Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is The Strategist, episode 1843. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, it's Corey Hogan in a tie and Stephen Carter in
Zain
0:09
in a hoodie. In a hoodie, yes. And which one
Corey
0:11
one of you white
Zain
0:11
white men is having a good life
Corey
0:12
life crisis? And Zain Velji with some new facial hair on his upper lip. What's that about, bud? Yeah. This porn stash? Yeah. Yeah, you can't call out my tie and not talk about your porn stash. I think that's...
Carter
0:22
that's... It is a bit much.
Zain
0:23
It's the holiday season.
Corey
0:26
What do you do in the holidays? Times are expensive.
Zain
0:28
We've got to diversify our careers.
Zain
0:32
So I'm wondering. So you grew a porn stash?
Zain
0:34
Well, no. No, Carter, if you – No, he started a porn
Corey
0:37
porn career. I'm doing porn.
Carter
0:38
doing porn. Jesus Christ. Right now? Is this happening right now? Are we unwittingly participating in this?
Zain
0:45
I don't take you as – The podcast premise is one of the least played out in modern porn. I feel like three dudes on a podcast trying to get to a porn scene. Does Pornhub
Carter
0:54
Pornhub have data on this? because they've got data on
Zain
0:58
on everything. I want you to find it. I want you to find it. And I want the one out of the three of us who has a real job to feel uncomfortable about this conversation.
Corey
1:06
you're not one that I often think of as like a novelty facial hair guy. Is Indian porn on
Corey
1:16
Is that a porn pun?
Carter
1:17
It's just a question. It's gotta be a pun. It's just a
Zain
1:20
Before I engage, is
Zain
1:22
is there going to be viewership?
Zain
1:23
That's a good question. Will I be able to diversify into a Patreon seven years after starting? I think it's going to be an OnlyFans. Or will we lose all our money to domain names there, too? I'm
Carter
1:33
I'm shocked that we haven't gone to OnlyFans, actually. I think we'd do well.
Zain
1:37
Yeah, one of us. Well, I'll test the market for us. Don't
Zain
1:42
first vote. I am doing fine. I hope you two are also enjoying your holiday season, which has begun, I guess, Carter, now
Zain
1:51
now 10 days ago, because the holiday season begins when you stop paying gst oh
Carter
1:56
yeah that uh has made a huge difference in my life i've uh i've noticed every nickel that i haven't spent uh for every dollar no it's i'm actually i want to meet the person who thinks this is this has been really a good thing um and i'm hoping well i'm hoping it's gory hogan i
Zain
2:11
i wasn't intending to discuss this but i will say i was just i'm in edmonton right now and i was at west ed and half the retailers i went to including sport check Trek, TNT Supermarket, like just a random sort of swashbuckle of different retailers, all had signs talking about the GSD holiday as if it was their promotion. Like they were like, GSD, get the GSD off in their own typeface, in their own banners, like custom printed signs. So in some ways, it's interesting. Maybe it's a nice incentive, but I don't know. Corey, like any thoughts on what's up here? Yeah,
Corey
2:45
Yeah, I'll say this. I still think it's not a super thing to do. And obviously, the polling shows that Canadians are pretty skeptical about it, and it doesn't seem to be helping the Trudeau government in any way, shape, or form. You want to take that? You want to take that? I'm okay. You want to take that, Stephen? No, take it
Zain
3:01
Take it right now. I can't.
Zain
3:04
Yeah, pick it up right now. No GST on that call. No GST on your rollover minutes. I
Carter
3:07
I said I was sorry.
Carter
3:10
I said I was—I didn't expect anybody to call me today. Why
Zain
3:13
Why are you blushing? It's even weirder that you're blushing about it. Now I want to know who's calling rather than the fact that you got a call.
Carter
3:19
call. Yeah, it's probably
Zain
3:23
hear they're politically motivated.
Carter
3:23
motivated. They are very politically motivated. They're definitely coming after me.
Corey
3:29
Yeah, I find it interesting exactly what you said, that all
Corey
3:33
all of these retailers are carrying the government's water on this. And so, while I still don't think it's going to be a net positive because it was in such a hole to begin with, I think people rightly look at it as a cynical political act.
Corey
3:44
it's really fascinating to me that you can get all of these companies going out there and trumping your message to everyone as they go by i mean i've seen it sure in the past week yeah
Zain
3:54
yeah i agree with you to some degree but i will say that experiencing it firsthand a few hours ago
Zain
4:01
it it made it seem like at least at most of these retailers that this was something they were off yeah for sure you know like this is a this is a special service that that tnt and sport check and Canadian Tire were giving to the customer. I mean,
Corey
4:13
mean, I love that you're Columbus-ing this, like you're the first person who's gone into these stores, but I think
Zain
4:17
think it's- I have not been into retail for a very long time. I don't know if you know about this. Retail still exists.
Corey
4:23
Retail's still out there doing things, but you're going to go to 10 different stores and they're all going to have the message and you are going to remember that it was the government of Canada that ultimately did this, even if Safeway is saying it was them. Are you? I don't
Zain
4:35
don't think you are, Corey. I don't think you are. This is why I say there's a limitation on them carrying the government's water. i think they're just leaning into this and being like this is our own thing that's how i look like
Corey
4:44
like just some sort of random holiday sale kind
Corey
4:46
yeah but here's the thing i'll also point out
Corey
4:49
that we're all albertans and so for us it's only five percent right it's not it's not as much 12 whatever it is 13 in ontario right as the hst because it's the whole hst that's gone so there i think it is going to feel a little bit more meaningful they're still going to have all of those various sales cues that i was just talking about there
Corey
5:07
there are also groups that are are going to be a lot more pissed off about it i'm hearing that servers in ontario super unenthused because of course nowadays you get the machine and you select the 15 or the 20 on top of
Corey
5:20
if your card or the 10 that you
Zain
5:22
right yeah the single digit that yeah let's call them single digit carter for a long time so
Corey
5:27
so they're seeing their take go down by 13 which is pretty meaningful yeah right and
Corey
5:32
and and so it's cutting a lot of different ways but it's interesting it's a great Great example of, I
Corey
5:37
I think, unintended consequences in both ways. And maybe the government always intended that retailers everywhere would go out there and claim it was their own. But it's interesting to me to see this play out because it's not over at Christmas either. Like, we're going to see this all the way through the Boxing Day season, all the way through January as well, right? Carter,
Zain
5:54
Carter, do you feel
Zain
5:55
Corey's takes are less good when he wears a tie on the show? I
Carter
5:57
I feel like he's more constrained. I feel like he has less energy. It's less
Zain
6:02
less energy, more rote in what I say. That's how I say it. I
Carter
6:06
I will wait and see what
Zain
6:08
what retailers say after the Christmas season. Yeah, it's a lot of wait and see. I've got a small observation. They're carrying the government's water. Just trying
Corey
6:14
trying to please everybody. Blah, blah, blah. Speaking
Zain
6:16
Speaking of pleasing everybody, Corey, should we talk about the Holiday Spectacular? I
Corey
6:19
I thought that was going back to your mustache. Today would
Zain
6:21
would be a candidate for the Holiday Spectacular, this episode. We could have done it. But it is not because we've got a bunch of other shit to cover. but also uh the high holidays have have moved on the calendar of course orthodox christmas is presenting itself rearing its head um so maybe speak uh speak a bit about the holiday spectacular to the uninitiated yeah
Corey
6:41
it's a non-denominational special it just happens whenever we want and i'll tell you why yeah we
Corey
6:47
we have no reason it just happens
Carter
6:49
happens yeah it happens when we want yeah
Carter
6:50
yeah yeah which is basically our recording schedule uh
Zain
6:54
uh speaking of someone who controls his own destiny Jagmeet Singh, let's talk about it. Stephen Carter, Jagmeet Singh is now out adding clarity, adding definition, adding certainty that his government, for a second, that
Zain
7:07
that his party, the NDP, will take down Justin Trudeau at the next confidence vote. Carter, you
Zain
7:15
you had Charlie Angus and others go on political talk shows, provide that level of certainty. You had Jagmeet Singh begin the week with a bit of a – last week, this is – with a bit of a flip-floppy, mealy-mouthed, well, all options are on the table. Now, the NDP, a week later, have landed in the same position that many wanted them to be in, which is definitiveness, a certainty, and a clarity.
