Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 833. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, happy summer Sunday. Oh
Carter
0:10
Oh my goodness, this is so exciting. Usually we spend about 10 minutes talking bullshit. This is great. I'm very excited. The 10
Zain
0:16
10 minutes are recorded. Did you not know that's the first part of
Carter
0:20
episode? We usually talk about 5 or 10 minutes about basketball or something stupid, and I don't pay attention. Corey,
Zain
0:26
Corey, how are you feeling about the Russell Westbrook trade? You still
Corey
0:28
it okay? Oh, man. You know what? It's Scotty Brooks, Westbrook back together. What's not to like? It'll be fine. It's all good. It was 14 degrees here in Calgary, Zane. So I might actually even steal the Stephen Carter bit and talk about outdoors. It was crazy. I would walk out of my garage into my backyard and I would get hit with waves of warm air. And it is December 6th today in Calgary, Alberta, which is cold as fuck and very far north. So I was pretty stunned.
Zain
0:58
And most people turn to this podcast for the warm slash hot air that each of you provide. Stephen, how was your weekend?
Carter
1:05
I did more outdoorsy stuff, you know, because it's my shtick now. But I went with my daughter again, and she skied me into the ground. But I'm not exhausted because I had a little snooze, so I'm feeling pretty good.
Carter
1:17
Snooze is a great word that's underutilized.
Corey
1:21
enough. Yeah, like every day. Did you hit snooze? Yes, I hit snooze. I think it's a word that's probably used too much, Carter. might be might be overexposed in fact you
Zain
1:32
carter carter should we talk about the fact that both last week cory and i both did um uh podcast promotion is what i like to call it uh we went on other uh other shows uh distributed the knowledge we have in
Zain
1:44
in service of the podcast um i
Zain
1:47
i just wanted to say that we did
Carter
1:48
did that i am
Carter
1:49
am happy for you to to go on other podcasts for free and work harder that makes me happy anytime you're out there promoting the podcast and you guys do the work and i don't have to i am all in so thank you very much for doing that west of center was excellent i really enjoyed it um the jasper shins juggernaut cory i mean it's a juggernaut and you were on it it was it was huge so i i'm not throwing stones i think you guys are doing a great great work you guys should promote the podcast a little bit more next week too huge numbers this week trump like numbers this week we did great thanks guys carter
Zain
2:22
carter i have made an appeal for canon land to invite you uh and uh they've rejected me for the 15th week in a row just to let
Carter
2:30
let you know that's okay i'm okay
Carter
2:31
again i'm happy with you guys working for nothing and me not so just keep doing it you've
Zain
2:36
you've put you've put a line in the sand all right guys let's move it on to our first we got a lot to talk about let's move it to our first segment the pandemic strategy scale there has been so much that has happened this week and like we do so often on this podcast we are putting it together in one segment. So if you're new to the show, here's how this will work. I will alternate between Stephen and Corey. I will give them a item that happened this week and the political response or strategy that was instilled with it. So for example, the first one we'll get off the top, I'll just preview for you guys, is the federal fiscal update. We'll talk about what some of the material elements of that was, the vagary, why so vague. And I might go to Stephen and he'll give me the response between 1 to 10, if he likes the strategy, and what would make it better. So very simple. One is, I didn't love this at all, 10, this was a strategic masterstroke with what the government of the day or the politicians of the day's strategy or message was. And then you're going to give me some feedback as to what would make it better, what you would have tweaked, what you would have done, not done, etc. So you're giving me a scale between 1 to 10. 1 is not very clever, not very strategic, not great at all. 10 is that masterstroke. And then you're going to give me your additional comments and feedback. Does that sound good?
Carter
3:54
Oh, so good. I'm all in.
Zain
3:57
We'll do it first, and we'll go into Corey, because, Carter, your enthusiasm is not necessary at the top of the show to this degree. At the bottom of the show, when we drag... Yeah,
Carter
4:04
Yeah, that's when I need to be there. That's
Zain
4:06
That's when you need to be there.
Carter
4:07
there. I'm sorry, yeah. Corey,
Zain
4:08
Corey, kick us off here. The federal fiscal update was earlier this week. Christopher Freeland, finance minister, indicated that the deficit will reach $381 billion by the end of March 2021. She also mentioned that the liberal government is preparing to spend nearly $100 billion to kickstart the post-pandemic economy. But for many, the details that were required for the Green Plan that was going to be instilled, how this recession, which is much more oriented and damaging to females, how the big ticket items in the speech from the throne were all going to be funded, solved in the timelines, were pretty vague so my question to you cory on a scale of one to ten what did you think of the liberal government's fiscal update and what would you have done differently either on the message or the substance from uh from what you saw well
Corey
5:03
well stephen harper tried to warn us didn't he he said there'd be a netflix tax if we voted for the liberals and guess what netflix
Corey
5:11
i'm just i'm so mad so upset it's gonna cost me an extra 20 cents a week i
Corey
5:16
don't know what i'm gonna to do it no uh seriously though guys i think it was a seven i think it was pretty good uh
Corey
5:21
uh it's a 381 billion dollar deficit and hardly anybody's talking about it yeah
Corey
5:26
sometimes you just want to get on base sometimes the plan is to be boring and mission accomplished this was dropped at a time when the country was quite distracted by surging covid cases and uh it it didn't have anything particularly objectionable as far as as covid response and like i said like 400 billion billion deficit we're talking about at this point. And, and nobody is batting an eye. So I guess good work. How do you fault them?
Zain
5:53
Corey, anything you would have done differently on the message or the or what you heard?
Corey
5:58
Yeah, actually, I was joking about it. But I don't know why they added in things like the Netflix tax. Honest to Christ, guys, you've got a $400 billion deficit. This is a drop in the bucket. Why give anybody anything to complain about?
Zain
6:09
Carter, same question to you One to ten, what did you make on the strategy scale of the fiscal update rolled out by the federal government, and what would have made it better?
Carter
6:18
I'm going to give it a five, and I'm going to be a little bit different than Corey. I mean, I agree with Corey. No one paid attention to it, but they've introduced a new support for tourism and hospitality. This is a big opportunity to rescue some industries
Carter
6:31
industries that are in real distress, and again, no one knows about it. No one knows exactly what was proposed. um this is this is the problem with coming out with an update uh during uh the biggest week of covid news uh in the country i mean every every province well the three more three most populist and populist and uh and bc also are on fire bc is not quite as bad as ontario uh quebec and alberta but when
Carter
7:00
when you're trying to do anything in the midst of the pandemic it's lost in it and i think that that that's why Freeland took the tone of this is all, we're
Carter
7:09
we're doing everything to survive
Carter
7:12
survive the pandemic. Everything we're doing is about the pandemic. And it fit into the narrative, but it almost fit in too much, and we lost sight of it. So I would hope that there'll be more rollout, more talking about this new program. There's a huge segment of the population that is not sure when they're going to be able to earn a living again.
