Episode 971: Door number eight

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 971. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Oh, guys, we are here and we are in the middle. Stephen Carter, what are we in the middle of? We

Carter 0:13

We are in the middle of the annual five-star review drive. Pledge

Zain 0:18

Pledge drive, five-star review

Carter 0:20

drive. I don't know where pledge

Zain 0:21

pledge fits in, but pledge is part of it. Someone should

Carter 0:23

should be giving us money is, I think, what it means. Our

Corey 0:25

Our ability to focus is a miracle. Thank

Carter 0:27

Thank you. and uh basically this is all about cory and his fragile ego so super important that people get out there and mention him because there have been all together too many reviews where things start off like hogan is a pinko carter is a butt leaker boot liquor and zane is sane which doesn't make sense um great show second only to eric never mind this is not a good review this is i

Carter 0:52

read that wrong um

Carter 0:54

um here's one this podcast is quite nice it really is carter is very polite cory hogan should run for city council in abbotsford zane velgey reminds me of fred davis never mind it's a damn fine podcast with lots of political insight and sharp humor forget the rest listen to the you

Corey 1:12

you know what are you reading positive reviews to people who are already listening to the show forget

Carter 1:16

the rest listen to this is a total fail forget the rest listen to the best like Like, seriously, folks, work on your

Corey 1:24

your rhyming skills. That wouldn't be very accurate. So I think I kind of appreciate what's going on. I

Zain 1:29

right now. Forget the rest. Listen to this. It's actually very accurate. I feel like that should be it. Listen, we are in the middle of the drive. Many might think, you know, listen, there's a lot going on. Agree, but that does not mean the drive stops. You

Zain 1:43

You know, do not give up the drive for the drive. Keep leaving those five-star reviews. As I mentioned last time, you know, other podcasts may initiate food drives, may initiate clothing drives. No, not this podcast. This podcast initiates five-star review drives. There's a pledge in there somewhere. I don't know where the pledge goes, Corey. But we have initiated it. It is part of what we need. And think about what we could do to the world, for the world, of the world, by the world as well, Carter. We are the world. If we are given these five stars. Corey, do you concur? yeah

Corey 2:16

but maybe maybe if you're thinking about leaving a review don't leave it right now after that last two minutes leave it after kind of two better minutes that might might or might not come later in this oh you

Zain 2:25

you have no idea what's

Zain 2:28

we should we should do a two minute sizzle reel for people to really leave a review on well

Zain 2:33

well i think after 971

Corey 2:34

971 episodes we might be getting close to two minutes that we could fill yeah close

Zain 2:38

to two minutes of quality let's move it on to our first segment our first segment knock knock who's there oh guys we are starting a new segment and what an exciting way to introduce a new segment to one steven carter and cory hogan the look on cory's face it's just like why am i here combined with why are we doing this combined with will zane introduce the topics i care about that i've pre-planned in my mind and where will i fit in my points that's the look i see on one cory hogan's face do you agree steven carter i I

Carter 3:09

I never pay attention to Corey. I'm always looking at you.

Carter 3:12

I like that. I'm always surprised that he's still here.

Zain 3:15

Eyes on the prize. This is what I like about you, Carter. Here's what we're going to do. We have eight political scenarios on the board behind eight different doors.

Zain 3:25

You are going to choose a door between one to eight. Tell me which door you're choosing. I will tell you the political scenario that we're talking about. So think about what's been going

Zain 3:37

There's a couple of things in the conservative leadership world. There's obviously some foreign affairs issues. There's some wrapping up, so to speak, of Emergencies Act. Of course, our province of Alberta threw down a budget. So there's a couple of things that we're contending with. You will pick one of these eight doors. Okay.

Zain 3:56

And then after you do, you've got a choice. Do you want to give the current strategy that you see, the seal of approval, approval the political party or the figure in in mention is on the right track do

Zain 4:08

do you want to tweak it say you know what i actually i like what they're largely doing here's my tweak here's my contribution here's my free two cents of advice or do you want a complete rewrite do you want to say these people have no fucking clue what they're doing they should be dismissed of their jobs we should take over but since we can't take over since really we're already doing so much for the world being fueled by five-star reviews. What we're going to do is rewrite their strategy for them as we see it on the fly. And out of this eight scenarios, you have four seals of approval. You have two tweaks that you could do, and you could only do two rewrites. It's not like you could choose the same thing the entire time. So you

Zain 4:46

you got to think about what you're anticipating next in terms of what scenario might be behind the door. We're not going to know the doors.