Zain
7:37
mean – Analyze this as a strategic move for Jagmeet Singh right now. Now, has he boxed himself in as he didn't want to, or is this the only choice he had because they'd continue pestering him, or even for an optimal strategic decision? I
Carter
7:54
I think at this stage, he had no problem doing it, because it's highly likely that we're not facing a resumption of parliament on schedule. I think that it's...
Zain
8:05
You mean back in January when... Yeah,
Carter
8:06
Yeah, I think that we're highly likely to be seeing some sort of activity where Justin Trudeau is proroguing Parliament to enable a leadership for the Liberal Party. I think that that's probably the most likely outcome, and I think that that makes it very easy for Jagmeet Singh to say, at the next opportunity, I promise to do something, and knowing in his heart, as he does, that that promise is pretty lukewarm, right? Right. It's just it's not much of a definitive statement when you know that you're not going to have to actually worry about it until the very end.
Zain
8:44
end. So tell me this. You say it's a strategic move. Tell me if I'm putting words in your mouth. You say it's a strategic move that comes with minimal or no risk. Is that fair? No
Carter
8:52
No risk. It's not like it's
Carter
8:53
it's not like this is going to happen in the fourth week of January, where all of a sudden the, you know, the conservatives are going to have an opposition day. First of all, the opposition day can be put at the end of the session, opposition days. They don't have to be in any random order set by the government so that they come early. And the second thing is, I'm like 85% certain that we're going to do a prorogament,
Carter
9:29
that's what I meant to say, prorogationment. that begins – that sees us not head back into the House of Commons until after leadership for the liberals. OK. I'm glad
Zain
9:40
glad you put this on the table because at some point I want to get your guys' – map this out for me. Now that Singh has said this, what does this mean for Trudeau? Does it mean – like I want to get to that in a second. But give me – because if we go there, we lose Singh in the mix. So, Corey, give me your comments on Singh in particular and then let's go to what does this naturally kind of mean? like where do the dominoes fall sort of thing add some clarity for us between the two of you but corey your thoughts on jagmeet singh first well
Corey
10:05
well my first thought when it happened on friday was you you couldn't fucking find this most obvious position to take on monday like it took you four days to get here that's pretty pitiful
Zain
10:15
pitiful sorry you were talking about the previous monday not like delaying it for some reason yeah
Corey
10:18
yeah yeah no no i was when when trudeau's own finance minister is saying hey this isn't really working for me the ndp couldn't come to that very obvious conclusion And he gave just the absolute weakest, oh, all options are on the table commentary. And then you saw members of his caucus be more definitive. And then you saw some of that definitiveness almost walked back by the party. So
Corey
10:39
So it became clear that he was- Yes, it did.
Zain
10:41
In between the Charlie Angus- Absolutely.
Corey
10:42
Absolutely. So that's interesting to me too, right? And I think that that really brings in the point that I want to make, which is it tells us that the NDP caucus was probably a little bit divided on this. there were clearly hawks in the NDP caucus and doves in terms of bringing down the federal government.
Corey
10:59
I'm not really sure. It certainly seems like Singh was a dove, but I don't know. Ultimately, he did end up on the right position. But now, more than anything, I
Corey
11:06
want to know what that conversation looks like in the NDP, where there was any doubt as to whether they should take this approach or not.
Corey
11:12
And you know there had to be that conversation, because otherwise you wouldn't see people reining in like that. You wouldn't see them pulling back from a position they're going to land on just a couple of days later and that's really interesting that maybe suggests that singh is not as
Corey
11:25
as in command maybe as uh sometimes we just assume he is because he's leader and we don't hear the same leadership drama about the uh the ndp as we hear about the liberals but it's worth watching and it maybe suggests that he's not entirely driving the bus on this or in classic ndp fashion there's like 10 bus
Carter
11:44
bus drivers that are all sitting there everybody's He's driving the bus. Yeah.
Zain
11:47
Yeah. Corey, can you hold on to the rest of your thought? Carter, which do you think is more likely? Singh is not in control? To use Corey's analogy, that there's several bus drivers on said orange bus.
Carter
11:56
I think that there's probably more bus drivers. I think that Singh is in control. If he wasn't in control, they wouldn't
Carter
12:04
wouldn't have tried to walk back the caucus statements. The caucus statements would have been definitive and just left out there. I think that they're trying to appease the leader and respect the leader in a way that you wouldn't necessarily see the liberal caucus trying.
Corey
12:20
Corey, let's expand this, right? So the NDP, four days after it was obvious to everybody that this had to be their position, makes it their position. They stay in the confidence and supply agreement a year beyond when it's obvious to everybody they need to start finding an exit point from it. They're seeming to be very slow on reacting. And this in particular, I think, for me has crystallized this notion that one of their challenges is they can't move fast enough to keep up with politics. Like they might just have some kind of tactical problems at their heart that are not going to serve them very well in a 35 day election campaign. So they better fucking figure out a military footing for this thing. They should have done it long ago. Because they seem a step behind. I think that's my observation of the NDP. Yeah,
Carter
13:03
Yeah, I think it's called electile dysfunction.
Zain
13:07
unrelated. That's pretty good. Come on, Zane. Come on. Hey, Zane. Is it important on the rise? Zane. Is it
Corey
13:14
it important on the rise? Zane. They can't maintain an election. That's good stuff. I get it.
Zain
13:24
you? Yeah. I think you guys
Zain
13:27
if I'm being honest. I feel like the two of you really bring the show down. It's
Zain
13:34
Corey, Carter's kind of of given me his take at least for the first bit of it what what's the natural sequence of events now
Zain
13:42
from here yeah from here now that Singh has put himself on the record saying ah next opportunity I get I'm gonna do this our party's gonna do this to be clear yeah
Corey
13:50
yeah which means take down
Zain
13:51
down the government what
Corey
13:53
what is down the most likely
Zain
13:53
likely sequence of events well
Corey
13:56
well and in fact they've said no matter who the leader is right
Zain
13:59
right yes yes they have they have thanks for adding that detail so it's not Not like if Trudeau gets replaced, they're going to do it. Now, anyone could
Zain
14:06
could walk anything back at any point, to be clear. But knowing that they've put this in the front window, the NDP, walk me through what you think the most likely sequence of events are now for Justin Trudeau. Like, for example, over the weekend, there was rumors that today was the day.
