Episode 1849: Team Canada

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1849. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, and we've got Stephen Carter. What's

Corey 0:10

What's up, guys? Stephen Carter's in a hotel again. I'm

Carter 0:12

I'm in a hotel. I'm in the same hotel that had the sirens. So I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping that we get lots of sirens this morning. People like that. People like the feeling of, you know, urgency that comes with it. No,

Zain 0:24

No, what they like, what they like is to feel that white people are also sometimes potentially at risk, Carter. And I think that's what gives that's what gives them comfort. And so your

Carter 0:37

your your hatred of us whites is nice. It's always I wouldn't call it brings the show.

Zain 0:42

show. I wouldn't call it hatred. I would just say sharp political commentary. OK,

Zain 0:47

OK, that's what I would call it. That's what I would call it. OK, Corey, why are you why are you blazered? this is annoying both carter and i he's never gonna say it because he's also collared but you're collared and blazored

Corey 0:59

well it's like seven in the morning zane like i have a job i've got to go to after this so no

Zain 1:04

no this is this is where you're wrong you don't have a job you don't you don't have a job you don't have to work anymore you know why is the patreon carter

Zain 1:12

well no not because of the patreon carter why because flare airlines our sponsor our title sponsor one should say we actually don't mention them enough as

Zain 1:20

title sponsor i mean um and they've asked us they've asked us i mean they're not in the title but

Zain 1:25

but they do occasionally send us emails saying why don't you mention us as the title sponsor of the podcast and and we we never reply now that's that's because we all and people may not know this but since 2012 when we first formally met we decided one of the first things that we decided to do uh was merge our personal personal inboxes together and it has created some tremendous confusion um carter has gone to several ramadan events on my behalf yeah

Zain 1:55

uh i have attended several ski trips on your behalf but one thing that that often happens we don't reply to people because we think the other is going to do so and this flare airlines drop ball is just one of those situations carter yeah

Carter 2:06

no i i i meant to reply i

Zain 2:08

i know you did not uh carter but here's the thing cory

Zain 2:11

cory doesn't need to work anymore because Because Flair Airlines is offering a tremendous deal. Have you guys heard about this? Or did they just send it to me? Because I'm not sure if they want people to know. I read your email. That's a general sort of statement about our sponsor. I read your email. That wasn't about my email. It was the email they sent. It wasn't my

Zain 2:27

I don't think you know how email works. They read our email. They sent us. No, but I read the one that was sent to you. No, I don't think you understand, Carter. I don't think you understand what's happening. Flair Airlines, Stephen Carter, is offering terrific.

Zain 2:41

Get it? Terrific. flight deals to anywhere but the u.s okay so good they're offering 25 off to canada wide trips um now now this sounds like something we would create on behalf of our sponsor it does um but but it is in fact not something we have created cory uh

Corey 3:00

uh no no we didn't we didn't create that we would have gone with a better pun i think probably that's my first what

Zain 3:07

what would we have gone with

Zain 3:09

actually the pretty good point what would we have gone with what would we have gone with yeah i'm definitely not terrific um

Carter 3:14

uh well now i feel like i'm being put on the spot that's one of those create a limic moments that we gave up on in 2015 you know what create create

Zain 3:23

create both the limerick and a better pound please go ahead we'll wait cory and i've got a bunch of time no no no

Zain 3:31

hard outs yeah we

Carter 3:32

we left we left those behind there's

Zain 3:34

there's no hard outs that cory and i have it there's

Zain 3:36

we've not left to

Carter 3:37

to be i haven't eaten or had a cup of a coffee there's

Carter 3:40

there's a something it doesn't show and have a doesn't show at

Carter 3:45

um i'm a little i'm you know uh i'm

Carter 3:49

i'm a little bit upset i'm

Carter 3:51

i'm a little bit here's

Zain 3:52

here's what we're gonna do we're gonna we're gonna ask you the question i'm gonna let you answer it at the end of the show cory we're gonna keep him accountable we're gonna let him answer it right at the end of the show okay like

Corey 4:00

like don't don't lose that

Zain 4:01

that don't lose that carter got

Corey 4:02

got it in there what's

Zain 4:02

what's better than terrific getting a a pad of paper yeah yeah spend your time when cory gives long preambled context uh we'll come back to you okay yeah

Zain 4:12

uh cory where do you want to go you can drive a bit um or pilot um where do you where do you want to go do you want to go talk about mark carney uh and his victory uh this weekend do you want to talk about tariffs being paused till april 2nd not even

Zain 4:28

some but yeah okay OK, do you want to talk about Turkish Tylenol potentially finding a new home in Ukraine vis-a-vis our province in Alberta and the ongoing investigation in Alberta? Do you want to talk Alberta? Do you want to talk of this province in Alberta? Do you want to talk Mark Carney and the feds? Do you want to talk about the conservatives having to get money out the door as fast as possible with an election coming up and trying seven messages in 15 seconds in an ad to try to attack Mark Carney? we've got so many places we can go and i want you to choose the first one yeah

