Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is Strategist episode 1880. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter. And, Carter, we couldn't raggle anyone else. We tried. No,
Carter
0:11
No, we tried, yeah. Now,
Zain
0:13
did we try hard enough? No. No,
Carter
0:14
No, no. But we tried. I mean, we did try. It was like, hey, and then no one was available. It
Zain
0:20
It was a weak old
Zain
0:22
old man's whimper late
Zain
0:24
late at night. It was at booty call hours that you sent us a text. It was very strange. Yeah,
Carter
0:28
Yeah, it was nice. Nice. But here we are recording in the mid-afternoon, which is something we never do. This is
Zain
0:33
is upsetting. You pretty much sent the podcast recording equivalent of you up, and
Zain
0:38
and I was the
Carter
0:39
the only one up.
Carter
0:41
It's awkward for both of us, and neither
Zain
0:44
neither one of us is happy. And I'm now down to be here with you. I'm in Montreal, Carter. Where are you with your awards? I'm in
Carter
0:52
in the same spot I always am. I wasn't
Zain
0:54
wasn't sure. A little bit
Zain
0:55
of Lego, a little bit of awards. Yeah, I do. I do travel with my awards.
Zain
1:01
Fuck, I should travel with my awards.
Carter
1:03
Yeah, I mean, it's important that people know that you've got some skills that were recognized once.
Zain
1:09
You know, I didn't
Zain
1:11
didn't want to get into the airline talk.
Zain
1:14
okay. But do you think airlines should allow awards
Zain
1:18
as part of a free check bag situation? If you're bringing your awards, your emotional support awards with you, kind
Zain
1:26
kind of like the emotional support animals. Should those awards be given a free bag check? Stephen Carter says he has to be the most popular man on the internet.
Carter
1:34
Yes, I am the most popular man on the internet.
Zain
1:37
Yeah, excellent. You did it. Yeah, thank you very much.
Zain
1:40
Emotional support. Carter, we have so much, and in that case, so little to talk about. But we have turned so little into, there is so much, but there's also so little. Do you remember when
Carter
1:51
when we used to take the summers off?
Zain
1:54
I tried. pride you said yeah you up message i felt guilty yeah
Carter
1:58
yeah no it's uh most
Zain
1:59
most messages at 2 30 the
Zain
2:02
should be driving most of those messages carter at 2 30 of the morning which is a guilt um i
Zain
2:09
actually have i have i have a check-in with you that i know you and annalee said a municipal episode around what's going on but can i dig deeper into this to start with and i do want to talk a bit about carney and his august first deadline because i'm you know if you're if you're You're struggling
Zain
2:22
struggling for content. Looking at the calendar is one thing you could do. And I did that. And he's promised us a new deadline on an August 1st deal with the United States. I want to talk about that in a second.
Zain
2:32
Here's my check-in with you.
Zain
2:37
and I suspect people are aware that you're working, I'll
Zain
2:40
I'll let you phrase this, on political campaigns in Elper. Is that fair?
Carter
2:45
working on Better Edmonton in Edmonton and the
Carter
2:49
the Calgary Party in Calgary. And
Zain
2:50
And I know you wanted to be transparent. I just wanted to let you frame that, which is two municipal parties within our two major cities here in Alberta with
Zain
3:00
with an election looming in October, an election date that should that federal election have been lined up with going to be the federal election. The same day. Yeah. Yeah. It's that same day. Not even the same day.
Zain
3:12
That's no longer, I think.
Zain
3:13
Here's someone who's got this arm
Zain
3:16
arm in both of these parties, but is experiencing this in two major cities. I wanted to get a sense on a check in from political operative Stephen Carter. What has he learned in summer campaigning? summer's
Zain
3:29
summer's not over yet but i'm curious if you've learned any preliminary lessons that you'd be willing to share around summer campaign and what what's
Zain
3:40
what's really got me interested in this is i'm in montreal right now or where just for laughs comedy festival is they have had they and they do festival season all year round but or but certainly during the summer it's this chaka block it's also a very political time there's like political posters political signs union activism constantly and And walking up and down these streets over the course of the last number of days being here, it
Zain
4:01
it got me thinking, their
Zain
4:02
their political sort of communications and marketing over the summer is very different. It's very much centered around festival season because it's constant and everyone gravitates to the center of this main city. But I'm curious, Carter, as someone who has been working on these campaigns in Alberta, what lessons have you been learning or have learned over the course of the last number of weeks as a summer campaigning practitioner?
