Episode 592: Full disclosure

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 592. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what is up?

Carter 0:11

I'm just so happy to see both of you. You came back from New York. Everything's so good. Oh, New York. You did.

Zain 0:17

The border security guys didn't detain you very long. Last time in New York. First time in New York. It's all good. Listen, I was there on 9-11. I'm just walking around. I'm like, this is a ton of freedom for me right now. So I was walking around the streets in New York, 9-11, not getting pneumonia. It was amazing. It was just – it was probably one of the best experiences.

Zain 0:35

What's up? Good story,

Carter 0:35

story, man. It was a good story.

Zain 0:36

story. Good story. Yeah, okay.

Zain 0:37

how about you? The 9-11

Corey 0:38

-11 thing seemed like a bit of a non sequitur. No,

Zain 0:40

No, I mean I was just telling people the date I was there.

Zain 0:43

Yeah, that's – So here

Corey 0:44

here we are now

Zain 0:44

now on 9-16, 9-17. Yeah, 9-16, 9-17. Carter, what do I want to ask you about? Are you still fighting with Ask Her? Let's just get that out of the way. What's

Carter 0:53

What's up with that? I had another meeting with AskHer, face-to-face this time. Wait, was this a meeting you had arranged?

Carter 1:00

No, it was just by chance. By chance, where I got the opportunity to, in person, sit

Carter 1:05

sit down and explain to them why their

Carter 1:08

their good intentions were, in fact, wrong.

Zain 1:11

Okay, and what was the conclusion of said meeting?

Carter 1:14

I had no impact.

Carter 1:17

Good. I had zero impact at all. They're going to continue. Good, so they're carrying on

Carter 1:20

on as they should. No, no. Don't think – no, no.

Carter 1:23

Can we go again? No. Yeah.

Carter 1:25

So I'm going to find a couple of women. We're just going for the triple crown. This is the triple crown of – Yeah, tripling down on the triple crown. I don't know. You know what? Anybody can do what they want in the political system. Yeah.

Carter 1:38

Yeah. Right? Anybody can do what they want. I just – I want

Carter 1:42

want more women to win, not more women to lose. Call me crazy.

Zain 1:45

Great. So no update there. Corey, anything on your end? If I don't know what's going on in your life, I'll just ask about that. Basketball season starts

Corey 1:51

starts soon. Hang on. Yeah, I'm really excited about that.

Zain 1:55

that. Did we talk about you not being able to get tickets to the game here in Calgary? Oh, that was so bad. I was right there at the start of those tickets being available. Yeah,

Corey 2:02

Yeah, the start is

Corey 2:02

actually the start. No,

Zain 2:04

No, that's the first rule.

Corey 2:05

rule. It was so annoying. And anyways, I did end up getting a couple of tickets from a friend. But the time that it took for Ticketmaster to sell out of those tickets and them to appear on the secondary market was just offensive. Offensive. It actually broke my spirit, so I went and I bought Courtside at a Portland Blazers game, which requires me to go to Portland in March. So you're

Corey 2:27

you're going to fit right in, is what I'm hearing you

Zain 2:28

you say. Oh, yeah. It's going to be great. You're going to fit right in Portland.

Zain 2:31

Carter, anything else before we get this going?

Zain 2:33

Any other musings in your head? Anything else you want to just... No?

Carter 2:37

Well, I'm distracted today. Clearly. Because we've got a new office. Okay.

Zain 2:45

We're going to plug the office? Well,

Carter 2:47

I'm just saying there's stuff to be done. Corey took apart all the filing cabinets, and he just fucking left them. Just left them. And he left them with the following instructions. I helped.

Carter 3:00

The drawers are specific to the units. And I'm like, okay, great. Which ones? Did you mark them, you dick? No, he just left them. Just left them. So that's where my head is right now.

Zain 3:10

Deconstructing things without putting them back together is the Corey Hogan story. But let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, Wage Rage. Corey Hogan.

Zain 3:18

Yeah, buddy. You like to make websites, don't you? Tell

Zain 3:22

Tell us what's going on. Sometimes I like to make a point through a domain name. So, Corey Hogan, let's start this. The discussion on minimum wage seems to have picked up quite fortuitously with the discussion here in Alberta with the minimum wage at $15. But you have put together what I'd call a white paper turned website slash proposal as to how we can, let's say, federalize this concept of a living minimum wage.

Corey 3:46

Yeah, I put together a white paper slash proposal turned website because one of the things that has always bothered me is the discussion around labor law federally is essentially can't do it, throw up our hands, there's nothing to be done. which um is based on the idea that you know courts long ago decided that labor law was largely a provincial domain not exclusively but largely uh although courts long ago also decided things like health care and education were and i don't see the federal government butting out to the same extent there what

Corey 4:18

what i wanted to do was was not so much like detail and highlight the issue although it does go over some of the reasons why i think the minimum wage should be increased across across the board. But, you

Corey 4:28

you know, there is something adrift in Canada, I think, as far as federalism goes, this notion of what the government can do and can't do. And it turns out right now, it's cutting checks and posing for selfies. And I propose a bit more for our government. I think that maybe there's a new federalism, where you go back to what the actual problem is, you see what tools you have available, and you tackle it with gusto after trying to work with the provinces. That's what that paper is about. I think everybody should go read it. Canada15.com.

Corey 4:58

A mere 5,500 words. Yeah, I

Corey 5:00

started to read it. So,

Zain 5:01

So, Carter, what is pissing you off more? Is it the filing cabinet sitting in your office right now, or is it this website? Did you see my body

Carter 5:06

body language? I mean, I don't mind the website, right? I mean, Corey's just wrong, but whatever. What I mind is the overarching idea that everything needs to be solved by the federal government. We can't have the separation of government. And in fact, Corey and I could have a great argument about fluoride on this this particular issue as well, not because of the fluoride. I'm not anti-science. Don't try and put me in that frickin' box, my little friend. What I am is that we have a differentiation of responsibilities for each level of government. And each level of government needs to respect those. In fact, in this little province we call Alberta, we had a decades-long fight with the federal government who wanted to just take over resource development, wanted to take over resource revenue, wanted to take it all for themselves. And we stop them because it's clearly articulated that that's our responsibility and our purview. Oh, yeah. And fluoride, my friend, is the health. And wages is provinces. And you just want the government to come in and tread on our rights and tread on our Constitution. And I say no more, friend. No more. All

Corey 6:08

All right, Stephen. You show me in the Constitution where it says labor law is a provincial responsibility. Minimum wage is a provincial responsibility. You should read the thing I wrote. I

Carter 6:17

I tried. Right, but who can get past the introduction?

Zain 6:22

graphs are nice, but I agree with Carter for the most part on reading the thing. Now, Corey, Corey, listen, I'm sure there's listeners that care a lot more about this than we do. Listen. No,

Carter 6:31

No, I don't think so.

Corey 6:35

only one at this table who would benefit from a minimum wage increase.

Corey 6:40

Dude, it's all tips. Dude, you have no idea. That's

Zain 6:43

That's why in the taxi cab, it's not a percentage. It's two, three, or four dollars. And guess what? When you figure it out as a percentage, that's a lot of money.

Zain 6:52

you're effectively arguing that the federal government has a role to play. I

Carter 6:56

I don't think that he's effectively arguing

Zain 6:58

it at all, but,

Carter 6:58

but, you know, whatever.

Carter 6:59

Carter, you are saying no.

Zain 7:02

we get into the politics and why this could be a good thing for Justin Trudeau to do, for people who may not get the 5,500 words read to them or read it themselves, explain to us in very simple terms, Corey, what the mechanism for the federal government to play here would be. Yeah,

Corey 7:16

Yeah, the bottom line is that poverty costs money. It's a hidden tax on us all. Government spends an awful lot on trying to make poverty better. We give tax credits. We provide services directly. We have an awful lot of money that is transferred to the provincial governments to deal with this, as well as money that the provinces and the municipalities also spend, not to count what private interests are doing. doing. Like I said, it's

Corey 7:38

it's a tax on us all. It's a hidden tax on us all. What we need to keep in mind is that if we're all burdening the cost of poverty, maybe we should also be looking at what the quote-unquote benefit of poverty is. And it's that you get cheap wages for your workers. And I don't think it's right that we've socialized the risk and we've privatized the benefit. So when you look at it in that lens, maybe it's time to act on poverty. Maybe it's time to go forward. We can talk about whether the provincial government or the federal government's the right right course of action or the right way to do it. But I'll say the

Corey 8:07

federal government's spending a lot of money. And one of the reasons why the problem can't be solved provincially is that everybody is threatened by their neighbor and by business interests that they might move to their neighbor. And it makes it very difficult for a province to stand up and do the right thing like Alberta did and raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Now, that's why it's a federal problem. And And to Stephen's earlier rant there, that's why

Corey 8:31

federal government needs to act on it. Good rant. Here's the thing, Stephen.