Corey 5:02

yeah we have so many i want to start with the tariffs because i actually don't think there's a bigger story in canada right now than the tariffs it's it's defining what we're doing federally it's defining what's happening to pierre pauliev it's defining what's happening to uh danielle smith i i mean you have to laugh because this is budget season in canada and bc's released a budget alberta's released a budget Wouldn't know. Does anybody know a thing about those budgets? Does anybody care? No. Everything has been absolutely pushed off the front pages by this madness of the day we've got with Donald Trump, where we got a tariff. No, the tariff's coming in a month. No, we got a tariff, but we're going to exempt a bunch of things. Okay, but we're actually maybe going to make it not apply to anything under the free trade agreement, which is not everything. It's about half of everything, apparently. But yeah,

Corey 5:48

it's total madness. And this total madness is absolutely upended.

Corey 5:53

mean, I literally think everything in

Corey 5:56

terms of the political conversations in this country. It

Carter 5:58

It totally has. Yeah, it totally has.

Zain 6:01

saying this country, the U.S., is aligning themselves with Trump speech. Russia. Putin, you mean. I have not seen that version of Justin Trudeau, I was going to say in a long time, as ever correct. And what do you make of that, especially given the acute timeline of Justin Trudeau no longer being prime minister this time next week, one

Carter 6:49

You know what I think is, to give credit to Justin Trudeau and his people, I think that this was the expected outcome. And Justin Trudeau expected to be able to ride this to a victory in this fall because he would be able to stand up to Trump, stand up to this chaos and to show that he was the real leader of the country. and he is he's he's implementing that plan now

Carter 7:18

now that he's no longer the prime minister but it's still the same plan the plan was to to really show himself as the leader um that could stand up to trump uh expecting that this type of chaos not necessarily knowing what the chaos was going to be because lord knows no one no one has a real sense of which part of the chaos it's going to be But I think that Trump actually, you know, gave Trudeau the opportunity to be the leader that Trudeau thought he was going to get that, you know, in order to be prime

Carter 7:48

prime ministerial again in a way that we haven't seen since maybe 2015 to 2018. And I do think, Zane, your point is correct. This is unique at this point. We haven't seen this version of this prime minister perhaps ever. Corey,

Zain 8:02

Corey, are we acknowledging that

Zain 8:04

that this was a great moment, at least that seems to be the consensus, a powerful moment, maybe let's not go, because of where Trudeau is in terms of his end of life politically? Or was this actually a great political, powerful political moment put on by our Prime Minister? A

Corey 8:24

little of both. Great moments come from great events. You can't have the world's greatest speech about opening up a new supermarket, right? That doesn't happen. These things are really dependent on the stakes being high enough to drive people's attention and drive people's interest. And actually, Stephen made this point a couple of episodes ago, where people were saying, oh, I kind of like that Justin Trudeau. And you said, Carter, it's the same fucking Trudeau. It's the same Trudeau that we're always seeing. It's the same breathless pauses and all of that. Completely agree. I think that was the one where they had not the right number of flags out there. Notorious speech.

Corey 9:02

Notorious speech, yeah. Yeah. And some of it is also just drawing the eyeballs back and getting people to remember why they liked you in the first place. Because as you go on as prime minister,

Corey 9:12

the baggage you accumulate in terms of opinions formed by other people's opinions and events in your own life that have maybe colored conversations that the prime ministers had with the nation in the past, they just pile up. You need a moment like this to have a bit of a reset. But I do want want to say, well, I do think this is in some ways a validation of the prime minister's crazy theory that everything would be different when Donald Trump was president. I

Corey 9:39

I don't think it would have worked. I don't think the liberals would have been in the same place if it weren't for the Trudeau resignation.

Corey 9:46

would have been in a mess, right? We would have had people questioning all of his actions in a way that they're not right now. We would have had all sorts of tensions within confederation in a way that almost people can't bother

Corey 9:59

bother with because there's not a permanent prime minister so him being on the way out the door is part of the moment that we're in it's part of what makes all of this so cinematic so um yeah huge moment definitely part of what he's going to be remembered for down the road but if he's sitting there thinking god i just i should have held on for another two weeks and i could have made it all work for me yeah absolutely not not gonna be the case at all totally i i am a hundred percent firm on that give

Zain 10:26

give me i think we've discussed that a few times give me your your reasoning like explain explain to me why you think justin trudeau playing a bit of friday

Zain 10:35

friday morning quarterback as we do here could not have gotten the carney bump that carney has and been viable as as carney seems to look like he is going to be after sunday well why do you think then carter i want to get your take on on this too yeah too

Corey 10:49

too much noise right uh too much baggage and i i mean i actually think that if you want an illustration of why i think that look at pierre pauliev floundering right now there

Corey 11:00

part of why he's floundering is he can't pivot he can't pivot off of the carbon tax and he can't pivot off of justin trudeau and all of the feelings we feel about justin trudeau after a decade of him being prime minister all

Corey 11:10

all of that would still be there if justin trudeau was still going to be be prime minister the carbon tax would still be there justin trudeau's baggage around uh i don't know everything from snc to taking flights to private islands to blackface during the election against energy here that would all still be there but now it's

