Episode 912: What inquiry?

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 912. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, the legendary Stephen Carter and the Corey

Zain 0:12

How's it going, guys? It's

Carter 0:13

It's going really well. It's

Carter 0:14

It's going really well. With an intro like

Zain 0:16

Yeah. Yeah. Welcome. If you haven't heard the show before, I just have set the table. Yeah.

Carter 0:19

Yeah. I mean, it's set properly for once. The bar is high

Zain 0:23

high for one person. And the other person, you're

Zain 0:28

you're going to have to try. People only

Carter 0:29

only tune into this show for me. You know how many notes I get? My God, Stephen, you're so right. You're so right. You're so right. Corey is so wrong all the time. That's all I ever get.

Corey 0:39

It's amazing to me that your wife is still emailing you after all these years.

Carter 0:45

you got a haircut,

Zain 0:46

and I like your haircut. Listen,

Zain 0:49

I got my haircut. You got all three of them cut. That's good. That's good. Did you use – This is upsetting. It looks really nice. Were you using that dog shampoo again today? day is that what you were up

Carter 1:00

to i gotta be honest with you i'm really really quite happy that you think i still use shampoo so thank you for that because body wash is an all-purpose wash now and you can do anything uh but no i did not fall into the jonathan k uh using dog wash uh puppy wash to wash my hair for like a year how long did he say it was like for a year or something like that i

Zain 1:21

i like you know one of the untold rules about self-deprecation is that you have to be like likable and in his case he really made a misstep on the first rule cory uh maybe maybe add some context for people who haven't seen this story will you well

Corey 1:37

well if you haven't seen it jonathan k decided to expose his bare ass to twitter by saying hey i've been using i've been using pet shampoo for the past uh whatever amount of time and i just found out when

Corey 1:49

when i went to go buy more pet shampoo and he says in my defense the word pet is very small therefore i think this is a a common mistake now there's a picture of a dog that's about the size size

Corey 2:02

size of a dog it's pretty it's like it's too life it's too scale and uh and so the the internet he is the one main character on twitter today uh he is he's having a day uh

Zain 2:13

uh can i just read you some of the responses actually no not some of the responses one response because we talked about this individual last episode Seth Rogen has responded to Jonathan Kaye with, you're stupid. And then Jonathan Kaye says, trolled by Seth Rogen, achievement unlocked. Seth Rogen says, I'm not trolling you. This was objectively stupid. I have honestly no clue who you are beyond this stupid tweet.

Zain 2:39

is just a perfect

Zain 2:43

Incredible. Incredible. Carter, I am so glad that you're on the Jonathan Kaye Amazon subscription plan for

Corey 2:49

for dog shampoo. This was in my head all day. I have to tell you. I was thinking about this a lot. What part of it were you thinking about? Well, it's like, why did this shampoo speak to you in the first place? Like, let's put aside the fact there's a dog on it. You're like, oh, that's great. That's for me. You know, its big emphasis is that it's odor control shampoo. Is this a problem?

Zain 3:13

Now, at the bottom, it does say vanilla coconut, which I guess it's fine. Yeah, it sounds okay. It does sound

Corey 3:19

sound okay. And then his defense was, all sorts of shampoos have pictures like dogs on them. I challenge you to go to the shampoo aisle of your local grocery store. Come to the same conclusion.

Zain 3:29

Yeah, it's incredible. Speaking of incredible, guys, it is that time of year. It is our time for our annual podcast listener survey. Now, Corey, as the quarterback of our annual survey, you take this role and responsibility very seriously, and you have for the last 37 years. We do this podcast survey for our listener base. We just want to understand how to monetize you. We want to understand what you care about, audience, so that we could pretend to care about it and sell it back to you. And we've been doing the survey for 36 years. We've yet to actually endorse a product because we're still in data collection mode. But the big news this year, Corey, of course, is that we finally have the domain PodcastSurvey.ca. After an extensive, nearly decades-long legal battle, we have finally come up with the PodcastSurvey.ca domain name. But do you want to fill our listeners in on the survey itself?

Corey 4:24

Yeah, well, as you mentioned, for 36 years running, we haven't actually found any value in the audience, so it hasn't been commodifiable. But we're hoping to break that this time around. and so many have asked you

Zain 4:33

you know we should ask different questions in order to commoditize them better uh but they can go fuck themselves i just wanted to make that mention before i pass the mic back to you we've

Corey 4:42

we've been asking the same questions for 34 of those years um goes back to our radio days when steven and i used to do this on radio with chester uh because of course when you're on radio those things matter an awful lot more than when you're on podcast and we just kind of got used to it but we um in the early days of the internet when the the domain servers weren't You know, it wasn't the way it is now. Essentially, you had to send in a letter with a stamp and say, I want this domain. And we sent in a request for podcast surveys at the same time that kind of a farm slash fishery that, you know, dealt with peas and also, you know, fly fishing sent it in. And there

Corey 5:19

there was a lot of dispute as to which one of us sent

Corey 5:24

shit. it i mean that

Zain 5:25

the 10-year legal battle which yeah

Corey 5:27

yeah i mean this is my point this is my point uh it was very difficult they were both postmarked on the same day our argument was because we were in a further west time zone that ours ours should count you know more i

Zain 5:38

i mean and let me be clear and i i know we can't reveal too much but the testimony of stewart the mailman just really glitched it for us carter you wanted to jump in here stewart's

Carter 5:46

stewart's my boy it's pretty great you know some people have suggested there's some methodological errors to how this has been been conducted and uh there's absolutely not um so cory tells me with 100 confidence that especially uh question six is exactly the way it should be so uh make sure you join us and fill in the podcast survey.ca uh cory has been pouring over the data uh already uh tremendous feedback as always our listeners uh the best podcast listeners i

Carter 6:20

don't know i don't even know know what to compare you to uh but uh there you go so thanks very much for listening fill out the podcast survey podcastsurvey

Zain 6:26

podcastsurvey.ca make sure you go there uh fill out all all questions uh it should take no longer uh than than two minutes it'd probably take up about 30 if you really put your head into it but uh yeah most of our listeners they really really don't don't phone it

Zain 6:42

phone it i mean it's it's pretty much uh the type of crowd we attract let's move it on on to our first segment our first segment steve's job one more thing yes instead of steve's i i love to explain the titles you see last last really

Zain 6:57

it was it was arms race and i feel like that was underappreciated because i heard about it later this week when someone said uh arms race no pun intended on national television and i was like that guy gets it now that guy was also me but i just want you to know that the guy also got it are

Carter 7:13

are we bragging about our national television television appearances again, Zane? I don't

Zain 7:17

don't know. It's really subtle. I

Carter 7:18

I don't think anyone

Carter 7:19

How did Room Raider rate your room, Zane?