Zain
14:20
Now we're seeing reporting come out from the Globe that today Trudeau won't step down over Christmas. So today's not the day, folks, right? Christmas is not the day. So walk me through, in your mind, where we're at in this sequence and what you expect. Yeah,
Corey
14:32
Yeah, I think, well,
Corey
14:34
well, let's run two scenarios. One is Trudeau is planning to stick around for some indeterminate amount of time, and one is he's not. If he is planning to stick around, Carter has laid it out pretty cleanly there. The
Corey
14:44
The fact of the matter is the House will come back. There will be confidence votes that can be constructed out of moments like budget, but otherwise you can just push all of those opposition days as late as you want, as late as you can, and buy yourself the time and just know that it's all going to end in the spring, right? You're going to have a spring election and you start gearing yourself accordingly. You try to make sure that you've got all of those budget goodies ready to go. You're building everything entirely through that communications lens. And you just say, this is the end of this parliament. Maybe there's some faint hope that you can get the Bloc Quebecois to give you a couple more months. But I don't know if that's particularly wise going into an election when they're your primary opponents. Well, maybe you flatter yourself as the Liberals to call yourself the Bloc's primary opponents at this point. But it doesn't seem like it would be a particularly wise idea to show the bloc as effective just before you go shilling for votes in Quebec. So that's the scenario. I think you just, you know, this election is probably coming at the latest in February, in that even if they've pushed the opposition days as far as they can, if
Corey
15:45
if he's resigning, which I still believe is probably the most likely outcome here. I mean, we've even jumped over because it's no longer interesting or surprising, but the Ontario caucus apparently came to a consensus of the 51 people that they want to move on from Trudeau and that this was supposed to be delivered.
Corey
16:02
He doesn't have any support anymore. That's clear. Not enough to be considered a politically viable person. And even if he went into an election, the fact that his own caucus has now done these things, isn't that just the conservative campaign ad? I mean, they're going to have 100 campaign ads, but that's certainly going to be a damning one. So I think he goes, and then I think he does prorogue. There is an open question how that prorogation goes. I believe it would be given, but that's not 100% certain. And then I think we end up with a late spring election in that everybody's already staked their ground. There's a new leader. Let's just say for fun, it's Chrystia Freeland. She comes in, introduces a throne speech and a budget. It all falls on that right away, off to the races. Boom, there you go. So that,
Corey
16:47
that, to me, is probably the timeline. It does not seem likely to me at all at this point that we're going to have an October election unless it's one hell of a prorogation, like a very long one that would be very
Zain
16:59
dubious. And you guys – Corey, last episode, which I believe was Patreon, you played out the scenario that I asked you to help me with, which was Trudeau wants to stay for G7, which is that very late prorogation. um you but you also mentioned as a footnote that that would be terrible for the country and very hard to justify uh
Corey
17:16
uh so to speak yeah at this time if he wanted to construct it just to summarize what was behind the paywall there he doesn't resign until after the um the moment of crisis with tariffs with the united states passes at least the immediate moment right so it's all of a sudden you're in february then you prorogue and
Corey
17:35
and you don't say the rest
Zain
17:35
rest don't say the rest We want them to
Corey
17:37
to pay for it. That's all we have to
Zain
17:37
to pay for. Yeah, we want them to pay for it. That's
Corey
17:40
Strategistpatreon.com, $6 a month. Access all of that rich strategist content. Cheap motherfuckers. I'm forced to do other
Zain
17:48
things because you don't support the Patreon. Hey, Carter. So Corey's saying late February, spring, but putting October, which by the way, coincidentally, we may have talked about this on the show, is the exact same day as Alberta municipal elections. Putting that pre-determined October day aside, saying very unlikely. Are you with them there? Yeah. Start backwards. Do you think October's likelihood is now diminished even further than when we last spoke? I
Carter
18:15
I think it's near zero now, the probability of getting an election at that particular moment in time. I know that my initial planning for the municipal elections in Alberta had, you
Carter
18:27
you know, that is a big asterisk. Like, what's going to happen? How does one manage that? And now I'm far less concerned. I think that we'll be in a much stronger position where we won't need to worry about a federal election. It'll be its own thing that
Zain
18:42
that day. Yeah. It'll be its own thing
Carter
18:43
thing that day. It'll be its own election, which makes me much, much, much, much, much more comfortable. But, you
Carter
18:49
you know, never say never. It still could turn into a problem, but I just don't think that it's in anybody's interest to make it into one.
Zain
18:58
Any of the beats that Corey's laid out with the two tracks that bother you or that you disagree with? Or are you largely on the same page as him with the Trudeau stay track, Trudeau leave track, and the rough timelines and the steps in between prorogation and other ones?
Carter
19:12
ones? No, I'm right where he is. I think that there is an open question as to when
Carter
19:19
the actual campaign start, right? Right. If Trudeau sticks around, I think we're in a campaign before the end of March. I think that can be delayed for a little while. But if Trudeau leaves, then I think we're in a campaign probably at the end of April or early May, maybe as late as mid-May or late May.
Zain
19:46
I want to come back to the Liberal caucus in a second. And, McCoy, can we talk about conservatives with Carter's point here being what we want to jump off on, which is how should they be thinking about the campaign now? Would you advise them as soon as the Christmas break is done to start with their planned attack on Trudeau, hold back, see what the action and activity is? Do you still want to play about the ghost of Trudeau even if he ends up leaving? How do you start thinking about some of these things, right? Because there's going to be a bit of dynamism on the liberal side. I'm not saying dynamism is going to be necessarily positive for them, but some change could happen. How, as you as a conservative, thinking about that right now, if you were heading up the strategic side of that operation?
Corey
20:28
You go. You just go. You've got to put your ads out there. You start thinking about them in terms of constructing them in a way that it's not just about Trudeau, but it's also about his party. And there's ways you can build that that says, you know, Trudeau and the liberals have done this. If you think Chrystia Freeland is going to be the next leader, maybe she shows up more prominently in there. But there's no, yeah,
Corey
20:48
yeah, obviously, anything that you stick to exclusively Justin Trudeau has a risk of going away. But I don't, I don't know. I don't think that that's necessarily how anybody would be thinking about it at this point. And certainly, when you look at the comments made by Pierre Polyev recently, they seem to be preparing for a different event than the one they were previously planning for, right? Right. Yes. They're saying, just call the election. Let's just have this election. But with Trudeau
Zain
21:13
Trudeau in place, to
Corey
21:14
clear, with Trudeau in place, the
Zain
21:15
the subtext of that. Yeah.
Corey
21:16
But but they they're not going to put themselves in that strong of a box. And at this point, they're going to try to do what any smart opposition would do, which is say, all right, well, this person might be toast. How do we make sure that that's sticking to the party as much and as strongly as possible? And you're going to hear things about Trudeau's handpicked cabinet. You're going to talk about Trudeau's lieutenants, the people around the table who made the decisions that made your house more expensive, that increased crime, that brought in the carbon tax. Would you be going
Zain
21:42
going as far, Corey, and Carter, I'm going to get you in on this too, with both of your experiences on campaigns as to cutting ads about Freeland or Carney or others that could take on and testing those or not even testing them, but just getting in the process of running a small but parallel campaign for others so you could build on it. You're not starting from zero and caught flat-footed. Even with your 20-foot lead, you could be caught flat-footed with who the next leader might be.