Corey 11:29

it's not it's not it's it's everybody is casting their thoughts forward to a different situation and it allows the prime minister

Corey 11:38

when someone's leaving i mean you've probably seen this even in places you've worked right they've already announced they're going like the entire vibe around them shifts it becomes a little bit more retrospective a little more valedictory and he can get away with things he couldn't get away with previous like and

Corey 11:53

and i'll use yesterday or two days ago as an example here when

Corey 11:56

when he was giving the speech where he talks about donald this is dumb if

Corey 12:01

this had been prime minister trudeau saying this i think you would have had people saying holy you know is this the right move for the prime minister is the is the prime minister being too familiar with donald trump is the prime minister calling him dumb like something that's going to have long-term consequences but now we can all interpret it liberal conservative new democrat we're independent wherever you are on the spectrum as he's

Corey 12:22

he's doing the thing that only a guy on the way out the door can do which is be like really harsh really direct and let the next person come in and be the good guy so the whole dynamic would be entirely different if um if

Corey 12:34

if he was still going to be sticking around and trying to be prime minister carter

Zain 12:38

carter you believe the same you think you think it's in the sense he couldn't survive because of the same reasons corey's given um

Carter 12:45

um i think that it's uh it's hard to change people's minds about you right and to get to you know like when people leave we're able to recast their leadership we're able to recast how they perform during their leadership when they're still there we've we've created like there's no catalytic moment that It changes how we're thinking about them. So the prime minister leaving is a catalyst to us changing our minds about him, because now we can start to remember him the way that we remember Jason Kenney or the way that we remember Stephen Harper. We changed the way that we, or even the way that we now remember George W. Bush, right? We changed the way that we remember them, because in the moment we can't. There's been no catalyst for changing the way that we think. I think this is a catalytic moment and the prime minister is taking advantage of it, which I think is good for his long term legacy. But I don't think that this opportunity would have presented itself in the same fashion if he hadn't had the moment of I'm leaving first. It's a lot easier to love someone on the way out the door. Corey

Zain 13:55

Corey I want to I want to spend a few moments talking about this not amorphous thing but this definitely this dynamic shifting thing called team Canada this concept of team Canada and

Corey 14:07

I've got a few

Zain 14:08

few sub questions let's

Corey 14:09

let's go but I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask

Zain 14:11

ask thank you so much Corey I appreciate um

Zain 14:13

um that you're now taking a drink of your San Pellegrino yeah

Zain 14:17

yeah it was early which comes from the province of San Pellegrino San Pellegrino Canada as you know a very Canadian beverage for you to yeah

Corey 14:26

yeah that's true this was

Zain 14:27

my patriotic drink of the choice yeah well

Zain 14:30

well you chose a patriotic moment i did you said team canada we can run the tape back and then you did the thing we have tape anymore okay okay you've got he's got he's got multiple drinks on the go can we just acknowledge this he's got too many drinks on the go okay i've actually got some really simple questions okay sure then i think there's i think there's strategist questions um

Zain 14:49

um who leads team Team Canada after Trudeau leaves? Yep. There's a natural answer, not so natural answer, answers, plural. And

Zain 14:57

And secondly, let's discuss, did Danielle Smith successfully get on Team Canada this week with her rhetoric and how she's positioned herself? Yeah.

Zain 15:08

Yeah. And then we can talk about all the interesting sub questions. Jason Kenney coming out of the woodwork to do his thing, other premiers, Doug Ford, etc. But first question, who leads Team Canada when Justin Trudeau leaves? Second question, did our premier successfully get on board this week? I'm going to take them in reverse order because I think

Zain 15:24

think they actually build to a point.

Corey 15:27

Yes, she successfully got on board Team Canada. I know that it's pretty easy to be critical of Danielle's actions and comments in the past. Certainly, I've been critical of them. Going down to Mar-a-Lago, her commentary about how all we need to do is take Donald Trump's border concerns seriously.

Corey 15:44

I don't think she thinks that anymore. I don't. I don't feel she thinks that anymore. more i think she feels somewhat betrayed her commentary of course will often drift after she's delivered the statement into grievances against ottawa but frankly she's pivoting a little faster and a little better than pierre pauliev is it's tough for politicians to entirely change the page on those things her her um tweet i guess uh the day the tariffs were introduced was perfect like i think you could have sat there and been a little skeptical or been like me waiting for the turn the turn didn't come it was firmly team canada the whole way i'm super happy to see it her news conference very strong yes as the questions went on she started getting more into her grievances and all of that very strong her appearances on fox business very strong you know not validating the president in the way that perhaps she has in the past i think she's made the conclusion and

Corey 16:36

and it feels like it was somewhat coterminous

Corey 16:39

coterminous with um her

Corey 16:40

her trip to washington dc with the other premiers this is

Corey 16:44

is a different thing than she originally thought and this is not the moment for i fucking told you so so anybody who's sitting there being like well i you know we should make her eat a bunch of shit for getting on board team canada now ask