Corey 8:36

they can move easily.

Corey 8:38

Companies, they can move easily. Governments have to stay right where they are. And when you have a situation like that, where the mobility of people is so greatly impacting the scenario, I

Corey 8:49

I think it's important that the federal government gets involved in that.

Zain 8:52

We can go on for this debate, whether this is a good idea or not, in terms of policy. But Carter, let's talk about politics. So remove – and let's set aside our biases for a second, okay? If you are Justin Trudeau right now, which I think one thing you guys agree on is that he's got political capital to spend. If he's sitting on the sidelines and he's introduced with a proposition saying, politically speaking, strictly politically speaking, this minimum wage has tethered to this whole narrative of poverty, is that a political win, Stephen Carter, for the Trudeau government?

Carter 9:20

I mean, sure. I mean, whatever, Corey. Let's say I agree with Corey's philosophical argument. Agree. Let's get past that for a second. That's a massive concession on my part, okay? But if

Carter 9:31

I was to do that, then I'd have to say, okay, politically,

Carter 9:34

politically, does this make sense? Exactly. That's the question. It doesn't. There's no upside. All you're going to do is get into a fight with provinces that you don't want, and you're going to have a new issue that's on the federal scene that you don't need, and you're going to be on the wrong side of it with most Canadians. This is already a government that is being viewed as anti-corporate. You're talking to the federal government. Yeah. Why would you buy this problem? this is someone else's problem leave it to be someone else's problem cory

Zain 10:01

cory cory you've you've sold this on on the policy sense how would you if you're in that room with the with the pmo as a strategist sell this to the government to make action on this and to go forward on this yeah

Corey 10:12

yeah i didn't talk much about the politics right i had this crazy notion that sometimes government should just do the right thing but when you talk about politics of it i think there's so much fucking snark on this show by the way today

Corey 10:23

i think there's a couple of things that you could could say would be uh some

Corey 10:27

some pretty clear advantages to taking a course of action like that i remember during the federal election when we talked about linton crosby the dead cat on the table this is a dead cat on the table if you're having a bad day with the left this is going to make you some friends on the left i disagree with steven most canadians are against it i suspect if you polled you'd find like most albertans they're in favor of a minimum wage increase to fifteen dollars an hour but i'll

Corey 10:50

i'll tell you this i mean there is something to be said for the question of whether Whether or not it just picks too much of a fight with the fiscal side. So to that, I say, all right, in that case, maybe Justin

Corey 11:02

Justin Trudeau shouldn't have supported a guaranteed minimum income. I mean, they're doing a test of that next year in 2017. My problem with guaranteed minimum income isn't a real problem. It's a flag that I would put out there from a political sense, which is that's really expensive. You're talking about an incredibly expensive national program.

Corey 11:20

program with the thing about the minimum wage is just increasing it is as much as the right argues about it being anti-business and regulatory it's just one regulation and then the government gets out of the way it says let the market dictate things beyond that when you start talking about just providing a guaranteed minimum income to all canadians you're creating a massive federal program massive new bureaucracy and it's all to solve a problem that is some people aren't being paid enough to live. And it's not right that you can work 40 hours a week and

Corey 11:48

and be poor, right?

Corey 11:50

right? I mean, that's just not right. That's just not proper. So it just seems like a very indirect way to go about that. And the fact is, he's got his pilot going on next year, 2017, starting on guaranteed minimum income. We tried this, by the way, in the 70s, guaranteed minimum income. Results were a bit mixed. Again, a pilot in Manitoba. And what

Corey 12:11

what do you do from there? Like, Like, either the pilot works and you've all of a sudden started tumbling down a hill to a massive new federal program that, like, if you're talking about worried about the right, that is going to terrify the right. And if it doesn't work, like, well, screw you, buddy. You've got no solutions then on poverty.

Zain 12:30

Stephen Carter, is this – I want to get you completely on the record. Do you feel this issue of minimum wage as it relates to poverty on the federal scene has any leverageable quality? quality, whether for the timing, let's just move the timing aside right now for Trudeau, right? If, do you feel like this issue could be inserted or are you writ large saying, no, this isn't, I do not want to touch this on the federal level? I

Carter 12:49

I don't know. I mean, some crazy guy wrote a website

Carter 12:52

website and posted it. That's gotten dozens

Carter 12:55

dozens of shares. So, I mean, there must be, there must be some sort of app. There is no appetite for this on the federal level. This is not, this is Corey taking an agenda that's coming in, in Alberta and taking the opportunity to make it an agenda federally

Carter 13:10

federally this is not an issue that uh

Carter 13:13

uh you know jerry butts is going to wake up tomorrow morning and say you know what that

Carter 13:17

hogan guy's got some on

Zain 13:19

on that point cory i want to ask you this question you know a lot of times when we work in the in the private sector we advise our clients whether they want to be you know convincing government of something suppose you were to start a little you know action oriented organization how would you let's say from the outside looking in not even in government start this movement what does it look like to to actually appeal to the decision makers in government, to that name, Jerry Butz or Prime Minister Trudeau, how would you start this groundswell to make this a thing in your mind? What does that look like?

Corey 13:46

In 2015, 25% of Canadian workers made less than $15 an hour. You're talking about 25% of the working population. That's a critical mass that I think could be mobilized quite effectively and that the liberals ignore at their peril. What you need to do is, if you're doing this from the outside, create a two-step approach to it. One is convince the people the federal government can do something, because right now the federal government's position is, no, we can't do anything. So in the paper I said, hey, you could try it. You could just go to the courts and try it. Now I said even in there, the odds of that are pretty long.

Corey 14:18

Or you can start looking at some of the other tools you have, and you can start penalizing companies and taxing companies that are paying less than living wage. The threat of either going to courts or penalizing people could be used to leverage the provinces to get them to the table. There's a lot of things the federal government can do. do. There's carrots, there's sticks, there's pinatas. There's

Corey 14:36

just all sorts of wild cards they can throw out there. So that's step one. That's step one. You convince them that the federal government can do something. And

Zain 14:43

And them being this base that you're trying to mobilize. The base of

Corey 14:44

of the 25% of Canadians who would benefit directly, and I would say the immediate orbit and the people who believe on a social justice standpoint, it's just the right thing.

Corey 14:53

The next thing you need to convince people of is that the federal government should do something.

Corey 14:58

And that's a little bit of an easier sell once it's convinced they can do something, Because ultimately, Canadians don't disagree

Corey 15:03

disagree with the notion that wages should be raised. And, you

Corey 15:07

you know, there is a big, big

Corey 15:09

big reason why they shouldn't be left to the provinces. And that's that the provinces are all over the map. And it's creating all sorts of chaos and pain and strife. And other countries like ours, such as the United States, do have a federal minimum wage. This is not some arcane, unheard of concept. It's something that you can pull out pretty quickly. And I think actually as that narrative grows in the United States for $15, there

Corey 15:31

there will be Canadians asking, why don't we have that?

Carter 15:35

All of our best policy ideas come from the U.S., let's be honest. Carter, let's move it. Most have. Oh, you're killing me. Carter,

Zain 15:42

Carter, let's move it to Alberta, where this is actually a live wire our provincial government is dealing with. They want a minimum wage of $15, I believe, by 2018. Yeah,

Carter 15:50

Yeah, they've now moved to make it in regulation. Right. So it's actually going to happen.

Zain 15:53

Tell me politically. Let's just strip away policy for a second. and politically, explains to me not least thinking here. She's promised this as an election promise. She's moving forward with it. Would you have advised of a pivot if you were her, knowing the current economic climate, or would you have advised her to move on? I know we've got our political biases, but if you were telling her right now, what would you have told her as it relates to this policy plank of the minimum wage?