Zain 4:53

You're not going to know. You're not going to know. No, I'm going to tell one of you. So, for example, Corey will pick. He'll tell me door number three. I'll tell him what's behind door number three. At that point, he picks whether he's going seal of approval, tweak, or rewrite. Carter, you then have an opportunity to disagree with Corey, and then we'll kind of go vice versa. You know what we'll do? We'll do a snake draft. You know, we'll do that. Snake draft.

Zain 5:15

That's a great idea. How does a snake draft work?

Corey 5:17

is wonderful. You know what's going to happen? You

Carter 5:19

You know what's going

Zain 5:19

going to happen? We're going to

Corey 5:20

rewrites on the first two segments. Yeah, of course you are. We're going to use our two tweaks when we have no rewrites left, but we're probably going to rewrite through the tweak. And then we're going to have to give four seals of approval to some truly heinous shit. That's what's going to happen.

Carter 5:32

happen. Putin's invasion is going to get our seal of approval from the strategists.

Zain 5:37

That's good. I'm glad that you have no self-control and ability to ration. Nope. Which is nice. Which is nice. So in this case, we have to do what we have to do in the real world sometimes when we're in a strategy session. uh sometimes except that it's not hundred dollars an hour yeah bill five hundred dollars an hour and understand that you got to die on certain hills that it's not worth the fight that you just got to let 80 go and say that you fight to live another day because there might be a bigger battle to be fought and there's no way to start this than to start it and when i say that on any segment i start with one person and that person is

Zain 6:13

is stephen carter stephen carter okay between door Door one and eight, what are you choosing? You tell me the door, I read you a quote, I read you a scenario, and then you tell me a rewrite, a tweak, or a seal of approval. What door are you choosing? Listen,

Carter 6:28

Listen, it's been my really unlucky month, so I'm going to choose number eight because it is my least lucky number.

Corey 6:34

Door number... You have a least lucky number.

Carter 6:37

Basically, they all are.

Carter 6:38

It's been a weird month. You know, you just got to take what you're given.

Zain 6:43

Before, yeah, explain to me least lucky number. how does that work carter well

Carter 6:47

well what you do is you choose it for the lotto 649 and hope that that's going to be your but then you have to choose eight or six others to get you 8 18 28 38 48 58

Carter 6:58

no there's no 58 anyways the point is i lose every time well

Corey 7:01

well yeah you pick 58 so that's going to happen well

Carter 7:04

well i see where i made my error i

Carter 7:06

i see that laugh my

Zain 7:07

my ribs hurt okay here we go door number number eight, Stephen Carter.

Zain 7:11

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown has been fielding lots of calls from people urging him to run to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. And he's now telling the media through the Brampton Guardian and the Toronto Star that he's now not ruling it out. He's saying, listen, it's premature to seriously consider until you know what the rules and the timelines are. I'm taking a lot of phone calls. A lot of people are calling me, getting a lot of inbound calls.

Zain 7:38

I'm obviously encouraged by those phone calls. But, you know, listen, I'm not taking it seriously, but here's the issues I care about. The issues I care about are Bill 21, banning public servants from wearing religious symbols. I care about, you know, moderation in the conservative party. I care about leadership, the state of affairs. I care about division. Stephen Carter, the question is for you. This strategy employed that we've seen many times over, of Patrick Brown saying, listen, people are calling me, but I'm not committing. He's not even saying he's interested. He's saying he hasn't ruled it out.

Zain 8:11

And he's saying that here's the issues I care about. But here's the two things that matter to me, the rules and the timeline. Does that strategy, which seems to be clearly displaying a strategy, are you giving that a seal of approval? Are you giving that a tweak? Are you giving that a rewrite for one Mayor Patrick Brown of Brampton considering running for the Conservative Party of Canada Canada leadership I'd

Carter 8:31

I'd like to choose number three Zane door number three no

Carter 8:34

no that gets a seal of approval that's a tried and true seal of approval uh this is the way that it is done he's running by the way he's just deciding whether or not he wants that public a loss um so he's he's he's already checking he's not getting phone calls from anyone by the way he's calling everyone he knows and uh this is what people say this is the um this gets my strategist seal of approval uh every Every candidate I've ever worked with has always said, you know, I'm getting lots of phone calls from lots of people who really want me to run. Yeah. So it gets my seal of approval.