Carter
4:29
Number one, campaigning during the summer is hard. So in Edmonton, we don't have, I mean, Edmonton has a bunch of festivals and such as well, but there is no... You
Zain
4:40
You could say more so than Calgary. I
Carter
4:42
I would say. yeah
Zain
4:43
yeah yeah it seems like it more of
Carter
4:44
of them but not but not necessarily as big as the stampede yeah so i'm going to come back to the stampede because that's a very big lesson um but in edmonton you have these festivals but you don't have a political culture right
Carter
4:57
so there is no culture of politicking during the summer um most people want the campaign to start sometime in early september and be done in october and that's just not the way that modern campaigning works modern campaigning is a long haul especially when you know the dates so uh and that's what we do we know what the dates in a municipal election
Carter
5:20
so it's been a it's been a tough run trying to make people actually care in edmonton especially okay
Carter
5:27
in calgary we were able to take advantage of that of that uh that festival feeling um and And target especially the kind of the 10,000 people that people talk to. Rather than trying to focus on the entire city, we were able to focus in on a smaller subset of the population and really just be everywhere that they were. And so I think it's very much like that Montreal experience that you're describing.
Zain
5:52
So let's focus in on your strategy. Because I think Montreal's strategy is slightly different, because what I'm seeing here is a lot of third party, you know, labor, sort of FYI activism. There's no ongoing election, at least as far as I can tell. Nothing for the political signage indicates that that is on the, you know, happening here in that regard, at least in the near term future. I mean, like October of the 25 calendar year, right? The courts are going to have something very shortly with their Quebec provincials. um but
Zain
6:24
but carter you said focus in on the 10 000 i think what's happening here in montreal is more like public awareness not necessarily activation what were you trying to do with the 10 000 because i don't know if it was simply awareness you could tell me it simply was at this stage to get people aware of your party and your leading sort of mayoral candidate or what were you trying to do what was your goal with like 10 000 talk to me about that i
Carter
6:47
i think that there is a subset of the the population that cares or pays attention and the rest of the population asks that group who they should vote for um
Carter
6:56
um it's kind of like you know within your friend group there's someone who knows something about cars and when you're trying to replace your 2005 corolla um you go to never needs replacing just
Carter
7:07
just lasts forever um but you go to uh the person who understands a lot about cars and you can ask them that question who you know what car should i buy is there dealership that you recommend that kind of stuff um the
Carter
7:20
the same thing holds true in politics there's a person who knows about politics in everybody's friend group a large number of them are listeners to this podcast and the listeners to this podcast will be asked uh prior to an election hey who should we vote for uh who should we not vote for is there someone that uh is particularly good is there someone that's particularly bad and
Carter
7:42
that's who we were trying to target um in order to do so So you kind of have to reach a larger audience, but the only ones who are going to pay attention. And this is where I question the broad scale strategy of trying to just generally create name recognition or awareness on an issue. I don't think that people become aware of an issue cheaply. They
Carter
8:03
They become aware of an issue when you're spending tons
Carter
8:06
tons of money. So in politics in Canada, we have decided that having a ton of money in politics kind of is against what we believe. We should have that discussion someday in real time, because I think that it's really hurting Canada. But we've
Carter
8:24
we've taken money out of politics, so doing an awareness campaign to the general population is
Zain
8:31
Yeah, we've talked about the fractured media market. We've talked about in order to get awareness, paid is one of those routes. and if it isn't then you're potentially a freelancer the algorithm trying to get clicks and engagement in a way that may not necessarily be consistent or constant with the brand that you want to create or the policies you want to promote but what a giant tech company dictates is engaging and keeps people interested like so there's there's all those struggles which we've we've talked about either in broad strokes or on a specific sort of episode i do buy into you're sort of like this is what the 10 000 are we need to access them but walk through carter how that's going in many people are dubbing and you can even fight me on the the what i'm about to say a sleepy election oh
Carter
9:16
no it's sleepy so
Zain
9:17
so explain to me why it's sleepy like why do we have sleepy elections and does the strategy fundamentally change of this influencer style strategy of collecting the hyper-engaged, getting them out, getting the word about why your person or your party, so when they are called in a mere sort of 60, 90 days, whenever that might be, to give a recommendation to their friends that
Zain
9:43
that they spit out the answer that you want them to, what does the impacts of a sleepy election have on that strategy and why are we in a sleepy election, Carter?
Carter
9:52
Because we're always in a sleepy election. Are we?