Zain
7:34
I'm moving on to our next one. And our next item on our strategy scale is with Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister. So he is going viral beyond the borders of our country, even in the United States, across the world for a little bit of a speech he made, a passionate plea to the residents of Manitoba, saying that I'm the guy who's telling you to stay apart at Christmas and during the holiday season. I'm the guy stealing Christmas to keep you safe and you need to know this. And then he also added at the end, you know, stay safe, protect each other. I hope you don't need to like me, but I hope one day you respect me. This emotional sort of appeal, two minutes or so in length, that kind of took off for him. Stephen Carter, what did you make from, you know, there is politics behind all this, right? We're in the midst of a pandemic, so let's acknowledge that and lives are at stake. And he was trying to, you know, drive home a public health message, right? Let's give him that. But there is politics here. From
Zain
8:23
From a political perspective, what do you give him on the strategy scale 1 to 10, Carter? Well,
Carter
8:28
I think that I gave him a necessary. I mean, he needed to do something because, you know, I don't know if you guys noticed the pandemic didn't start last week. Pandemic's been around for a little while and all of a sudden his tears have reached the surface. I mean, where were his tears when Manitoba was leading the nation in terms of per capita cases that were coming forward? I mean, Manitoba was one of the worst hit areas not that many weeks ago. And, you know, Pallister was nowhere. I mean, there was an argument being made that the reason that he put his elephant tears first in front and center is because he was caught up in the First Nations debacle that he kind of launched the day before about, you know, wanting extra doses and trying to, you
Carter
9:11
you know, ensure that there was going to be enough doses for Manitobans. I just think that I like the sentiment. I guess this is my problem. I liked him being in front of the camera and showing real emotion when he talked about stealing Christmas. But I really wish that he'd put that emotion forward prior to, well,
Carter
9:30
well, prior to the ninth month of the pandemic.
Zain
9:33
So on a one to ten, you give him a necessary, which, of course, as we know, can be any shape-shifting number that Stephen Carter chooses. I
Carter
9:40
I can't interpret the genius that comes out of my mouth. It just is what it is. Neither
Zain
9:47
Neither can the listeners, Carter. That is the feedback we get every week that we bury from you. Because we know that despite your elephant-thick skin, that even that criticism you could not take. Corey, are you going to give me a number between 1 and 10 as to what you thought of Premier Pallister's emotional plea to residents that clearly had an audience outside of Manitoba and even Canada?
Corey
10:09
Yeah, the news is so big, it's even getting back to his home in Costa Rica.
Corey
10:15
he found religion, and I'll take it. I'm not going to fault the guy too hard. He has not had exactly a stellar COVID response, neither have we had here in Alberta. So I'm not trying to throw stones from a glass house here. I'm happy that he showed some human emotion. I'm happy that he did the tough talk. Even if the tough talk came from a place of cynicism, it was a message that needed to be heard. The reason it's going viral is that there was genuine emotion there. And when a politician can convey that kind of emotion and can change minds through that emotion, that's a good thing at a moment like this. So do
Corey
10:50
I approve of everything Pallister does? God, no, absolutely not. But that particular moment, it
Corey
10:57
made the big time for a reason.
Zain
11:00
Yeah, yeah. And let's move from Manitoba to our home here in Alberta, where it was revealed earlier this week that Alberta has asked the federal government and the Red Cross for field hospitals, planning those in Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney's response once this story was broken by the CBC was that it's a sign of responsible planning on our part for a potential extreme scenario. Corey, a question for you. What do you make of the strategy for Premier Kenney saying that this is nothing to panic about, this is a response, it's responsible, what we're doing, we have to have these contingency plans. If the hospitalization numbers go up, given the new cases, this is something we need to just contend with the fact is our reality. On that one to 10 scale, what are you giving our premier Jason Kenney here in Alberta? From from the from the perspective of these field hospitals?
Corey
11:51
Yeah, let's give them a four. I mean, there's some truth to that, which is why i won't go any lower but let's be real um this is like starting a grease fire in your kitchen and then saying it makes sense to call out another ladder company prudence is not the thing that comes to mind here the fact of the matter is we're in a very bad situation because prudence is not how we've acted in the past few months and um and what is he going to say other than oops or i effed up and politicians aren't generally inclined to do that which is too bad Yeah. I wish politicians would do that more often. Maybe we'd be less cynical about them. But yeah,
Corey
12:27
yeah, he did what he needed to do in the moment. It is true that you want to plan for the worst case scenario. But when you have set the table so that the worst case scenario is field
Corey
12:37
field hospitals and having essentially people laying in gurneys in large areas and arenas and the like, that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing at all. And you shouldn't be patting yourself on the back for that. Corey,
Zain
12:50
Corey, let's talk about message for a second. I'll stick with you. What would you have suggested, he say? What would have been the ideal response in your mind? So this story breaks, right? You can't control that, right? Let's not retroactively go back to what he should have done to change the inflection point or the trajectory of this thing. The story breaks. What should he have said outside of it's a sign of responsible planning for an exchange? There's no question.
Corey
13:10
question. There's no question this is going worse than we had hoped and worse than we'd planned for. There's a reason we didn't bring these things into, you know, all of these precautions that we now have, all of these limitations on social visits earlier. And it's because we thought that Albertans would be able to manage this with fewer restrictions. That's not the case. We're in a rougher situation than we thought. Yes, there are now field hospital requests going forward to the federal government. I hope Albertans understand how serious this is. That is what I would have said if I was Jason Kenney.
Zain
13:40
Stephen Carter, over to you. What do you give Jason Kenney on that 1 to 10 scale, and what would have made it better, or what should he have done differently?
Carter
13:48
It's a 2. He's doing the bare minimum. It's not a 1 or, God forbid, a 0 on your scale. You can't
Corey
13:56
have a 0 on a 1 to 10 scale. I would add it because I'm— Zane's got such—your scale is so bad, Zane.
Zain
14:03
I'm not allowing you to give 0. I'm the nice guy. I don't allow 0s. Okay,
Zain
14:08
here's the thing. We've built a brand as a podcast where we're dicks to everybody, but then there's one nice person in between. It works really well. Okay.
Carter
14:17
Here's the thing. It would have been lower, except it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do to reach out and make sure that we have the available resources for a potential worsening of the pandemic. That's the right thing to do. But the way that he's communicated it is the wrong way to communicate it. It doesn't leak out. You should be putting it out. And the way he should have put it out is to put it out at the time when he said, these are the new restrictions, these
Carter
14:41
these new restrictions that I'm announcing to take place on Friday, the 27th of November, or whatever the date was, these restrictions will take place at 12 noon that day. And this is why, because I've now called, you know, Prime Minister Trudeau and the health minister, and I've asked them to please prepare a contingency plan for field hospitals, because this is the trajectory that we are on. And you need to know that there is a consequence for your actions. I have asked you to have personal responsibility. I've asked you to exercise it. I've asked you to take responsibility for this pandemic. You have not. you have let me down and i've had to call for assistance you little pricks daddy
Carter
15:24
daddy i was you
Corey
15:25
you up until they disappointed yeah you
Carter
15:29
disappointed dad i've thought given that you've got 20 22 children you would have gone with uh disappointed dad for sure the
Carter
15:36
the catholic don't say
Corey
15:39
just stick with dad just by the way it's more of a like an angry dad thing why are you hitting why are you hitting your siblings you
Zain
15:46
you know why are you hitting your 119 other siblings. Yeah.
Zain
15:51
the way, I just want to clarify for anyone listening. As much as I'm nice on the podcast, I probably antagonize our audience more than anyone when the mics are off. So I just want you to know that I, yeah, that's just, that is the nature of our relationship. relationship. Thanks for that clean up there. No, of course. Yeah, no problem. That's what I do. That's
Zain
16:07
I just back clean up. Carter, actually, I'm going to stick with you on this for a second before we move on. So your entire take is a shift in message, which I heard, but it was also for me to clarify and for everyone to hear as well, was that you would have actually been proactive with this because this was ultimately a news story broken by the CBC. So you would have taken ownership of this. Corey, I want to ask you about that. Would you have have suggested the same thing right so i asked you if the story had break what would you have responded but from a let's say a higher order strategic scale would you agree with carter and say i you would have been proactive with this and put it out there i
Corey
16:40
i think that's really smart uh that was a good way to bundle those things together to to increase the severity of it and even when you look at it and adjust it for what jason kenney's political anxieties are that's a smart strategy if you're worried about people saying you're going too far throwing that on the the table, that's pretty serious. You're not talking about field hospitals and having to talk to your man, Justin Trudeau, who we all know you hate talking to. So that I think that would have actually helped him on the day that the restrictions were announced.
