or would you still say, no, still do it, because others will attend, and you could still influence Peer that way. So give me both. Give me your sense of what's going to happen on the tactics. If you're going to see some of the things he's outlined, and are we going to see less of them? And number two, if you were recommending to an organization, would you tell them to, you know, swap it up? Don't call it a hill day, call it a whatever, and still have a, you know, a hand, you know, a face-to-face sort of meeting with the group.
Zain
53:11
Carter, your thoughts first, then you, Corey.
Carter
53:13
Nothing is going to change. Corey. You may change the name, you may change the title, but
Carter
53:19
but everybody's going to continue to to do lobbying the way that lobbying has been done uh since what was his name the president that uh yeah
Corey
53:27
yeah get out of here you damn lobbyists yeah i think that was grant i think yeah i mean ulysses yeah so
Carter
53:34
so i think it was grant i think everything that's decent comes back probably so
Carter
53:37
so let's call that cory
Zain
53:38
cory are we going to say these tactics be killed and
Zain
53:41
and should they be well
Corey
53:42
well look i i think that they are definitely going to fade a bit in the first couple of months or years of a pierre of government just as every time there's a government change there's a certain there's
Corey
53:53
there's a certain clearing of those things but they often find their way back because you know people didn't do these tactics because they were easy they do them because they work and it's it's a good way to get those messages forward and so i agree they'll be rebranded they'll be moved into kind of like the periphery maybe it won't be a like uh you know billed as like a lunch with mps and And maybe it'll be more, we're going to take you on a tour of this community that we're helping. And you're going to hear from a bunch of various community members where that is. Here's
Zain
54:25
Here's the carpenter and the nurse and
Zain
54:26
and whatever being like, I love this regulation.
Corey
54:29
three years later, people will say, God, I don't want to trudge all the way out to that site. Couldn't we just do it 15 minutes from my office in Ottawa or Toronto? And it'll go back to where it was. And yeah, there'll be slight changes and it never 100% reverts. But ultimately, these tactics are fairly durable. across time and across jurisdictions for a reason, and they'll be back. They will. And that's not great in many ways, right? I'm basically saying it
Corey
54:55
it will always be this way, you know, but it's going to be hard to change.
Zain
55:01
I'm glad it took 55 minutes for us to be like, nothing's going to change. Yeah, that's
Corey
55:05
that's very us. No,
Zain
55:06
that is very us. I've got a few other questions here, though, Carter. Not every... You
Carter
55:12
You said it was going to be a tight 35.
Corey
55:13
35. Was that actually in the intro that actually made it into this show or one of the ones that we didn't make it it was one of the
Zain
55:20
we can then alongside some of the other issues yeah that littered that intro and let's just say it wasn't cory or i yeah
Zain
55:29
yeah no we killed the intro because i gave the time of how long the episode would be that's right i
Zain
55:36
yeah it was nothing to do with carter ranking the crises going on in the world and leave it out the biggest nope no
Carter
55:42
no unfairness i got there i just put put it way back at the end yeah you put a third drake kendra you put a third drake thing uh
Zain
55:49
uh i mean that was
Carter
55:50
was a pretty big thing
Zain
55:50
hey well listen carter not everyone not everyone can afford to model public opinion not
Zain
55:55
not everyone can do now everyone get not every issue will will um have the public resonance something is a small regulation change that a association needs made on a very technical matter if
Zain
56:08
if you're taking this literally and if you're taking it as a memo went to business how are you thinking about that question but
Carter
56:12
but i'm not okay if you are if you
Zain
56:14
you bend your bend your extremely dust-filled mind for a second okay
Carter
56:21
try in your imaginary in your imaginary world god
Carter
56:26
in pp's playland here's
Carter
56:28
here's where we are it yes
Carter
56:30
if you can't afford to move the general population if you're a smaller business or you're a smaller business association And you can't afford to move the general population, then you've got to find metrics that show that the general population care about your issue already. So it's, you know, everybody can afford polling, right? Corey already said the polling was going to take off. Everybody can afford polling. That's where this money is going to go. there's going to be way more polling and you're going to be able to go to the polls and say this question which we for sure did not torque uh shows that all canadians care about the tulip industry and our relationship with the netherlands right um they're super important and they're very much caring about it because polls can be rigged that way and that's just going to be the new the new the