Carter 16:16

I mean, if I was advising her, I'd be advising her as a New Democratic strategist. This is really solid New Democratic politics, right? This is appealing to the base, growing your base, building. I think there's 300,000 Albertans or so who are impacted by this. This is 300,000 people that you get to go back to in the next election and say, promise made, promise delivered. Were they not with you anyways because of where you stand on the political spectrum? I don't think they were. I think that Corey made a point earlier that I didn't immediately jump on, which makes me sad. And that is that this is a group that can be politically mobilized. Historically, this isn't a group that's politically mobilized. But I think that more important than this particular group is the unionized environment. The group of people who look and say, who are fighting the corporations, who believe that the corporations are the wrong side. You can point to this group and say, see, we're not only standing up for the unions. We're standing up for those who are non-unionized and making sure that they have a living wage. I think that that has a lot of power for the people that you're trying to appeal to in the larger scope than the 300,000 people that are directly impacted. So I think Fournautley,

Carter 17:28

Fournautley, who made this promise so explicitly, this

Carter 17:34

this is what I will do. There's a number associated.

Zain 17:37

associated. There's a timeline, everything. Yeah. I

Carter 17:38

I think that she had to do it. She did it. But, you know, I mean, as a strategist, I would say this is low-hanging fruit for the NDP to actually deliver on. And they did.

Zain 17:48

did. And, Corey, I'm going to flip the situation. Usually you answer the NDP questions. What is the risk here? Is there a particular political risk that the premier has heading into 2018 when she is increasing this? I know the economic climate is one of them. But do you see that amongst others, that that could be viable risks for her? You know, I think the risk is pretty minimal.

Corey 18:09

You do? Seriously? Yeah, we know that a raise of minimum wage doesn't have significant impacts. There's an awful lot of studies in that very same white paper slash think piece slash website or whatever you call it, Canada15.com. You'll find links to some of them. That's my last plug of the podcast. Yeah, sure.

Carter 18:27

sure. Well, Jane and I buy that. But

Corey 18:30

when you look at minimum wage increases in Canada, it doesn't seem to have an impact on employment one way or the other going back for the last 30 years or so. You look at the more recent Seattle example where they're pushing it towards

Corey 18:42

$15. Does not seem to have any impact.

Zain 18:47

this week, the government said that they don't

Corey 18:48

don't really know what the ramifications are going to be, Hogan.

Corey 18:51

sure. I mean, and the other thing is it's really tough to separate one piece from the other. But when you sort of look at the body of evidence that's collected behind, it doesn't look like a real risk. Now, that said, Zane, and the reason why they're hedging a bit is $15 is not uncharted territory, but it's pretty close. And nobody

Corey 19:10

is suggesting that there's no point at which minimum wages will not have an impact. Certainly, traditional economic models say that as wages go up, this is like your one-on-one stuff, right? Demand curves get impacted, and that's going to have an impact on employment. Now, in

Corey 19:26

in the real world, people don't like to fire people. In the real world, there's a lot of benefits from having a minimum wage that include not moving around jobs as much that increase productivity. It's not so simple as the economic model of those two lines intersecting, right? And

Corey 19:41

And it seems that in the real world, it hasn't been a big deal. Now, we don't know how far that can be pushed. I would say 15 is not really pushing the envelope at all. But at a certain point, the envelope would be pushed. And I think that would be the only risk. Now, I

Corey 19:54

I do need to say, by 2018, there

Corey 19:57

there will be people making $15 an hour who would not, right?

Corey 20:01

I think that it puts the opposition in a very tricky situation. Are you going to run the 2019 election on reducing the minimum wage, reducing the income for these people? Carter,

Zain 20:11

Carter, let's go into the opposition for a second. Brian Jean or interim leader McIver or even candidates Jason Kenney or Donna Kennedy-Glanz, who just answered, we'll talk about that in a second. And what do they say when

Zain 20:21

when this minimum wage fight goes on right now? It's in the zeitgeist. It's in the media. Notley's made a promise. A, do they jump on it? And B, with what message and what sort of veracity do they go after this issue with?

Carter 20:34

So every time you make an action like this, there's always an equal and opposite reaction. And I think that this plays into the narrative for the right wing that says she's

Zain 20:45

And is that what you

Zain 20:46

you would go with? Do you like that narrative yourself? yourself uh

Carter 20:49

uh i don't mind that narrative like but but keep in mind i was also i'm also a different type of conservative than these guys i mean i was a conservative who proposed that we do a massive increase in our age payments right like and why do we do a massive increase in our race age payments because people couldn't live on what our previous age payment was right

Carter 21:07

you know and the argument i made is at some point i'd like a person on age to be able to to afford be have enough money to to afford to go to a movie not not to buy popcorn but

Carter 21:17

but to afford to go to a movie right and that argument um i think carried the day because it made sense to people um the problem with the minimum wage argument is that the

Carter 21:29

the other side of this is that there'll be less jobs so i'd rather have you'd rather have a job zane as you know paying eleven dollars an hour then

Zain 21:38

podcast I guess you're supposed to pay me because I have not gotten that check.

Carter 21:42

We're all waiting for our checks. It still probably just goes to Chester's account.

Carter 21:46

$11 an hour or no job at $15 an hour. And to Corey's point is, you know, that's probably not true. But that doesn't matter because we're down jobs, right? So I don't have to be causal in

Carter 22:05

And the king of correlative arguments is Jason Kenney.

Carter 22:09

So he will jump on this, and he will make this argument, and he won't care about the evidence. B

Zain 22:13

B happened because A was there, and I don't really care to prove

Zain 22:16

but it was – We've

Carter 22:16

We've lost how many jobs in the oil and gas sector since the NDP were elected? Hundreds of thousands. And you know why? NDP were elected. There

Corey 22:24

There were not even hundreds of thousands of jobs in the oil and gas sector in this province. Corey, go

Zain 22:29

go ahead, and then I want to go back to Carter on a quick subject

Corey 22:31

subject here. Look, I mean if they jump on it, they're idiots. They're complete, absolute idiots of the highest caliber. No,

Zain 22:38

you're saying there is no daylight to jump on this? There's none. There's absolutely none. Seriously. Can I tell you why? Tell me why. Please.

Carter 22:44

Please. Can I tell you why? Please, I'd like to learn at the feet of the master. If you could. If you could.

Corey 22:49

This is some free advice for all of the PCs flailing out there, trying to figure out some sort of half-competent strategy to keep Jason Kenney from taking over their party. And in fact, even Jason Kenney, because God knows going down this path will bear no fruit, because they're never going to reverse this. They are absolutely 100% never going to reverse this. They are never going to propose to reverse this. They are never going to reverse this.

Carter 23:12

they. The next conservative.

Corey 23:16

Nobody is going to reverse this. This is a one-way street. You are not going to take the minimum wage down from 15 back to 11. It is just not going to happen. It would be too politically damaging.

Corey 23:26

You think people have stories right now about potentially losing their job because minimum wage went up? And I agree with Stephen. Like, it's a great excuse for every layoff in the service sector. never mind our economy has been on the skids for two years right uh but

Corey 23:40

the more they scream about it now the more b-roll they're giving the ndp in 2019 to remind every single one of those people who got that raise that that would not have happened if were it not for them and that they are opposed they are opposed

Zain 23:54

opposed carter any daylight in your mind if you let's you just mentioned you're a different type of conservative tell me what the different type of conservative would it would attack this on is there any angle that you feel like you could get a viable attack on but still allow yourself to escape from what cory would call the negative attack ads of 2018 and 19 i

Carter 24:12

i think you go on what's the plan okay

Carter 24:14

okay so it's not

Zain 24:15

not the what it's the how you think so

Carter 24:16

so you've increased minimum wage you put a carbon tax in what else are you going to do to stop me from growing my small business i need to grow my small business and i need to know how you're going to help me and i'll tell you something a one percent small business angle is what you like yeah one bit oh yeah small small business all the time you can never go wrong when you advocate for small business really

Zain 24:34

really oh yeah you love that like

Carter 24:36

anything that business is gold

Zain 24:38

because it's so because who's arguing against you it's ill-defined yeah right who's

Carter 24:41

who's arguing and small business is the engine of the economy am i right or am i right of course i'm right it's small business that's feeling the pinch today it's small business that's hurt by this minimum wage increase it's not big business big business is already paying well and above it it's small businesses moms and pops people who who are putting their own personal equity on the line to generate the economy that we rely on that are being hurt. And this is the NDP's fatal flaw. They don't understand what it is to put their own capital on the line. They're always playing with somebody else. Corey, elevating the narrative. Isn't

Corey 25:15

Isn't it good that the NDP cut small business taxes by a third then, Stephen? Because

Carter 25:19

Because they care about small

Carter 25:23

I don't know what I will do with the extra $2,000. Thank you. Corey,

Zain 25:26

Corey, to Carter's point, elevating the argument into a more compelling or holistic narrative, is that daylight in your mind or no?