Carter
9:54
People misremember, I think, how elections actually unfold at a municipal level. I have a graphic that I often show people of when we've had web searches on the Jyoti Gondek campaign, or when we had people
Carter
10:08
people actually landing on our website. we barely would would would crack 150 people on a website in any given day prior to the election period no one gave a fuck they they didn't care they don't go to the website they don't do any research and then on the day of the election the 24-hour period maybe 36 48 hours before the election all of a sudden a hundred thousand people click on the website to try and uh confirm their pre-existing biases about jyoti that's the the methodology by which they they we run elections we run elections uh we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to influence the the 10 000 people that are going to be recommending to their 150 000 friends who who
Carter
10:56
who they should be voting for and then all of those people go to the website just hours before they vote if not while they're They're standing in line going to vote to confirm their pre-existing biases, meaning what their friend told them. Zane told me I should vote for Jyoti. I'm going to take a look. Oh, her website looks good. I'll vote for her. There
Carter
11:16
There is no other deeper level. This
Zain
11:19
This might be a good opportunity for me to tell you as a person probably in our network that is paying attention that you should vote for Jyoti.
Carter
11:27
Oh, okay. Thank you very
Zain
11:28
very much. I'm just letting you know. It's just a recommendation. No,
Zain
11:31
very nice of you to
Carter
11:31
to tell me to vote for someone who fired me. That's very kind. I
Zain
11:36
just want to let you know. You
Zain
11:39
dialed in on what I was hoping. Unlike you, I'm able to put that behind me.
Zain
11:43
Oh, thank you. That's great. I just want to let you know, Carter. On
Carter
11:47
On the merits. Well,
Zain
11:50
On the merits is interesting. It's not a really discussion because I am the one that does pay attention to politics in this scenario, Carter. Oh, okay. Thank you very much, Zane. I think you're too in it I guess is what I'm saying
Carter
12:03
Hey listen, if anybody does want to come out And volunteer from our listener group They should, this is the time You don't have to just wait For one of us to run You don't
Carter
12:15
don't have to wait For one of us to run To actually
Zain
12:17
actually come out and volunteer This podcast was created For the entire ability To hand it off to Shannon excited
Zain
12:28
exactly she does solo episodes so
Carter
12:31
so you know what based on the feedback that we're getting they would gladly have
Zain
12:35
have solo episodes they would i uh yeah what a what a what a revelation uh she has been and she's away and i did spend some time when she's back by the way this is more of a reminder to myself which is then a reminder to everyone to talk about um our um ndp federal ndp leadership race she's got thoughts i've got thoughts on how that's shaping up um
Zain
12:56
um but we We won't do it now. Carter, your- Good, because I
Carter
12:58
I haven't got a thought in my pretty little head.
Zain
13:00
head. Okay, good. Yeah.
Zain
13:01
We'll educate you. Thank you. Potentially in violent agreement, I suspect. Tell me this. Your two-poster strategy, you and Annalise talked about this. Yeah.
Carter
13:13
Very much so. Unbelievable return on investment. For
Zain
13:16
For those who didn't get a chance, walk people to what you're trying to do. Why did you get media from it, and what the long tail of it has been? Now that you have a bit more time, give
Zain
13:26
give me a sense of what the long... I'm really curious what the long tail of a marketing strategy like that is. And your answer might be like, there isn't none. We moved on. But walk me through it.
Carter
13:34
No, I mean, the short piece
Carter
13:37
of it is that I read the side myla again, as I do, as people do, and found an opportunity to put up posters prior to the writ.
Zain
13:47
Political campaign material. Absolutely.
Carter
13:52
We have to be very careful on the language that we use. They have to be smaller than 0.12 meters square, and you can put them up for up to two weeks. So we put up 0.09 meters square posters,
Carter
14:08
posters, and they went up on the Friday
Carter
14:15
Friday or the Monday before Stampede, the Stampede
Carter
14:18
Stampede parade. They were up for the whole parade. aid they were up for everything else um people were talking about them uh people recognized them as one of my type of tactics um and then there were some haters too but i don't mind haters haters are great because if you're doing something that's that's powerful enough to generate hate you're doing something that's power not powerful enough to to uh engender uh positive attributes as well so since then everybody was talking about us during the stampede uh the stampede was fantastic everybody was talking about us they were
Zain
14:53
were talking about the signs along
Zain
14:54
along you had these posters and you put them out on lampposts is that a fair yeah
Carter
14:59
yeah they're they can go up on unpainted lampposts in the city of calgary and
Zain
15:03
and you you hit them up in in key writings maybe even beyond that you could walk us through the strategy yeah but they were visible you had the hot pink with your black and white um your party brand um so they got noticed and you got very much
Carter
15:16
and then the media called because the media are like hey this is a new tactic and these people have called us and told us that they're illegal and
Carter
15:23
and i said that's interesting not illegal and then
Zain
15:26
then they called did you did you almost want that conversation like this like if i'm you i almost want that conversation like because remind me four years ago didn't you have a very similar what
Zain
15:37
what the fuck is he doing with these four these
Zain
15:42
you've literally not only seen this movie you have both directed produced and written and shot this movie four years ago oh
Carter
15:49
oh yeah it's the exact same play different tactic but the exact same play and the play is the media go hey some people are outraged let's find out if these people have any reason to be outraged normally what they would do is just write that these people are outraged and never refer back to the bylaw but But because it's me, they now refer back to the bylaw and find out whether or not the bylaw has actually been broken because they want to hold me to account, right? So you want to hold
Zain
16:17
hold it, right, right. So you're airtight.