Zain
17:09
Let's go from Alberta back to the federal scene this week. Aaron O'Toole, leader of the Conservatives, sidestepped questions on Tory MP Derek Sloan, also a former leadership candidate, who's sponsoring a petition questioning the safety of COVID vaccines. On Thursday, day, O'Toole refused to say whether he has a problem with Sloan's sponsoring of an e-petition that falsely cast doubt on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines at a time when the Tory leader himself is pushing to see vaccinations in Canada. Carter, I'm going to go to you on this one first. What do you make of Aaron O'Toole sidestepping, not giving a direct answer? On the strategy scale, one to 10, what do you think and what should he have done or what could he have done to make it better?
Carter
17:48
I think this is a one. I think we've talked about getting Sloan out of caucus for for quite some time. I mean, who defined the Conservative Party of Canada when Scheer was the leader, right? Michelle Rempel-Garner, Pierre Palliev, and Derek Sloan. You know, in fact, Derek Sloan didn't because Derek Sloan was a non-entity. Now under O'Toole, those three same people are still defining the Conservative Party of Canada. And that can't be good for O'Toole. He needs a new Conservative Party of Canada that people would consider for for government. And I think that if you've got Derek Sloan running around talking about the dangers of human testing is vaccination, like, dude,
Carter
18:28
get out of this caucus. Stop serving the general population. He got elected because he's a conservative in a conservative region. It is time for him not to be a conservative in a conservative region any longer.
Zain
18:40
Corey, same question to you. What are you giving Mr. O'Toole on the strategy scale? Yeah,
Corey
18:45
I'll charitably give it a three, because I assume that this is based on some tensions that actually exist behind the scenes, because otherwise, I don't know what the hell he's doing. The conservatives are having their cake and eating it too right now. This seems to be this, we absolutely must get vaccines that absolutely nobody should be required to take line is well not is not exactly inconsistent. It feels deeply inconsistent, right? Like these vaccines are so bloody important. How dare you, Justin Trudeau? have us wait for even a minute for them um and then uh on the other hand this is human testing right so which is it like how is it can't really be both it can't be human testing that we're desperate to do and so i i think that he's blowing off his own foot on this one because as much as i think as we talked about last week that a lot of the conservative protests about us being back in the line on vaccines have have turned out to not at all be the case um you've really deeply undermined that message. And I think that message did have some resonance and was building anxieties about government action.
Zain
19:48
Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one for our next strategy sale question. We go to Ontario, where it was announced late this week. On Friday, I believe that the LCBO and Skip the Dishes had entered into a partnership together to allow Ontario residents to have liquor delivered delivered to their home using Skip the Dishes, the popular food delivery app. It was then on Sunday, i.e. today, told to be paused by the provincial government, where Doug Ford said, restaurants still need our support. So myself and I've asked the LCBO to pause their recently announced delivery plans with Skip the Dishes. I want to get your comments. What do you think of the Premier's move here? obviously a bit different their whole setup than we have here in alberta uh you know with uh with liquor and such so i want to get your thoughts on on what his uh what what you thought his message was on that one to ten scale with his support for restaurants oh
Corey
20:45
oh to be sure um i think ontario needs to liberalize its liquor laws i think alberta needs to liberalize its liquor laws the fact that um that alberta still owns all of the wholesale of liquor i think is just really kind of silly right i just i also i don't know that government should be in the business of human If I ruled the world, I would privatize gambling. I'd privatize liquor. I'd tax the hell out of it. And I would say my hands are as clean as they can be in this moment. So, you know, I don't oppose the idea that Skip the Dishes would bring you liquor through the LCBO. Well, I mean, I generally oppose that there's an LCBO, but I don't oppose that they would be making these steps.
Corey
21:21
Now is not the time. My feelings are very similar to John Torrey's, the mayor of Toronto.
Corey
21:27
This is just not the time to mess with restaurants. Restaurants are dealing with a lot being thrown at them. Sometimes you do the right thing a bit later because it was just too deeply disruptive and there's a greater wrong that will occur if you do it now. And a lot of restaurants right now really rely on those liquor sales. So we
Corey
21:47
we are subsidizing businesses in a million different ways. I don't know why the government would want to undercut that. by taking their business with a Crown Corp.
Zain
21:55
Carter, same question to you. What do you make of Premier Ford's ask of the pause on the relationship with the LCBO and skip the dishes on that 1 to 10 scale?
Carter
22:04
It confuses me. I mean, he's always, he has this, you know, I mean, let's not forget that a large part of his platform was buck a beer, right? Like, this is who the man is. Which
Corey
22:13
Which is funny, because there were like five points, and that was one of
Carter
22:16
of them. I was about to
Corey
22:16
argue with you, but I can't.
Carter
22:17
It wasn't a huge, it wasn't a huge platform. platform.
Carter
22:22
You know, so one would think that populist, you know, populism would carry the day and home delivery of alcohol at a time when you're not allowed to leave your house seems to make sense to me. But for some reason, he's decided to back off. I imagine that he's torn between the small business owners that no doubt he owns, knows that owns restaurants, and how hard that is for them to make a living right now. I don't know that skip the dishes, the home delivery of alcohol Hall competes with restaurants. I don't think that it's a binary choice, that you only can drink it, you know, you can only get it delivered by, if it's not delivered by Skip the Dishes, then I guess I have to go to Hooters. I just don't think that that's necessarily the same
Carter
23:03
model, but whatever. I just think he's trying to play to the populist base and he just doesn't know where the populist base is at this moment. I would imagine that this deal will be quietly killed and something different will be resurrected but can i pick on pick up on uh cory's point about governments uh profiting from human uh misery because it it just staggers me that he'd prefer the private industry profit from human misery i i hate that my non-profits have to work at a casino to pay for the you know to to pay for our you know our non-profits and services i hate that but i do know I know that I would much rather have all of the revenue from gaming go into the provincial treasury than go into private industry. So I take your – Tax the hell out of it.
Carter
23:53
You can't tax enough out of it. It should be owned by and controlled by society. You
Carter
24:03
think of numbers that start – Why am I on the left of this issue? How did this happen?
Zain
24:08
lack imagination to think of numbers that start with seven eight or nine carter that's that's that's just all you get with us yeah no kidding okay carter i'm gonna stick with you on this one back to alberta where this week jason kenney talked about the vaccine rollout plan here in alberta and he made a very specific mention of a date he said january 4th is when the federal government has promised us that they would be delivering the week of january 4th to be to be be more precise. It was when they'd be delivering us the first sort of batch of vaccines. He then laid out who the priority folks would be in Alberta. What do you make of Jason Kenney's very specific date that he put on the table and then very much pointing to the federal government as like, they have told me that this is when we will get our first dose of vaccines. The political risk, the political danger, but the strategy on that one to 10 scale for you, Carter. There's
Carter
24:59
There's a political strategy simply known as fuck your buddy. And this is a fuck your buddy. So what What he's done is he's put a date up. Whether that date is real or not, I don't know. I don't think that it is. And
Zain
25:10
And by the way, I should mention as a dovetail to that, there was many people within the government, the Trudeau government, that went on television and other places and saying, hey, by the way, I don't think we can deliver that, right? Like they were not saying,
Zain
25:23
hey, that's not been discussed, really. Yeah,
Carter
25:24
Yeah, you know why? Stuff like that was being aired out.