Zain 7:24

we want to talk about the Steve Allen report. We are going to double click into Alberta. You know, the fact that we're on twice a week now allows us these opportunities to deep dive. I mean, we could have done this a long time ago, but now the fact that we have committed to it allows us the fact to do a little bit of a deep dive. And that's what I want want to do today? Because, Corey,

Zain 7:42

Corey, fill us in on a bit of the details. Was it on Friday afternoon that we found out that this legendary report that was going to be commissioned by Steve Allen, who is an accountant here in Calgary, where we're recording today, was going to put this inquiry together about how the province's oil and gas critics fund a concerted campaign against Alberta He asked for his third extension. So now the report, which was supposed to be due today as we record Sunday, January 31st, is now due May 31st of 2021. This is the third extension, as I mentioned. The increased budget, I think, also has increased along the way to now costing Alberta taxpayers three and a half million dollars. And then there's been these, Corey, maybe you can, and Carter, you can kind of jump in here to help me contextualize this. Has it been leaks of documents that he's putting together? Or have these been put out on purpose? Maybe you can help our listeners and even myself understand where some of the other external documents have kind of made their way and have kind of already promoted criticism of a report that hasn't come out. So, Corey, if you jump in first on context, and Carter, I'll let you kind of fill in some other gaps as well. So

Corey 8:54

So Zane, you would be forgiven for thinking these documents must have been leaked because they're so terrible. You can't imagine that somebody would actually put them out of their own volition. But these have been released by the inquiry as inputs going in. Let me rewind a little bit. Let's take it back to 2019 here for our non-Alberta listeners. And even those Alberta listeners who haven't been as consumed by the absurdity that is this story, as I think the three of us have. In 2019, amongst, you know, political parties make promises, some of them are pretty weird. And one of the promises that the UCP made during this fever moment in Alberta that we've talked a lot about how the oil and gas industry support has become kind of like this cultural touchstone. But the UCP made a promise that they were going to hold an inquiry into anti-energy campaigns, this concerted conspiratorial effort of groups from the United States and beyond in order to landlock Alberta oil for their own nefarious interests. And a lot of this was based on the work of Vivian Krauss, who I will not call a journalist, but Vivian Krauss had come to the conclusion that this was a big conspiracy based on reading of financial statements and over

Corey 10:04

over-interpreting a ton of things. I'm not going to bother debunking that work. A lot of people have debunked that work in great detail. But this was sort of the zenith or the origin, I guess I should say, not zenith, of this particular inquiry.

Corey 10:20

inquiry. So this inquiry was launched. It was launched with the chairing of somebody that Albertans, I think it's fair to say, and Stephen, you may disagree. I don't think you will, though. It had a pretty good reputation, Steve Allen. Very

Carter 10:32

Very good reputation. One of our great community leaders in Calgary.

Corey 10:38

and so for a minute it looked like okay this is actually who knows what this is going to be but at least they put a serious person in charge of it obviously a lot of reasons still to think this is a pretty dodgy inquiry and um from there it's been nothing but an embarrassment for the government there's been early

Corey 10:54

early on the the legal support that this inquiry received was nine hundred and five thousand dollars sole sourced to the law firm which which Steve Allen's son is a partner at. Not a great look. Signed off by the minister, too. Not a great look. There have been delays, as you've mentioned already, Zane. We're on our third right now. This was supposed to be a relatively quick inquiry. There have been reductions in scope. So the scope, it removed whether they were going to say. So now the inquiry doesn't even cover whether what these environmental groups are saying is the truth, right? Right. So now it's just our environmental groups advertised in Alberta. Well, you don't need a $3.5 million inquiry to say yes. Everybody knows that just as there are oil groups that are advertising in Alberta. And

Corey 11:42

And most recently, though, there has been this been bubbling up a long time, but it's really kind of come to a head with the release of these reports we talked about. But none of these environmental groups have been contacted by Steve Allen. And

Corey 11:55

now it has been going on for quite some time. As I mentioned, this inquiry was originally launched in 2019. We're here in 2021. So you

Corey 12:03

you have letters being sent by Greenpeace to the inquiry saying, if you mention us in this report, we're going to sue you. Just, you know, spoiler alert. And the coverage, national, international coverage of the inputs that are going into this report, these very shoddily drafted anti-climate change documents has just created a total fiasco for the government here. here.

Zain 12:26

Don, that's great context setting. Carter, I'll let you jump into if there's anything contextually or even editorially you wanted to add to what Corey's put on the table. Before we get into the thrust of the episode, which is the word Corey used here, which is fiasco, self-perpetuated, self-created fiasco. What's the strategies to kind of off-ramp yourself from it? What's the strategies to deviate from it? What's possible? What isn't? That's what I want to make the focus but carter i want to give you a chance as well to add to what cory said either to set the table or to editorialize what court cory said here a bit just

Carter 13:02

just two thoughts first thought is that in the middle of january up popped a um up

Carter 13:08

up popped a notice on the the

Carter 13:10

the commission's website saying that the commissioner's uh is seeking an extension um

Carter 13:16

media jumped on it what

Carter 13:17

what do you mean you need an extension you've already had two extensions are you needing another extension they immediately pulled it down and said that was posted in error.

Carter 13:26

It wasn't posted in error. They needed an extension. They asked for an extension. They're trying to hide the fact that they asked for an extension for two weeks. Like, what's the point of that? Like, literally, what's the point of that communication? We didn't mean to. Now you get two times the bad media, two times the negative attention instead of just one time of the negative attention. It is literally the stupidest move that you can do on

Carter 13:51

on that particular set of circumstances. The second thing is that in the wording of the act, you basically have to if you're accusing someone of doing something, you must give them the opportunity to rebut it. So, you know, it comes Greenpeace basically said

Zain 14:07

And sorry, Carter, can I just clarify for the listeners? When you say in the wording of the act, you mean the act governing a report in an inquiry like this,

Carter 14:15

clear? Yeah, because these things are empowered by acts. This

Corey 14:19

This is a real deal, this inquiry.

Carter 14:22

It's part of why everybody is

Corey 14:24

is saying, why in the world are we doing this?

Carter 14:25

this? We're familiar with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. That one was done from 2016 to 2019 under the Federal Act.

Carter 14:35

So each province has their own piece of legislation that enables these types of inquiries, and they are usually done for very serious reasons. Something has gone wrong within government, and they wish to fix that thing that has gone wrong. They then do an inquiry, and that inquiry is supposed to advise the government how not to do this type of mistake in the future.

Carter 14:55

This is a different situation because really what they're investigating is something completely different. Corey has done that kind of overview. But the second point that I wanted to get to was this idea that in the act, if you are going to name somebody, you must give them the opportunity to provide testimony. testimony and what the extension has now been sought for right

Carter 15:16

right so the the language that has been used by the commission to seek the extension is

Carter 15:21

is this most recent one yes yeah is to now seek the input from those that they were going to accuse so they hadn't done their work so they've done two extensions and they haven't done the base work of oh i guess greenpeace got this money this is not a secret this is absolutely out in the public and eco

Carter 15:40

eco justice and greenpeace and anybody Anybody else that is involved in this ridiculous allegation of speech,

Carter 15:47

speech, in my mind, you know, oh, yeah, environmentalists said something I don't like.

Carter 15:52

Big fucking deal. Say something they don't like. It doesn't matter. It's a free fucking country.

Carter 15:59

haven't done their homework.

Zain 16:00

Well, walk us through for a second, just so we're all clear, myself included on this. this. Why is it notable that

Zain 16:07

that the folks that they have accused, organizations they've accused, are only being reached out in this extension? Is it because they're going to need an additional time for a rebuttal to their rebuttal? Is that what you suspect? Or do you feel like that they've spent so little time talking to these folks up until this point that they really don't have a case? What does it mean to you? Tell me explicitly, what does that signal to you?

Carter 16:30

Oh, well, this is this is one of the things I think is so fascinating. It looks like the commission has veered down into a rabbit hole of is climate change real? Right. So when you when again, they posted these different documents, these reference documents on their website before, which I haven't double checked today. But as of Friday, or maybe it was yesterday, you couldn't get to the commission's website. You had to go to the Wayback Machine on Google to actually go back and find the old website. But in essence, what they have done is they've commissioned reports. They paid $28,000 to a former school teacher in Great Britain to publish a 100-plus page report detailing many different conspiracies around climate change in total. So it seems like while

Carter 17:17

while the commission's not going down the track of what is true and what is not true, they're very comfortable going down the what is not true track, right? Because the official position of the government of Alberta is climate change is real. Climate change is something that we have to take into account, and it is something that we have to ensure that our environmental standards are addressing. That hasn't changed since Rachel Notley was the premier. That is the position of the government. and um but this commission seems to be on on trying

Carter 17:47

trying to figure out if that's even the right thing they haven't bothered to get to the central premise of the commission which was did foreign money travel into um into canada to try and besmirch the reputation of alberta oil and gas and i'll tell you something the answer is yes foreign

Carter 18:06

foreign money did come into the province into to the country of canada to besmirch oil and gas from from alberta that's not a surprise we we outlined in was the last episode of the episode before about how we we brought a lot of that attention onto ourselves so they've

Carter 18:22

they've moved away from the central premise and now they're they seem to be going down something different and now they you know but now the push has come to shove and the report is due it's like the teacher looked at the homework and said i'm sorry mr allen Alan. You have not yet answered the foundational question that we were actually asking you to answer in your commission. Go back to the drawing board.