Zain
16:21
Yeah. So you're using your reputation and
Zain
16:24
leaning into it. Absolutely. Is that even beyond your candidate's reputation?
Zain
16:28
Right, right, because this is like fucking Stephen Carter is a subgenre. I mean, we explore it on this podcast significantly, significantly but it is also something that the alberta media uh
Zain
16:38
uh seem to be interested in every once in a while well
Carter
16:40
well and it's fascinating the same type of loophole i mean people call it a loophole right it's a loophole you call it
Zain
16:44
it a loophole it's
Carter
16:45
it's not really a loophole it's literally how the law is written you
Zain
16:48
you said right you used opportunity i heard you say opportunity today but you used the word loophole okay
Carter
16:54
okay it is a you know so there's but the edmonton doesn't have the same the same uh opportunity let's
Zain
17:01
let's say together so
Carter
17:03
anyways you know it if if there's i mean but edmonton has different sign rules right so large signs are going out the last week in the last seven days in edmonton um we're you know we're putting out uh 350 large signs over the next couple of weeks that's a lot of signs and they're going out because that's okay in edmonton back
Zain
17:25
back to this question the media call you are you like you know tim curry at home alone like you're just smiling like like the grinch when people are like this is illegal because you know exactly where this is headed oh
Carter
17:37
oh i was so happy i
Carter
17:38
i mean i was so happy because it generates it it it if all the media pick up i mean we know that the media is not as big as it used to be but when all the media pick up a story a lot of people see that story um it may not be 1.2 million people but but it might be 200,000 people in total that are going to see that story from the social media and the broadcast time. And we got significant feedback and all the messaging was look at this clever act, look at this clever tactic that was used. And yes, it is legal. And that you couldn't have asked for better messaging. And then in terms of the long tail. Yes,
Zain
18:19
Yes, I want to get, this is exactly what I want to get to. you know
Carter
18:21
know here we are we're we're two weeks after the stampede has ended we can have 10 days whatever the number of days is and people are still talking about the posters so
Zain
18:32
so my question for you okay
Zain
18:34
okay i'm not going to push back but i'm almost going to try to like mind meld with you right so you have this tactic it's successful do
Zain
18:41
do you need an escalation on it or can you live on the the the drifts of it sort of thing so what i'm trying to say is that if this was your starting pistol and i don't to be clear for transparency i'm not on your campaign i don't know right yeah
Zain
18:55
yeah i don't know what you're up to you can disclose whatever you're you're feel comfortable with but you
Zain
19:00
you know to me i look at that as okay this
Zain
19:03
this was a pistol we got some heat we got some light we got some candidate name recognition now as soon as this is done the chances that more people are going to forget about this and that we're not actually going to get the drift that we need to we need an escalation are you thinking of that yeah
Carter
19:17
yeah i'm thinking of what's the what's next right and the what's next is a period of time when do i need to generate momentum right so you circle some dates on the calendar you say these are my momentum weeks i'm going to generate momentum in these weeks self-imposed self
Carter
19:37
self-imposed momentum development what okay now what do i need to do to actually generate momentum in that time and then um most of what i'm going to need to do to generate momentum isn't going to be as cheap as doing those posters right
Zain
19:50
right right right and i was going to ask you that because it's not as simple as being like round two of posters or lawn signs or let's find another uh you would say opportunity and or loophole somewhere and do something else and i'm not going to not mention as an insult gimmicky to be able to break through like Absolutely. This is why I call it an escalation rather than the next thing. And I think we might be saying the same thing, but to me, it is an escalation, whether it's your dollar time resources. And frankly, eating the steaks, you could have fucked up Stampede, no cost is what I would say, or minimal cost, minimal cost.
Carter
20:23
I've talked to my candidates about doing a Lady Godiva ride through parks if it would generate us enough attention, right? What does it take to generate attention in today's society, and are you willing to do it if it generates the right type of it? I know Lady Godiva Ride's probably not going to work with Brian Thiessen, but it might work with Tim Cartmell.