Zain 9:08

Corey, does it get your seal of approval for Mayor Patrick Brown?

Corey 9:11

Yeah, yeah. I mean, wait for the rules. If the rules are least credible candidate wins, I love your odds, my dude. It's a good plan. Very sensible.

Corey 9:19

I mean, obviously, this is what you say, especially if, okay, actually, can we talk about the contrast between Pierre Polyev and this? Yes. Pierre doesn't even know what the rules are. Body is still warm. Yeah. He's trying to

Zain 9:32

to dictate the rules, let's be clear.

Corey 9:33

clear. Yeah, yeah. Well, for sure. But that's because he's the front runner and that's because he's got a position of strength here. If you are truly kind of a strong candidate, you don't wait for the rules because that implies that it matters what the rules are. If you think you're going to win either way, or if you want to give the sense that you're going to win either way, you don't wait for the rules. You maybe use

Corey 9:52

use words like that, but you're not actually waiting. You're setting things up in the background you're doing all of that um let's actually carter i wouldn't mind throwing to you can

Corey 10:01

can you think of a time where there was like a truly truly credible candidate a candidate who either went on to win or was definitely one of like the final two if it was a larger scenario who

Corey 10:12

who legitimately waited to see what the rules were before they entered um

Carter 10:19

like a real legitimate candidate i mean i'm kind of going back to brian mulrooney versus joe clark no

Carter 10:24

no i think that for the most part you're either in or you're out the rules don't really matter don't you think that shows weakness here uh

Carter 10:33

well it always yeah i mean he's showing incredible weakness uh but he is weak right

Carter 10:40

you know if he was strong he'd be carter

Zain 10:42

carter carter let me ask you a big uh a more fundamental question is the goal not to not look weak huge question for you carter listen

Carter 10:49

listen i gave my seal of approval to this shit show knowing that there's seven more doors to be open so what i love

Corey 10:55

love zane do you know what i love about this segment yeah i love that in a week where we've got russia threatening the free world this was door number eight

Zain 11:02

eight of eight i'm just letting you know this was you constructed

Carter 11:06

this is really good you can pick any door and say that that was door number i mean literally

Zain 11:10

literally you could have told us

Zain 11:12

behind no no no this is the the only show i've planned in the last year you're not fucking ruining this for me okay you told me you told me my segments were a hack you told me we needed a breath of fresh well guess what this is what you get this is what you get i

Corey 11:25

i did i did actually do this i did i did this you get 11 and

Zain 11:30

and a half minutes of patrick brown talk cory what door are you fucking picking maybe make one of the doors up front maybe one of the doors i don't know like near the top i'm just saying or maybe Maybe one of the other doors. I don't know. Fuck you, Corey. Pick seven. Pick a door. Pick seven.

Corey 11:44

I'm going to pick seven. Yeah. I'm going to pick seven. Number seven. Oh,

Zain 11:48

my God. Listen, I'm just going to read.

Zain 11:51

You know who loses here?

Zain 11:54

Who? Our listeners, but they always lose, so I don't care about them. Door number seven. Five-star reviews.

Zain 11:58

Supporters. Yeah, please keep looking. Is this sizzle real material? Yeah. Is this sizzle

Carter 12:02

sizzle real material? This is it.

Zain 12:04

Corey Hogan, supporters of Pierre Polyavra and his bid for the Conservative Party are calling on the party's caucus and the leadership election organizing committee, the LEOC, to hold the race quickly. This seems to be political strategy here. This seems to be getting your supporters out, trying to get them as surrogates or proxies to say, we need this race early. It is my belief, here's a quote from a surrogate, we should have a leader in place at the start of summer, ahead of Canada Day. That's four months from now. Given the leadership contenders ample time to campaign and sign up members, this is what we have to do. Corey Hogan, is this strategy by

Zain 12:40

by pure polyamory and crew, getting your seal of approval, getting a tweak, or getting a rewrite from one Corey Hogan?