Carter
25:26
We haven't approved any vaccines. This is true. Like, I'm not an expert. But
Carter
25:30
But you have to approve the vaccines before you can distribute the vaccines. And basically what Kenny has done is he said, I've I've been told I'm going to get them on January 4th. And no one told him that. But he's been told that now when he doesn't get the vaccines on January 4th and our death rate is over 300 people a day or whatever the hell is going to happen by January. He's able to say, but Trudeau didn't give us even the vaccine that he promised me on January 4th. the only person who said that is jason kenney so it this is just simply a game of fuck your buddy i'm gonna make up a name a number you're not gonna be able to meet it and you're fucked um trudeau should be smacking this down way way harder um they're
Carter
26:14
they're reluctant to play politics with the with the with this uh covid pandemic unfortunately for the rest of us jason kenney is not unwilling
Carter
26:24
unwilling to play politics he's totally willing to play politics and
Zain
26:27
and with that said carter what score do you give him what
Carter
26:30
what score do i give him i give him an f oh
Carter
26:33
oh okay one to ten i give him a four no a two a one i give him one it's
Carter
26:39
it's an f a fail complete and total fail i give him a zero zane a zero you're
Zain
26:45
you're just spiraling just by yourself for that last 20 seconds cory same question to to you talk to me about the strategy here talk to me about what you'd give kenny on that strategy scale that uh of uh of one to ten yeah
Corey
26:57
yeah i mean carter's right he's trying to shift the risk he's trying to make it so that when and if and hopefully not but if january 4th things are still dire in the province of alberta then he can say release your vaccine trudeau right what the hell man you've let us all down another way we've been disappointed by the federal government we were all counting on this, even though nobody
Corey
27:19
nobody has really sort of said that. Although I'm sure there's conversations behind the scenes, perhaps even at the departmental level, maybe talking to PHAC, or I don't even know who does the vaccine distribution for the federal government. But maybe they are saying, yeah, you know, we're kind of putting a placeholder in there of January 4, we'll see what happens. Who knows, these things get blown up pretty quickly in government and these things pull off. But the other thing is, it also politically jams Trudeau, because Because
Corey
27:45
what are you supposed to do if you're Trudeau? You're supposed to say, no, you know, we can't do Jan 4. And then all you've done is you've handed a bat to the leader of the official opposition to say, I thought you said there was no trouble getting vaccines, Justin Trudeau. Now, never mind the journey we took to get to this point. The fact is, it reinforces this narrative that perhaps we are not first in line to get vaccines. So, yeah, I mean, Trudeau is just going to – I think it's not just him not wanting to politicize COVID, I guess, is what I would say to Stephen. I think it's also a certain amount of self-preservation to say, well, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut on this. And by the way, we
Corey
28:20
we may have vaccines January 4th. It's possible. Do you think it's a smart play by Kenny to put Trudeau in that box, Corey? I don't think it's a stupid one. I'm not necessarily sure that it will help us in any real sense here in Alberta. But as far as politics goes, if something's going to go wrong, it's better that people blame somebody other than you.
Zain
28:39
Let's finish off this segment with this final one. Corey, I'm going to stick with you. The federal conservatives are calling for a parliamentary committee probe of the liberal government's plan to refit a National Research Council in Montreal to produce a COVID-19 vaccine. So this was a partnership that was announced in May, a nearly $50 million partnership that fell apart in August after the government confirmed that the Chinese government, which they were partnering on, blocked shipments of vaccine samples meant to be used in the clinical trials. The Conservatives are now calling for a parliamentary committee probe. What happened here? Why did this fail? You know, as vaccine politics heat up, trying to perhaps capture that moment. Corey, to you on this, what do you give the Conservatives on that one to 10 scale with calling out and more specifically trying to encourage a parliamentary committee probe on this partnership that fell apart? So
Corey
29:30
So it's Schrodinger's score. I'm giving simultaneously a 2 and an 8. If it turns out that we do have a problem getting a vaccine, if we open the box and we find it's empty and there are not vaccines for the good people of Canada, then it's an 8, right? Because you have given something very concrete that the federal government could have done that would have allowed us to have vaccines. This is the route we took. This route fell apart. part this is why we are all suffering when our allies across the world are now starting to get you know their needles and they're starting to be able to resume their lives however if things roll out the way it looks like they are which is we will get some of those early doses here in canada i mean i think it was either today or yesterday we saw what another six million doses of the pfizer vaccine they're saying yeah we're basically ready to roll within 24 hours of when that comes from health canada then
Corey
30:18
then it's a two because who the who the hell cares right we'll We'll be arguing about whether or not this vaccine bet hit. And the argument that the federal government is going to say is we put a lot of bets on the board. We did that for Canadians. We knew that things like this would potentially fall through. And that's why we have so many bets. And by the way, enjoy your Pfizer vaccine. Enjoy your Moderna vaccine. It almost becomes reinforcing of the government's narrative because rather than making one bet, they made many. And yes, this one didn't hit, but look at all the other ones that did.
Zain
30:48
Carter, same question to you. What do you make of the federal Conservatives and their call for the Parliamentary Committee probe?
Carter
30:56
Well, I mean, I don't know what to make of it yet, because what they're doing is they're setting up a future play, right? To Corey's point, this is both a two and an eight. It's a two if it fails, it's an eight if it works. Right now, they are basically betting their future on the Liberals screwing up this vaccine rollout. They're going to try everything in their power to set it up politically divisively, and they are going to push to do that using all the means available to them, which is fine. That's maybe what they should do. I mean, we saw Andrew Wilkinson try and play nicely with BC's NDP and absolutely get hammered for it. So I would think that this is what we expect from politicians now. out and if it works great and if it doesn't then they are off to the next the next accusations i mean they've they've run away from the we foundation there's nothing left there so they may as well try uh vaccine gate is that what we're going to go with what vaccine gate um they're setting it up and they're hoping for it to fail and
Zain
32:03
and what do you give them carter on a on a on a
Corey
32:13
it's just anticlimactic enjoy
Corey
32:15
that dead air listeners yeah
Zain
32:18
if we were a better podcast we'd edit that out but no i
Zain
32:23
you to know that it took that long for stephen carter to either a think about an answer and then give us a two or b just completely stop paying attention when he doesn't speak i wish
Corey
32:32
wish i'm pretty sure it's the latter i like to imagine thousands of people you know finally hitting the point where they have to look at their phones to see if they stopped working yeah
Corey
32:42
hit that bar that's
Zain
32:42
that's why i did yeah nicely
Zain
32:43
nicely dead carter that's right yeah
Zain
32:45
yeah yeah your drama background is showing we will leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment eat the carrot avoid the stick and pocket the cash i want to talk about about vaccine rollouts and a bunch of theories on the table right now as to how to get Canadians to adopt vaccines. Not an easy question, a global question in many ways. And as the title may refer to, you can use the carrot, you can use the stick, you
Zain
33:12
you can even give people cash. And those are things that have been thrown out on the table. And I want to start discussing this on this episode, as we perhaps will have to do so over several others, as to what strategies governments should take and what we should consider when we try
Zain
33:27
try to change behavior. And Stephen, I want to start with you. You know, this is a question that our country is going to face. This is a question that countries across the world are going to face. What is the right instrument to ensure that vaccine adoption is as high as it can be? We've got, you know, individuals that perhaps belong to both sides of the political spectrum that would classify themselves as being anti-vax. We've We've got a swath of individuals that perhaps are maybe across the spectrum that would be skeptical of vaccines and their safety, as we've seen. And we have a country that when H1N1's vaccine came out, six out of 10 of us did not take it. So, Carter, explain to me how big of a problem this is in your mind from a political level and from a political sort of problem as well. We'll have the vaccines on shore, hopefully early part of 2021. But if they're not adopted, if they're not taken, how big of a problem does that pose to to the public health and for the politics of of our leaders, both provincial and federal? Well,
Carter
34:24
Well, let's break it down into three different groups, because it's not there's it's not binary, right? So it's not going to be just people who won't take the vaccine and people who will take the vaccine. There's a group of people who are who will never take it and take the vaccine. They're anti-vaxxers. They will never take it. they're going to be super loud they'll march and it's probably 100 correlation to the people who will not wear a mask these people are crazy just let let them let them be where they are don't worry about them they're
Carter
34:53
they're going to be one to three percent of the population and
Carter
34:56
and they will be taken care of by the the the vaccine that
Carter
34:59
that the rest of us take the
Carter
35:02
bigger groups are the ones who want to take the vaccine and that's the biggest group and then there's a vaccine hesitant group and the The vaccine hesitant group is going to have a number of different reasons why they won't take the vaccine yet. The
Carter
35:14
The way to solve this, in my mind, is vaccine scarcity.