Carter
57:20
the new lobbying is going in and saying look at this parade we've started we need you to actually take advantage of this he
Zain
57:27
he might be right it was already going that way to this point it was and it is we
Carter
57:34
we were doing that to Corey's point 12
Zain
57:38
ago are you so eager to
Zain
57:40
to take credit for this I was not you were
Corey
57:44
were pretty new you were pretty junior
Carter
57:46
you may not have known about the operation that was
Carter
57:51
was a good one oh my god
Corey
57:54
right great to be
Carter
57:56
be clear can't talk about that on the podcast can we gory
Corey
58:01
people are wondering is he serious is this a real thing that's a pretty cliche name it was called project black it was project uh
Zain
58:07
uh yeah yeah it was project black and and i may or may not have let it uh yeah
Corey
58:15
like your whole non-profit term is is just like a redemptive arc here you're just Yeah,
Carter
58:20
it's redemption. It's a redemptive arc, for sure. If
Zain
58:23
If this was a movie, the first scene would be someone naively walking into Hill and Olsen with you guys. Yes. The
Corey
58:31
The second and third scene, where's
Corey
58:34
where's where we find ourselves? Here's a question, though.
Zain
58:39
you think this translates beyond business?
Zain
58:42
Do you think if, for example, you are a organization that is worried about, let me use childcare. Sure. That we're going to be chopping off child care, that publicly funded child care as it is right now on a track to get to $10 a day. It could be gone in a pure polyeth government. If I could show it's
Zain
59:01
do I have a chance? Isn't that the roadmap you laid out for business? Should that not apply to me? That if I can show that, you know, at the doorstep, a nurse is talking about how childcare matters to her, that maybe I have a fighting chance here? Or do you feel like it's not translatable? How would you be reading it if you were, let's say, not business, but play in the same sandbox of shifting public opinion? Yeah,
Corey
59:22
Yeah, I think you could read it that way. I don't think that's what it was meant to be. In fact, I think there are a number of interests who are probably sitting there saying, I don't love $10 a day childcare. And he's effectively telling them the roadmap as much as anything. My sense of reading it is it's, hey, you want your unpopular conservative ideas to be put forward? Make them fucking popular. I'm not going to sit there and carry your water. Go out there, invest the money, change opinions. and like i said at the top that's a bit interesting that's arguably a bit problematic you're basically asking corporations to spend a bunch of money to influence our opinions outside of all of the frameworks that govern elections right but
Corey
1:00:04
if you're on the other side and you've got a unpopular or
Corey
1:00:09
or or popular like left-wing opinion sure sure let's just put it it this way. I think that popularity in a Pierre Polyev government will be a necessary but not sufficient condition in order for them to do something. It is still going to need to be conservative. You can't sit there and say, 80% support carbon tax. We in? Good? Carbon tax? Yeah?
Corey
1:00:31
That's not how it's going to work.
Zain
1:00:33
You're not taking that lesson away. If it's a... Carter, are you taking that lesson away at all? You're a non-profit, you're a charity, you're a child care provider, you're a defender of pharma care. Before you throw
Corey
1:00:43
it to Carter, Can I just say, popular
Corey
1:00:46
popular things are more durable. That is not a revelation. And the fact that Pierre Polyev would try to suggest otherwise is kind of silly, right? Like, it's always been
Zain
1:00:56
been- Well, in some ways, his argument is make it momentarily popular.
Corey
1:01:01
don't know if- Boost
Zain
1:01:02
Not really. In some ways, it could be. I mean, we just talked about it through polls that can push you or through things that can engineer popularity around an MP's office, right? Right. The perverse incentives or the malignant force around this is actually not to be ignored, if I can be honest. In
Carter
1:01:20
In the last election, the carbon tax was more popular. Right. In this election, the carbon tax is less popular. So, yeah, popular opinion is fleeting. But, you
Carter
1:01:31
you know, what he's calling for. I think he's saying
Zain
1:01:33
saying is fleeting popular opinion is a step one for me to start considering it.