Zain
20:45
Here's the thing, though. I may challenge you on this by agreeing with you.
Zain
20:50
I am starting to believe that attention is its own thing divorced from profile, divorced from policy, and divorced from vision. that
Zain
20:59
that capturing attention good or bad i almost look at his attention as being purely neutral sounds insane regardless if it's good or bad and it's its own thing that opens up channels to allow those other things so it's not that you have profile which gets you attention which is what we call a star candidate it's do you have attention grabbing qualities that allow you then maybe one day have people either on your terms here about your profile and like we might might just be purely in an attention vehicle and
Zain
21:31
everything else that used to get you attention your profile your candidacy your policy your vision your um you know your brand fuck that all up the window i
Zain
21:40
i almost like attention has been put first and if you can do that then you may even have a chance to do the rest and 80 of those people it may not matter because you're crowding out everyone else yeah
Carter
21:51
yeah i mean if you get attention like this is what i love so much about the posters idea was that the
Zain
21:56
the post why i like to pure attention it
Carter
21:59
it generated attention but it also tied to the brand like literally the visual the visual of the brand was reinforced by the tactic of the attention gathering device right the the poster was the controversy was the attention gathering device the poster itself was the brand development and brand push and i really like that i really like that the brand stood out so boldly um on on the attention gathering device
Zain
22:27
um carny when it's hit up some carny stuff i
Carter
22:31
i think we should i think that august 1st is coming so here's
Zain
22:34
here's a framework that i've stolen um but it was really compelling and it was provided by one so credit her okay
Zain
22:42
she was saying uh earlier this week i believe about the
Zain
22:47
the we can talk about blowing past deadlines but her framework was simple and i wanted to get you to reflect on it which is the framework of our canadians from a pure political perspective in
Zain
22:58
in a penalized carny for a deal that has tariffs or
Zain
23:05
or or penalized carny for a deal that comes later and doesn't have tariffs in it because now we're starting to talk about this potential of tariffs being in it so So the frame she had was tariffs or stability.
Zain
23:17
Digest some tariffs or no tariffs, I should say, in a deal, regardless of how long that takes, or stability now. And it's similar to a conversation we had earlier, which is do you take the Keir Starmer first deal available, sign it, do you take the political hit and just move on because the guy's a nutjob and who the hell knows what he's going to try to do tomorrow to cover the Epstein files? And you might be a target of that. um or do you actually hold out to have no tariffs where do you think we are as a country right now from a vibe check and from a just a pure sort of political instinct perspective if you're advising the pm to be like sir here's the play yeah
Carter
23:57
yeah i mean we're already subjected to tariffs so it's essentially status quo with
Zain
24:06
my my worry is that carney sold such a large suite of promises and i actually read it
Carter
24:16
don't think i don't think he's sold us anything i think he's warned us that we're dealing with a lunatic and we're going to try and get the best possible deal for canada and
Carter
24:25
and he's always said i'm going to put the best possible deal for canadians on the table and that's what i'm going to do and it doesn't matter how long it takes it doesn't matter what the outcome is i'm going to get the best possible deal that may he signaled earlier this week include tariffs it may not include tariffs trump signals maybe they're just going to have to learn to live with tariffs maybe that's our deal i mean all of this is just insanity that ultimately that ultimately clouds what is the expected outcome on august the first august 15th september the first you know uh four years from now when donald trump seeks and retains his position as the president of the united states for an unprecedented third term
Zain
25:11
okay so you if you had to choose though no
Zain
25:14
no tariffs or stability you would choose stability i
Carter
25:18
would choose no tariffs really
Zain
25:21
because we're leading to just being like we're We're already paying tariffs, so fuck it. We're
Carter
25:25
We're already paying tariffs, so who the fuck cares? Let's hold on to what we've already got and keep negotiating until such time as we get. Because at some point, the United States is going to start hurting from these tariffs. And they haven't yet, but they will soon. And when they start to hurt from their own tariffs, that's when you're actually going to be in a position where you can get your better deal. Now, do we have to hurt too? Absolutely, we have to hurt. But
Carter
25:49
But we're going to hurt anyways. ways so how
Zain
25:52
how well do you think carney prepared us for the pain i
Carter
25:56
don't think he's prepared us particularly well for the pain and
Zain
25:58
and i don't necessarily blame
Zain
26:01
why because i i blame him for two things and one of which might be disproven at least from from some recent polling in the sense that i blame him for thing number one not being clear enough around how we're supposed to treat our friends in the united states what i haven't appreciated is that canadians still largely just have a disdain for america i thought we needed more marching orders turns out i might might be wrong about that so i'm willing to concede that there's some new abacus and other people are like fucking pissed even here in montreal i'll tell you something no
Zain
26:27