Carter
35:20
By limiting the availability of the vaccine and going wave by wave and starting with the most likely people to take the vaccine, like most health care workers will take the vaccine. Most people who could be exposed to the virus will take the vaccine. The vaccine rollout
Carter
35:42
should go to the people who are the most likely to be in the vaccine desirous
Carter
35:48
desirous group, like the people who want the vaccine. And then the vaccine hesitant group will start to come on board in part because they're left out. But you've got to move through it slowly. slowly don't demand that anybody take it. I don't like this idea of cash. I don't think that that's something you need to get to. And ultimately, I'm not sure that we need to get to 97% of the population taking the vaccine. I suspect that if we get to 60 to 70% of the population taking the vaccine, we'd surely be well above the number of people who took the flu vaccine. And I will add add one more statistic. The number of people who took the flu vaccine this year was really, really high.
Carter
36:33
There is a fear out there, people will be more motivated to take the vaccine. And a lot of people are moving off the bench of vaccine hesitant to people who wish to have the vaccine.
Zain
36:45
Okay, a lot from you, Carter, a lot that you've tabled. I want to get into solutions in a second. You've proposed a few and I've written them down. But Corey, give me the scope of the the problem in your mind? Is this overblown that we may not have a portion of Canadians take the vaccine? And how big of a political problem is it for our leaders if we start seeing these chants and these demonstrations and these just statistics of those that refuse to take the vaccine inch up higher and higher?
Corey
37:14
like Carter's nightclub approach to vaccines, by the way. I think, you know, the velvet rope is you got to wait in line. Oh, man, what's going on in there? That That sounds pretty good to me. Just plays on human psychology. Zane, your question is hard to answer because it
Corey
37:30
it is a problem if
Corey
37:32
if it is too big of a problem. And it's not really a problem if it's not too big of a problem. And I know that sounds a little bit all out there. But we... No, I think there's something there.
Zain
37:42
there. Explain that. That's actually very
Corey
37:43
very interesting. Well, we'll be talking
Corey
37:44
lot about herd immunity in the next bit and what's going to be the line that we need to get to and whether we have enough people vaccinated to generally protect people. Because there will be people who just cannot take the vaccine for all sorts of different reasons. That's true of a lot of vaccines. Anybody who is the parent, well, anybody who's been a parent knows that some vaccines can't be given until they're one or two years old. I don't know the specs on some of these vaccines. But in order to protect people like that, in order to protect the immunocompromised who might react badly to the vaccine, these are all very new. You
Corey
38:15
You want most of the population to have a vaccine, right?
Corey
38:19
Vaccines are good. They're a miracle. They're not even a modern one anymore. more they just shoot up life expectancy i am very pro vaccine but i do think we need to acknowledge there is a legitimate anxiety from the vaccine hesitant right now this vaccine came out at light speed and it would be really heavy-handed for
Corey
38:35
for the first wave to be mandatory and to just bring the hammer down on people who are like oh god i don't know i mean like this thing was created in six months that's not normal that's you know we're hitting like really fast levels and that is because of the crisis that we're in but as long as we are constrained anyhow why be heavy-handed why not let this roll out why not let the people who really want to have the vaccine have the vaccine and let's figure it out as we go along there maybe the maybe the nightclub approach that carter uh talked about will clean up some of it but if we end up having like 40 of the population who are saying i'm just sitting this one out yeah we've got a really big problem because that's not going to be enough to protect the vulnerable who can't have the vaccines and in those cases is government is going to have to look at being a little bit more heavy handed.
Zain
39:20
Corey, you strike on something that I want to talk about before I get into solutions. And I know Carter, you want to jump into that. So maybe I'll throw this to you. Because I think of this as almost three things. Number one, there's the solutions, right, which I want to talk about, right, like the incentives, the communications, like the behavioral economics, let's get into that a bit. The second part is how do you lack of a better term, right to Corey's point here, here, inoculate against the folks that may not want to, that may be in that mushy middle right now, right? Before even we have vaccines coming to our proverbial shores, how do you ensure that we're not in a position where 40% of people are not wanting to take this vaccine? And then it's dealing with the folks that are anti-vax, right? Do you communicate to them at all? What do you kind of do? So maybe we split it up into these three buckets. And Corey, I'm going to go back to you on this. So if take these three buckets, right, that you have, you inoculate, you have this group that's never going to want to take it, what time and effort do you spend on them? And then with the majority of people, you know, what are you kind of trying to do to ensure that not only do they take it, but they can also be messengers
Zain
40:29
messengers and distributors of, you know, pro vaccine messaging to their to their network. So I want to kind of start there and break it down a bit. Corey, please go ahead. Yeah,
Corey
40:37
Yeah, I think this is a this is a great case study. And it It actually has to do with a lot of contentious communications here. As far as the anti-vax group, you
Corey
40:45
you need to inoculate against them to continue the medical terms. What you cannot have is that anti-vax group starting to scare the vaccine hesitant group and moving them into anti-vax. Into their camp, right. That's right. And on that vein, you really need to think about the messaging the pro-vaccine group has too, because it will not be overly helpful if the pro-vaccine group goes in and starts beating the tar out of the vaccine hesitant group that may push them to anti-vax. So you need to be thinking about the messages that your champions are carrying and how you can arm your champions with the right messages that help your overall landscape of communications rather than just the messages that they're going to want to say. Because I'll tell you, like I have arguments with vaccine hesitant people on occasion. Many of the arguments I give them about like all of the safety protocols that have been put in place, let's be honest, they don't really apply here, at least not as we've normally understood them because things have moved very fast. fast and again i will be one of the first people to take that vaccine if i get the opportunity to do it and everybody who works in those vaccine and health spaces will say they're moving fast but they're they're not cutting corners that they think you know could be cut right so i i don't want to sow vaccine hesitancy i guess is what i'm saying but realistically there will be vaccine hesitant people out there what you can't have is the pro-vaccine people going out and saying well you're just an asshole who hates your children and society if you've got anxiety about this vaccine. That will not be a helpful message. And that will polarize things and potentially make it less likely for people to take that vaccine.
Corey
42:12
you're going to get their ire up, you're going to get their ire up, and you're going to cause them to, to dig in a bit. And we can't have that at this moment.