Corey 25:36

No, this is a dead end. This is

Corey 25:38

total dead end. I straight up cannot believe that, though. Okay, well, let me be Zane for a minute. So, Zane, I want to probe you on that. I want to ask you something. I want to know. It's so definitive.

Corey 25:48

definitive. Under what scenario do you think that this could possibly be used by them to get the outcome they want? You sound like a British aristocrat. Can I go get a coffee

Corey 25:57

coffee while this is

Corey 25:57

What's happening here? I guess colonization to answer your question, Zane. Go on.

Zain 26:04

Wow. Corey, back to you because you don't want to answer this question. Any other audience that Rachel Notley could be appealing to with this $15 minimum wage? We briefly touched upon this last night on TV. But is the audience simply regionally Alberta?

Corey 26:20

No, I mean I would have maybe thought so, but you're the one who made the point to give you a plug. But it's very interesting. And it is part of a broader rebranding of Alberta. When you talk about Alberta and Alberta's image in the rest of the country, it hasn't always been particularly shiny, I think is fair to say. And even this charm offensive around pipelines and we're good for the environment can't

Corey 26:40

can't help but seem a little bit self-serving to many people. Oh, you're good for the environment. There's a quid pro quo. You want your pipeline. Alberta hasn't changed. Alberta's just put a new spin on things. Could be very easily a feeling that you carry. It's pretty easy to be cynical about a move like a carbon tax if you think it's tied to just trying to get more carbon out, right?

Corey 27:00

But when you start talking about other things this government has done to move us forward and make us, in many ways, the most progressive jurisdiction in the country, it

Corey 27:10

it becomes harder to be cynical about it, right? You have a $15 an hour minimum wage, by far the largest in the country by 2018. Yeah,

Carter 27:18

Yeah, but because we also have the economy, the largest economy that can support this. I mean, this is the other side of this particular coin is if you were working at Tim Hortons in Fort McMurray, you're making more than $15 an hour anyways, because supply and demand, they required us to have a higher range. Okay, can we pause

Corey 27:33

pause on that for a second? This is one of my problems with when people say, well, if they're worth it, the market will just get them a better job. We are not perfectly rational. I know you didn't, but I do want to say there is an argument to be made that it is a bit of a market failure that people were being paid less than that right now, and it was creating a lock of productivity

Corey 27:55

productivity lowering, and it was also causing a challenge with training and all of these other factors that play into other business costs as well. By making the wage more stable, making it less likely that you're going to jump from job to job for 50 cents an hour, you

Corey 28:10

you may find that there's some ancillary benefits to the economy. of me carter

Zain 28:13

carter same question to you is there another audience at play we discussed this last night you were not there on tv i know that's oh yeah guys

Corey 28:19

guys we talk about the

Zain 28:22

was kicked off of cbc should we on on labor day the day where labor is celebrated you got de-labored you

Carter 28:27

you got first of all you got de

Carter 28:30

all of us were fired that

Corey 28:32

that was my favorite part that was my favorite all

Carter 28:34

all of us were fired on labor day from cbc can i tell the story

Carter 28:37

yeah i think you should Can I tell

Corey 28:39

Go ahead. So there we were on Labor Day, not checking our work emails because we respect what unions have done to build this country. Jesus. But the CBC sent us an email because

Corey 28:49

don't respect what labor has done to build this country. They don't

Carter 28:53

don't respect the worker.

Corey 28:54

Saying, hey, guys, strategists out. Carter's been too involved in this PC leadership race.

Carter 29:00

race. They didn't even say

Carter 29:01

They just said strategists out. Yeah.

Corey 29:03

So we're canceling the strategists. Thanks. thanks thanks but no thanks oh okay that's pretty pretty pretty harsh pretty

Corey 29:11

harsh and then two members of the strategists zane belgi and cory hogan got follow-up emails saying hey we're putting together a political panel to replace the strategist would you like to be a member of it so classic

Corey 29:25

fire and rehire so i i feel like um i feel like there was probably more direct ways Ways to fire Stephen Carter? I think on

Corey 29:33

air would have been my preference.

Carter 29:36

On air would definitely have been my preference. Rob Brown looking at me and saying, you know what? I have been here before. This is not my first day. Get off my airwaves. That would have been great. That would

Zain 29:47

would have been great.

Zain 29:48

question to you. Audiences for Rachel Notley. Is there a national audience or a more broader audience than just Alberta for her that could be at play here? Corey thinks there is. I actually do think there is as well. But what do you make of that?

Carter 30:04

no you don't think so

Carter 30:05

no i mean at the end of the day i mean we like to inflate our own uh internal uh

Carter 30:11

importance in the rest of the world um but

Carter 30:15

it's in the same way that everything that christy clark does doesn't get the same coverage even in the neighboring province and as you move eastward there's less and less coverage of what christy clark is doing and the and the run-up to her election um this is the same with uh with rachel notley we're all excited about it and cory the orange apologist is like this is huge for the whole country and the truth of the matter is this hasn't made a blip in prince edward island it just hasn't and it won't sorry i

Corey 30:44

i bet you i could find at least three articles from pei talking about this okay

Zain 30:48

okay let's move it on use your google machine let's move it on to our next segment our next segment adding the d D, Kenny versus Kennedy. Guys, Donna Kennedy-Glantz, former provincial cabinet minister, has entered the race for PCU leadership. DKG. Full disclosure, I'd worked on Donna's campaign. I was going to just do your full disclosure. You were going to do my full disclosure on Donna's campaign? We got to work together, Stephen. I mean, you were top dog and I was lesser dog. Yeah,

Carter 31:10

Yeah, but my dog just kept coming over and peeing on your head because your candidate kept fucking up. Let's

Zain 31:16

Let's just talk about Donna entering the race as a second candidate to challenge Jason Kenney. And, Corey, I'll go with you first. And I want to kind of talk about the concept of timing as it relates to entering a leadership race. So she enters in the first week of September. The leadership race does not open up until October 1st. what do you make of her timing as she enters this race as being the the official second not the official but the second declared candidate in the pc leadership race about time i

Corey 31:47

i mean it's about time somebody else jumped into this race and at least made it clear it was going to and this was your point the whole

Zain 31:53

why the hell is no one here yeah

Corey 31:54

yeah i you know i think i'm not sure she needed to come in now somebody needed to come in now and it's probably good that she did it because her strategy is obviously going to be one at the end of the day of uh being the most popular of the others right the thing about donna kennedy glanz is she reminds me in so many ways and i don't mean this many people will take it as a slight uh but she reminds me a lot of stefan dion right maybe not anybody's first choice but not anybody's last choice and when you start looking at them on paper they seem like they tick all of the boxes right and when you get in a situation with let's just imagine seven or eight leadership candidates and those ballots start to go on and there's a roll-up against the clear favorite you know in this case we're talking about jason kenney in the case of diana was michael ignachif right uh you

Corey 32:41

you can get you can get a lot of traction by being somebody who's not offending anybody and certainly her bona fides strong you

Corey 32:50

you know pc mla business background you know has been talking about reform has been talking about changing the party has been saying those things that she needs to say i think that she's actually my dark horse pick of this race at this point which sounds funny because she's the only there's two people in the race yeah there's other rumored

Carter 33:07

yeah she's still the darkest of the horses all right even against the people now carter you also

Zain 33:13

also have you know i

Carter 33:14

i have a dog i

Zain 33:15

i have a disclosure

Carter 33:15

disclosure right i'm working on a campaign

Zain 33:18

campaign we've got we've got yeah exactly so so now carter but let's just talk about timing right october 1st is a race when it starts she enters in september um no one really expecting it to happen including her and she runs and she gets into the race so what do you make of of her timing as it relates to what is she trying to build as it leads up to to that delegated convention worst

Carter 33:41

worst timing ever you can't enter a race in the first week it's like entering a race in the last week of august or the first week of september everybody

Carter 33:48

everybody else in the whole world has real life going on there's actual stuff happening right you you change your daycare you You change your schooling patterns. You change everything. It takes until about the third week of September for us to get back into the sink. We all pretend that the start of the new year is January because, you know, some sort of calendar that was created by the Romans. This is, in fact, our real beginning of the year because everybody is now back from their summers. They're putting their kids in school, and that is a far bigger disruption than

Carter 34:21

than almost anything else. Traffic patterns change. would you

Zain 34:24

suggested summer ahead of september oh

Zain 34:27

second straight up think so hey well i

Carter 34:29

i think you would have done

Zain 34:30

done like mid-august rather than i

Carter 34:31

i think you could have been the only game in mid-august right you were you weren't even in the game and i went back i looked at her tweets so she wound up announcing on twitter and then doing some some interviews some media

Zain 34:42

media that's correct right

Carter 34:43

how many retweets how many interactions do we think those twitter tweets got tell

Zain 34:47

tell us i haven't less

Carter 34:48

less than 20 right

Zain 34:50

the timing on that is what you're yeah

Carter 34:53

Now, I mean, in fairness, Corey,

Carter 34:56

who I think is a lesser light than Donnick at any glance, I mean, all would agree, I think, got

Carter 35:00

got somewhere in the neighborhood of like 100 retweets on some of his stuff or interactions on his stuff because, I don't know, people like Corey.