Corey
22:09
I don't know if I would go. I would have ideas. I would have almost like a notebook of here's how we're going to deal with them. I think it's way too early to put too much time and effort and certainly production into the specific members. Although, depending on how things unfold, if some of the targets are potentially ministers and those ministers are out there and active, it might not hurt to kind of poke them a little bit. But you're also thinking, who
Corey
22:32
who would be the best opponent absent Trudeau for you to run against there? And you're going to try to, as much as you can without getting called on it, put your thumb on the scale and try to make that the situation you want. But yeah, in general, you've
Corey
22:47
you've got to think about it in terms of risk at this point, right? You start putting bets that it's Freeland or Carney, and Carney or Freeland doesn't win, maybe even in part because of your actions. Well, then you've done yourself a bit of a disservice. you go all in it's going to be one of them and you're right that's fucking awesome for sure but i think a prudent approach would be just to hit the targets more generally right just to go after the liberal party more generally talk about the liberal caucus talk about trudeau's handpicked team which includes these individuals right and have a list of them rather than starting to
Corey
23:17
i just think it would be very risky to start picking who you think's going to win
Zain
23:21
carter what are you doing if you're the conservatives right now heading into the first part of q1 or even over the break in terms of thinking time i'm
Carter
23:27
i'm taking the gloves off i'm going as hard as i can against trudeau there is no um
Carter
23:32
um trudeau is still going to be the most identifiable figure and if you can get people with a feeling in their mouths that or you know a taste in their mouths from trudeau that is this really negative thing that's a win for you you don't need to have that taste be associated with a specific replacement it's just making them Making Canadians feel bad about Trudeau is still a very viable technique that you can use in order to ensure that you're going to be successful as the campaign unfolds. And now you know. You know that the campaign is going to unfold next, you know, in the next little while. It's not a campaign
Carter
24:14
campaign that's going to unfold at some point in the next year. It's now a campaign that's going to unfold at some point. In the next months, next weeks. Yeah, in the next few weeks and in the next couple of months. That changes everything in your campaign strategies, right? Now you're pulling out things. You're making sure that you're hitting on all cylinders. You're pushing forward all those talking points.
Carter
24:37
That's great for you. But you don't want there necessarily to be a gap, right? You want to make sure that you are running your election campaign starting now. You don't want to wait and give them the opportunity to have a free field for three months. This is about a Liberal Party rebuilding. That's what that leadership is going to be classified as. Don't let it be classified as that.
Zain
25:03
Corey, can I take us back? Keep it on the Polyav train for a second. Take us back a few steps to what you said around his most recent comments on calling an election. So he made the case this past Friday, we're recording here on Monday, that when you add up the Conservative bloc NDP MPs who are now indicating they've lost confidence in the Prime Minister, Mr. Plus, the dozen or so liberal MPs pushing for a new leader, it counts up to 70% of parliamentarians, and which is why he's calling the GG to asking her to reconvene parliament and require a non-confidence vote. Now, it's been told by experts that the actual ask he's making, no ma, like not going to happen. It's
Corey
25:38
It's not going to happen. But
Zain
25:39
But from a comms rhetoric strategic point of view, the actual reality of what one can do versus what one should do is different. Do you like this move by Pierre Polyev? Do you like this line of thinking? Do you like this strategy by Pierre Polyev? It's not necessarily new, but it's a bit creative in a sense. And I thought it'd be worthy of our commentary for half a second. Carter, to you right after court. Yeah. Yeah.
Corey
26:01
Look, I'll say that Pierre Polyev is pretty good at communications and pretty good at political strategy. He's shown a lot of adroitness in boxing people in, making them in the awkward position. He's tortured Jagmeet Singh over the past couple of months on this point, in my opinion. And he knows where this is all going. He absolutely absolutely understands that the very next step is to prorogue parliament if there's a new leader or to try to avoid a confidence vote for as long as possible so he's going to rely on the fact that our system is very arcane to most canadians and they're going to say well yeah he clearly doesn't have the confidence of the house and and most canadians will not get into the nuance of well but technically you know it has to be tested in these ways and the prime minister has is supposed to be his advice accepted until such a time as the confidence is proven blah blah blah right like Like that's all going to be lost on people. And what he's trying to create is a sense of illegitimacy of any actions that go on that further his government, even though, of course, everyone can very quickly point to the Harper circuit breaker in 2008, where Harper had faced a very similar situation. The House had expressed outside of the House that they didn't have confidence in Stephen Harper. And Harper said, no, you know what, we're just going to we're going to put pause on this. We're going to prorogue Parliament. That prorogation was accepted. And when the House came back, I mean, Harper was proven right that it was actually just needing a cool down and he was able then to govern for the next couple of years. So, yeah, I think what he's trying to do is smart. I think he very much knows that no governor general is going to accept the leader of the opposition demanding these things. That's not how our system works. But a lot of Canadians will look at it and say, very reasonable argument. Very reasonable argument. Clearly doesn't have the confidence of the House. Let's get on with it.
Zain
27:46
Carter, give me your take on this move by Polyev. I
Carter
27:48
I think it's excellent. I mean, I think that, again, people don't necessarily understand how this will all work. But you want to be making statements as strong as you can. And one of the things that I advised a client just the other day was don't allow yourself in opposition or in any
Carter
28:09
any other position to be constrained by the reality of the situation. You don't need to be constrained by the reality of the situation. That's someone else's job. Pierre Polyev is going out there and not worrying about being constrained by the situation. He's just saying this should happen. And Canadians will come down on his side. Never mind the historical precedent sent by Harper or anybody else, right? This isn't constrained by reality. This is constrained only by the rhetoric.
Zain
28:41
Corey, here's the thing.
Zain
28:43
You mentioned this. I think one of the two of you mentioned this, and I believe it was you, that a handful, if not the vast majority of Ontario MPs, or in a vast majority now, the Liberal caucus wants Trudeau to resign. That last quote is by Anthony Housefather, a Liberal MP.