no knowing a lot of american comedians here and chatting with a lot of my friends who are comedians in the united states or canadians who live in the u.s the amount of those folks who want to do work in canada who are actually saying fuck it i only live in la i am not american to be clear i'm coming back i'm making a statement i'm doing a dev deal with cbc i'm trying to like do a writer's room and i'm going to make it fucking work through zoom even with folks a lot of these stories right a lot of people like yeah a lot of the canadian comedians here like wearing like explicit canada paraphernalia to like make a point right uh to the industry to the comedy industry to make a point industry largely gravitated towards la and new york to kind of be like i'm i'm you're on my turf like you're at my home like this is yeah i know i've it's very fascinating and this is a space i i'm am not particularly intimate with in the same way that some of these comedians are but i know well um that a lot of these people like are looking to come back and make and are in that era so i might have been wrong more broadly around the current instructions to canadians around how we're supposed to feel there might actually be more organic movement and growth in that and canadians may have already made up their minds at least for the for the short term on that so that's thing thing number one but thing number two he
Zain
27:44
he has not particularly communicated well around the pains and shannon's talked about this a bit as well that certain job functions are facing right now but the ongoing pain that we might feel in terms of what this could look like very rapidly and if but it's very rapidly and isn't that the job of a prime minister not
Carter
28:04
why because the job of the prime minister is to not get blamed right
Carter
28:08
right that's the job of the prime minister if If you start floating out all the negative
Zain
28:11
negative things that could happen. That's such a cynical view, though.
Carter
28:15
Is this your first time talking to me? No.
Carter
28:18
This is cynical. Politics is cynical. The objective is to make sure the Canadian population knows
Zain
28:24
knows who to blame, and that is Trump. You might convince me. Keep going.
Carter
28:28
That's Trump. Trump's the person to blame. Trump's the person who's bringing the pain. Not Mark Carney. Mark Carney's trying to get the best possible deal for Canadians. and he just needs to keep he just needs to keep repeating that on you know
Carter
28:44
repeat all day long every day that's his message i am trying to get the best possible deal for canadians and the subtext of that line is but you know i'm dealing with a lunatic okay
Zain
28:55
okay so we are in agreement but to me almost sounds like you are trying to do the job of pm at our minimum that you're almost assessing there's a risk for preparing Canadians. What's the risk? What I would say is I agree. Our mutual friend Bozenko would say Harper was dealing with an American financial recession, and Canadians recognized that. This wasn't Harper's crisis. They gave him another mandate.
Zain
29:23
I feel similarly, and I've been convinced similarly, that Carney's runway on the America deal is much longer than we think it is, and
Zain
29:31
and there's a wider berth than we think it is. I've been convinced of that. Even though I initially figured that this is going to be a shorter window and he needs to deliver, and as money gripes as I have on the comms, I agree. Election held tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, I predict, if it's still Trump and it's still Carney, that this is the situation where he's not going to get blamed. What is the downside risk then, knowing that, having a historical example to prove that, to not be the communicator-in-chief to let people know around what could happen? That sense of bond, unity, solidarity that was created during the election, to not keep Canadians prepared, to not have the support of the conversations around that. I don't see the risk. Do you know what's going to happen? Lay it on me. Walk me through it. No,
Carter
30:18
No, I'm actually asking. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know which industries he's going to pick on. I don't know if he's going to shut down the auto industry, if he's going to shut down softwood lumber. I don't know what he's going to do to the oil and gas community. All of these are different threats with different scenarios with different people that we're going to be in pain. My
Zain
30:37
last 30 seconds there, what you just said, in
Zain
30:42
in a prime ministerial voice, isn't that a value that our PM could add?
Carter
30:46
I don't think so. I think it just worries the population needlessly when we don't know what the outcome
Zain
30:50
outcome is going one good point worries the population because it's so unpredictable it could create more uncertainty okay that one you've sold me on okay
Zain
30:56
okay sure uh but i still think a pm that could say like here's what we're here's the stakes i need to be clear about what's happening uh bring you along even though you're not going to expose details but we don't necessarily know where the targets of this are going to be if he's got a plan of choosing a quicker
Zain
31:16
um or a no tariff deal i think he he needs to be able to kind of communicate why he's going down either of these these pathways so
Carter
31:24
so let's totally agree with you when does he communicate that and i don't think he communicates that on july the 25th i think he communicates
Carter
31:33
july 31st or august 1st okay
Zain
31:35
okay i was going to say with an august 1st deadline when when is that path i think
Carter
31:38
think it's right on the deadline i think he says we've hit the deadline i do not have a deal here's why i do not and that That is why his communication and that's when his communication goes out until that
Carter
31:49
the 11th hour, until
Carter
31:51
until the negotiations break down at midnight on the final day of the deadline. You don't you don't put you're always cautiously optimistic. The deal is going to be struck. You don't need to say, well, now I'm not negotiating any longer. I'm waiting. You know, this is falling apart. I'm going to mean.