Corey 16:55

ask yourself if that's really to the advantage of the country i think we should welcome all of the premiers getting on board

Corey 17:00

and i think we need to maintain that coalition it is funny it certainly feels to me now like scott moe is the guy least on board and maybe we need to talk about that in a second but

Corey 17:10

but let me just very quickly because i've gone a little long on part two go to part one and say you did go along on

Carter 17:15

on two no yeah it was long yeah i

Corey 17:19

i think that uh when justin trudeau is gone the

Corey 17:23

the obvious answer is that the next prime minister is the captain of team canada correct

Corey 17:29

correct but in a funny way the more obvious answer is doug ford becomes the captain yes so

Corey 17:33

so what i think

Corey 17:34

think what i what i firmly believe needs to happen is that prime minister mark carney appoints doug ford to be in charge of this thing while we go run an election and i'll tell you the two reasons why and then we can have carter tell me i'm crazy or whatever but one he

Corey 17:51

he is uh he understands the assignment right he he absolutely gets the donald trump psychology i think it makes an awful lot of sense that our most trump-like politician he's like canadian trump he's nice trump right he's your buddy trump yeah um

Corey 18:04

um he gets exactly how donald trump thinks i see it in everything

Corey 18:09

everything that he does the way donald trump reacts to the things he does i think it's he is the guy for this he gets it and he loves this country put him in coach right sometimes uh you know they say takes a crook to catch a crook we sent joe kennedy to clean up wall street after joe kennedy robbed wall street sometimes

Corey 18:27

sometimes this is what the assignment calls for and

Corey 18:31

think the other thing is during the election if you're mark carney you

Corey 18:37

you don't want to be accused of being just part of a general liberal malaise where this country is now a great jeopardy because nobody's manning the station

Corey 18:47

right so you can appoint somebody to do that and being a conservative premier premier of the largest province and um and probably and the longest serving premier he

Corey 18:57

he can pretty easily kind of take that leadership position and i think he's got the best chance of keeping the coalition of conservative premiers because his is primarily conservative premiers at this point together

Corey 19:07

together and so that's why i think doug ford is the natural captain at least for them at least for the general election period which i think we all assume is coming imminently

Zain 19:16

all right carter let's let's park on the the ford question and we'll park on the and it's an extension of the leader question Let's start with where Corey started, just so we can get you in on this, on the Danielle Smith question. Has she successfully gotten on board Team Canada, in your opinion? And then what do you think of that move from a strategic perspective?

Carter 19:34

Corey's never gone camping, right? Like if someone's on the outside of the tent pissing on the tent and then comes into the tent when it starts to rain, that person's not welcome in the tent. Carter, that

Corey 19:48

that rain washes the piss off the tent. the

Carter 19:50

the rain the rain does not the rain washes the piss into the tent because you put you you put the tent on a downhill slope and now it's all flooding right through the middle of the tent it's a terrible mistake that you make when you're

Corey 20:05

um it feels like the real mistake is how the tent was set up then i

Carter 20:08

i think that there's mistakes all over the place but the the bottom line is that danielle smith has been pissing all over team canada and she finally found her way and And yes, she found her way. I will concede the point that she found her way. Okay. But is she a part of Team Canada? No, she's not a part of Team Canada. Yes, she is.

Carter 20:24

She's not a part of Team Canada. She absolutely

Carter 20:26

She needs to show in her question and answer periods that she actually believes and understands the assignment. And I think that one of the other things that you said is unbelievably

Carter 20:35

unbelievably true, and that is that she did not understand what was going on at the time. And when she went to Mar-a-Lago, she didn't understand that these threats are real.

Carter 20:44

was watching something today that said, you know, the people, the sycophants around Trump, I think that they want this to be a gambit. They want this. It was Jake Tapper who was saying they want this to be a gambit. They want this to be a piece of theater, of political theater. It's not a piece of political theater. He fundamentally doesn't understand how tariffs work. He doesn't understand how the impact is going to happen. So it doesn't matter the envoys that are sent down to them. and daniel smith may have discovered that in the last week but that doesn't mean that she clearly understands what's actually happening and and in regards to your doug ford thing your doug ford idea that he should be in charge you could not be more right sir you could not be more correct i i i love it i love it i think that's the best thing so you're right and wrong all you know thanks for giving him the chance to be right and wrong zane that that's very kind of you i

Corey 21:34

i like that of you that's good uh

Zain 21:36

uh let's let's pick up on the wrong because disagreement always creates content agreement just creates a boring show agreement creates

Zain 21:45

see all of the other podcasts by the way you

Carter 21:48

you can find this moment because it sounded like i was going to disagree and then i did agree and it was agree and

Zain 21:53

and then you it was good

Zain 21:56

those who know the show could have seen it a mile away now cory this this podcast the strategist podcast which is the one we are on yep um that is true people can find us what's the website again is it cbchouseparty.ca that

Corey 22:08

we're on or yeah cbchouseparty.ca cbchouseparty

Zain 22:11

cbchouseparty.ca okay that's perfect that's very just so anyone who's listening to this and wants to listen to it while listening to this they can go to cbchouseparty.com yeah you can also go to cbchouseparty