Zain
28:58
you're a liberal right
Zain
28:59
right now you know that the prime
Zain
29:03
prime minister is either based on our analysis going in february going in late spring to an election are
Zain
29:10
are you rushing to a mic to a twitter account to something to let people know that you are not in on this guy to historically be on the record here is there any because i bet a lot of mps are going to weigh this over the christmas holidays, being like, do I need to fucking just be on the record? And do I just need to get out there? Do I need to tweet? Do I need to just do some fucking shit so people know I'm one of those people? I'm part of the vast majority so that I can, for my conscious, for my political upside, for whatever reason, ensure that I let people know that Justin Trudeau and me are a no-go. What do you think if someone were to call you up and say, Corey, what should I do? let's
Corey
29:50
let's be really clear the only purpose of that is to try to get a change in leadership to fundamentally change your electoral situation if you are delusional enough as an mp to think i can run against my party and the voter is going to distinguish between me and my party you are welcome to just go hang out in the graveyard with every other politician who's thought that down the road absent some very very minor exceptions to that rule people in politics are self-delusional and
Corey
30:16
they believe that their brand overpowers the leader's brand overpowers the party's brand it doesn't it doesn't and you go out there and you talk about how you are so distinguished and you are so different from these people you are it's not going to work for you it just doesn't work for you i can think about so many situations where a candidate has thought they're a special fucking snowflake and has a different sign or the sign doesn't have the leader's name and their literature looks different and it doesn't mention the leader or even talks about some of the ways they've held their own leader to account and you know what you're doing you're just reinforcing the problems with the leader the problems with the brand the problems with the party it doesn't work it it's not even game theory where you move first and you get the benefit and
Corey
31:00
and the bigger benefit would be staying together it just doesn't fucking work you don't get to run against your party they're
Corey
31:06
they're not voting for you they're voting for the leader they're voting for the party you're such a small part of the equation and the more that you just exacerbate those pain points i firmly believe you are losing twice as many votes as you gain with any step of independence like that cory's
Zain
31:21
cory's advice stephen carter is to shut the fuck up this christmas would you would you uh double down on what cory hogan and his analysis and his you
Corey
31:31
know my slightly bastardized take on his uh outcome or is his recommendation do you agree with cory if you're
Zain
31:37
you're a single shingle mp from wherever that that running to a mic is a selfish act but more so a strategically silly one?
Carter
31:45
No, I don't think, I think that Corey is going a little bit further than what you were suggesting in the question. And that is, you know, should
Carter
31:55
should I run against him in the election? Right now, I think that the most important thing is that Trudeau
Carter
32:03
And in order to get to the place where Trudeau steps down, there
Carter
32:06
there may need to still be some sort action by his MPs to ensure that he
Carter
32:11
he doesn't just delay. We've talked about how he's been able to delay and
Carter
32:15
and wait and slow down. He should have left Wednesday. He didn't have a mandate after Wednesday once he got kind of destroyed in his caucus meeting, but he didn't because he knew he needed to survive another day. Then he brings a brand new cabinet in. I mean, this is a man whose entire
Carter
32:36
entire strategy for the last several months has been just survive, just survive for another day. And so I think that there needs to be some sort of pressure that is put on him in order to disappear.
Carter
32:48
And I think that that means running to a microphone or running to some sort of activity in
Carter
32:53
order to denounce him, to make sure that the pressure is being put on. Not to run your election against against him um but instead to ensure that this isn't someone who comes back with a a fifth life you know hogan
Corey
33:07
hogan jump in 100 agree and i obviously i gave the weight of my last comments to don't do it for electoral purposes but i did start like hey if you're trying to get rid of the leader that's one thing but if you think this is a successful electoral strategy that's a different one and yes i do think that there needs to be a little bit of you've got to to take the risk. You've got to go out there and you've got to put yourself on a limb if you want to have a change in leadership. And certainly we talked about this on the Patreon and maybe even the episode before. A lot of people are going to give Trudeau the space of a couple of weeks to resign on his own terms. But if he doesn't, if he's still here in mid-January, those
Corey
33:44
those MPs who are right now asking the Ontario caucus chair to deliver a message nicely have to start not being so nice they've got to raise the temperature and uh yeah like i totally agree with steven the way trudeau has approached the last couple of months from by-election failure to by-election failure black eye to black eye is kind of like uh adam sandler and his character in uncut gems or as we know it here dave colon uncut gems right it's just just like it's just like spinning plates just kind of kids just keep it going for one more just avoid that problem for one more day you know Go to this other one, just whatever you can do to just keep things moving. And it's going to work as long as you let it work. And the pressure needs to go up.
Zain
34:29
Was Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems? I
Carter
34:30
I think, yeah. Yeah, he played Dave.
Zain
34:34
Yeah, he was Dave in Uncut Gems. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. Then I was like, is that Kevin Garnett? It's like, oh, it's Dave. Okay.
Zain
34:43
That's your advice for liberal MPs. I think it's solid advice. In fact, you could argue that liberal MPs right now could run to a microphone under the guise of I need Trudeau out and grab some attention for themselves and get on the record and keep pushing the tide so that it doesn't just stop here in a sense. Carter, would you be – just final question. Would you be active during the holiday break?
Zain
35:06
Is this a good – I've always wondered about this, right? Right. Like there's always a big sort of even when the three of us used to work together, there'd be clients would say, turn ads off on the holiday season. No one wants to talk about politics. So let's not do any activity. Like talk to me about this mushy middle when it's like a political. I'm not talking about advertising per se. I'm talking about putting your political voice out there. Is this a good time to do any of that? Are people actually more available rather than less available? Right. Which is an argument that we've made in the past that people are more glued to their phones, not less glued to their phone. So I'm kind of curious, if you were advising someone and if someone's like, yeah, I need Trudeau gone, I want them gone, should I do it on the 26th? Like, does that make sense, Stephen? Or is everyone Boxing Day shopping? Is that even a thing? Should I do it on the – should I do it in one of these mushy middle days of the end of December? What sort of advice would you generally give around politicking when there's an active file like this at this time of year?
Carter
36:01
Generally, I'd say take the time off. Take the time. You've got to recover. recover uh
Carter
36:05
uh in this particular situation i think there is no time to recover i think that this is the time to begin the recovery so you must be pushing uh through this period even and there's two things that you can be doing really easily one is working the phones to your colleagues understand what's going on across the country and the second thing that you could be doing is uh raising money right the call that says you know i'm working really hard here to change the leader. And I just need your $1,500 in order to make sure that happens. You know, I know you don't like the leader. Here's a great way for you to participate in this is to help me by raising me some money so that I can survive and thrive heading into the new year when the leaders when we're going to have a leadership race. I need to get the money in before the start of the next fiscal year because once we get into the next fiscal year, you're going to want to make your donations to the leadership candidates that I'm going to make sure happens, because that's what we need is a real leadership race. I'd be pushing on the fundraising door. I'd be pushing on the organizational door. I'd be just going, going, going right now.
Zain
37:17
Hogan, what advice would you have for people?
Corey
37:19
The point about donations is really important. As somebody who's run a party office before, this is not a quiet time of year if you run a party office. You are pushing everybody to make those contributions at the last minute folks are so you
Corey
37:33
you know time driven on those things the idea that you can make a donation on december 31st and basically get that money back very quickly in the new year when you file your taxes because you've got these generous tax credits that go with it pushes a lot of activity around there when you think about broader communications efforts and the notion that you're going to go out there and try to change minds the question i always think this is an interesting question i do because people will often talk about it in terms of Should I be advertising or not? But that's not actually the question you have. Is it worth it at this price? Is it worth it relative to the other things I can do? I'll tell you, this time of year, very expensive time to advertise, right? And if you don't need to be paying to fight with the retailers during Christmas season, don't. It doesn't make sense. On the other hand, if
Corey
38:20
if we're facing an election perhaps as soon as February, maybe
Corey
38:23
maybe even late January,
Corey
38:25
well, yeah, you probably can't take the Christmas break off. I'm sorry, right? Even if you don't have quite the same efficiency and your, I don't know, engagement per dollar is way worse, that's it. This is all the time you get. Time is your most precious resource at this point. You need to act accordingly there, right? So you've always got to consider it in the context of the, you know, the reality of the situation, as Stephen just put it in a different context. And the reality of this situation is there's
Corey
38:50
there's a lot of shit going on. If you're the liberals, you can't sit it out. If you're the conservatives, you can't sit it out. If you're the New Democrats, you can't sit it out, but you will sit it out because you'll realize two months from now that you shouldn't have sat it out. And you're just going to have to be active this Christmas. You're going to have to do the things that politicians do before an election.