Carter 35:09

They have about the same number of followers, right? About 3,000 or so followers on Twitter. But Corey seems to get actual retweets and interactions on his Twitter feed. Not to say that Twitter is necessarily the barometer of election success, but when you only launch on Twitter, let's be honest, that is some sort of a barometer of your launch. Tell

Zain 35:28

Tell me about this. I think Donna herself or in the media article described this as a soft launch. Is that a thing in politics? Because I'd love to discuss the strategy of launching because I don't think we've ever done that before. Can you softly announce and then two weeks later have a convention? No, it's

Corey 35:44

it's only a thing if you don't launch, right? As soon as you launch, it's a hard launch. you can't actually make a statement that i'm in the race a soft launch in the in the true conventional sense uh or soft entry to the race so we call it just so there's no confusion we'll be going around and letting anybody you're talking to one-on-one be like yeah i'm thinking about it i'm probably going to run yeah

Carter 36:03

yeah there's four campaigns that have soft launched yeah right

Carter 36:06

donna's was a hard launch yeah

Carter 36:08

and it wasn't a hard launch on purpose i think that we can go back and relay this is my understanding of how this happened i don't have firsthand knowledge she

Carter 36:16

sends out an email to to her former caucus mate saying in the first sentence i'm going to run for the leadership of the progressive party

Corey 36:24

bcc somebody should really great

Carter 36:26

great so out here

Corey 36:27

here on how that works yeah

Carter 36:28

yeah so it actually lists all of the people she sent it to in the in the top part that gets sent to i don't know everybody right so i get that email did you see this all the the journalists get that email because you know what it leaks now she's got a launch that's how she launched her campaign right so a

Carter 36:52

is to pick up the phone and call those people and say i'm thinking of running or

Corey 36:55

one-on-one email but like

Carter 36:57

you know i'll send it yeah i'll send it to to this person and i'll take the same email and send it to each person one-on-one or i'll even try the bcc model but it's going to leak the more that you put it in writing right So if you wanted to do a soft launch, here's how you would do it. She'd have an event in

Carter 37:15

in the second week or third week of September. That event would be talking about something that she thinks is incredibly important to her. Something that really symbolizes. It could be about the party. It could be just about anything, but something that says, this is important to me and I am going to make this actually happen. happen right

Carter 37:36

um and and this is what i believe in and and she gets media coverage on that and

Carter 37:40

and she gets coverage and discussion going within her within the party right then

Carter 37:45

then two or three weeks later she's able to stand up and say being

Carter 37:48

being in the media for that two or three weeks building

Carter 37:52

she says you know what i am in fact throwing my hat in this ring because i think that this is so important to me that it needs to be heard and

Carter 37:59

and i think that albertans will respond by electing me leader and making my issue their issue cory

Zain 38:06

cory i want to go to you on this you've you just described done as potentially being your dark horse candidate i'm a fan of that i'm full disclosure of friends with don and really like her what

Zain 38:14

what would you in

Zain 38:16

in this sense of and whether it's don or whoever else let's talk about the strategy for being a dark horse candidate in this race what does that look like on on the candidates part in terms of let's go broad strokes for now But like, what is your messaging? Where do you kind of play?

Zain 38:31

How do you become that candidate? How do you become the Stéphane Dion candidate, right? If you know that your goal is to not, let's say, surpass Jason Kenney, how do you actually become the best liked of the rest? Well,

Corey 38:41

Well, let me actually start with some detail and work out. The first day of the 2006 Liberal Leadership Convention in Montreal, there was a situation

Corey 38:53

with delegates. delegates the Alberta delegation so

Corey 38:58

so the the party had you know a chair that was a neutral chair for each each

Corey 39:03

each region as well as you know each campaign having a chair and the neutral chair for the Alberta region had said these

Corey 39:10

these people can be delegates even though they don't meet these certain requirements of being a delegate which as soon as we got to Montreal the national chair immediately

Corey 39:20

no they absolutely cannot those rules are not bendable that is the rule right and And I won't go into the details about who messed up or how that situation came to be. But there was a moment where our representative was in the room and Jason or Gerard Kennedy's representative was in the room and Bob Ray's representative was in the room and

Corey 39:38

Michael Ignatyev's representative was in the room. And this was Kennedy delegates that were being disenfranchised by this decision. And you had Ray and Ignatyev representatives both saying, absolutely not. These people cannot be delegates. No, no, no, no, no. know and our representative also said yeah of course they can't be delegates uh until they were immediately pulled in by a more senior person said are you out of your mind you support them being delegates it's never going to happen yeah

Corey 40:06

and we need friends everywhere and so the idea is you antagonize nobody under any circumstances and you're everybody's best friend you're sending around event

Corey 40:14

event invitations to their events saying like hey martha hall finley's pretty good too You should check out her event while you're at it.

Zain 40:21

You're the above board. Is it almost non-political political choice? It's like the politics of hugs. You're going out there. Carter, to Corey's point,

Zain 40:29

what would you advise as

Zain 40:31

as the dark horse sort

Zain 40:32

sort of strategy? You've done

Corey 40:32

done this, right? I'm going to just jump in and I'm going to say Stephen's

Corey 40:35

Stephen's approach in the last PC, or the second last, is they've had a lot of leadership. So

Carter 40:41

So many leaderships. But

Corey 40:42

But with Alison Redford and when they actually went out and started putting the charm

Corey 40:49

charm offensive on Doug Horner was

Corey 40:52

was a masterstroke. Doug Horner didn't say, I'm friends with Alison Redford. She's my second choice. Alison Redford said that about Doug Horner and people just filled in the details. That's the kind of work you do when you're trying to be friends with everybody. You're also making sure everybody knows you're friends with everybody. Carter,

Zain 41:09

Carter, anything to add to that? Matt, is there anything in specific you would say is part of a dark horse strategy to defeat Jason Kenney in this election? Corey's talked about the generalities, and I like that. Anything you'd want to add to that?

Carter 41:21

Well, if you're going to be the dark horse in a game where 50%—where it's unity versus anti-unity, right?

Carter 41:29

So you have to pick one of those two sides. And

Carter 41:32

And Donna, in her unbelievable capacity to misunderstand politics at every juncture— Come on. uh came you know this is

Zain 41:41

is great this is getting awkward i know it will going forward but

Carter 41:44

but it's fine she

Carter 41:47

i'm anti-unity unless i decide to become unity and

Zain 41:51

and well she said her phrase was unite the middle right that was

Carter 41:53

was what he's trying to then she's also like prepared to go to the to the to the unite the right she she's basically bridged all of the camps and it's

Carter 42:02

it's challenging because cory's point is you got to make sure that you like every you know the people get along along with you but at some point you

Carter 42:09

you can't like the guy in front yeah because the guy in front so gary that's that's the no-no gary mark in our leadership he's

Corey 42:17

he's going to be on the last ballot no matter what you can't get no benefits zero benefit from second up to those guys so

Carter 42:23

so you picked two three four five six those candidates are the ones that you most want so there's a caveat

Carter 42:30

to this strategy so if i was smarter which clearly i'm not i'd be like donna kennedy glenn's coming into of the race is the smartest thing ever i think that's great because at the end of the day i want her to come to my horse right she's i if she comes in below sandra jansen who is who i'm helping blah blah blah full disclosure blah blah don't care um

Zain 42:50

um you don't care that you're helping her okay that's steven carter on the record on the podcast no

Carter 42:54

no i mean let's be let's be i i like sandra sandra and i are great friends we've been friends for a long long time sound

Zain 42:59

sound like me four minutes ago i

Carter 43:02

to kick the shit out of jason kenney okay

Carter 43:05

okay there i said it um anyways uh i

Carter 43:08

i should be picking i should be saying to donna kennedy glance we love you we want you to come and support sanders jansen if

Carter 43:15

if you fall off the ballot first in fact we probably will help you if you're above us on the first ballot we'd move to you but