Carter 22:22

okay perfect fantastic.com too that's

Corey 22:26

that's what you're looking for uh you can also get westofcenter.ca to get to our podcast but if

Corey 22:32

if you are looking for west of center you're going to need to go to cursivepolitics.com that's

Zain 22:36

that's right yeah just just so people are aware

Zain 22:39

um it's good it's like a psa it's

Zain 22:43

it's not sponsored content or it's not even title sponsor carter are you ready with that limerick yet i

Carter 22:49

i don't know i wasn't

Carter 22:50

doing a limerick okay

Zain 22:52

okay you were doing no can we now clear oh my god we're clarifying the assignment yes you have to do both the limerick and a better word for terrific now we'll come back to you at the end of the show it's not it's not the end yet but i just wanted to make sure we got a lot of

Corey 23:05

of show don't worry and at

Zain 23:07

23 minute mark we clarify the assignment to you because we know you a would have forgotten and b probably would not have taken proper notes around what the assignment is uh

Carter 23:15

uh carter i'm gonna go back to you i did not take any notes on what the assignment was

Zain 23:21

why do you not want her to be part of team canada like like i i get it like what do you mean not want her to you're saying she she isn't but

Zain 23:30

but you're also like you don't get to piss on the outside of the tent and come in like you're ultimately implying you shouldn't be part of this now now that you've taken one stance you you don't get to double back here and i want to get into the political cost that she might pay for this if any but i'm kind of just want to clarify fire point first like do you want her to be part of team canada or no this isn't

Carter 23:49

isn't pro wrestling zayn in pro wrestling you can be the good guy one day and the bad guy the next day or the bad guy one day and the good guy the next day this isn't pro wrestling you don't get to do that that quickly uh cory who's a big fan of pro wrestling felt fell into the trap of thinking oh the heel is now the good guy oh they're all a part of team canada they're all caught up

Corey 24:11

up in the kayfabe you did

Carter 24:12

did did you got caught in the kfab man that's not what we need this is not what we need what we need is people to actually understand that when you set a character path you become the character and danielle smith has set a character path where she is the heel in team canada and and sure she's taken a moment to show that she's um you know she she sympathizes and she understands that but It's going to take more than a moment for Canadians and especially Albertans to trust her that she's actually on Team Canada. She set up over the course of several long years an opposition to Canada that is real, that has real consequences. And she can't just undo that with a few days of positive tweets.

Zain 25:04

It seems like, Corey, when The Rock tells you to kick Cody Rhodes in the balls, you do it. um but

Corey 25:13

i'm not sure see

Corey 25:13

see i was gonna make a john cena joke but now i feel like john cena

Zain 25:17

was too on the nose i mean that is the third character that's a third character in

Carter 25:20

in john cena was right there well he's

Zain 25:22

he's the one who did

Carter 25:23

did kick him in the balls carter

Zain 25:24

now i have to explain everything to you uh

Zain 25:28

i'm not sure i agree with carter cory

Corey 25:31

yeah i don't agree with both like

Zain 25:32

like what like i get what what you're trying to say but in some ways would you not want her to be inside and i guess the question i want to cory speak in response to carter but i'll move the conversation along with this will she pay any political price for this double back will she pay any political price yeah 100 will she pay any political price for what she said before and now where she is and and how how does that how does one extract that political price so take us there yeah

Corey 25:59

yeah well she'll pay a political price i don't think it'll be for the double back it'll be for her now new position which is on

Zain 26:05

on the new position okay

Corey 26:06

okay i'm on team canada i think if you just look at the replies that she has to these various uh

Corey 26:12

uh you know posts that she puts out with these performances you see that there's a lot of people who say hey

Corey 26:17

hey trudeau i'd love to be the 51st state go go alberta you know shit like that right these are people who were otherwise previously with her so this is part of why i think it's really important to welcome her on to team canada and there's probably a broader point to be made here about you

Corey 26:33

know politics and and how politicians change their mind and why they don't nowadays if

Corey 26:38

if you are a politician and you're sitting there and you make the decision to change your mind because evidence suggests you should change your mind and i think as voters we could say fuck

Corey 26:49

fuck that seems like a pretty important thing for politicians to do none of us are right 100 of the time of

Corey 26:54

of course and you know this this was a big thing to be wrong about but frankly i'd rather she get right fast rather than try to dig her heels and then pretend she was right for the next six months right and

Corey 27:04

and if you want a politician to change their mind you need to make sure that the reward system reinforces that if she changes her mind and

Corey 27:14

and everyone's like fuck you you're not actually allowed on the bus fuck you i'm not ever going to get on board with you i don't care die in a ditch forever uh your your pivot is not worth anything and at the same time she has alienated all of those right-wing nutjobs there is nothing but downside at least political downside for her changing her mind i think we need to think really carefully about what we're trying to incentivize as people here and my sincere recommendation to everybody listening to this podcast who wrote a letter complaining about danielle smith's stance in january