Zain
39:08
Corey, before we leave the liberals and talk about our friend Matthias Louis Gates, talk to me about Christopher
Zain
39:19
This isn't classified as the long tail But it's been a week So this feels like the long tail of the letter
Zain
39:26
How do you think her week is gone? We are hearing that obviously she So she puts out the letter She gets the standing ovation She shows up to the Liberal Christmas party She's got a handshake line That's been reported to be as long If not longer than the Prime Minister's himself We've seen Not right through this But we've seen what many have seen that this was both a resignation letter, but also a launch and kickoff letter to a leadership.
Zain
39:54
How's it going for one Krista Freeland-Corey? And any concerns you have with how she's played Tuesday onward?
Corey
40:02
I think it's going fucking great for her. She's rapidly getting to a point where she seems like the heir apparent and the obvious person to be the next leader. Even those small vignettes you were talking about, like having the biggest line at the Liberal Christmas Party, those things matter when you're trying to build a sense of inevitability right like you're the only person out there there's stories that are coming out about how she's the supposed conscience of the liberal and they've
Zain
40:25
they've accelerated the the publication of her book by the way their publisher has actually put that on a fast track to maybe it's already out i don't i think it's already out okay yeah it
Zain
40:34
supposed to be april it's now it was like now two days ago that they came out with the book
Corey
40:38
book yeah so this is she is she's getting buzz built in all of the right ways but there is is an interesting thing to say about this bus including by the way i should say sending emails to her supporters saying hey you know more to come basically oh i missed that part oh i missed that yeah okay interesting uh but what's interesting about it is none of it's in person none of it is i think her own face and her own voice it tends to be other people's words or her own words in the written format and at some point she's going to have to push that next hurdle and go on and And I do think that there is a sweet spot there. And I'm not sure she's there yet. I'm not even sure it's – I don't know if it's December. I think maybe it's January, but we'll see. But she needs to make sure that she's actually out there in a way that she's communicating in the ways that a prime minister communicates. Because I think that one of the fears that many people have about a Freeland prime ministership is that she's not generally considered the most natural communicator on
Corey
41:34
on television, extemporaneously in crowds when she's talking to stakeholders. And she's going to have to show people that she can, but she's certainly building a lot of buzz right now. And at this point, you have to assume she's the odds-on favorite. And by the way, we talked about this on Pods over the past few months. she went from being seeming heir apparent to definitely not heir apparent yeah
Corey
41:57
and now she seems back to heir apparent to
Corey
42:00
can't even run in the
Zain
42:02
can she can she wrap this up before it even starts and this being the like
Zain
42:06
like the leadership campaign like is there a world in which you're looking at this now as a strategist being like if she did these three things this fucking thing's over yeah
Carter
42:14
yeah i'm not sure she wants that um but perhaps she could i think that uh walk
Zain
42:20
walk me walk Walk me through why she doesn't want that. I find that as interesting as the activity
Zain
42:25
she did. I think Harris is a really good example
Carter
42:25
example of that. You know, you need the time, you need the ability to stand up and differentiate
Carter
42:30
differentiate yourself even further from the politician that you're leaving. I mean, she was his right hand for much of the last decade. It's very easy to say, well, she's put a distance between herself and Trudeau because of the last, you know, week. But a week does not in any way, shape or form Trump a year. So she's in a real position where she needs to, I think, continue to push her distance
Carter
43:01
distance from Trudeau by having a serious campaign. campaign. If I was working with her, I'd be working to ensure that there were at least two other candidates that she could run against. Because the, you know, just being declared the heir apparent, I think would just be a
Carter
43:19
a continuation of Trudeau and puts her really into the into
Carter
43:23
into the John Turner category.
Zain
43:25
What do you think of that, Hogan?
Corey
43:28
Yeah, I, I have a hard time disagreeing simply, maybe it's recency bias, because the Harris thing does provide an example of boy, wouldn't it be nice if you could create some senses of contrast?
Corey
43:38
I will maybe argue the counterpoint, which is Harris's challenge seemed to be there was no daylight between her and Biden. I don't know that Freeland has that problem right now, simply because of the way things ended. But
Zain
43:51
making the argument that that years that they had together overrides this past week. Would you disagree with that?
Corey
43:57
Well, I get what he's saying there, but I think that that's not a fully complete analysis. I think that there is a reality that that this is very different. Did you just
Carter
44:06
just call my analysis incomplete?
Carter
44:10
My analysis was incomplete.
Zain
44:11
I'd say that was a suit-and-tie
Zain
44:13
of saying something very simple. What
Carter
44:14
What the fuck is going on?
Carter
44:16
Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I'm fine with it.
Zain
44:19
for us, the hoodie and the mustache crowd. Nope. Nope. No, no, no.
Zain
44:23
no. It seems like it undermines
Corey
44:24
undermines us. I do think that attention's short, and people will think about the last thing with a certain amount of—
Corey
44:33
what it's worth, I tend to agree with
Corey
44:34
Yeah, we tend to overthink how much people think about ministers of the crown. And their histories. Yeah. She was not the, I mean, she was the deputy prime minister. She was not the vice president. A vice president is different, right? A vice president is selected in a different way, has a different public persona, has a different role. She was the finance minister and a considered a really important minister. And I think Freeland even, in the context of that relationship, has spent a lot of time through proxies in the last seven days, suggesting that their relationship was more of her being the guardrails. And the things that you liked about Trudeau were because she fought for them, you know, the way they stood up for Ukraine, for example, right? And the things that you had challenges with, like these GST giveaways, the deficit ballooning to crazy levels, well, she stood in the way of that. She did what she could to try to hold that back. so like it's
Corey
45:25
it's an interesting story moment she's created in the last week it's really fascinating to me i don't know if carter's ends up being more right because people just say yeah yeah she was still in trudeau's cabinet but of course
Corey
45:36
course it'll be more it's not a given for me and it would have been a given two weeks ago okay
Zain
45:40
guys i want to talk about the u.s um so donald trump wants the panama canal back and he wants greenland for himself um what are the chances just to do this This one is a quick over, under, or even just a likelihood question. Carter, that after he gets bored with them, that Canada might get both of them. I
Carter
45:57
I think it's very high. I think at the very least we're going to get Greenland. I'm not sure he understands the investment that needs to be made into Greenland in order to ensure that it continues to be successful. I mean, maybe he doesn't give a shit if it continues to be successful. But, you
Carter
46:13
you know, I'm not sure that taking on another territory like Puerto Rico and those types of, you know, cost, they're costly. It feels like, Corey, it
Zain
46:22
it feels like the Paul George trade. We could get something good out of this if we're just patient with the picks. And we could be the Sam Presti, Canada being that, of the G7. Do you feel the same, that Trump is a Russian buffoon running the New York or the Brooklyn Nets and is willing to do anything to pay a high price to get two assets that might
Zain
46:45
necessarily be useful to him?