Zain 18:44

Corey, I want to talk strategy in a second, but both of you brought up an interesting point that I think is worthy to tease out for a second, which is that this is an inquiry. Tell me the difference between this being an inquiry where you said it's a big deal versus the premier saying, hey, Steve, write me a report. Write Write me something on WhatsApp. And I think that I think is really important for us to understand, because as much as we're going to now talk about the strategy element to it, the reason this is becoming a story outside of Alberta is, Corey, to your point, some of these inputs are so ridiculous that they're finding their own earned media outside of the four walls of this province. But this is a big deal, to your point, is it not? And explain to us what the difference between maybe an inquiry of this nature looks like versus just a casual report that the premier asked his buddy Steve to put together?

Corey 19:31

Well, ultimately, it comes down to the powers of the commissioner, right? The ability to compel evidence and testimonies and to reach out and you get a big staff and you get a budget. Apparently, $905,000 isn't enough to actually read the act to understand you've got to talk to the people you're accusing. That would have taken $906,000, I guess. But in theory, you've got an awful lot that allows you to kind

Corey 19:56

kind of force things. So specifically, the commissioner has the power to summon anybody and require them to give testimony. And that's pretty

Corey 20:03

pretty wild. Like me writing a report, I can't do that. I think it goes without saying. And so this is a way to kind of pull things in and turn over rocks. And this is under oath. So if you lie to the commissioner, you're perjuring yourself. And so that's the big deal. That's the difference here. Like I said, it's a quasi-judicial process. And when you give somebody that kind of power, and maybe this is putting a bit of a bow on it and circling back, and

Corey 20:30

and that power is being used for what seems like a nakedly political purpose, that's where you get into banana republic territory. And that's part of why everybody is so worked up about this, and I think rightly so. You got to keep in mind, this started in July 2019. The interim report was given one year ago today, January, I think, 31st, 2020.

Corey 20:51

And here we are, right? We're still a year later, and these powers continue. The ability to compel this testimony continues. The ability to continue to dig into the work of these environmental groups continues. Now, whether they've actually used it doesn't sound like they've talked to an awful lot of people. Different

Corey 21:06

Different question. But it's a bit alarming that, you know, in addition to everything else and the embarrassment of it, that an inquiry of this nature would just kind of continue forever. forever.

Zain 21:16

simple question. Let's start us off on the strategy pathway, because I think we've set the table quite well.

Zain 21:22

Is this a fiasco? Is this what if you were chief of staff to the premier right now, a role you have held in the past for a former premier, you look at what you have done, and are you now classifying this

Zain 21:36

this inquiry as an own goal and thinking about how you extract yourself from it at this point? Well,

Carter 21:43

Well, I think so. I mean, I think that also, you know, in the time that since this has been initially proposed, so this is this inquiry was part of an election promise in 2019. We're going to get to the bottom of it. And the narrative at that point is the NDP and foreign influencers, foreign powers really have come in and destroyed unfairly the Alberta oil and gas community. In the subsequent two and a half years since that kind of claim became commonplace

Carter 22:10

commonplace and part of our folklore in Alberta, I think it's fairly clear to see that it really has nothing to do with foreign powers coming in to hurt us, but rather the world market's fundamentally changing, especially when you add COVID to the mix. And now you've got essentially just a foundational shift that's underway in the way that we view oil and gas. so what is it that we're expecting to learn from this so let's assume just for shits and giggles that everything that is is alleged uh by vivian kraus and others uh is 100 true so

Carter 22:44

what are you gonna do now are

Carter 22:46

are you gonna spank them you're gonna say that they were wrong what is you know you've done an inquiry you found out that everything that vivian kraus and others have written about how um how money has flown into canada to try and stop oil and gas pipelines lines. To my knowledge, it's 100% legal.

Carter 23:02

Money can flow into speech. You're not prohibited from taking money from someone else to talk

Carter 23:11

talk about issues that matter to you in anything in Canada except in elections. No one's alleging that

Carter 23:17

that this is an election issue. This is the only thing that would actually have impact in Canada, because you can't accept foreign money to talk about issues during an election campaign um but you can outside of an election campaign so what's what exactly is the piece that you

Carter 23:34

you know he's supposed to be expecting so if i was chief of staff i'd say okay originally we were hoping for a big pr win from this there's

Carter 23:41

there's not going to be a pr win it's over there's no pr win there's no legal win there is no victory that we can reasonably expect and i've said before on this podcast i was expecting it to be buried at christmas that That makes the most sense. Bring it out on like the 19th of December and let that thing rest and let everybody dissect it for two weeks from the 19th to the, you know, the 3rd of January. Who the fuck's going to care? But now they keep pushing

Carter 24:09

pushing it down. Like, what do they think is going to happen at the end of May? Do

Carter 24:13

Do they think it's going to be better than the end of December? I don't understand what their expectation is at this point. Oh, and keep in mind that

Carter 24:22

that the minister still has, I think, three months to release it after she's received it. So this

Carter 24:27

this looks terrible. It looks terrible, the decisions that they're making and the hindsight that's coming. I mean, everything that Kenny is touching around this is turning itself into a gong show.

Zain 24:38

Corey, then let's talk about strategy a bit more. First of all, two-part question. Let's start as broad as we can. A, do you agree with Carter's assessment that this is something that has turned into a fiasco? I think we generally do. So maybe a quick answer on that. And then B, what sort of steps are you taking if you're a senior advisor to the premier right now in order to create an off ramp for you for this particular inquiry?

Corey 25:03

So I think this is an interesting case study, but maybe not even necessarily just because it's subject matter is the environment in Alberta and all of that. But in some ways, it's such a pure example of a fiasco of the government's own creations. Yeah,

Corey 25:18

yeah. And so then the question becomes, when governments do such a thing, how do they get out of such things? Right,

Zain 25:26

goal is kind of what I phrased it to Stephen as, but yeah, it seems to be headed in that direction. It's a good framing.

Corey 25:32

because it is interesting. Most of the time when government makes a mistake, there is such a long lead and there's so many other extenuating circumstances. It's very difficult to sort of pin these things back on the government. But right here we have something

Corey 25:45

something that it's almost impossible to pin on anybody but the government. And at this point, the longer it seems to be going on, the more embarrassing it is and very damaging for the province of Alberta. We've now gotten to the point where there's international coverage of this, you know, international associations of journalists taking Alberta to task. I can only imagine what the media value of all of this negative press for Alberta is. Probably far eclipses the money we're wasting with the energy war room. yeah

Corey 26:11

and so uh you

Corey 26:13

you know even if we assume the energy war room was being effective with those dollars it would be a bit of an embarrassing situation for all involved so your question zane is what am i doing in the premier's office at this point yeah

Zain 26:24

yeah if i'm here let's starting there yeah yeah

Zain 26:26

yeah i mean how

Zain 26:28

how do you kill your own baby it's

Corey 26:32

well i hope it's tough i i've I've never had to go through it.

Corey 26:37

The challenge you have is that you can't disavow it. There is still the same premier, the same minister, the same everybody else who's been involved. Yeah.

Corey 26:48

they've given their blessing along the way. They've given their blessing, the same commissioner.

Corey 26:51

What you've got to do at this point is probably just minimize it. Turn the temperatures down. Get out of this. Extract as quickly as possible. But in a situation like this, you risk then your base coming back at you.