Carter 43:21

but i don't have to worry about that with donna kennedy glance so i'll

Carter 43:24

i'll move on okay

Zain 43:25

okay let's move it to our next segment our next segment guys the american grab bag of shit so i'm gonna list to you guys about what is it four situations here that were mini crises between the times we've recorded and i want you guys to respond on a scale of one to ten one being they have made the crisis worse and ten being that was a pretty good job dealing with it as to these four situations so tell me how how they've done on the response and then if we want we can see if there's a little bit of discussion time for each back

Carter 43:53

up and tell us the scale again like one to

Zain 43:54

to ten okay pretend

Carter 43:55

pretend like we're gonna listen okay one's

Zain 43:57

one's a one ten's a ten ten is good ten is good ten's like that's a really good job dealing with that crisis one's like you have made it worse thank

Zain 44:04

can i start with you because i know you'll forget the scale so i'll start with you i need to know i'll start with you okay how nbc responded to matt lauer's criticism of of hosting the town hall i give

Zain 44:15

i give it a c you're

Carter 44:19

don't think that nbc responded wanted particularly well but it was it was swept away by other other issues so um the you know matt lauer's you know a kind of bullshit moderation was swept away late i can't remember what the issues were later because there's so many issues you'll remind me at some point i'm sure zane but it

Carter 44:39

was a thing for a day or two and then or not even two i think it was a thing for a day and then it was gone so i give them a c cory

Zain 44:45

cory the matt lauer situation ultimately being where he was It was extremely difficult on Hillary Clinton. It did not call out Donald Trump on his series of lies. Quite deferential

Zain 44:54

Trump. One to ten, how do you think the network and Matt Lauer himself dealt with the situation? One made it worse. Ten, that was a pretty good job dealing with the crisis. Well, I

Corey 45:04

I actually don't know how Matt Lauer did himself. I saw all sorts of leaks from network execs admitting that it was a bad job, which I have to imagine gives you a score less than five because you're essentially throwing your own talent under the bus um one of your top talent under the bus yeah well i mean we might be reducing them from top talent status based on that interview alone but you

Corey 45:27

you know i i would say probably a four it wasn't lethal uh everybody was just so i mean but this is kind of the this is the svengali thing that trump's got going on he beats the shit out of the media and the media comes to him and and is you know they're so worried about looking like they're

Corey 45:44

they're going to be biased that they they go way too far the other way and they all do it i mean i can't even count at this point how many debates uh the lead-up which it was trump yelling about they won't be fair oh they're going to be the worst and then they just essentially kiss his ass because they don't want to be accused by millions of angry americans of being

Corey 46:05

yeah carter damaged control

Zain 46:07

control by hillary clinton uh on the day that she faded it and her doctors came out and said it was pneumonia almost immediately. What do you think of her campaign's ability to damage control that situation when there was a leaked video of her fainting on a very hot New York day? Scale of one to 10. One, they made it worse. 10, pretty good job.

Carter 46:28

Again, I come back as a D.

Corey 46:31

Your first was a C, by the way.

Carter 46:34

I know, but letter

Carter 46:35

letter grades are far more effective than this. here's the problem it wasn't the immediate damage control it was knowing that you were walking into a problem and not doing anything to mitigate they

Zain 46:43

they probably thought the pneumonia disclosure was the mitigation no

Carter 46:47

no but they knew that she had pneumonia on friday right

Carter 46:50

right on saturday she collapsed this is the problem right uh or didn't collapse okay but i'm sorry two days after yes

Carter 46:59

that to me so if if i know that there's a problem coming i'm

Carter 47:04

i'm setting the groundwork for a potent you know like pneumonia

Carter 47:07

pneumonia is not just any kind of run in the middle it's not a cold right it's not a cold i mean uh a cold is something you get the sniffles whatever but even that in american politics is bad in in this particular case pneumonia when you come up with that diagnosis that's a big freaking deal and they knew about it two days before a

Carter 47:27

a bad thing happened you

Carter 47:28

can't pull her from the 9-11 memorial you can't do that that's impossible so how do you set the stage for her to

Carter 47:36

to be successful and they didn't set the stage for her to be successful at all interesting so

Zain 47:40

so a low grade from you oh

Carter 47:43

very low grade he's

Zain 47:44

he's a passing grade just to let you know oh yeah

Zain 47:47

yeah but you don't get to take you

Carter 47:48

you don't get to go to the next level right you you just you you get through it because they did manage to engage

Zain 47:53

engage you on your goddamn scale that i I don't care about. Corey Hogan, 1 to 10. Hillary Clinton on the damage control of her health. And maybe we may have a discussion about how important this is in a second. But give me your scaling first. On 1 to 10, I give her

Corey 48:04

her a 0, which is 11% below your scale where 1 is 0 as a percent. It was bad. It was really, really bad. It was as bad as a scale of 1 to 10, which is a terrible scale. What the problem is is that she has a trust issue. Nobody trusts Hillary Clinton. She is considered entirely untrustworthy, and then she had to re-explain three times exactly what the hell was going on.

Carter 48:28

on. What the hell the issue was. Yeah, you're playing right into that. As Corey said, many times you play right into the preconceived notion. You're

Zain 48:34

You're done. Well, when we talk about laying the groundwork for a second here, this issue could be quite dangerous to her because the alt-right, which is, I know, the new stupid name for the alternative conservative right, has actually been talking about Hillary Clinton's health for a very, very long time now. now. And when you see something like this hit the mainstream, Corey, do you agree that this could be potentially dangerous, not just on the response of the issue, but the issue itself for her? Yeah,

Zain 48:59

it's a big problem. I mean, they

Corey 49:01

for a long time were saying this is a bunch of quackery conspiracy theory. I'm not saying it's not. But then to be let's let's be clear. It's not like she said, I'm sick with pneumonia. And everybody said, Oh, pneumonia, that's evidence of what we're talking about. It was she lied about her health. She covered up her health. She did exactly what what they claimed she was doing in the alt right albeit on a much smaller scale sure and she has then created that doubt in a lot of people's minds about like oh well maybe maybe there is something to this and worse than that they start thinking well if there's something to that maybe she is murdering democratic staffers maybe she is you know corrupt and crooked

Zain 49:39

crooked and whatever yeah

Corey 49:40

yeah it starts to i

Corey 49:42

i mean it all plays together right they don't trust her she's just once again broken their trust she denied something that she was accused of

Corey 49:50

by these people that then turned out in some way shape or form to be true it's really bad this is the kind of thing that loses elections i'm not being hyperbolic yeah

Carter 49:59

yeah i mean this is there's a point where um it stops being spin and starts being lies right and this is this is the problem is that this stopped being spin and started to be lies she was diagnosed with pneumonia by

Carter 50:13

by definition she wasn't well right

Carter 50:16

She played it like she was still well.

Carter 50:18

That was a lie.

Carter 50:19

And now she's caught in the lie. So my problem is don't put yourself in the position where you lie. What

Carter 50:26

would you have done? Yeah. What would

Zain 50:27

situation have been? I'd

Carter 50:29

I'd have taken a down day on Saturday.

Zain 50:31

So you would have taken a down day on Saturday. Well, OK, let's just talk about you see video of her fainting. Start there. Right. That you

Carter 50:38

can't start there. You've missed that point. That's where the crisis began. again that's

Zain 50:41

that's where it's not that's okay that's when this one incident began it didn't no it's not okay

Corey 50:48

okay the incident began when she left the the uh event and she said it was because of the heat the video didn't come out until later that's

Zain 50:55

that's right no but

Corey 50:56

but the video is not what caused the kerfuffle the kerfuffle i

Corey 51:00

i i've never sounded so angry saying that word and so old was was caused by her leaving in the first place and then they gave an excuse they

Corey 51:09

they said she's fine they had to roll that back once the video came out she was essentially caught in a lie within the course of an hour that's

Zain 51:18

so so hold on you would have advised to to ultimately get her to a position where she would not have to do that you're down what

Zain 51:24

however go ahead cory i

Corey 51:26

i mean all she had to do was on friday start being like yeah i'm a little under the weather like honestly if she had said that there would literally have been no you

Carter 51:33

you know what i'm going to take saturday i'm going to do a half day i'm going to do a third of my load I want to I want to resume you know I'm going to recover from this and then by the time and who knows if she'd taken a half day or taking the day off on Saturday she might have been fine on Sunday and then we don't get to the place where she has to explain to us why it's pneumonia and how she'll recover from it perfect

Zain 51:52

perfect and I appreciate you going down that road but to that question let's say you're only brought in at that moment when you're like we think there's a video what's the response then that's the crisis i want you to enter i

Zain 52:06

know i make this difficult i do but i you you are criticizing the response from that moment going forward i'd like

Carter 52:12

like you're making false

Carter 52:15

i reject your rules and i insert my own rules but if you're going to make me follow your rules which is your right as the almost former moderator of the strategists

Carter 52:25

what is What is important to understand at that particular moment is there isn't a recovery. There is full disclosure and you move forward. And from that point of view, that's what they did. So at the point when you were caught, absolutely

Carter 52:44

move forward. Corey, do you agree?