Carter
1:01:39
Yeah, for sure. I'm
Carter
1:01:40
I'm not arguing. he's
Zain
1:01:41
he's too tired do you want to argue at all around around yeah he is pretty good i'm gonna ask him this last question carter
Zain
1:01:48
steven carter defender of dental care i know you love it oh
Zain
1:01:52
god it's such a bad
Zain
1:01:53
let's say you were on the front lines of defending it
Zain
1:01:56
maybe a terrible example but an example um
Zain
1:01:59
um or the charitable sector saying don't cut our funding if we can show that that's popular publicly through polling through folks at the doors through other mechanisms that are at our disposal.
Zain
1:02:11
Is that the lesson you should be taking away? That that's what Pierre wants to see from you?
Zain
1:02:16
You should be taking that lesson away?
Carter
1:02:17
Listen, this is, again, an old lesson. I remember when I worked in the arts. So the arts is 30 years ago for me, when I worked in the arts. And there was a poll conducted by the then relatively new Arts Center that said that Calgarians, 80% of Calgarians wanted to go to the arts more frequently. Well, I'll tell you something. if 80 percent of calgarians went to the arts one time one
Carter
1:02:40
one time we'd have to build two new art centers right like the reality is that people say there's certain motherhood and apple pie things that are going to just be popular and if you phrase your question to capture motherhood and apple pie then all of a sudden it's going to be popular and it's going to be like i don't know i don't even know where i'm going i'll tell you let me
Corey
1:02:59
me pick it up and just say thank
Carter
1:03:01
thank you cory That is part
Corey
1:03:03
part of the work politicians do. And them offloading that work to you is not so bad either. Like if a politician wants to do something, see previous comments about, you know, necessary but not sufficient, right? If you can convince them there's a way to phrase it, that will be popular, and that's durable to counter arguments. Well, that's pretty great, too. That's pretty useful, too. It doesn't need to be just like Carter is dramatically sitting down in different ways, laying down in different ways at this point. But like, that's important. We're done. We're done.
Zain
1:03:32
That's fine. That's fine. He wanted a tight 35.
Zain
1:03:33
35. Let's move it over under our lightning round. Stephen Carter,
Zain
1:03:37
1 to 10. We do it for me. We do it for you. 1 to 10 on Kraft. Because I'm tired. 1 to 10 on Kraft. What would you give this memo?
Zain
1:03:44
Corey, 1 to 10 on Kraft. What would you give this memo? 11.
Zain
1:03:47
Corey, 1 to 10 on Kraft. On strategy, what would you give this memo?
Corey
1:03:53
don't actually give it an 11 on Kraft. On strategy, I give it pretty high marks. I'd say an 8.
Corey
1:03:58
Carter, on strategy, what would you give it?
Carter
1:04:01
i'd give it an f carter
Zain
1:04:02
carter one to ten on impact overall impact that it's going to have in terms of how lobbying is shaped going forward what do you think are
Carter
1:04:10
are the negative numbers allowed they
Zain
1:04:12
they're they're definitely not allowed no negative
Zain
1:04:14
negative okay cory one to ten on impact
Corey
1:04:19
think it will have potentially some impact in uh trade groups being more careful engaging gauging with, quote unquote, both sides on issues, I think it will have no impact, at least no measurable impact in terms of corporations shifting their activity towards creating grassroots campaigns, because that's already been happening, as we've talked about for ever.
Corey
1:04:41
ever. Way to keep it
Zain
1:04:42
way to keep it fucking numerical, Corey. Nice. Yeah.
Zain
1:04:46
That's a wrap on episode, let me keep it numerical. That's a wrap on episode 1302 to The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey
Zain
1:04:54
Hogan, Stephen Carter. Never do any of this with the Prime Minister around, and we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00
1:05:28
It's your private choice
SPEAKER_02
1:05:32
Don't forget about Jill
SPEAKER_02
1:05:38
you forget about Jill?
SPEAKER_02
1:05:45
How'd you forget about Jill?
SPEAKER_02
1:06:02
wouldn't forget about you