Zain
42:19
You know, Carter, to that point, we had a piece in the Globe and Mail today by John Ibbotson. And he said, the answer to people with anti-vax beliefs is to address their cause of anger. Why are they so angry right now? Why are they there at these anti-mask protests, assuming that there is a correlation between anti-mask and anti-vaccine, which there seems to be in some small data studies across the continent. What do you think of that? This emotional leveling with folks as to what they're angry about, and how do you, to Corey's point, ensure that their tribe of anti-vaccine individuals and beliefs doesn't extend,
Zain
43:01
extend, doesn't have tentacles that can reach people on scale that might be hesitant of safety or might be hesitant or frankly, you know, just a little skeptical. What do you think of that?
Carter
43:14
I think this is why we don't go to John Ibbotson for communications advice, you know, because it's not about the guy who's screaming downtown. It's not about the guy who's writing on the Facebook page. It's about the person whose Facebook
Carter
43:28
Facebook page they're writing on, right?
Carter
43:30
right? It's about their audience and whether or not that message that they're screaming has resonance. Can
Zain
43:37
Can you explain that just a bit more? I think you and I understand, but I just want to make sure that people understand what you're saying there. Well,
Carter
43:42
Well, okay, so the person downtown not wearing a mask, the group that's running up and down the street saying that masks don't work are largely irrelevant. They're lost to us. We can't do much for them. There's almost nothing to do to change their minds. But the people that they're yelling at, the people that are seeing them on the television news, that audience is who we worry about, right? In the same fashion that I don't need to convince a scientist that the vaccine is going to work, right? The scientist is already on board. I don't need to bring them on board. So when a person has decided or made up their mind, they're almost impossible to move. The people who haven't yet moved, the people who haven't made up their minds, they're less engaged or they're less informed or they're less committed. that
Zain
44:28
that mushy middle that we talk about
Carter
44:30
about yeah that often that group has can fall you know the light switch can go on or the light switch can go off and the information that they receive from that anti-mask rally could
Carter
44:40
could turn them on to masks right the question i have is given you know it's easy to turn off the mmr vaccination right now i don't see measles where are these measles what is this mumps you speak of i can't even spell rubella right like what what are these things they don't even exist, right? What is polio? Polio doesn't even exist in our world. Well, I'll tell you something. COVID exists right down the street. 19 people died today. 19 people died in Alberta today. We're losing, you know, Corey pointed out, you
Carter
45:09
you know, the number of people who died in the Second World War. You
Carter
45:12
You know, we lost 23 soldiers in the Second World War a day. We're losing over 115, 125, 135 Canadians every day to COVID. This is a significant issue. So those guys running up up and down the street screaming about not wearing masks I think are actually driving people to wear masks I think that it's not necessarily a bad thing in certain circumstances to have a rabid anti-vax group screaming
Carter
45:38
screaming about how bad the vaccination is at a time when you're seeing real people die and real and and one in 200 people currently have one in 200 Albertans currently have COVID this
Carter
45:49
is a real problem we know these people so
Carter
45:52
so we're going to be more more inclined to take the vaccination, and these antis may be pushing. So
Carter
45:57
So I'm not saying they are, but I'd want to do some real solid message testing with that middle group to see what's actually working. And the other thing I would do is test voice a lot, right?
Carter
46:09
John Carpe's voice isn't going to speak to a lot of people. It speaks to his tribe and his tribe alone, in
Carter
46:15
in the same fashion that, you know, an
Carter
46:18
an expert, a scientific expert, or the chief medical officer or only speaks to certain people. You have to use a variety of voices so that those voices are heard by a variety of listeners. And that's a key element.
Zain
46:32
So you throw out a lot on the table here, right? Some strategies to ensure that those that are anti-vax, that their tribe doesn't grow. Message test with the middle, right? Which messages resonate with... And then also, importantly, to your point, explore and experiment with the diversity of voices. Certain people have disproportionate influence influence over others than even more centralized or public figures, right? So who do you need to hear X message from in order for you to make your decision? Corey, we've put a lot on the table, but I want you to react to that and see if you've any further thoughts to what you've heard. Well,
Corey
47:05
Well, maybe you don't need to hear from the chief medical officer of health. Maybe you don't even need to hear from a doctor. Maybe it's your nurse. Maybe it's a teacher. Maybe it's somebody you trust in the neighborhood. Completely agree with Stephen about voice. Every time you're delivering a message you're delivering a message you're probably delivering it with some visuals and you are probably and you certainly have a voice right it's either coming from to use alberta alberta health services or the government of alberta or you know nurses of alberta there are many voices available and governments should think about which ones make the most sense they should test this they should be aware that each audience is going to have different ideas of who the voice they can trust on this matter is and they should use that data this is the time to to get really smart with your communications and when we talk about inoculation and i 100% agree with steven i think we're talking the same language in no small part because we worked together for many years and this is the language we talked about right um but when
Corey
47:59
when when you talk about inoculating against that anti-vax group that their opinions are entrenched you could spend all the money in the world you're never going to change the opinions you've
Corey
48:07
you've got to give them both before the fact and as that hesitation and that anxiety comes up the data they need when they need needed so you know they're going to come at them the anti-vax group saying like oh you know they cut corners so before they even hear that you need the vaccine hesitant to know corners were not cut that they shoveled piles of money to do it at light speed and it wasn't about cutting corners it was about it was about marshalling resources at a level that we haven't seen since the second world war and when they say things like oh well there's mercury and i don't even know if there's mercury but if there's anything bad in it you know they're going to say that well you better have it so when they're googling vaccines mercury you own every effing keyword on that you have stats about how little is in there you give every stat on how much else in their life has these trace amounts and that you can hit that anxiety the moment they have it but the point here is you're not trying to change the minds of the anti-vaxxers you are trying to deal with the anxieties of the hesitant group before they even come up if possible and when they come up if not and
Zain
49:03
and and cory where do you think you know let's let's talk about voice for a second right so there's a lot of stuff on the table. Where do you think something like using, whether it be famous people or celebrities or like this onslaught of different voices comes in? Because this is also something that's been suggested, right? Barack Obama's like, film me, film me as soon as the vaccine comes out. I'll take a video and tell everyone that I have influence over. LeBron James has said the same thing, right? People with profile have said the same thing. And you know, what's funny about this, and I think the three of us know this, this is political comms, right? In many ways, this is is how you mobilize a campaign. This is how you find you're hyper engaged. You find the people that are never going to vote for you how you find the mushy middle. It's the same sort of bell curve that you kind of deal with. Where do you kind of think the some of those principles of political campaigning, whether that be influencer campaigning, or some of those other things fit in? I'll go to you first. And I want to get Carter in as well as this. Yeah,
Corey
49:54
Yeah, I mean, this goes really far back. Catherine the Great took a vaccine to prove that vaccines worked when vaccines were brand new. And in fact, her doctor, after giving the vaccine to her was was ready to be rushed out of the country if something went wrong because people didn't actually know if it was going to work or not. But, you know, when people see their leaders doing it, they say, well, I guess that makes sense. I guess they think it's safe, so it's probably safe. And there's some value in that. But again, we shouldn't assume that that value is the same for everybody out there. I strongly doubt that the people who are marching in downtown Calgary
Corey
50:27
give a shit if a government official takes a vaccine, right? Now, we've already said we're not looking for them, But we do need to say, does that next group out, the ones that are most at risk of maybe being exposed to this anti-vaccine messaging, do they give a shit? Because if not, we might be just like singing to the choir at this point. You know, Catherine the Great did what she did at a very different time.