Corey 27:43

write a letter thanking her for her stance this week encourage politicians to do the things you want them to do rather than creating an incentive system where you're never going to get on board with anything they do and so

Corey 27:55

so they might as well always dance with the girl they brought which in this case is a very right-wing portion of the province what

Carter 28:03

what colors the sky in your world what colors the sky yeah like it's it's just sad that you'd be like like wishing for a world of politics where this actually occurs you know i'll be honest with you i wrote i've recently written a i was wrong i am sorry statement for a politician and

Corey 28:28

was it about hiring steven card i

Carter 28:29

i did it and you know the whole time was it and i'm not telling you who it was it

Zain 28:32

it was it about and was it in limerick because i think i'm gonna venture to say no

Zain 28:36

i'm gonna venture to say with their current

Carter 28:38

current work product that you produce no i

Carter 28:41

struggle with limericks as you know. It was not in a limerick form, but I had to write it. And I really

Carter 28:51

really considered whether or not to put it out. I

Carter 28:54

really considered hard. I mean, because the punishment for saying that you are wrong now is excessive because people say, see, he was wrong. And they never see the, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did what I did. I was incorrect correct and i'm wrong and that's what we demand of politicians or we should be demanding of politicians and believe

Carter 29:16

believe me this did not go it does not go over the way you want it to go over what you're describing of um you know an incentive system for politicians to change their minds i mean the number one thing that we recommend on this show the reality of this show has long been the double down works better is that the double down is the better strategy and

Corey 29:36

i mean i generally really is if i'm being frank but what i'm suggesting is i

Corey 29:41

i i think that we have also talked on this show about when we hit the end of politics and it becomes about more important things and i think this is an existential issue and i think that all of our political actors need to be thinking pretty seriously about whether what they're wrestling over is a legislature or the parliament or the fate of this fucking country and if we think about it in those terms it

Corey 30:02

it becomes you know what we've had our differences in the past get on board we're all canadians has to be has to be if we're going to move forward carter

Carter 30:11

guys just froze for me yeah

Zain 30:14

didn't miss much it was just another cory hogan monologue um it's another standard issue cory hogan just a regular monologue you

Carter 30:22

you froze for are

Zain 30:23

are you are you back now oh

Zain 30:27

and we're back well

Zain 30:28

well fuck that shit i guess that's the end of that cory um Stephen Carter can't get a mic working, can't get... Carter, is this what happens when you don't eat?

Carter 30:37

This is what happens when I don't eat and don't have coffee. Actually, it seems to be my internet connection. So

Carter 30:42

one thing is clear

Zain 30:43

clear is that I know Mark Carney.

Carter 30:45

And I'd like to get

Zain 30:46

get to know our next prime minister. Carter, we've got a choice here. Actually, you know what? I'm not going to give you a choice.

Zain 30:54

He is going to win this weekend. We can talk about the future, but I'm actually a little bit more interested in talking about the conservative line of attack here. And I think there's something strategic about what they're trying to get to. So to be clear for our listeners, once the writ period is here, everyone

Zain 31:12

everyone is equalized in terms of their spending. Conservatives have a money advantage. And you could see that money advantage on TV ads, on digital ads in places. You could see the multiple spots they ran during the Oscars. I care less about their money, unless you guys care more than I do, and we can then go down that that road. But Carter, I want to spend a few minutes on their message. They

Zain 31:31

They seem to be having a, they're

Zain 31:33

they're trying to hone in on something. But you can definitely see different lanes that they have. They're calling him sneaky. They're calling him weak. They're calling him carbon tax Carney. And there's a fourth one that I can't remember. And maybe that's exactly the point. So they're sticking with carbon tax Carney. They're calling him sneaky because he moved the Brookfield office headquarters from Toronto to New York. They're calling him weak because because this explains that just level of weakness that Donald Trump just preys upon.

Zain 32:01

What do you think of the conservative message right now? And in one creative option, they try to stuff all that in 15 seconds. Where do you think they are in their journey of figuring out how they're attacking Mark Carney? Or alternatively, do you think they're there? Do you think they think they are there?

Carter 32:17

No, I don't think they think they're there at all. I think that they're still struggling to find something that actually works. works um the you know there is nothing like being on top of the world like we were on top of the world in 2011 2012 early 2012 uh with the uh with uh allison redford's progressive conservatives on top of the world could not lose a seat we were gonna we were gonna crush everybody and then we lost it and we lost it bigly uh bigly i believe is the word that trump would use to describe the the situation. And once you've lost that, you

Carter 32:51

you know, we flailed until we, you know, stumbled upon Lake of Fire to tear down Danielle Smith, which wasn't out of our war room. Lake of Fire came out of an individual who now lives in Winnipeg. But that was a tragic time for us because we just lurched from option to option to option to option. And I sense that that's what what Pierre Polyev and his team are doing is they're lurching from option to option they had they absolutely had Trudeau nailed and they do not have Mark Carney nailed at all

Zain 33:27

Corey are they have they found where they want to go or are they hunting for where