Corey 12:48

Well, I guess I do give it a seal of approval. It's a standard frontrunner trope for starters, right? If you're already in the lead, the longer the race goes, the more likely you are going to blow that lead. You're going to kind

Corey 12:59

kind of step on your own foot and fall down or something like that. Yeah. It's also, I think, definitely true that in Canada, we run painfully long leadership contests. I don't know. I think we just stole this from the Americans. But like many things, they should just remain in the US system and not come here, right? We don't need a year-long leadership contest. We've had too many of those. I much prefer, personally, the British model where the contest starts, and by the next time you're actually looking at the news on it, they've picked a leader and you go, oh, wow, that was quick. Because frankly, if you are in the the public and not one of those party member diehards it's you know like you don't you don't need all of that stuff it's it's so behind the scenes um but let's be real one of the other reasons is he thinks he can win with these people it's not just because he thinks philosophically shorter leadership contests are better there's nothing magic about canada day it's not as though on canada day all of a sudden uh there's an election or anything like that um but he wants to make sure that if there are names like Jean Charest being bandied about, they don't have time to sell the memberships they would need to change the balance in a party that right now skews pretty nutty. And nutty works for Pierre. Carter,

Zain 14:08

Carter, Corey's being meek. He's definitely not seeing anything wrong with Pierre Polyever, but that's unsurprising. Corey's always loved Pierre Polyever. If you just go back to a couple episodes ago, he wanted him on his team for democracy, which will age

Corey 14:20

age really well. It'll

Corey 14:21

age really well. But Stephen Carter,

Zain 14:23

Carter, are you also giving Pierre Polyever and his supporters a seal of approval the strategist seal of approval which we don't give out lightly on this show okay we've only given out out i think once before which was on door number eight uh and

Zain 14:37

stephen carter are we giving it on door number seven to his supporters now going out in media to uh to advocate for an early leadership race to advocate to set the rules to gel the rules are you tweaking it or

Zain 14:53

or are you giving it a complete rewrite stephen carter what are you doing

Carter 14:56

seal of approval my friend and i'm gonna oh you've

Carter 14:59

i'm i'm weak i'm gonna tell you well first of all now i've got two seals of approval left two tweaks and two rewrites which makes me happy because they're balanced um but also from pierre's point of view and from his team's point of view a short leadership race makes the most sense he's got the most momentum he's got the the inside track as it were um he's absolutely he

Carter 15:19

he absolutely should uh advocate for this cory's also right our leadership races last too long i mean we've got fledgling parties that run a six-month process the bc liberals just ran a i don't know i mean an eight-month process um with like huge spending challenges no money could come in it was brutal but the um does

Carter 15:42

does this make sense for the party right so what i get would this get my seal of approval if i was on the party executive absolutely not um the party executive should be weighing out whether or not this benefits if it's one candidate over other candidates, and whether or not this is in the best interest of the party. It is not in the best interest of the party. It is in the best interest of Pierre. But you asked the question,

Carter 16:03

seal of approval for Pierre. And yes, I give the seal of approval for Pierre.

Zain 16:08

Can I spend a few minutes on, I know you guys are itching to get to the foreign policy stuff, but can we talk about this?

Carter 16:12

this? We're big on foreign policy, on the strategists. We

Zain 16:15

We are massive on it. I mean, it is what gets us the five-star reviews as part of our annual five-star review pledge drive. I think that's where the word pledge goes. goes. Guys, I want to talk to you about the rules and the downside risk. Suppose he talks about publicly, gets surrogates out there advocating for these rules. Corey, if he doesn't get them, any risk? Does it show that he's weak, not as strong? Is it just an easy drive-by to say, they didn't listen, move on? Does this public advocacy have downside risk versus the backroom chatter, stacking the deck, that sort of stuff that you'd expect from what you'd call a front in a political race so

Corey 16:51

so yes it does right uh it will make him look less like the front runner if what he's asked for doesn't happen but because

Corey 16:59

because it is a leadership race you know there's ways you can spin it you can talk about it being like well you know i just don't think that's right but like the members will still have their day all of that stuff it's a waste of time we should be fighting with justin trudeau and the liberals we shouldn't be fighting with each other i mean there's ways you'd say i think this was a mistake and not just this is an example of me uh you know tactically failing here but

Corey 17:20

but to underline it a bit we talked about this a couple of weeks ago when he came out so strong for the leadership and whether that was the right time for him to announce and you know the logic being he might look like less of a desirable candidate even you know to a conservative party that is pretty right wing right now if um things are coming out about the the convoy protests all of that and and he he kind of has hitched himself to a wagon that's looking pretty bad at the time. Same logic applies. I just don't know if you want to let all of this languish right now. You just don't know the moment you might be going into six months from now. So if you're him, of course, you want to get this done quickly. Carter,

Zain 18:01

Carter, talk to me about the risk here. And how would you position it to make it as risk-free as possible for his surrogates to advocate for this publicly?