Corey
50:48
And we've just got to make sure that we're rooting these decisions in data and science and not just telling ourselves a nice story that because LeBron James did it, young men across America will do it. Because that's not necessarily true. I
Zain
51:01
have no idea where you got that Catherine the Great stuff just off the top of your head, Ken Burns, but very nice. Nicely done. Carter, I want to talk about the other side. How do we give the pro-vaccine group the
Zain
51:13
the tools, the messaging tools, and the assets and the confidence to be as loud and I say positively loud and enthusiastic about taking a vaccine so that they can start being part of the conversion force for that group that might be vaccine hesitant? What do we need to arm them with? What do we need to provide them with so that they're not just individuals who silently take vaccines and are now happy with they have their golden ticket, but they're actually distributors of the positive message? Literally,
Carter
51:41
Literally, we should give them a communications kit.
Carter
51:44
Every single person that comes in to get a vaccine should be given a little portfolio of information for themselves and a little portfolio of information to give to their friends and to their families. And by little portfolio, I mean literally little portfolio, very simple messages, very simple means of sharing it, perhaps an electronic message, perhaps we offer to do social media posts for people. So when people are getting the vaccine, we actually have a person in there that says, hey, do you want to post this to your social media accounts? I'm happy to film it,
Carter
52:18
you know, and they can add their own little message. So in every clinic, there's not just a nurse that's providing the vaccination. There's somebody who's there who can assist somebody with their own social media post. You know, this would be great if you put this up on your Facebook page. Do you want to do a quick video and then you can put it up when you get home? I'm happy to stand here. I mean, well, what have other people said? They just said that, you know, I'm doing this for, who are you doing this for? I'm
Carter
52:46
I'm doing this for my grandfather. I'm doing this for my kid. I'm doing this for my family. um
Carter
52:51
um let's do that because the the thing that is missed with the influencer campaign is that i don't know any influencers i mean i know you zane but that's it i mean i'm stuck most of the time with losers like cory so how do i i
Carter
53:06
need i need i need my social network to activate yeah
Carter
53:11
yeah and and the other piece of this is that there's so many diverse social networks right now it's not not homogeneous. You can't reach us all by the cricket player, LeBron James, right? You have to dig in and find people that will speak to people. And the people who will speak to most people are the people who look
Carter
53:33
look like them, who
Carter
53:34
who sound like them, who are in the same socioeconomic classes, who send their kids to the same schools, who attend the same temple, who go to the same church. these are these people will have far
Carter
53:46
far more influence and and that
Carter
53:49
needs to be thought of right now because the the other piece that was brought up earlier that i want to reinforce
Carter
53:55
the person who speaks to the group first wins the day if
Carter
53:59
if another person has spoken to them before you if the anti-vaxxer got there before you it's almost too late um
Carter
54:05
um so you've got to move very very And these vaccinations, especially
Carter
54:09
especially if you mix my scarcity
Carter
54:12
scarcity model with the idea that you're going to have each person who gets it is going to be an influencer, you wind up with this really interesting cascading effect where people will be clamoring to get this thing that their friend got.
Zain
54:27
Carter, I really like that. And before I go into the work we need to do now, and maybe the work that our governments can do, Corey, I want to go to you on this. Because, you know, Carter, you mentioned some really interesting ideas, right? A little portfolio of key messages that you can fan out, a little bit of a social media campaign that could be organized, right? You know, one of the things when I run campaigns, I tell everyone who's being supportive of a particular candidate or cause is that you come here as a volunteer, but you leave this room or this physical space as the campaign manager of your social network. And if you make that mindset shift, we have tremendous potential just within the small 20-person room here, because you are the hub of your social network. And that's pretty much what you're saying here as well. Corey, let's continue Free Idea Sunday, right? What else do you got, right? Because I want to actually put some stuff on the table so we can pick on it next time before we get into the work that governments can do in this case. But build on what Carter said, any ideas you have that you you want to throw out there? The
Corey
55:22
The thing that I haven't had an opportunity to say is I really want to caution governments against smashing the fear button, right? There is fear fatigue. It's real. Even you can see it right now in that we have COVID numbers that are as large as they've ever been in this country. The fear is not as high as it was in March. And if you try just to create a public health campaign for vaccines based entirely around fear, I think that that's destined to fail, right? It can't be so punitive. It's got to be more positive. It's got to be very much what steven was talking about like i'm doing this to protect my grandfather and i'm doing this to protect my friend and and
Corey
55:57
and again you're going to want to do your research you're going to want to go through people have to have a sense that they're doing this of their own free will and they're doing it because it's the right thing to do if they start feeling controlled i do worry you're going to lose the vaccine hesitant group and
Corey
56:10
and they've got to feel like doing it is actually going to make a difference so you've got to give this sense that taking the vaccine is is something that we all should do it's you don't have to do it in those early waves at least like we'll talk down the road but it
Corey
56:25
it makes sense that you try to make people feel good about taking the vaccine not bad about not taking it if i can summarize it and
Corey
56:33
and you can tie this into a bigger story you can you can make it more triumphant you can make it part of canada coming back here it
Corey
56:41
would be a mistake to
Corey
56:43
to run on fear and anger because i think that will just polarize things further carter
Zain
56:47
carter Carter, what should the government's GOTV, with V standing for vaccine, strategy look like? What would you do if you're the government right now? And Corey, I know you've got this experience leading government comms, so I'll come to you next. But Carter, from the political side of things, give me your standpoint. What should government do? Should they construct the lines or the road for social media campaigns? Should they be the ones putting out this messaging? What role can government play knowing that they are going to be the distributors of these vaccines? What can they do on the comms to kind of aid this
Zain
57:24
this process going forward that we've talked about here? Well,
Carter
57:27
Well, I think that a GOTV campaign is just very apt, because you're going to do a lot of the same things that we do when we're trying to get out the vote. You're going to go to seniors' residences and long-term care facilities. You're going to go and try, because there's a lot of votes there. You're going to go to temples. You're going to go to churches. You're going to find places where there is significant communities, and you're going to start working with them to try and motivate and push out this vaccine from their community. And I would think of it the same way we think of the GOTV. Very small groups, but where can I get the best return on my investment? Where am I going to find the most likely sections of the population that will take this?
Carter
58:10
that's what you're going to go with because you're
Carter
58:13
you're obviously that will be tied to the rollout right you're going to go your essential services first your health care workers first and then you're going to move into an expanded essential services you know grocery store workers have never been considered essential service before but i think they are now and you're going to be going into long-term care facilities these are the these are the base ideas of get out the vote and i think I think that your GOTV analogy is really, really solid, Zane. I'd be, you know, where am I going to get the best return on my GOTV investment and roll it out that way? And I think that it ties in perfectly with a scarce vaccine model where you only have, you know, a million and a half, you
Carter
58:57
you know, doses in the first potentially three months. That's perfect. Let's go find the best places to put that million and a half.
Zain
59:05
Corey, your final thoughts on this. What can government do and what can government start doing right now in your mind?
Corey
59:11
Well, I suspect government has started many months back thinking about these challenges, and that's good. But on the off chance they haven't or on the off chance they're not as far along as they want to be, my advice is this.
Corey
59:22
Don't do what government normally does. Government can't build a campaign like this in two months. It is not able to. And this is a campaign. Be clear. They need to be nimble. They need to be data-driven. They need to build it to last a moment, not a lifetime, because the situation will change dramatically over the next couple of months. So my advice is listen to the expert campaigners, not the senior bureaucrats. This is a time for us to be thinking about it like the GOTV frame.
Zain
59:47
That's totally fair. And we are going to talk about that so much more going forward as we see what the government's comms looks like, as we see what the government's marketing, because this will be a marketing campaign, looks like. And to see what sort of tools they've built, if they go in with a top-down model or if they are, to Stephen's point and to your point, Corey, empowering people along the way that are going to take this vaccine to be distributors of that message going forward. So a lot to talk about. Let's move on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen, are you ready?