Corey 33:32

where they need to go

Zain 33:32

go where do you think their head said on this I

Corey 33:34

I mean I think you know the answer they cannot feel like they found where they're going to go the question the the spot you were talking about with like the four different attacks on Carney depends on how you measure the attacks but you're right there was four that was a 15 second spot like that's a different hit every couple of seconds they are they are throwing spaghetti at the wall in a way i've actually not seen a professional political party do in a very long time and you can tell that they um that

Corey 34:01

that they think that they've got like so many options but the reality is a lot of them feel super weak to me and i suspect if you market tested them you'd think like canadians don't actually see carney as weak for example Like, does anybody think the guy who was Harper's Bank of Canada governor who did Brexit, like, is weak the word that comes to mind there? I doubt it. And

Corey 34:22

And so, but the challenge is I can't even call this message testing because message testing requires you to test individual messages so you can disaggregate the effect. fact it's like running not one 15 second spot with four messages but four 15 second spots probably online looking at the click-through rates focus grouping them trying to see what was resonating what was not and it just feels weak

Corey 34:45

weak it feels weak it feels like they haven't figured it out yet and i know i was just saying about a a little bit of time that they were walking not running to a message about how pierre feels about canada but

Corey 34:57

but they're they're almost out of time you know and if this is the kind of advertisement that they're putting out at this moment and a general election could be as soon as next week i'm not saying it will be but it could be as soon as they're in a lot of trouble and they've got to figure that out the other thing i'll say and this goes kind of back to the paul wells rules of politics that the person who's having the best time is usually winning pierre

Corey 35:20

pierre polliev does not look like he's having a good time he he is looking pretty stressed in his various appearances right now i think he knows it's not landing the way it wants i think the polls are really bothering him he's not likely feeling like he's losing at this point there are a few polls that say that the conservatives are behind i'm not sure i totally buy them i still feel like pierre polly f probably has the initiative on on the whole but it it has got to be a very stressful time for him and that stress is showing and somebody on our discord i can't remember who made this comment and i think it's so so right like i

Corey 35:58

won't be surprised if he shows up wearing glasses tomorrow like i think he's almost like now grasping for himself and how he wants to present himself and oh you want a serious person maybe i'll go back to classes but i think this lowered voice contact lens is let me show you uh you know my muscles as i lift the canadian flag thing i think he knows it's not working so they're in a bit of trouble but there's nothing so clarifying as a rick drop and maybe they'll figure it out still.

Zain 36:26

Carter, do you feel like Carney can stay

Zain 36:30

stay with this minimalist approach heading into the first weeks of his prime ministership here? Or in the sense of like, not saying too much, being extremely measured, not jumping into a lot of things? Or do you feel like there's a necessity for him to be a little bit more than what he has been from a pure policy directionality perspective yeah

Carter 36:52

yeah i think that there he has to do more um this campaign for the leadership has come has come down to process right getting people signed up getting people verified getting people into uh into the voting process um it is not a a campaign about messaging at this point and at one point we said you know the campaign that seems to be doing the best may may not be doing the best and carney i think has has been the one that uh you know has fallen into the trap of doing you know 1500 person events um that we said were exactly the wrong thing to do at the beginning of this campaign and um i think that he needs to take a moment uh like i see why he's doing the 1500 person event you can do that but this election this leadership is now being one vote at a time. The

Carter 37:40

The election, the setup of the election needs to be done one issue at a time. And the issue that is prevalent right now is the state of the world. He's got to make some sort of bold elemental change in the way that Canada is seen within the world in a very short period of time. Does

Zain 38:00

Does he need some sort of like inauguration style speech? I know, of course, it's not going going to be called that and we don't do that in this country but he does he need the equivalent televised on elect and like this is who i am and this is what the state of the country is sort of thing in this in this unique moment does he need something like that carter i

Carter 38:18

would say that actions would speak louder than words um the inaugural speech i think would be interesting but i don't think that it would be the uh the

Carter 38:29

the tactic that i would necessarily choose i think i would do something that shows, not tells.

Zain 38:34

Corey, what do you think of that? And whether it's the inaugural style address or some sort of, you know, flag in the ground, this is who Mark Carney is, this is who our country is. What do you think of something like that? Is that necessary for Carney at this moment?

Corey 38:47

I think he's got two options, Zane. I think he can either run through the throne speech and have the formal, like, this is what Parliament does, we have throne speeches, which

Corey 38:56

which affords him all sorts of opportunities for moments like that. Obviously, he's not the one giving the throne speech, but it's a chance. or it's game on. Like it's just an election. I think where he might get himself into trouble, if it looks like he's using the power of the government to prop him up politically. And so you could imagine, for example, the government of Canada paying for a televised address that starts to feel like a campaign speech if the tone is not pitch perfect. And then there being a little bit of backlash about it and how the liberals are approaching it. I think my

Corey 39:26

my concern there is higher based on some of the reporting in the Globe and Mail that it looks like Trudeau is going to appoint a bunch of people, fill a bunch of positions on his way out the door. Look, politicians do this before elections. There's no doubt about that. But the fundamental difference here is they're trying to turn the page on the Trudeau era. And so in Canada, there's a comp in 1984 when Trudeau, the senior left he left a pile of like appointments for you know Turner effectively to give and everybody remembers the of a certain age remembers that you had no option moment in the 1984 debate that was about those kinds of appointments those kinds of appointments hit differently when you're trying to do the switch of the leader because it looks like too much continuity so between the appointments and if you were to use the trappings of the office I think you would just have you

Corey 40:18

you you would start to hear a narrative about old entitled liberals doing old entitled liberal things. And I think Carney can't afford that. I think Carney wants to say, this is fresh, this is new, this is different. So either game on, or we're going to play it through to the throne speech, because that is the normal course of action in a parliamentary democracy.