Carter 18:12

I think that you have to make this about the next election and not about the leadership right if it's about the leadership then it's about whether or not Pierre can win and you don't want that to be the the criteria what

Carter 18:25

what you want them to say is listen we keep electing leaders and then they play games with us and when they when they run their their election we need to be in a position where we are ready to go and that means we need you know three years with a leader in place before the next election so that we can define ourselves properly and win It's that pre-definition of the election. We

Carter 18:46

can't define ourselves during the election, and we have to be ready in case Trudeau pulls another snap.

Carter 18:51

So we got to get this done. We got to get it done right away. Make it about the election. election

Zain 18:55

election from an analysis perspective what type of election do you think the conservatives need it almost seems like there's a couple of templates there's a soul searching longer figure out the focal point do it in public air it out maybe sell more memberships to a broader group of people get more people in the tent solidify the position as the party with the most memberships and then eventually come out on the other end or do they need a quick decisive who gives a shit if we're we're putting our thumb on the scale, like we know our guy sort of race. Like from your perspective, and I say this knowing none of the three of us are like card-carrying conservative members, but from a political strategy level, you know, look at the time horizon, not just, you know, two months ahead, but, you know, as many would say, the next election.

Zain 19:39

From your perspective, what type of race do you think the conservatives need?

Carter 19:43

Well, I used to be a red Tory, right?

Carter 19:45

right? So from my point of view, what they need is something that enables them to actually have a dialogue about which side of the party is the one that should be dominating. And a longer race gives them a longer time to have that discussion. A shorter race leaves them with Pierre as their primary outcome. So for me, this party needs to define itself. The shorter the race, the more it's going to tend towards defining itself on the far right wing um you know that i mean that

Carter 20:20

that that could be the challenge now how long does this how long do international affairs dictate this right like how long you know how long does this define canadian politics you know what's going on in the ukraine and such and it's going to be well i I shouldn't say, but I think it's going to be relatively short term, right? So like shorter term than even a short term leadership. But what you don't want to do is just have them turn on the, have the voters turn on the television one day and see that Pierre is the leader. You do want the opportunity to build your brand. So having said that, I would probably pick it before July as well, but as late as possible in June.

Zain 21:05

Corey, what sort of race does the Conservative Party need? And I know, like I said to the qualifier, we're not part of that party. But as we know, one of the parties that is governed in this country, one of the two parties that's governed in this country, what do they need in terms of leadership in your mind? Yeah,

Corey 21:21

having that conversation, deciding what they want to be, that's all sensible for a leadership contest. But you can build that brand, you can have that conversation in a way that doesn't take 100 years. I think it's a bit of a false, like, it's a phony argument to say we have this time, therefore, we'll have this conversation. These conversations are like air on a balloon, they will fill the time that's there. There

Corey 21:42

is also this feeling where people will be very driven by the deadlines that are in that contest. Big surges of activity at membership cutoff, big surges of activity right before the vote. And, you know, you could have multiple membership cutoffs. We've seen that in the past, too. I guess my point is this. You can do all of the things Stephen talked about in

Corey 22:01

in the time frame that Pierre Polyev is talking about. Like, it is entirely possible, for example, just to say we are going to do a very broad open vote. We want anybody who sees themselves as a conservative to be able to do this, which means our membership cutoff is the day of the vote. Like, you're able to go there with your $10. They're the conservatives, so they can say, and your ID. We want to prove your identity. You vote in person, whatever thing they want to say.

Corey 22:24

And we want you to participate in growing a big national party. Totally possible. Or you could say, we're doing the membership cutoff on

Corey 22:32

on this date, knowing that it will drive a surge of activity one month before. And then we're going to do the vote on this date, whatever amount of time it takes them to create permanent lists after that. You can do this because ultimately, and we've all run leadership, actually, two of the three of us have run leadership contests here, you

Corey 22:51

you know, from various purchase.