Carter
1:00:17
Well, I know you asked me because I'm always ready, and Corey never is. Well,
Zain
1:00:21
we need that energy now. We didn't need it up top, but we need it now. And for that reason, I will reward you and go to you first,
Carter
1:00:27
You never do. This is exciting.
Zain
1:00:28
excited. I don't do this. I don't do this. And with that being said, Corey, I'm going to you first. I just changed my mind.
Zain
1:00:35
First of all, over under on six, Corey, Meng Wanzhou is in talks with the Justice Department to allow her to return to China. Justin Trudeau, when he was asked to comment, did not really say, I'm going to comment on this, other than to say, our core concern is the two Michaels that are still in China right now. What do you make of that Trudeau strategy over under on six?
Corey
1:00:56
I think under. But look, it's very easy for me to say. There is obviously a lot going on behind the scenes here. But ultimately, if we get to the pith of it, this is Canada arrested somebody on behalf of the United States government effectively. And we spent the first several months saying this is a no means political rule of law, rule of law, rule of law. And now we seem to be making a political trade. And that's tough. I mean, maybe we didn't have any other choice. I suspect we didn't have any other choice. knees were taken out underneath us by donald trump when he said he was willing to deal but wow
Corey
1:01:30
wow i mean this kind of sets up uh if something happens that china doesn't like they're just gonna arrest a couple of your nationals and you're gonna you're gonna barter them right and maybe that's the way the world works now but oh
Corey
1:01:43
oh i don't know i'm not too happy about it carter
Zain
1:01:47
carter under over under on six for trudeau's uh for
Zain
1:01:50
for trudeau's sort of pivot on on the issue to talking about the two Michaels in China. This
Carter
1:01:55
This is a weak
Carter
1:01:56
weak ass strategy by someone who isn't, you know, standing up for Canada. I mean, you
Carter
1:02:01
you don't negotiate with terrorists, even if the terrorist happens to be the nation of China, they're taking hostages because you arrested someone who may or may not have broken the law. They get their day in court, you
Carter
1:02:14
you know, allow her to go to the United States and defend herself. And if she's innocent, you know, then,
Carter
1:02:21
then, then she'll walk and everything's fine. But because they took hostages, you're going to all of a sudden let her go? Like, man,
Carter
1:02:30
man, don't go to China. Like, if this is the way they're going to play, don't go to China because you might be the next person being arrested and detained as a bargaining chip with a weak-ass government in Canada.
Zain
1:02:42
We're going from China to India. You know, this week as well, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the diplomatic scolding. And in fact, on the heels of that, the scolding from Prime Minister Modi. scolding Canada's envoy to India, who on Friday made comments in support of the protesting Indian farmers in India. Justin Trudeau kind of rejected that scolding from the Indian diplomatic corps. What do you give him on that strategy scale of 1 to 10, Carter? I'm sticking with you on this. Well,
Carter
1:03:11
Well, in light of the one before, I mean, yay,
Carter
1:03:13
yay, we're so strong. We'll fight India, but we won't fight China. I mean, I'm just, I
Carter
1:03:19
I think that, you know, we have a lot of, if
Carter
1:03:24
he's going to stand up for him, then he better, then it better be part of a strategy rather than a knee jerk reaction. So I hope that it's all strategic and they're doing the right thing. I actually don't know enough to say anything more than I hope it's strategic.
Corey
1:03:40
Corey, same question to you.
Corey
1:03:42
Yeah, I'm out in front of my skis here as well. But it does
Corey
1:03:46
does seem to me that India's got a more legitimate beef than China. So we'll fight India when we might be wrong, but we won't fight China when we're almost certainly right. I just, you know, it is a bit of a, there's a stark contrast that is provided by these two actions. I'm
Zain
1:04:02
I'm sticking on the federal side, and Corian, I'm going to stick with you. This week, it was announced by our Indigenous Services Minister that the Trudeau government won't meet their promised drinking water targets in Indigenous communities. The political cost of this, what do you think this looks like for the government? I'm going over under on seven. Ten is a significant political cost. One is not so much of a political cost. What are you giving the Trudeau government on this? Well,
Corey
1:04:26
Well, you're talking political cost. Unfortunately, probably under. And I think that's a real shame. That's, it's, it's a total outrage that doesn't, this is not shocking news. But the fact that we as a first world nation, one of the wealthiest nations on earth, have have pockets, you know, whole communities where drinking water is not potable is is effing insane. And while I do applaud the government on making some strides in the past few years, some strides is not enough. enough we this is this is kind of a very fundamental thing whip out your copy of maslow's hierarchy of needs guys see where water is on this is fucking ridiculous but um you know unfortunately i just don't think it's going to have a a huge political effect carter
Zain
1:05:12
carter same same question to the political cost over on round seven it's
Carter
1:05:14
it's under um there will not be a political cost i think that one of our biggest challenges in canada is our first nation or not our First Nations, the First Nations of our country. We struggle. We have not done a good job. Every action that we have taken has created tremendously negative consequence. So it seems like we've given up taking actions. And I think that this is our Achilles heel. This is what stops us from being a great nation. And if we don't start thinking of actual solutions, we're going to have real problems. But there is no political price to pay for it. And as long as there's no political price to pay for it, chances are we're not going to solve it.
Zain
1:05:55
Carter, I'm going to stick with you for starting off our last one. Conservative MP Eric Duncan, the first openly gay conservative MP, laced into the federal health minister last week over the Liberals' failures to end a ban on gay men donating blood. This is a campaign promise that the Liberals made in 2015. They reduced the five-year limit to a year. They've recently reduced it to three months, but they still have not outright banned it ever since they made that campaign promise in 2015. Carter, give me your A to F political score for Eric Duncan on bringing this issue up and trying to hold the liberals' feet to the fire on this issue.
Carter
1:06:34
I think it's an A. I mean, I think that this is something that he gets to do because it's a tragic policy, and it's a policy that Trudeau said he was going to fix. I mean, Trudeau also said he was going to plant 2 billion trees. That was also put under the update that we got last week, that they're still going to plant 2 billion trees. I don't know why you have to wait to start planting 2 billion trees, but whatever. This was a knee-jerk reaction in 1992, and no one's undone it. So Trudeau said he was going to undo it. He hasn't done it. So this is a good strategy.
Zain
1:07:11
Corey, same question to you. the A to F letter grade score for conservative MP Eric Duncan.
Corey
1:07:17
I'll give them an A. I give the liberals an F on this. It's just embarrassing. And they were so righteous and high-minded during the 15 campaign about how they were going to fix this. And then I believe Jane Philpott was the Minister of Health at the time. And it was just, it was embarrassing. Like the stance that the government has taken is embarrassing. And one year, three three months, I don't care. It's an embarrassing stance. The idea that gay men cannot give blood if they have been sexually active, but heterosexual men can, is nonsense. You're screening the blood anyways. What you're saying is just, is deeply offensive. Fucking get your house in order, Government of Canada. I don't know who is standing up and opposed to this, but take them aside and give them a stern talking to. Now, as far as the Conservatives go, this helps the Conservatives not look like cavemen. This helps that re-skinning of the Conservative Party that's going on under Aaron O'Toole.
Corey
1:08:15
You know, not to great effect sometimes when you've got the Derek Sloans out there. Sure, sure.
Corey
1:08:20
But it does, it is a positive approach. Yeah, if
Corey
1:08:24
Duncan... Carter, chime in on
Carter
1:08:24
on this. If Duncan was one of the voices that we were really hearing this week instead of, you know, Sloan and Rempelgarner and Polyev, then the Conservative Party is starting to march towards government.
Zain
1:08:37
We'll leave it there. That's a wrap on episode episode 833 of The Strategist. My name is Zayn Velji, with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.