Corey 52:46

Yeah, and that's what they did. But the problem is trust because now nobody's... It speaks to it. No, no, it's not even that it speaks to it. There is questions as to whether that was full disclosure.

Zain 52:57

another hillary clinton one basket of deplorables guys this phrase i don't know where she uttered it to tell you the truth i think it's a fundraiser it was a fundraiser okay she utters this as a fundraiser as a description of trump supporters cory hogan one to ten give it to me on the scale did she not the phrase itself we can talk about that not the phrase itself how they they dealt with it going forward a one or a ten and when between the phrase

Corey 53:23

phrase itself i give a ten you like

Corey 53:25

the phrase it is just so it's it's clunky enough to be weird but not so clunky as to be like what you know so and it's quite memorable in that sense and it it also sort of mirrors to me the binder full of women comment that romney made there's just something that's along the same lines now as far as her reaction and whatnot call

Corey 53:48

call me crazy but i don't know that it's a bad thing if america's arguing about whether a quarter or a half of trump supporters belong in this quote-unquote basket of deplorables i don't think it's as bad for her as the republicans would like it to be because in some ways it's not even like they're

Corey 54:06

they're almost conceding that there are these deplorables right they're they're just saying like what an outrage they're saying they all are that's so wrong you know these are just hard working americans but nobody

Corey 54:16

nobody is making the claim that these people aren't supporting donald trump or that donald trump hasn't given voice to this quote-unquote alt-right which let's stop that let's just call them bigots and racists and assholes yeah

Carter 54:27

yeah there's no sense in whitewashing and calling it a alt-right group i mean they are bigots racists and deplorables a basket full let's say yeah

Corey 54:38

yeah and so it's not it's not a bad thing that she's reminding america of that i continue to be concerned a bit about the timing of all of this i worry that she's she's

Corey 54:50

she's come out too early with this stuff i think people are just going to be numb to the accusation by the time november comes

Zain 54:57

comes along carter one to ten on the response to the phrase that hillary clinton made what did you you make of it well

Carter 55:02

well let me let me back this up a bit as i do and provide a little bit more of why this problem happened when we are stuck in the position where we have groups

Carter 55:11

groups of audiences sometimes we're going to say something to one group of audience that we know will have an impact this is going to have an impact for

Carter 55:18

for her fundraisers she will raise more money if she was to include basket full of deplorables in every fundraising letter every fundraising email every fundraising raising speech because those people love

Carter 55:29

love to hear that they're better than the other guy.

Carter 55:32

And the same way that you could do the same thing that, you know, the left-leaning libtards or whatever the hell the conservatives are saying these days about the left. These are, you

Carter 55:44

know, we call it dog whistle. This isn't a dog whistle. This is more of a listen to, I am saying what you you want me to say, you will respond positively to it. And that's where this

Carter 55:57

this gets really interesting because we're trying to talk to all these different audiences at once in a world where you can't say one thing to one audience. So did she manage it well? Sure she did. Now we're talking about the percentage of people that are actually deplorable instead of the fact, you know, but we should be talking about the fact that Trump is playing the racism card every chance he gets. Corey,

Corey 56:20

do you want to quickly finish this one off before we go to the next one? Yeah, to quote a former boss of mine, she put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Corey 56:29

The longer quote went on to talk about how the

Corey 56:34

the other half, right, the other group of Trump supporters, and she said speaking grossly, like even when she said half, she didn't imply any kind of precision to that number.

Corey 56:44

But the other group of people, she said, have legitimate concerns and are feeling anxious about the economy and this, that and the other thing. And we need to talk to those people and we need to reach out to them and we need to involve them in what we're trying to do here.

Corey 56:57

That's probably what she should have led with. I mean, if it had been like Donald Trump supporters are not bad

Corey 57:03

bad people universally, right? There are real concerns that have led to this. There has been an economy that has let them down in these ways. This is what I think, and we need to talk to them.

Corey 57:16

The others that belong to that basket of deplorables, we don't need to talk to them. I mean, I think if she had even just reversed it, she would not have gotten into the trouble she got in.

Zain 57:25

Finally, Carter, Gary Johnson's Aleppo screw-up. Not knowing what Aleppo was, on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you think Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party dealt with that? I'll go with you first, and then I'll go to Corey.

Carter 57:37

Well, I'm going to give them just a straight pass. ass

Carter 57:39

ass um i mean listen

Carter 57:41

listen anytime the gary johnson's name gets mentioned in the media he's winning right

Carter 57:45

right even when it's this oh sure right trump has proven trump has proven that it doesn't matter what they say about you as long as they spell your name right and gary johnson not knowing what aleppo is is it's it's

Carter 57:58

it's a very popular

Corey 57:58

popular brand of dog i was

Carter 58:00

was gonna say the same but um everybody uh the rest of the world the rest of the population if if i was to walk out and do a streeter right Right now, I'd be lucky to get 20 percent saying, oh, yeah, Aleppo, it's Syria. And why haven't we got the why haven't we got the relief there yet? And given the ceasefires going on, no one knows that. Right. No one knows that. Instead, he's been caught in a media elite error.

Carter 58:25

But frankly, he just wants to be seen and he's going to get a significant percentage of the vote in this election. And that's good for him and his cause. Corey,

Zain 58:33

Corey, one to ten. Gary Johnson on Aleppo. What do you think? Like,

Zain 58:37

well, you can't give him a pass

Corey 58:38

pass like Stephen did. I'd give him a fail. The –

Corey 58:44

The scales are fine. You know what? I love

Carter 58:45

love your scales. Your scales are great. The challenge I have with him is,

Corey 58:48

is, I mean, he looked dumb to many, many people who might have been looking for a serious alternative, particularly on the right where they're sitting with a guy who looks dumb on a pretty consistent basis. But I agree with Stephen that, you know, it

Corey 59:03

it would almost be hypocritical for most Americans. You know, there were so many Americans, I guarantee you, who saw the newscast about Gary Johnson not knowing what Aleppo was and learning what Aleppo was at the same time.

Carter 59:13

time. We should have looked at Google to see what they Google. What is Aleppo? Who is

Carter 59:19

Aleppo? Who is Aleppo? Isn't that one of the Marx Brothers?

Zain 59:23

Okay, let's move it on to our final segment. Our final segment, a new segment I want to call, well, it's with the over, under, and lightning round, but something called Sweet Nothings. Okay, Sweet Nothings. Stephen Carter, I'll start with you because I know you'll be exceptional at this. Is this

Carter 59:36

this going to be like those fucking Chinese fortune cookie things that we're supposed to do?

Zain 59:41

call them fortune cookies, but yes. We've dropped the Chinese a very long time ago

Carter 59:45

ago from fortune cookies.

Zain 59:47

We just let them own it now. It's their cookie. So it's the fortune

Carter 59:49

fortune cookie. It started in

Carter 59:51

Francisco. Here we go. Sweet nothings.

Zain 59:52

nothings. This is you being the strategist 30 seconds before your candidate is about to do something. So this is either in the past or in the future. So let's try with you, Stephen Carter. Carter, you're standing beside Justin Trudeau as he heads to the U.N. to try to plea for a Security Council seat. What is the one sentence you are whispering in his ear? What is the sweet nothing that you're telling Justin Trudeau just before he's about to speak?

Carter 1:00:16

Remember, they like you for you. Don't try and be smart.

Zain 1:00:21

anything more substantive? Humorous also works, but substantive and humorous. Substantive and humorous is the intersection we go for here. Corey Hogan, do you have anything? I think a sweet nothing to Justin Trudeau as he pleads for a U.N. Security Council seat. Don't take a selfie with the Russian ambassador. Pretty good. Okay.

Zain 1:00:40

You are Kelly Leach. You're about to go on power in politics. I am Kelly

Carter 1:00:44

Kelly or I'm whispering in Kelly's ear?

Zain 1:00:46

I'm describing the situation, then I'll describe you. She's about to go on power in politics, okay? Yeah. You are standing just before she goes on, standing with her. She's got certain values she defines as Canadians. What do you tell her before she sits down with an interview with Rosie Barton?