Corey
46:47
Yeah, I mean, honestly, the assets not useful to him point is a great one. But if we zoom out a little bit. I
Zain
46:53
to zoom right past this. That's why I'm going very quickly. But yes, zoom out. Tell people what's going on. How dare you? nobody
Corey
47:01
knows what's going on this is part of our the guy's not even president yet he has threatened to send special forces into mexico violating mexican sovereignty he's certainly i mean we're all aware that he's talked about canada being the 51st state it started as a joke to joking not joking to clearly not joking in the way he talked about many canadians would be in favor of the idea and it's a good one he has now claimed the panama canal back that america had kind of given up its last rights to not last rights but you know in uh in the late 20th century and now the greenland thing which by the way came out in him appointing the ambassador to denmark yeah he's like this is my ambassador to denmark blah blah blah he's
Zain
47:43
he's gonna get greenland back for me yeah
Corey
47:45
yeah very end like oh and we're gonna need greenland it's it's essential i think he described it as like it's essential that america get greenland there are people who live there they don't want to be americans this This is crazy shit. It's like he's playing a computer game and he just sees a little territory over there with some resources he wants. He's like, oh, I'll just send the army or something. Like the world doesn't work this way, or at least it's not supposed to. And it's wild. And then, of course, the named ambassador who –
Corey
48:14
Yeah, I couldn't even tell you who it is now. Basically quote tweets this and says like, oh, I'm looking forward to working with Denmark. Well, sorry, bud, not anymore. Yeah,
Carter
48:20
Yeah, it's going to be brutal. I'll
Corey
48:22
I'll be surprised if you're not expelled from the country before you get there at the rate things are going. going to try to get fucked very quickly
Corey
48:27
yeah and uh the
Corey
48:29
the common thread though is like a a shockingly expansionist u.s policy for a guy who bragged so much about how he didn't send the army anywhere during his term right that he that he got out of afghanistan all of this and and the craziest thing is it's not even america's geopolitical adversaries or opponents or even the gadflies that are just is bothering them it's their fucking allies it's
Corey
48:54
it's their i mean it's the the four countries i mentioned canada mexico denmark and panama are all allies of the united states not
Corey
49:05
well that seems to be the case okay
Zain
49:08
okay so matt gates paid for sex and drugs while while he was in office uh cory the report is out it
Corey
49:14
tell us what the report says
Zain
49:16
and by the way Wait, listeners might be like, wait, I don't want to talk about this. We'll need your help because at the end of this segment, we need to understand whether we should be paying for a cameo of Matt Gaetz to introduce the show. That's been on the table for a long time. Corey's been refusing it. Carter and I have been very much
Zain
49:32
Yeah, we were like, we need some white man energy here. Who better than Matt Gaetz to intro the show?
Zain
49:37
This may take a step back for us today, but we'll ultimately leave it to the listeners. Yeah,
Corey
49:42
Yeah, Carter, I think maybe his vote is up for grabs here. I don't think you've read the report, Zane. I feel like you haven't read the report if you're still on Team Gates here. But, yeah,
Corey
49:51
yeah, no, it's a rough report. It's a rough read. It's basically not only did he pay for sex and not only did he do a bunch of drugs, but there was sex with a minor. And certainly it looks like a lot of people were taken advantage of over the course of those relationships. This guy was almost attorney general.
Corey
50:11
I just, I can't even believe it. we're in we're in the darkest of timelines here but yeah i mean i think that gates the very that it's been so obvious for so long what a dirtbag he is but
Corey
50:24
it's pretty clear now that there's just this record of dirtbag that's going to follow him forever and hopefully it's the end of his career although i fear in modern times it's not yeah
Zain
50:32
yeah i mean which fucking assholes would buy cameos for him for a thousand bucks a pop i'd
Zain
50:36
i'd do it to keep fueling his career okay Okay, there you go. Carter's still there. Let's do it because he's
Carter
50:41
also been noted for buying Indian porn.
Carter
50:44
So I see that as a positive. And you can get some extra money yourself.
Zain
50:50
subscribing, not buying. Okay, Carter,
Zain
50:51
let's talk about this.
Carter
50:52
You don't buy it anymore in a DVD?
Zain
50:59
We'll just let you hang on to that moment. Thank
Carter
51:00
Thank you very much. That
Zain
51:01
That moment's for you. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem.
Zain
51:04
No problem. Why are you so uncomfortable? I'm not uncomfortable
Carter
51:07
uncomfortable at all. Why –
Zain
51:07
– just embrace the silence, Carter. Carter, can we put all the shit that's happening in the U.S. into a bit of a package? Not all the shit, but some of the shit, right? So you've talked about the Matt Gaetz thing with government shutdown, by the way. They avoided it. The tariff stuff with Canada is still an active threat. The Panama and Greenland stuff, silly but not also not real, right? Like also like a real potential thing this guy may want. How are you processing this right now? I know, like, on the lead up to the election, you were, you know, you
Zain
51:38
would joke that you're making alternative plans. No,
Carter
51:41
No, I have plans
Carter
51:42
plans to leave society
Zain
51:45
society because society could be destroyed. I
Zain
51:48
can't get a serious answer. Are you actually thinking about this? I do not get a sense. You want me to send you
Carter
51:52
you the spreadsheet with all the different things that I have to order in order to make sure that I'm ready to go?
Carter
51:58
I mean, this is, I am set. I am ready to hit the road.
Carter
52:01
Where are you going? i can't tell you that if
Corey
52:03
if he tells you that everybody
Carter
52:04
everybody will go there north
Corey
52:05
north south east west we all give me a direction yes oh he's going west he's for sure going west i can't say
Zain
52:11
flying or are you driving i
Carter
52:15
can't answer that question is
Zain
52:17
is it above ground or underground it's
Carter
52:19
it's above ground the bunker idea is just really really dangerous so
Zain
52:22
so you're not okay so
Zain
52:23
so you're moving to a different you're moving you're moving you
Carter
52:25
you have to be you have to be mobile you have to be mobile you can't be stuck in one place because uh then the raiders come
Carter
52:34
and i don't mean the los angeles raiders or the las vegas raiders i'm talking about the actual raiders that come and steal your food
Zain
52:40
food follow-up questions for carter we rarely get personal on this show but since i opened the door with my mustache uh now we're going down carter and now we're yeah now we're getting emotional rabbit
Zain
52:49
here yeah no for sure uh so carter's going any direction and he's driving and flying and it is above ground Corey, do you have any follow-up questions? Either to reveal the location or to check in on Stephen Carter, our good friend. I
Carter
53:01
I made the offer to Corey if he left his kids and wife behind that he could come too. We don't talk outside
Zain
53:06
This is our only opportunity.
Carter
53:07
opportunity. He's thought about it. He's thought about it for quite some time. Lori, I think, has gotten to him.
Corey
53:16
Look, I think that one of the funny things about moments like this is there has been a moment before everything that has ever happened in the world that's terrible and was seemingly foreseeable, where people said, oh, it won't be that bad. It won't be that bad. Things will recede. It won't be as awful as you fear it might be.