Zain 27:05

Right. Carter, what you wanted to add here, Corey's kind of set up a very interesting framework. You've commissioned this, quite literally. You've set up the inquiry. It's your project, your report. It's not like this was handed or forced to you. In fact, this was created out of thin air as a campaign promise. You set the guardrails for what the outcomes were going to be. How do you extract yourself? And can you extract yourself from this situation, Carter? Carter?

Carter 27:33

interesting enough, Zane, I've had a similar experience. When Alison Redford ran to become the premier of the province of Alberta, she promised an inquiry, a full inquiry, into queue jumping in health care. and uh you

Carter 27:53

you know i think that you know what we can say about that is that it was uh it was constrained zane it was constrained it was not the it was not the fully realized um promise that we'd made in the leadership uh that was actually followed through on instead it was it was smaller and i think that it was rightfully criticized uh by the general public because it didn't come out and actually address the issue that we'd campaigned on. So yeah, I've been there. I've been where Jason Kenney is right now, where you promise something in the election, you promise that you get to the bottom of it, and then maybe you found that the bottom wasn't exactly where you thought it was going to be. So you just kind of redefine the scope of the inquiry. This is 2013. It's a totally different time. I was no longer chief of staff when the report was was issued. But we did start that process because the, you know, you had to do something to follow through on the promise that you'd made. But, you know, at the end of the day, you weren't going to get to where you wanted to go. So you just did something and you let it go as quickly as possible. That inquiry also had

Carter 29:03

some extensions requested, and

Carter 29:08

it was actually rejected. The inquiry extension was rejected, and we demanded the report – well, not we, but they demanded the report right away, again, in no small part because it curtailed it. This is a different experience because he's allowing the extensions, but I think he's doing it the exact wrong way. I would say your homework is due, Mr. Allen, on the 31st of January.

Carter 29:34

Make sure you follow the act when you submit that report.

Corey 29:37

Carter, listen. Expectations are sky high when something is that late. All of a sudden, all of the eyes and literally eyes all over the world are looking at this. If this report had

Corey 29:47

had never been given an extension, they never would have gotten these nonsense reports and they would have been in a much better situation. It's pretty easy to Monday morning quarterback, but it's also, to Carter's point, pretty foreseeable. If you have an inquiry like this going off the rails, the question you have to ask yourself if you're in a premier's office is, can I get it on the rails?

Corey 30:06

And you have to be honest with yourself as you assess that, because if the answer is no, then

Corey 30:10

then it becomes all about mitigation and minimization. You want to make this thing as small as possible and move on. And this isn't just about inquiries, Zane. It's about anything that a government does that when they started, it suddenly goes awry. But if you think you can get it on the rails, then you try to fix it.

Corey 30:28

Whether it was ever fixable, I think – I'd be curious how they came to the conclusion it was fixable, I suppose. And the scope changes that they had in summer of last year didn't

Corey 30:40

didn't seem to fix it. The reports they added didn't seem to fix it.

Corey 30:43

What was their plan and is that plan still playing out is a very big question. I think that we won't know the answer to for several months at this point. So,

Zain 30:52

So, okay, here's where I think we are. We've set the context of the report. We've set, I think, our strategic sort of direction for both of you. Carter, you used the term bury. Corey used the term mitigate and minimize. Let's get into some tactics. Let's explain to our listeners how this is done, right? Because we talk about burying a report, and I just take that for, Carter, I just like, yep, I move on. I gloss over usually when we mention that term. Let's use this episode to talk about what that looks like, tactically talk about what that looks like. So, you know the circumstances. You've talked about expectations, both of you have. Three extensions make the expectations quite high. The input documents, which I initially thought were leaked, but thank you, Corey, for explaining to me that those are input documents to preview a bit of a trailer as to what some of the inputs might be for this report. So you guys know that condition. You know that the opposition is primed to pick on this because it's becoming a bullseye that's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. The press coverage beyond the four walls of Alberta have also now extended the story. So, Carter, let's tactically talk about this. What does burying look like? If you were given the mandate by the premier saying, fuck it, Stephen, we've got to bury it, what's the first thing you're doing? Or what's the first couple of things that you're doing tactically to start that process and minimize something like this? And let me be clear. I'm not putting this segment on and facilitating it so we can advise the government, so to speak. But I want people to understand and have an understanding of kind of what the tactical process looks like. Like when political operatives say, yep, we're going to minimize, mitigate, or in Carter's terms, bury this report.

Carter 32:25

What do you do in

Zain 32:26

in the first couple of steps, Carter? Well,

Carter 32:27

Well, first of all, we've now told everybody when it's going to be due, right? May 31st is going to be due and the minister has got up to three months to release the report. So that means that all of my opposition is now looking at May the 31st and beyond to be ready for the report to drop. up so the research teams at the ndp and the uh i'll just pick on them or the uh the federal liberals they're you know if they're interested in it their research teams will be ready to go for a specific point in time uh

Carter 32:59

uh the very first thing you have to do if you're going to mitigate something or to minimize it or to bury it is

Carter 33:04

is to confound those expectations um so the report The report should be handed in on,

Carter 33:12

you know, you go to the commissioner and you say, Mr. Commissioner, you're not, you actually, you asked for an extension to May 31st. That's fun. I like that. You've got until February 28th. I'd like it on the minister's desk on February 28th. It has to be complete and you have to be able to sign off on it on that date. Do you have any problems? He says, no, I don't think I can get it done. I said, no. No, do you have any problems? You're maybe not hearing me. Do you have any problems? No, I don't. I can have it on the desk on February 28th. And

Zain 33:38

And I'm sorry, Carter, just to be clear, you're now getting into a voice. Is this you as chief of staff calling? Well, I'm not sure if I'm

Carter 33:45

I'm actually allowed to. I might have to go through a back channel.

Carter 33:49

But let's just assume, just for shits and giggles, for the purposes of this exercise, that I'm allowed to make the phone call. Because whether I make the phone call or I use the back channel, it still does the same shit. The message gets to the commissioner that the expectation is now that this thing gets delivered at a different date.

Carter 34:05

So February the 20th. Then I call up the minister of energy and I say, you know what, you're

Carter 34:09

you're accepting every one of those recommendations or

Carter 34:11

or you're, you know, you're, you're, you

Carter 34:15

or you're ignoring all the recommendations, whatever you choose. Like, because even when you accept the recommendations, you

Carter 34:21

know, who's going to hold you to it, right? Like there's, there's not like, it's not like the commissioner runs around for three years afterwards and waves the commission at you. I mean, we see that, you know, sadly with the indigenous, you know, the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls. That's a, you know, still a tragedy that continues to haunt Canadians. But I'd say to Sonia Savage, you're going to accept or you're going to reject all of those things and you're going to release this thing on March the 2nd. Right. So February 28th, March the 2nd, it gets released. No one's ready for it. and because no one's ready for it the fuhrer doesn't go right so the media aren't ready the the ndp aren't ready no no opposition teams are ready to go uh greenpeace isn't ready everybody who is going to take a position on this thing is now a full month away from being able to take a position um

Carter 35:16

um so and then i would do it on a friday right like so february the 28th is a little bit tricky because there's really no holidays or anything in there um so you're kind of a little little bit stuck but maybe you hold it till easter what's easter this year does anybody know what easter is cory you're the catholic thanks

Carter 35:33

thanks cory um i

Corey 35:34

i don't have my lunar calendar

Carter 35:36

front yeah so whenever easter is maybe could be the same type i can

Zain 35:39

can tell you which way mecca is but i mean i don't know if that's helpful that's

Carter 35:42

helpful uh you guys are the best religionists in the world um anyways i mean that's how i would probably bury it so what you can't do is not have the report delivered right

Carter 35:53

right the report has to be delivered when you say

Zain 35:54

say bury it i'm glad you mentioning this because when you say bury it's it's trying it's doing what cory's saying right it's minimizing and mitigating it's not actually saying let's just let it collect dust on a shelf you have to because of the expectations release it jump in it's