Carter 1:01:01

Stick to your guns. Seriously. Don't let her take you off track. And I love your hairdo.

Carter 1:01:06

Corey, what are you telling

Corey 1:01:13

you know what's tough about this is I don't know if I should be like the ghost of Christmas future and talking her out of it. Or if I should just be trying to be giving her the best advice to do the worst plan possible. You have both options open. Yeah, I guess what I would say is be an

Carter 1:01:26

an honest consultant to her. Yeah,

Corey 1:01:27

Yeah, I have second thoughts about this. Maybe let's stick to our message box a bit tighter

Zain 1:01:32

Carter, before we go into the next one You said stick to your guns Can we talk about this issue for a second? I'm going to derail the segment But do you genuinely believe she needs to stick to her guns On this context that she's talking about What Canadian values are This is a debate re-emerging from September, October of last year Corey,

Carter 1:01:49

Corey, what episode number was the doubling down episode?

Carter 1:01:53

Every episode You don't backtrack on this First of all, it will be successful within a very small group of people that she needs to appeal to if she wants to win the conservative leadership and she does want to win the conservative leadership sadly this will haunt her forever and she'll never win an election but if

Carter 1:02:11

if she wants to try and win the conservative leadership if she wants to be a broker in

Carter 1:02:17

in that leadership with her her you know making something happen being i mean it's a one member one vote hundred points for writing so it's kind of a weird one but there's there is an opportunity for her to be a significant player moving forward she do i like this absolutely not but she's found an audience for it and she can't back away cory

Zain 1:02:38

cory the next one on the sweet nothings you are whispering into the ear of montreal mayor denny coder just before he enters a few weeks ago the neb pipeline hearings what are you telling him as he steps into that room?

Corey 1:02:52

You know, all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and everything's going to go exactly your way.

Zain 1:02:59

what would you tell him?

Zain 1:03:00

He's got a perspective. He doesn't know what could happen. What would you have told him? This

Carter 1:03:03

This is not the place to bring the jackhammer. Put the jackhammer back. On

Carter 1:03:07

note. No, I mean, I can't.

Carter 1:03:10

You know, I just told Corey to be an honest broker and be the honest, you know, and I

Carter 1:03:14

I did that. And now I'm immediately regretting it. You need a cold shower because Denny Coderre, with both this Canada Post stance and his anti-pipeline rantings, is in my mind, he's worse than Kelly Leach with her dog whistle politics.

Zain 1:03:34

Corey Hogan, how much does it hurt on a scale of one to ten, one being not so much, ten being a lot, how much does it hurt the conservatives that Peter McKay has decided not to run?

Zain 1:03:44

Oh, an eight. I mean,

Corey 1:03:44

mean, at this point, it's like Tony Clement, and he's the best that they've got. I mean, it's a pretty weak pack right now. You've got a lot of damaged goods that are running that seem right now to be trying to out

Corey 1:03:59

out-ignorant each other. You know, everybody saw that ad of, like, marriages between a man and a woman. I

Zain 1:04:04

I saw that, yeah.

Corey 1:04:05

I mean, come on. Like, if this is what the Conservative Party is going to be branded at through this race. And, by the way, you can have a lot of views in this race. but if they're all of one type you're

Corey 1:04:15

you're in a lot of trouble carter

Zain 1:04:17

carter one to ten how much of an issue is this for the conservative party of canada that peter mckay has decided not to run well

Carter 1:04:27

think that oftentimes we try and read the tea leaves to determine whether or not we should run i mean the most famous example i think is bernard lord right

Carter 1:04:34

right bernard lord was always going to be the next guy who never happened because he kept trying to trying to read the tea leaves and when it would would make the most sense when he could jump from provincial politics and when he wouldn't lose later by

Corey 1:04:44

except i would love if he entered the race now i

Carter 1:04:46

i know but it's it's like spent political capital he he missed he didn't spend it remember we talked about political capital you gotta spend it when you get it yes he didn't spend it and it just went away it dissolved so i think that a lot of people are trying to figure out if you know would i run if i ran now could i win the election in three years and there's and they're coming up with that math saying no justin trudeau was just too darn popular. Except we don't know what three years looks like from now. And I think that we're going to get a weaker leader as a result. Corey,

Zain 1:05:17

Corey, scale of one to 10, how much does it hurt the Conservative Party of Canada's brand, the comments that Kelly Leach made? How much impact does she have? One being not so much, 10, this could be quite tarnishing to the overall brand of the Conservative Party.

Corey 1:05:29

I think it's only tarnishing insofar as there's not a stronger stronger counterpoint and the fact that ron ambrose sort of walked back her criticism and and

Corey 1:05:37

and you know in fact if ron had said at the start like it's a leadership race people are going to say stuff it is what it is but the fact that she felt like she had to walk it back yeah

Corey 1:05:47

view couldn't be attacked says something pretty ugly and it becomes a problem at that point carter problem one

Zain 1:05:54

one to ten what do you think what is it well

Carter 1:05:56

well i think she did it's poor uh

Carter 1:05:57

uh to ignore your grading system again um oh

Zain 1:06:01

oh i don't even acknowledge it anymore yeah i

Carter 1:06:02

i mean i think that i think that she um created a this

Carter 1:06:09

didn't work in the general election like you literally just had the opportunity to dry run this and it was a polling question so you had the opportunity to walk away and say listen it's just something that was being polled on this isn't something we're looking at uh

Carter 1:06:25

uh she She didn't. She doubled down immediately, and I

Carter 1:06:29

I think that she made

Carter 1:06:31

made a tremendous mistake for the long haul of the Conservative Party.

Zain 1:06:35

Corey Hogan, over under on $20,000, how much would you pay for a portrait of Donald Trump?

Zain 1:06:43

Way under. Do you get the context here of the Trump charity spending $20,000 just for a portrait of him?

Zain 1:06:49

No, I had no idea. There you go. Yeah, the

Carter 1:06:50

the Trump charity turns out to be more of a public relations agency for Trump.

Zain 1:06:57

We will get into a full – I want to go full Trump next episode where we talk all about Donald Trump. We haven't touched on him a lot this episode. Full

Zain 1:07:03

Full Trump. That's what we're going to call it. Are we going to do it naked? Carter, one to ten, how epic are Colin Powell's emails?

Zain 1:07:15

God. They're amazing. I thought you'd be up on this one, Carter.

Carter 1:07:17

Well, no, I'm up on it. I'm just trying to figure out how epic are they? I mean, this is OK.

Zain 1:07:22

OK. This guy knows how to use email slash doesn't know how to use email.

Corey 1:07:28

I am just so excited about some of the revelations like the the creepy camp that Stephen Harper was apparently at. Like, it's just so awesome. This is the best leak yet. I this is

Corey 1:07:40

is a year of leaks and it should make us all very nervous. Put on your two factor authentication, kids. And I don't mean just to text your phone. Get a proper thing. Because, obviously, nobody is safe anymore. But, wow. I mean, the Colin Powell ones are epic.

Corey 1:07:55

epic. They are just, like, so blunt

Corey 1:07:57

blunt on every subject and, like, weird, like, frankness and sincerity and just, like, it's just so much fun. They are by far the best emails. Carter,

Zain 1:08:05

Carter, a question for you that you can't answer. The morning after the first American presidential debate, who is winning the public opinion polls from that debate? debate is it donald trump or is it hillary clinton on the morning after who wins on the morning

Carter 1:08:21

morning after that's right so

Zain 1:08:22

so when they do when

Zain 1:08:24

immediate response exactly what i want to know who's won that 12-hour news cycle history

Carter 1:08:32

history dictates it has to be trump he wins the media every freaking day he's

Corey 1:08:38

you're going with trump cory well not just that but um remember romney romney won that first debate won that first debate right i think that there is something about expectations and in the case of obama romney obama didn't come with his a game that's clear but i've watched it and i didn't think it was as bad as it seemed to everybody afterwards that

Corey 1:09:00

that first debate and part of it was people

Corey 1:09:03

people didn't know romney they knew the version of romney that was being put out there and when they saw actual romney and he had pivoted back towards the center and seemed reasonable relative to that caricature something we've talked about in the past he looked pretty good and if donald trump can

Corey 1:09:18

can stay somewhat reasonable and if you've watched him in debates he's very good at just dismissing and be like whatever we're not going to worry about that he's had some insane moments but if he keeps

Corey 1:09:26

insane moments out he'll

Corey 1:09:28

he'll probably win by default

Zain 1:09:30

that's it we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 592 of the strategist my name is with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we will see you next time

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