Corey
53:38
But sometimes it is as awful as you fear it might be. And one of the things that worries me about this particular moment with the United States is almost like it's an odds thing. It's a probability thing. It kind of goes back in a a funny way to one of the earlier points about like how uh pierre pauliev should approach an election if
Corey
53:57
donald trump is creating this many potential flash points and this many potential fires and he's not even president yet it makes me very nervous that one of these at some point in the not too distant future is going to go really
Corey
54:10
really off the rails and we're going to have a very serious situation at a time when the world doesn't seem well equipped for serious situations situations governments everywhere in the western world in the democratic world are really struggling their popularity is very much in question we've got despots and authoritarians everywhere that are taking steps to undermine kind of this rules norms based world that we pretended we had for the past 30 years and i just don't think we're up for it right now and if you look at some of the commentary before some of the truly bad events in history before world war one before world war two too.
Corey
54:48
There are so many people always who say, God, don't worry. Sanity will prevail. We're going to pull back from the brink. It won't be as nuts as you think it is. Sometimes it's as nuts as you think it is. And that's a sobering thought for me. And I do think that we need to be a lot more serious as a country.
Corey
55:06
We can't just drift the way we are. We can't be so distracted by the things we're being distracted by. And we've got to get serious in a big way, because we're
Corey
55:14
we're in serious times you
Carter
55:15
you know what you and laurie can come but not the children
Zain
55:19
we're going to leave that segment there steven carter going to move it out to our over under our lightning round even if when we do this on a monday i don't know if you know this we do it for you really
Zain
55:25
even on a monday absolutely when we're going to discuss all of the questions in our over under our lightning round about one topic which is steven carter the justin trudeau darkest hour cabinet shuffle he adds
Zain
55:36
adds he adds eight new members of parliament to this cabinet yeah uh carter over under on c okay
Zain
55:48
okay over under on c there's a there's b there's c uh is over would be above a c yeah
Carter
55:54
yeah i'm getting it below would be would
Zain
55:56
under would be below like
Carter
55:57
like a d or an f yeah exactly
Zain
55:59
exactly is Is this the C-team over under
Carter
56:03
Curry? Oh, it's definitely under.
Carter
56:04
Okay, so it's not the C-team. It's not the C-team. It's way down there. This is a team of people who thought
Carter
56:11
thought to themselves, you know what?
Carter
56:15
This title is forever. As
Carter
56:18
on our most recent episode. I think that's going
Carter
56:19
going to be it.
Zain
56:20
So Carter says this is a under on C-team. Corey, you saw the list. You saw the people. Some familiar faces, of course, still in cabinet. in it but
Corey
56:28
but new faces eight new
Corey
56:29
mps being added to that list over
Zain
56:32
over under on c cory hogan i
Corey
56:34
it's over i think you're being a little uncharitable steven that the mps are not bad people or bad picks i think well they're not the c team i think that the liberals have become the c team and
Corey
56:47
maybe that's a distinction without a difference but they're so distracted they they can't get the you know ball in hand they can't drive it down the court they can't shoot straight so i don't know like they're not bad but somehow the hole is worse than the parts and the parts are fine oh
Corey
57:05
cory cory trying to escape oh
Zain
57:06
oh my god this with this another suit and tie analysis week no i think this is like fucking take
Carter
57:11
take your shit cory
Zain
57:13
fucking get bloody cory can i ask you who do you hate here who do you talk about the c team
Zain
57:18
team who do you hate the most on cabinet i
Corey
57:20
i don't hate any so this is my point like who do you think besides for obviously Freeland, should be in cabinet that's not in cabinet. And so I think that's why it's like, for me, it would be the C team if like a whole bunch of potential leadership contenders had taken an off ramp and said, you know what, we're
Corey
57:35
we're out, we're going to start negotiating or organizing from the outside. Yeah.
Corey
57:38
But that didn't happen. Like you've still got all of your more seasoned cabinet ministers, you've put in a couple of interesting pieces, like it's it's fine. Like, as far as the Liberal caucus goes, it doesn't seem like it's the C team to me. So,
Zain
57:51
So, Carter, you're a supporter of, moving on to the next question, you're a supporter of Nathaniel Larson Smith, right?
Zain
57:56
right? You like his renegade style, I'm different, you can't expect me to, in terms of what I'm going to do, I've got my own podcast, I'm an MP, like, I'm different, I'm supposed to be different. Are
Zain
58:08
Are you in or out on him taking a cabinet position? I'm out.
Carter
58:11
Like, this is not the time to be taking that type of position. I think that, I'm told there are people who said no. No, I think that this would have been the time to say no if I was Nate Erskine-Smith.
Zain
58:25
Corey, this is a guy who's built his own brand in some ways, has kind of like been the renegade inside the party, annoying some, you know, but also being the voice that many said, oh, I wish I could do what you do. As we've heard historically, also ran for the Ontario Liberal leadership while he was in the Trudeau caucus.
Zain
58:43
Are you in or out on him taking the ministerial position? in this case, housing, in or out on Nader Smith?
Corey
58:51
think I'm in. The question you have to ask yourself when you're talking about the brand that he's built is he built it to what end, right? If this was his goal all along, why would you not take the job?
Corey
59:02
It's not looking like you're going to get a better opportunity to do it in the next, I don't know, four plus years at this point. This is probably the last train that you can hop on if you want to be the minister of something. So why the hell not? even if you only have it for a couple of months you can uh you can then spin it forward as yeah i was the guy who was really pushing on these issues i kept talking about it i was that i was that maverick it seems like a guy like me would never be invited in the cabinet but i'm so fucking awesome they put me in cabinet anyways and it didn't last very long but you know what i
Corey
59:32
i think you could if you're a guy like him spin that cory
Zain
59:35
cory uh you are invited to the next liberal uh cabinet retreat it happens very very quickly into the into the new year um they asked for the two smartest people on The Strategist. And of course, I was on a shoot that day. So you and Carter had to go. Corey, you are given an opportunity to give a word of advice to the new liberal cabinet.
Zain
1:00:01
A word of advice can be extended to how often at weddings and formal events saying, now a couple of words from this person. Oh, okay. Yeah, so you can give a word of advice, but give some advice to these folks.
Zain
1:00:14
You can start with a word and expand on. Am I like
Zain
1:00:16
like locked into trying to keep them with their existing leadership or? You are giving this new cabinet appointed by Justin Trudeau a word of advice. I'm not telling you more.
Corey
1:00:27
Yeah, you are a minister of the crown and you are a representative of the people. You are not a minister of Justin Trudeau and a representative of Trudeauism. And then, you know, just let it flow from there. Like figure out what you fucking got to do, but go do the right thing. Carter,
Zain
1:00:41
Carter, you are then brought into the room. It's a quiz show. You've got headphones on in a booth and there's no cheating. There's no John Turturro character who played Dave on that particular
Zain
1:00:49
particular film. You then walk in and
Zain
1:00:53
and you give a word of advice to this new Justin Trudeau appointed liberal cabinet. What are you saying? I'm
Carter
1:01:00
I'm saying that it's not going to be about you for the next six months. It's going to be about the leadership candidates in the election. So keep a low profile. You have been appointed by a guy who's on his way out, on his way up. And this means that you don't get to be the star. You have to make sure the government functions, government functions properly, but don't be thinking that you're going to be the star of media releases and media opportunities for the next few months.
Zain
1:01:29
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1843 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, there's, of course, Corey Hogan and Stephen Carter. And we shall see you next time for what we would imagine would be the holiday spectacular.