Zain 40:36

Let's zoom in rather than zoom out, Carter. This would, in any other podcast, be the first question you'd ask. Any risk of Carney not winning this weekend?

Carter 40:46

I think there is. I think it's minimal. But I think that anybody who, you know, with the challenges in voting, I would be doubling down and making sure that every vote is getting cast, especially in areas where the point system means that those votes mean more. If Keto Maggie is to be believed, and some would argue, in Main Street polling, you know, it's much closer, I think, than people think it is. In most scenarios, Carney's winning, but it's not necessarily on the first ballot.

Zain 41:22

Corey, any concern you see for Carney not pulling this off this weekend?

Corey 41:27

it's always possible. But I think the worst polling we've seen for Carney still shows him winning by the third ballot. And that's because Bayless has to go off with relatively insignificant numbers of votes before you get to gold. But for both freelance supporters and gold supporters, Carney is the number two choice by like 80,

Corey 41:47

80, 90% based on this polling. So, and Carney has a pretty solid lead in those polls, you know, 10 to 15 points. I think it's not likely Carney's going to lose this thing. And I still wouldn't discount a blowout, but point systems to Carter's point are unpredictable.

Corey 42:03

But I don't think that means unpredictable. He loses, it might just mean he wins by less than people are anticipating.

Zain 42:10

Carter, let's move it on to our over-under and lightning round. We have not forgotten, despite our technical difficulties or your technical difficulties, Corey and I have not forgotten about the limerick that you owe us. But before that, before that, before

Zain 42:21

before that, before that, before that, I know you were going to jump right into it. I'm going to outline the assignment and then I'm going to ask you one other question. The assignment was to come up with a pun better than terrific, which, of course, our title sponsor, Flair Airlines, have come up with. And then to give us a limerick, a wide berth on what the limerick is about. Before that, Stephen Carter, overrated or underrated, because we do this for you and we make it real every single time. Good.

Zain 42:43

Trudeau, Trudeau puts in $37 billion in child care deals with 11 provinces just announced and Pharmacare in BC on his way out the door. Corey was talking about on his way out the door. This is on his way out the door.

Zain 42:56

Overrated or underrated in terms of what you see politically with those two things put into place, or at least, you know, being funded by the government before Justin Trudeau is no longer prime minister of this country?

Carter 43:08

Overrated. I think that most people people thought that these things were in place already. This is a government that is flailing to make its legacy the things that it actually achieved instead of its legacy being the last moments of incompetence and the resignation of the prime minister against his will. These won't be the legacy elements. They won't be the things that people think about, and I just think that they're completely underrated.

Zain 43:40

completely underrated? I'm sorry, overrated,

Carter 43:46

I had to mention I've had no coffee and no breakfast.

Zain 43:49

Well, Limerick is about to come up with those preconditions. Corey Hogan, overrated, underrated. Are you with Carter on this?

Corey 43:57

No, I think it's underrated only because I think it was rated as a zero before. To Stephen's point, nobody was talking about this issue. Everybody kind of assumed this would just go on. But now we have Alberta

Corey 44:08

Alberta for sure and Ontario, a little squeamish, but like agreement in principle. But I don't think it helps the Conservatives if this issue is back in the headlines, if we're talking about childcare again, because it is quite popular with many demographics, including the one I'm in, right? Like it's a lot of money to people. And if you start to feel like that's at risk during the election, well, I don't believe that's what the election's about.

Corey 44:31

It could have an effect. And I just don't think if you're Pierre Polyev, you need yet another thing where people are saying, well, I might actually side with the liberals on this, not the conservatives.

Zain 44:41

Stephen Carter, you know the assignment. Fill

Carter 44:48

First of all, the pun.

Carter 44:50

Flair traffic, or Flair tariff controller. Huh?

Carter 44:54

Flair tariff controller. That

Carter 44:59

That's really good. Sorry,

Carter 45:00

Flair tariff controller is keen on deals that are barely a dream. Want the U.S.? Too bad. Stay in Canada, lad. Guess Mexico's now the new scheme.

Corey 45:11

So that was ChatGPT, wasn't it?

Carter 45:14

Yeah, that was ChatGPT.

Zain 45:18

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1849 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan. Frankly, he should be embarrassed of himself. Stephen Carter.

Zain 45:27

Was it Flair tariff controller? controller we

Zain 45:31

asked for a pun where is the pun there that's

Zain 45:36

we'll see you next time

Transcript