Carter 36:08

it's a public inquiry you know it's public um we did a report i mean i've talked about on the podcast before we've done reports that we buried literally they never saw the the light of day um someone somewhere in some library might be be able to find the report but i think we pretty much erased it from there too um these these have to be publicly released so when i'm saying buried i am saying like mitigate the impact of it um and i think you could do a fairly good job if you released it like the

Carter 36:36

the way i'm describing it the problem with the the

Carter 36:40

the report isn't the report itself it's the reaction it's going to generate so you try and you know minimize

Carter 36:46

minimize and mitigate that that response okay

Zain 36:48

okay i'm going to stop you right there, Carter. So we've gotten Carter's tactical play up until the release. So Corey, I'm going to ask you for the same thing, your tactical list of what you're doing up until the release. And then let's park it there on both fronts, because then I want to talk about how to mitigate and minimize the post-release shelf life, so to speak, how to ensure that its distribution cycle beyond the day that it's released gets minimized. But let's get to the the day of releasing the report. Corey, what do you make of what you heard from Carter? Is there something different that you were thinking of in terms of an approach or a tactical list? You get the exact same call saying green light, minimize and mitigate is what we're doing, Corey. What's one of the first things or first series of things you're doing?

Corey 37:34

A lot of what Stephen Carter said, but let me give you my own version of it here. So first, I start by letting it known I was disappointed with the report on background, whether that's Minister Sonia Savage, or whether whether that's premier Jason Kenney or staff, that's something that I have out there a bit just to soften the ground a bit, or it's not, you know, I wouldn't say it's wrong. I would say, oh, I was hoping, you know, they would have done a better job. Frankly, check the calendar, see if there's a good event coming up. If timing was more the friend, Steven, I like your February 28th. I don't think that that's going to be good or going to work for them, but you know, if they could pull it off, February 19th would be the perfect day. In my opinion,

Corey 38:11

February 25th is budget. So, you know, you're going to have,

Carter 38:13

have, have an event that

Corey 38:14

that stomps all over it really

Corey 38:16

uh potentially even you could go as late as february 23rd 24th knowing that the 25th is going to just wipe it right off the calendar um

Zain 38:24

channel changer in that regard yeah

Corey 38:25

yeah exactly it's it's a challenge what i like about it is it's a channel changer entirely within your control right

Corey 38:31

entirely within your control and a lot of the other channel changers you're you're kind of crossing your fingers i'll get to that in a second part of the job here is really contextualizing it too it is just part of the data we have just another piece telling the same story it's yeah i mean it tells a bit of the picture but it's only you know it's backed up by vivian kraus's work it's backed up by this work over here that work over there uh try to make it not the thing that your entire argument hinges on i guess would be the thing so you've got to minimize the importance of this report at the same time and um declare victory particularly in the context of just more more evidence that verifies this now we have a a A government inquiry that confirms what we've known through the reporting of all of these various groups, and it's now on the records, and we're glad for that, and that was the purpose of this, and we're going to move on. So you've definitely fundamentally changed the scope there. You're really just saying we want kind of a legal ratification of some of the other stuff there.

Corey 39:25

Counter proposal, though. Another thing you could do. So I would probably do that, but

Corey 39:29

but just for the interest of – That's what gets

Zain 39:31

gets your vote, to be clear. Yeah,

Corey 39:32

Yeah, so just for the interest of perhaps having

Corey 39:35

having another point of view on the table or maybe just acknowledging that the 25th, that budget day is just – it's pretty close and it's probably not going to work out that well.

Corey 39:46

There is a strategy where you do the same thing. You basically try to get this report in hand at a time before people are aware of it. Be aware the minute that people know you have the report, the calls to release the report will begin. So you've got to think about that. Um, and I, I like Steven do not know what the rules are around coordination of the delivery of such a report.

Corey 40:09

They're obviously not too strenuous given that we keep getting orders and counsel to, to change the date.

Corey 40:15

but you've got a, you've got a window. You've got, let's say you've got three months from the end of February to figure out when you're going to drop this, when you're going to formally take this report and when you're going to drop it, because I think those two dates have to be pretty close to one another. Right. right?

Corey 40:30

for a good hook. A perfect hook would be something along the lines of there's evidence of an environmental group acting in a shady fashion that basically reinforces the thesis that your report could not reinforce. And so you try to conflate the two issues by dropping it at the same time if such a matter occurs. Okay hook would be it's a matter of significance to Alberta on oil and gas that allows you to just sort of slide it in there and it becomes less a standalone alone event that people remember and more just a component of a bigger energy environmental issue within alberta cory

Zain 41:01

cory can i ask you a clarifying question on that is that a hook you're engineering or is that a hook you're actually seeking and searching for

Corey 41:08

for in this case you're just sort of waiting for it yeah okay okay okay but this is part of why i don't love it as a strategy because you've removed all of your agency here yeah

Corey 41:17

and yeah you can be smart about it and you can

Corey 41:20

yeah part of the job always in communications is to think about how these things can be leveraged and how these hooks can be used but um what

Corey 41:28

what if nothing really happens for the next three months and uh so like a very mediocre hook but one that you could still use if you started to run out of time would just be there's a big event going on either mini scandal in ottawa or big

Corey 41:42

big conversation in alberta and you just drop it on a friday at 8 30 just like they did with this report extension here so but

Corey 41:49

but ultimately zane i think the last thing you want and maybe this is the way i will describe describe it as what you were trying to avoid when we talk about burying a report is that it's standing tall all alone in the middle of a field.

Corey 42:02

and that means you've got to, you got to have a bunch of other issues around it.

Corey 42:05

You've got to drop it at the dark of night, sometimes quite literally, people

Corey 42:08

people don't really see it because there's too much going on. And it's not a time when they're paying attention. That's really what we mean when we talk about burying a report.

Zain 42:16

I am I love I love this. And I've got so many follow ups in terms of now that the report both Both of you have put it out tactically, right? In this exercise, it's out the door in both of your scenarios. I want to talk about how you mitigate its existence and proverbial shelf life there on after. Before I do that, I want to ask Carter your take on Corey's softening of the ground on the media strategy. Would you bring the media in at any point up until the release of the report? Are you leaving the media in any sort of leaks? Are you either of you kind of leaking this thing ahead of time? Is there anything to do with that that you might flirt with before we get to post-release? I

Carter 42:54

I don't think you can leak it in advance. I think you'd have to leak pieces of it. You know, you'd let a couple of friends... Are

Zain 43:02

Are you leaking good or bad pieces of it? What parts are you leaking?

Carter 43:08

right? To set the tone that this is a good piece of work. So let's say that of the 12 recommendations that were made, one of them basically supports the reinvestment in the war room. Because I'm not really sure if the war room's got $30 million back or if they're still like on, you know, if their allowance has been cut. You

Carter 43:26

You know, no one's really sure if they're, you know, what the war room's getting funded right now. But let's say that one of Steve Allen's reports, things says that you need to fund, you know, having the ability to counter such communications should be a core function of the Alberta government. experiment um then maybe you you let that one be known you leak it out through uh you know friendly stooge in the media and uh then you increase the payments to the war room again because this is obviously so important uh and you can't wait till the rest of the report becomes known uh so disappointed that that leaked but uh it's obviously a very important uh part of the uh of our communication strategy you

Corey 44:10

you know i i i liked

Carter 44:12

liked what cory said i think that if you took what cory said and what i did you could probably come up with a pretty coherent strategy um both of us were playing with surprise though um so there is no the

Carter 44:27

problem with leaks is as soon as you start leaking the surprise is gone so i would probably soften less and more just drop the fucking thing and make sure that that

Carter 44:39

goes away as quickly as possible catch

Zain 44:41

catch them off guard uh you know speaking of uh if there's a report that uh they need by february 19th cory uh our fantastic listeners and the people of twitter have produced one uh do you want to talk about this a bit more before you get into your serious serious response on

Corey 44:57

on twitter we uh we just opened a google doc made it public to all and said yeah try to create a report And I think within a day, there were about 10 pages of content. And

Zain 45:06

And right now, we're not counting quality. And frankly, that is in the spirit of the report that is being published by the government. It's not a count on quality. But I have to say, there is some quality material in there. Yeah,

Corey 45:18

Yeah, call it a volume game if you want. But it's pretty inspired, some of the creations. Recommendations like rebranding the province. Perhaps Alberta's lost some of its appeal after all of this. I think the recommendation

Zain 45:31

recommendation was to rename us to Deborah. Deborah was the province name that was suggested, of course, pending all exploration of copyright issues.