Corey 22:54

This all happens in the time that's right before, right? Like there's just big, big surges of activity that occur with these dates. So use those. don't don't just sit there and twist in the wind for nine months for god's sake nobody needs that uh it let's put it this way if jean cheré is going to win he's

Corey 23:12

he's going to win in four months or he's going to win in nine months as long as the contest is constructed in a way that allows participation the true doomsday scenario for the cherés or anybody trying to build the party from the outside is that the membership cutoff is effectively instant so there's you know there's not enough time to build your organization to sell those memberships before before the date It is behind you.

Zain 23:33

Carter, what door are we going to next? Door eight is off the board. Door seven is off the board. We got one through six. Stephen Carter, what door are

Zain 23:41

are we going to next?

Carter 23:42

Door number three, Zane.

Zain 23:50

Justin Trudeau has revoked the use of the Emergencies Act. He did it this past week. Yes, that was just this past week. On Wednesday, getting sign-off from the Governor General on the revocation. This is, of course, after the MPs in the House of Commons voted to affirm the use of the act on Monday. Trudeau said the situation is no longer an emergency. He said we are confident that existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe. A lot of criticism for Justin Trudeau. You know, some people saying, listen, you needed this just for a couple of days. Couldn't we have done this without the existing laws? Was he more bruised than he actually got upside from the use of the law? Stephen Carter, the exit strategy from the Emergencies Act. Did this get your seal of approval?

Zain 24:33

Did this and does it need a tweak? I say it almost as if it's done, but there's still chapters to be written with inquiries and such. Or would this have been a wholesale rewrite for you, Stephen Carter? What are you giving to Justin Trudeau and the exit on the Emergencies Act?

Carter 24:49

I'm saying it's a seal of approval for me. I mean, I went back and re-listened to our podcast. I don't know if you listen to them occasionally, but I do. i

Corey 24:59

i love i love that you're a loyal listener of yourself well

Carter 25:02

well i actually download this on 37 different devices um that

Carter 25:08

that's where most of our statistics come from so if you're not if you're listening right now and you're not downloading it on your laptop your your telephone your ipad uh why

Carter 25:18

why are you even trying like so i'm

Carter 25:21

yeah i mean you're stealing because it's free um

Zain 25:24

here's the thing yeah the content is free so you may want to get it across all all across all i mean it's free everywhere folks i mean you just don't understand this carter go ahead anyways

Carter 25:32

anyways i think that we said you know the quicker he can get out of the emergency act the better off he was we we gave him a longer term and a shorter term window he took the shorter term window and i think that that strategy has paid off well he dispersed the the uh the protests in in ottawa and and now the protests in ottawa are primarily focused on um on the ukrainian situation and i think that you know good

Carter 25:58

good planning sometimes results in good opportunities and uh by getting that trucker convoy out of there and then you know these

Carter 26:06

these more rational protesters moving in uh i think you're seeing a big uptick so i i'm big fan of of what he did and so seal of approval thump seal

Zain 26:18

seal of approval from stephen carter i mean cory it's It's only been given out twice before, the seal of approval. Are you going to make it a third in a row? I mean, that's a lot of seals of approval that we've given out over 971 episodes. Only twice before Carter gives its third, will you be joining him in the same? Yeah, I'm going to join him because you

Zain 26:37

you said it yourself.

Corey 26:38

You've said it yourself. That happened in the last week. Can you believe it? He's already put so much distance behind himself. And whether

Corey 26:45

whether it was by plan or just by coincidence, and I don't think that he had foreknowledge Russia was going to for sure invade Ukraine, right? But the reality is, there was a lot going on in the world, there were things going on even in the country, other conversations, and at a certain point, you don't want to twist in the wind on these matters, right? So you just get it done, you get it behind you, and you move on. And he's managed to do that. Now, I remain unconvinced we needed it in the first place,

Corey 27:15

which makes it pretty easy for me to say, yeah, it seems like a fine time. Because if you're unconvinced you need it, basically any time,

Corey 27:23

the sooner the better getting rid of it there. And we talked about some of the considerations around that. If he did need it, it was maybe a little premature. Not to jump back into what I know is kind of a complicated point of view, But if there were things going on behind the scenes that made him think, I

Corey 27:38

I really need these powers in the Emergencies Act, well, boy, like the police powers in the provinces aren't going to do it. It's hard for me to imagine that in just like three days those were cleaned up. But, you know, here we are. The government's decided this and the sky has yet to fall. I also think I just personally find it nice that we don't have that as we are talking about freedom in Ukraine and and conversations like that, because as as as fucking so dumb as it is, you know, watching American Republicans declare a parallel between, you know, the situation in downtown Ottawa and the freedom fighters in Ukraine. crane. Nobody needs that, right? It's just an unnecessary distraction when there's big, serious stuff going on in the world.