Carter
32:12
Trump's Trump's Trump. Trump, everybody
Carter
32:14
everybody knows that everything could fall apart in 15 minutes. You don't need to be spending a lot of time in advance. And you don't, in a normal negotiation, which I will concede this is not, you
Carter
32:26
you say, we are going to negotiate right till the end of the deadline. And you do that with the expectation of success. Don't put yourself in a failing position prior to the moment you need to fail.
Zain
32:38
Okay, I'm liking this. i
Zain
32:39
i actually want to use this as a what let's just make one assumption which i think is a safe one we're not going to get a deal by august 1st i
Carter
32:47
i think you're correct flesh
Zain
32:48
flesh out for me what does august 1st look like for carney tactically too because
Zain
32:52
because i like this idea of communicating on august 1st in a principled uniform way but you also have the one additional challenge carter it's august fucking first and even when as the first half of our today was talking about attention capture etc even the prime minister has an attention capture issue on august first right
Zain
33:11
right like i mean it's the long week heading
Zain
33:13
heading into the long weekend
Zain
33:15
totally family day for us in alberta like oh i don't know what the equivalent is across the country but i believe you're right it's a long weekend everywhere um
Zain
33:23
so even the pm with the government budget and all the paid media that that money can buy has a communications challenge so walk me through where
Zain
33:30
where he should focus his energies on, on August 1st, should that be the deadline he chooses to communicate? Or should that be the date he chooses to communicate? And
Zain
33:39
And Lou, we're assuming August 1st is like a standard weekday. I don't know if that is the case. It's
Carter
33:43
It's a Friday. Yeah.
Zain
33:44
Yeah. Okay, great. So let's just call it a Friday or let's use the 31st, the Thursday as a placeholder for this date, the August 1st date. But what are
Carter
33:54
Visual communications, not verbal communications. communications i would have him on a plane i would have him going into i'd have him taking over the role of chief negotiator in some classic stephen
Zain
34:05
stephen carter show don't tell don't
Carter
34:08
don't yeah show don't tell and put them
Carter
34:11
put them in the position where he's on the plane to the united states right where he's he's he's gone down to actually have a meeting he's not taking a telephone call with the president of the united states he's on the he's on the the he's on the white house steps getting
Carter
34:27
getting a meeting spending 15 minutes even if it's only 15 minutes with the president of the united states trying to reach a deal trying to make the last minute assertion that this is what the country needs both the united states and canada that should be his his visual show don't tell moment and then afterwards
Zain
34:44
afterwards any price to pay going
Zain
34:47
going down or not putting in that level of effort and not getting a deal i understand letting the deadline lapse and saying we don't have a deal in a passive voice but putting in the e for effort going down there doing the thing then at like 12 01 a.m on on august 2nd being like we don't have anything like does that actually
Zain
35:07
create problems strategically for carney more so than i don't think so
Carter
35:11
i think i mean i think that it could i think that uh you
Carter
35:13
you make a good point on the you know the failing piece but you're going to fail fail in such a way that you gave it your all for canada fail
Carter
35:23
fail so that people feel you did Did your very best for me. To
Zain
35:26
To be clear, he has not added that extra oomph on the other deadlines. He's just blown past them and then told us either that day or the day a few days after. Feels
Carter
35:35
Feels different this time, doesn't it? First
Carter
35:37
First of all, it is
Zain
35:37
is the middle of
Carter
35:38
of August and he does need to have things that are going to be shared on TikTok, not on things that are going to be shared on Twitter, right? He needs actual visuals that everybody can just get behind and see on their own social media platforms. Everybody's going to share this particular reel.
Zain
35:59
So you feel like he just needs to show a bit of progress and effort on this thing?
Carter
36:03
I think he needs to show that he's working on our best interest, and that's it. That's
Carter
36:07
That's all. That's it. I don't think he needs to come home with a deal, and I don't think that he needs to be aloof on the deal either and just roll past it. I think he needs to, you know, this is the standing on the White House lawn with the boombox trying to, you know, win over the partner here in Donald Trump.