Corey 45:41

Yeah, there was a Ralph Klein Weekend at Bernie's pitch that was in there as well. And then, of

Corey 45:46

course, I think energy

Zain 45:47

energy war rooms turning into an energy war house. I think just expansion of the rooms. War rooms, yeah. Really strong real estate play. I think just the fundamentals on that one, really, really solid. And

Carter 46:00

And there's a lot of people to blame. I mean, my personal favorite is Green Day is being blamed. I think that really expanding the number of people to be blamed for our woes is at the heart of this new document.

Zain 46:12

Corey, you were going to respond to Carter on his notion

Zain 46:16

notion of weakening the ground versus a surprise element of it. Did you want to jump in there before I go into distribution stuff? I

Corey 46:23

I think he is right. And it's not something you can do at the same time that you're trying to spring a report on people. But what you could do is actually use this moment right now and start making it known that, yeah, when we started looking at what Commissioner Allen was doing, we were a little disappointed with the report. He got distracted on the wrong issues. He was focused on matters that were of less concern to us. We wanted to really have a document – whatever the report is going to end up being, start pretending you asked for that all along and Commissioner Allen was the one that was awry on this. It just allows you to both lower expectations for it because, again, as I said, this

Corey 47:03

this is now years in the making, this particular report, literally years, and it allows you to reframe what that report is going to be when it finally comes in. Carter,

Carter 47:11

Carter, jump in. This is what I don't understand about Steve Allen choosing to do this – to be this commissioner. I

Carter 47:16

mean, this is such a weak premise for a report to begin with. When he jumps in on it, you know, we mentioned at the beginning that Steve Allen is a community volunteer of quite, you know, he ran Calgary Economic Development as the board chair. He's been the president of the Calgary Stampede, which is, I mean, don't get me started on the Stampede Mafia. They are very, very powerful in Calgary. And he's a very powerful, very well-respected person. But what Corey just described about how you're going to make him the noob in this thing. like he's the guy who's going to be left holding this thing because jason kenney's not and uh the fact that steve allen put himself in this position um without realizing that uh he is going to be um made to be made to be the clown um this is i

Carter 48:03

i i was disappointed to see him put himself in that position i'm disappointed that he's going to be uh suffering this pain um but But sometimes there's a consequence, I guess, to the actions that we take.

Zain 48:15

Can I have a very quick round on that particular question? Are either of you, if you're advising this current government, thinking about Steve Allen and his future? Or are you just looking at, nope, he's a transactional, unfortunately, a transactional piece in this entire strategy

Zain 48:29

strategy we have to implement at this current state and state in time? He's

Carter 48:33

He's a cutout. He's dead.

Carter 48:35

He doesn't exist. You're throwing him under the bus so fast, you don't even remember his name by the end. because he doesn't have to get elected. Fuck all.

Corey 48:45

Well, there's ways you can throw somebody under the bus while still smiling and have plausible deniability that you were ever throwing them under the bus, and the government will avail themselves of all of them. You know, Steve Allen, great guy. Maybe he wasn't the right guy for this particular task.

Carter 48:59

It's disappointing. He chose some counsel that took him in a different direction than maybe they should have gone. This is disappointing. You know, I mean, Sonya Savage will stand up there and say how many years she's known Steve Allen, and how

Carter 49:10

how she still respects him, but she's disappointed. Bet me $100. Bet me $100 that those words aren't going to come out of her mouth.

Corey 49:21

Well, I think they'll be on background. I think those are the kinds of things you'll

Carter 49:24

you'll see on background. And Steve Allen's the one who's going to just get fucking run over by this thing.

Zain 49:29

Let's talk about limiting the distribution in the timeline. So, Carter, you're going to catch people by surprise, right? At some point, you drop this thing. whether you follow the weakening the ground model or not um if you do it before may 31st you're going to catch folks by surprise great so you got that goal accomplished you do it on a friday how do you limit um cory talked about natural in control channel changer ie the budget what else are you trying to do to to mitigate and limit its uh shelf life uh in the in the media cycle or as a topic of conversation for either the opposition or the activists or the twitterati or or even your base in some ways? Because not forgetting them from perhaps turning on you if they felt like it didn't go far enough. How are you trying to mitigate the post-release element tactically, once again, of this report? What are you thinking? And what are some of the steps you're following in that regard?

Carter 50:20

I mean, I think that Corey outlined part of it right off the top. I mean, the provincial budget, the federal budget, the federal election, summertime stampede for the first time, everybody's at FolkFest. And then I'm throwing in, like, every release possible, right everything that we possibly can do um and i've changed the channel almost entirely um are

Zain 50:39

are you spending political capital to change the channel and perhaps engineer something in

Carter 50:43

in that regard i mean

Carter 50:44

you know i'd be i'd be picking up on the pandemic i'd be focusing on the economic recovery i'd create something you know i take my own economic recovery act and introduce that into into the legislature um i would do everything in my power to make sure that this thing is so overwhelmed with news. And one amazing thing about Jason Kenney is

Carter 51:04

is he's amazing at it. Like he drives an agenda. He runs more pieces of legislation through the legislature. He has more talking points and he has more bandwidth to do it than almost any other premier that I've ever seen.

Zain 51:18

Corey, same question to you. The post-launch day tactical plan to minimize and mitigate. Any points you want to add add from from and building on what you said or building on what carter said yeah

Corey 51:31

yeah um i suspect it ties back to what something steven said earlier but i again i want to sort of broaden the point so steven mentioned that this

Corey 51:40

this isn't even going to be a crime at the end of the day they're going to say yes this was happening but then it's almost so what so

Corey 51:45

so you're going to get this report this report's going to say it's happening and then there's going to be a well what are you going to do about it jason kenny and well i said that declaring victory is we just wanted to get it on the record now we know sunlight's the best disinfectant pulls these people out of the dark that will be kind of the core messaging and

Corey 52:01

then blame the feds blame someone else you know we would be able to get after um these groups in some cases if canada actually registered foreign agents we would be able to if we had rules that stopped this kind of money from flowing into the country that's a federal responsibility i'm calling on justin trudeau to stand up to his friends in big environment and protect canadian interests and and then all of a sudden it's back to that federal provincial fight so maybe the hook you're looking for as well is a continuation of that maybe this is when he announces the plebiscite questions that are being bolted on to um a municipal election maybe it's about the next step in this alberta firewall strategy nonsense that's going on but you know again to broaden the point when

Corey 52:43

when you start talking about next steps if you can't do anything you've got to point to the reason you can't do anything and and sometimes times that that battle is exactly what you need in those moments so

Zain 52:53

so you're taking the report putting it out there minimizing it and then very quickly shifting the focal point of yeah yeah we know we didn't love this report it says what it said we got it on record but the real issue here is that these people the

Zain 53:05

fucking feds don't let us do anything interesting i mean it does play into an existing swim

Zain 53:09

swim lane if i can call it that that jason kenney actively uses well is anyone

Corey 53:13

going to be surprised if that's exactly what happened no

Zain 53:15

no i i don't think we are uh and which kind Carter, you wanted to jump in because I've got a final question to close us off here. I was just going to say, you know,

Carter 53:22

know, that's, I mean, the Fed, well, I'm not good. I mean, the Feds could easily

Carter 53:27

easily be blamed for allowing money to come in. And if you tied it to the elections, then, yeah, you could actually make it illegal.

Carter 53:36

So this was actually designed to impact elections.

Zain 53:41

so the so then the last question i have is is a broader strategy for those that might know that the strategy we've just put on the table might be i'm not saying it will because there's a lot of factors the main one saying is steve allen going to get this fucking thing done and are they going to demand he get this thing done prior to the 31st of may but if you are the

Zain 54:01

the trudeau government if you are progressives in this province if you are the notly opposition um if If you are, folks, expecting this report and you know it's going to say

Zain 54:13

say some of the stuff that some of the input documents have, how are you best preparing and strategizing for this UCP strategy? And, Corey, maybe I'll start with you first, and then, Carter, you can close us out on this.

Corey 54:26

I don't think it's going to use the input documents. I think those have been roundly burned. I disagree with Stephen that this rabbit hole is going to manifest in the report in any real way. Maybe we're not even disagreeing because I think that they're going to use these next couple of months to rewrite the report

Corey 54:40

a fashion that more

Corey 54:41

more linearly directs these questions. Is there money coming in from other jurisdictions? Is that money changing the conversation here in Canada? What's the level of coordination? Whatever it is, I'd have to look up the inquiry documents. documents. But then ultimately, when this report comes out and it says, yes, yes, yes, and they're going to conveniently ignore the, you know, millions and billions that are being invested in the oil industry from external that is then being used in part to fund pro-energy development campaigns.

Corey 55:09

This does give a great framework for Jason Kenney to say there ought to be a law, right?

Corey 55:14

There ought to be a law. So what we have exposed throughout this inquiry is that it is happening and we can't do anything about it because of that damn justin trudeau right so if you think this is coming if you feel that there's the possibility this is coming the question becomes what do you do as justin trudeau to avoid walking into this rake that's been planted on your lawn right you don't break your nose and what do you do as uh as rachel notley so that you don't find yourself in a situation where all of a sudden you

Corey 55:41

you are having to uh say no there shouldn't be a law right because well that is certainly the obvious uh moral and constitutional ground it might not be uh it might be an unnecessary let me be charitable it might be a deeply unnecessary distraction um that

Corey 55:57

that you are just not interested in in having in uh any part in so um i

Corey 56:03

i think this is where um let's start with trudeau if you are trudeau you need to um you

Corey 56:10

you need to be prepared to say okay well here's a law that limits the spending by both sides right and i'd like to talk to the premiers about it let's make sure that money can't come into this province on either side of the debate this is a debate canadians should have or whatever you are comfortable as premier or as prime minister discussing but be ready that you can immediately say you know uh jason kenney it's a law we can debate but it's you know if we're going to limit uh the ability of foreign groups to influence this that's that's got to be wholesale that's got to be across the board and suddenly make it less desirable and a little bit muddier for Jason Kenney to move it forward.

Corey 56:44

If you are Rachel Notley and you are all of a sudden dealing with there ought to be a law group,

Corey 56:50

I mean, that's trickier. I think you just don't take the bait. You say, what a waste of money. You spent $3.5 million to determine that you couldn't do anything because it wasn't illegal to begin with. How desperately do you wish you were still a federal politician? go run to bmp again you know here in canada you know you continue to put all

Corey 57:10

all of our eggs in baskets we don't hold this

Corey 57:13

this this is madness and if alberta is going to to get better outcomes then we've you

Corey 57:18

know either you've got to convince the people holding those uh those bags to do some work for you which you have shown no ability to do because you fight with everybody all of the time or you've got to start doing things that we actually can control ourselves here at home We can put our stamp on this. This is our destiny.

Corey 57:36

Things can get weird in a hurry. God knows. Maybe it's notwithstanding clauses around the civil rights you have to protest these things. But let's hope that cooler heads prevail way before that.

Corey 57:47

But yeah, we could be in some weird times. Try to game it out. Try to think about what he would do. Think about not Jason Kenney the caricature, but if

Corey 57:54

if Jason Kenney was being as ruthless and savvy as possible and appealing to those base

Corey 57:59

base emotions, what would he do? And what are you going to do if he does that? Don't wait to be surprised by it.

Zain 58:05

Carter, I'm taking that Corey question, which was the heart of my question in some ways. The optimized Jason Kenney, the politically savvy Jason Kenney. He uses a cousin of, he uses something related to one of the strategies and series of tactics you guys have put out on the table. What are you thinking of if you're not Lee and Trudeau and those as you perhaps contemplate your response and contemplate them trying to minimize and bury a report like this?

Carter 58:33

Well, don't let them bury it. Point out all the inconsistencies. Point out all the different documents that were created. I mean, the

Carter 58:40

the environmental movement has

Carter 58:42

has already taken this thing through the trash once, or more than once. I mean, this thing has gone through the trash so many times. It's just going to be a continuation of it. And I expect it's going to haunt Jason Kenney right up through the election. This is a foundational mistake in terms of him misreading where Alberta is. It kind of reminds me of Jim Prentiss in Bill 10. You know, when Jim Prentice tried to kind of push the anti-LGBTQ legislation in the 2014-2015 time frame, people just rose up against it. And I think that people are rising up against this, too. Now, are they Jason Kenney's people? No. But they are the people that Rachel Notley needs and Justin Trudeau needs to be successful in this province. Not that Justin Trudeau is going to see a big breakthrough, but Rachel Notley is, again, getting close to numbers that say that she's going to form government. So I'd bang the shit out of this. And the environmental agencies, the environmental organizations, I think they should grab every pot and pan and just bang the crap out of it. They were attacked. They were brought under a microscope, and they're going to emerge unscathed and stronger. stronger. So make sure that they should celebrate that from the rooftops as long as they possibly can.

Zain 1:00:03

Corey, you've got something to add. Let's use that as our last comment and finish us off here.

Corey 1:00:07

Well, and that's the other thing. Bang pots and pans, draw attention to it. Say this is clearly where he's going. This is clearly his way to attempt to pull himself out of a situation of his own making.

Corey 1:00:16

And the more that you're able to point to it and essentially demystify all of the things that are happening in many ways the thesis of this show overall right if you understand the strategy it allows you to to kind of step outside of the bullshit and if you can articulate that strategy to others clearly enough and say hey uh be ready when he's about to try this deeply cynical ploy um you know that's helpful that will help you going forward let's

Zain 1:00:40

let's leave that segment there our deep dive and move it on to our final segment our over under and our lightning round Stephen Carter, are you ready, sir? I am so over it.

Zain 1:00:50

Well, let's start with this. I think, well, maybe not even a simple question, but I think an interesting one. Overrated or underrated, Stephen Carter?

Zain 1:00:59

Burying something as a political strategy. Overrated or underrated? I mean, it's been the heart of what we talked about. I figured that's where the two of you would go today. But overrated or underrated as a political strategy, what do you think?

Carter 1:01:11

Underrated. I think that more often than not, the less attention you get on something, the better off you are. So bury and let it go. Move on. Focus on other things. Underrated.

Zain 1:01:24

Corey, same question to you. This political strategy of burying something. In this case, we were talking about, of course, the inquiry here in Alberta. But this political strategy as it stands, overrated or underrated in your mind?

Corey 1:01:35

I am very fond of telling communicators I work with that not communicating is always an underappreciated option in communications. I think deeply underrated.