Zain
36:27
Where do you think Carney is on this? I'm asking you to not purely speculate as we wrap up this thing.
Zain
36:32
Do you think he's at a no tariffs, like repeal, no deal is good enough if it includes these, what I will call the new tariffs, the Trump tariffs, right? right? No deal is good if it has any of these tariffs, or do you think he's in a headspace right now to say, maybe like my friend Keir Starmer, I just sign the best available deal within this summer period and get this thing over with so I can do my other nation building stuff?
Carter
36:58
mean, it really depends on what the tariffs are. I mean, if it's a tariff on a couple of smaller industries that are a little frustrating that we can have retaliatory tariffs over, then maybe we do it um if it's a one-sided deal where we can't even put you know where where trump is putting is is demanding that we put um american liquor back on the shelves uh you know and and we can't even have our little protests um then i think that it would go too far
Zain
37:30
i tend to agree with you
Carter
37:31
well look at that i did a good job i did a good job i took
Zain
37:34
took it from skeptic to believer this
Zain
37:36
this is part of the show where you get to ask me an over under and aligning round question carter this is the this summer oh i get
Carter
37:41
get to ask you anything
Zain
37:42
anything but any topic okay
Carter
37:44
okay so what do you think the odds are what um out of a hundred percent so what are for odds that we have a deal on a
Zain
37:52
hundred percent donald trump is going to bring prescription prices down by thousand percent in the united states that's pretty impressive
Zain
37:58
that's pretty good we
Carter
37:58
we only work on hundred percent models here um but do you think there's a deal on august the first no
Zain
38:04
no i i think it's two percent like
Zain
38:06
like it's a 98 chance it doesn't happen um and also like to be honest there's there's a part of me and not to kind of turn it back on to you but
Zain
38:21
wonder if they're thinking about like a deal being signed they have to control the comms on that right
Zain
38:27
right like they can't just be like Like a deal is signed, here's the raw text of said deal. Like
Zain
38:33
Like if a deal is signed with the Americans, there's got to be like a latency period in which the deal is signed. They got to like, each country's got to do its sales job sort of thing, right? And I've heard no indication that a sales job is being prepped of any kind. There's no leak around what some, or no like telegraphing of a baseline X percent tariff on Y item or industry that gives me a sense that any of this comms work is being planned to set the stage for any of this now we're july 25th so you know five days a lifetime in politics but it's july 25th in a summer period in which you need a lot more advanced time to have time for people to understand that oh yeah this might be the third time i've heard of this even that's the first official time i've heard of this on august 1st or 2nd so those
Zain
39:18
those additional pieces have me down in like low single digits that's kind of where i'm at does
Zain
39:23
does that compute for where you're at and perhaps even the reason why yeah
Carter
39:26
yeah i think so So, yeah.
Carter
39:28
Yeah. I'm wondering, I'm wondering, uh, how Pierre probably ever responds on the 1st of August.
Zain
39:33
man, who gives a shit?
Carter
39:36
Yeah. You're in that space.
Zain
39:38
I kind of am.
Zain
39:40
don't really know if Pierre is a character in this story. I
Zain
39:45
I think Pierre's got a much larger problem.
Zain
39:48
You think he has to be a character in this story, don't you think? Oh, he's going to try to be a character in this story. Don't get me wrong. That's not what I mean. I'm not. But it's like Jagmeet
Carter
39:55
Jagmeet Singh suddenly coming up and talking about budgets.
Zain
39:57
budgets. Pierre Pauliev is the weird Chugmeet Singh mom. That's a fucking great analogy. He kind of feels like a third party right now.
Zain
40:04
The conservatives are official opposition, no doubt about it. But he, Pierre
Zain
40:09
Pierre Pauliev, kind of feels like a third party leader right now, competing for a third party race for a seat before he can officially get back. So I almost, to me,
Zain
40:20
compound that with all the ills and the punching through issues we've talked about summer. Summer, Pierre
Zain
40:26
Pierre Polyev's not a character in this story for me.
Zain
40:31
Stephen Carter, we did it. Let's wrap on episode 1880 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter. And maybe Carter will rope someone in next time, but we shall see.
Carter
40:40
Yeah, I mean, everybody's on vacation. I don't like our chances.
Zain
40:43
Yeah, I'm going to London for two weeks, but here we go. Maybe this is not a great time to break this to you, so. Where
Carter
40:48
Where are you going?
Zain
40:49
I'm going to London.
Zain
40:53
the fuck are we gonna record a fucking episode someone
Zain
40:57
someone will see you next time