Zain 1:01:45

Okay, we'll move on to some other questions and other items that we've seen this week. Let's start here. On a scale of 1 to 10, Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one. Aaron O'Toole this morning on a Sunday morning political talk show said that Justin Trudeau has a conflict of interest if he picks the next governor general, simply because he could have a conflict of interest by choosing someone that might politically side with him in this minority situation, the whole concept of triggering an election. There could be some hanky-panky going on. He didn't use those terms. I'm paraphrasing, so to speak, but ultimately insinuating that there is a conflict of interest for Justin Trudeau to pick the next governor general. On a scale of 1 to 10, that political argument for Aaron O'Toole, what do you give it? i

Corey 1:02:27

think with the public maybe a six but in general it's not a particularly strong one i mean you you could argue there's a conflict of interest where uh you know liberal party members are choosing the liberal leader because that liberal leader will then be able to affect their lives well no kidding but this system actually puts the prime minister as the paramount player in all of this so to suggest that there's a conflict by him uh recommending an appointment to the queen which like he he's picking the person here like that's not a conflict of interest that's just that's just how it goes now the reason why erin o'toole may have some kind

Corey 1:03:00

kind of pickup with this is that generally speaking canadians have dealt with in the past bit and seen in situations like the bc minority government that these representatives can occasionally come in and be pretty significant in determining who the prime minister is going to be but in some ways that's

Corey 1:03:18

that's you know i won't even say that's the exception it's the system plays out differently than that you know fundamentally Ultimately, the prime minister is still the one who goes to the GG and says, I want it done this way, right? We don't pretend for a moment that the GG is like this deeply independent voice. If they were, do you think Michel Jean would have prorogued parliament? Like, that's just not how it actually works. So, yeah, I mean, it sounds okay. If people think the governor general is the prime minister's boss, it makes sense. The governor general is not the prime minister's boss, though. So it doesn't really make any sense.

Zain 1:03:52

Carter, one to ten, the

Zain 1:03:54

the argument for Aaron O'Toole, how

Zain 1:03:56

how solid is it in your mind? Well,

Carter 1:03:58

Well, it's a total fail, Zane. I mean, this is a ridiculous premise. First of all, the premise is that people give a shit about the governor general. They don't. The fact that this particular governor general turned out to be a bully, big fucking deal. Move on. No one is going to change their vote based on this. and my advice to Aaron O'Toole would be pick an issue that actually Canadians care about and I'm actually going to vote on, you stupid fuck.

Corey 1:04:28

I'm going to think with- That was a little- A little harsh? A little hot on that. A little hot. A little hot on that. So Harper did use a panel like this to choose David Johnson. That's how he was chosen. So it's, yeah. But I think it almost reinforces your point. How many Canadians knew that? How many Canadians cared? None. Doesn't matter. The

Zain 1:04:46

The stupid fuck. Carter, I'm sticking with you. Sticking with you. over under on five on how big of a deal is it over under on five on how big of a deal is it that the NDP have cleared their $7.7 million debt that was left over from the past election campaign? How big of a deal is it on over under on five for you?

Carter 1:05:05

mean, it's oh, it's big deal for them. So I guess I'll put it on over because not having the debt means that they have, you know, the ability to incur more debt in the future. So good for them.

Zain 1:05:15

Corey over under on five, what is uh what would you give that for the ndp i

Corey 1:05:19

think it's over because there's a range of motion that that affords and it's not as though just getting into the black was when that moment happened but obviously if you're in 7.7 million dollars of debt you are desperate to avoid an election by by any means necessary that's not going to be the case if you're debt free you can go borrow another 7.7 million dollars apparently and you can run yourself another election campaign So it's important. Money is, to quote Stephen Carter, the currency of politics.

Corey 1:05:47

So yeah, they have a little bit.

Corey 1:05:50

Well, I can't say they have more. They owe none now. So that's good.

Zain 1:05:55

Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this. Give a letter grade to the federal liberal government for their rollout and announcement of their new travel restrictions. So a letter grade from A plus to F. What letter grade are you giving them for the rollout and the announcement of the new travel restrictions, which we heard of? Sorry, I'm losing my dates here. On Friday, I believe, I think it was announced, if I'm not mistaken. You

Corey 1:06:16

You know, it's so funny. I give it a B. I think it's the kind of thing it would be difficult to do and not get a bit of blowback on. And a lot of the criticism seems to be, I'm

Corey 1:06:27

I'm being surprised by this. All of a sudden, I've got to pay $2,000 if I come back to be put into a hotel room.

Corey 1:06:33

Meanwhile, the government of Canada did us the kindness of saying, hey, this might actually happen about a week ago, which our good friend Stephen Carter was quite mad about there being that gap in between. The telegraph period, yeah.

Corey 1:06:46

So I guess I will just underline, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. in a situation like this i think they they played it fairly uh fairly straight and i think it was a pretty some you know when you're giving bad news all you're doing is mitigating damage nobody is nobody's going to be over the moon i mean we might feel safer we might be relieved but it's not a situation where uh you get a parade for doing something like this carter

Zain 1:07:11

carter what are you uh what are you giving it in terms of a letter grade the new travel restrictions by the trudeau liberals announced earlier this week let me

Carter 1:07:18

me break it into two halves because the one on the one hand i think it's an a plus i mean they told us this is what's going to happen fantastic i have no complaints about the dollar value i have no complaints about the requirements i think this is what needs to be done but in terms of what should have been done and what could be done i take a look at perth today where they had one case exactly one case of uh of the covid virus and you know what happened

Carter 1:07:41

they shut it down for five days they didn't take five days to shut it down for five days they just shut the fucking thing down because that's what leadership looks like cory that's what leadership looks like well

Corey 1:07:54

well i'll listen carter if you want to bring down the hammer harder on covet i'll i'll probably be right there with you let's

Carter 1:07:58

let's do it baby

Corey 1:08:00

you know we share a border with the united states supply chains

Carter 1:08:03

chains all the more reasons

Corey 1:08:03

reasons we got an awful lot more than one case right now that

Corey 1:08:06

might not be a realistic approach take some shit

Carter 1:08:08

shit take some action baby baby. Let's go.

Zain 1:08:12

Carter, let's stick with you for our final question. Corey, I'll close it out with you right after. One to 10, the damage that this inquiry will do overall to Jason Kenney and his government. We've talked about strategy. We've talked about responses. But now let's just give me a numerical number on the overall damage. And let's keep the horizon between now and Election Day in 23. So use that as the horizon. The overall damage, one to 10, that this report court, will do, this inquiry, I'm glad I clarified that, will do to Kenny and his government?

Carter 1:08:43

Individually, I think it's about a three, but cumulatively, it feels like we're starting to get close to eight. So you add a whole bunch of little things together, and all of a sudden, people just have a negative taste. And I think this is just another add-on of something that people are going to have a negative taste about.

Zain 1:08:58

I appreciate that we can't necessarily isolate it, so I'm glad you gave that answer. Corey, to the best of your ability, I guess, you know, Give me what you think this particular issue will mean to the overall sort of damage crater for the Kenyan government on that scale of 1 to 10.

Corey 1:09:14

Well, it depends on what the price of oil is in 2023. And I think generally I agree with Stephen. It'll be on a list of things. It'll be – and the war room and the inquiry and all of these things actually made it worse in this futuristic

Carter 1:09:26

futuristic approach. Like Hawaii.

Corey 1:09:28

Well, I don't even – I'm just thinking on that particular topic of market access. says you know it will be one of many of has this actually worked for us um but on the other hand if markets are accessed i you know what who's gonna care that's

Zain 1:09:41

that's it we'll leave that segment there make sure you go to podcast survey.ca fill out the survey we want to understand what you like so we can pretend to like it too and then find a company who sells what you like and then eventually tell you about it so far that plan has not worked uh so far the data you've provided has been been horseshit. But with that being said, please go to podcastsurvey.ca. Fill out the survey. I mean, it took 10 years for us to get the domain name, and we want people to go to it. And with that, we'll wrap episode 912 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always,

Zain 1:10:15

Corey Hogan, the awesome Stephen Carter. We'll see you next time.

Transcript