Zain 28:29

Carter, can I ask you about what Corey just mentioned, the US stuff? Like us becoming another, I mean, Trudeau and the Emergencies Act becoming part of like the political gamesmanship down south. If you're the conservative party here, like running into a leadership, and maybe I'll say more specifically, if you're one Pierre Polyever running, you know, your leadership, Are you amplifying any of that? Are you kind of trying to bring the American style? I mean, you're already bringing some elements of it, one might argue, of the American style, you know, populism here. But are you leading pretty unabashedly into that sort of narrative in terms of what's being talked about, about Justin Trudeau down south? And on the converse, if you're Trudeau, is this kind of like good news for you in some ways that like, you know, a fringe of the Republican Party is criticizing your political actions domestically is that good news? Just give me the calculus, I guess, is what I'm asking here.

Carter 29:21

Well, I think that there's something to be said for, you know, you go to school, you know, with your siblings and you're allowed to badmouth your siblings all you want. And I think that the Canadians feel that way when, you know, we can badmouth our prime minister, we can badmouth our leader of the opposition and such. That's our right as citizens. But as soon as the Americans start doing it, there's a closing of the ranks. And most Canadians don't like it when we get picked on by the Americans. uh there were some and i i would say even more than usual who did like at this time and they but

Carter 29:55

but i think that they were you know smaller in number and uh um than those who who kind of rallied around the prime minister and more importantly um the world's moved on like the story has significantly shifted so uh which is something i think that cory predicted he said the world will move on or someone on twitter i don't know cory and a crazy person on twitter are about the same in my mind in terms of levels of importance. So, you know, that's true.

Carter 30:23

true. The world has moved on. We're not talking about it as much.

Zain 30:27

Corey, any boomerang threat on this that it comes back and hits the prime minister, the inquiry, you know, supposed to be delivered as part of this, that review? Talk to me about boomerang threats that if you were the PMO and Justin Trudeau, yes, Ukraine may have, I'm going to put this crassly, politically changed the channel for you. But it's not like there's a nice bow on the Emergencies Act and the political risk associated with it for you. Do you agree?

Corey 30:52

Yeah, I do. I think that without a natural trigger for why you left, that is a risk. It's one of those things that you have to consider. What is the story here? Why was it necessary? Why is it no longer necessary on this date? Because even if they say it was no longer necessary after the weekend, well, you spent an awful lot of time in the House of Commons saying it was kind of necessary. just just days before right so you know it's it's it's a risk but it's not a huge huge risk right this thing will

Corey 31:22

will be in the rearview mirror um should

Corey 31:24

should it be entirely like that no i mean i think we actually need to ask some serious questions about its use uh and all sorts of issues around the convoy but um you know it is a risk it's a possibility we just don't know enough about what's happening behind the scenes from a national security point of view from a policing point of view.

Zain 31:42

Carter, I'm going to try to avoid doing a deep dive, but I've got a question that might lead into a portion of it before we choose another door. But this is fascinating to me. We've answered three

Zain 31:53

had 12 doors to begin with. And I actually said, you know what, I'm going to make this eight. Because we've gotten the feedback that some episodes are 29 seconds, and others are three days. And I want to try to hit closer to two and a half days on some of these episodes. Carter, here's what's interesting to me about the political dynamics here. So Trudeau has, I think, undisputedly

Zain 32:13

undisputedly been bruised by the usage of the Emergencies Act, the inaction, but like the cocktail of inaction slash action around the convoy, it's bruised Trudeau. Like, I think the polling reflects that, you know, that in the immediate, like he's, you know, seen less favorably. And for the conservatives, they've been using the Emergencies Act, you know, there's a debate about it, big conversation point. And we often talk about channel changers, right like if you can't do it sometimes you get lucky something happens in this case i shouldn't say lucky but there's a massive global channel yeah

Zain 32:44

channel changer it's no longer focused on the emergencies act which was just you know a few days ago that trudeau revoked it if you're the conservatives what i think is interesting from a political strategy level is if your opponent successfully changes or has the channel changed on their behalf how do you keep your attack going How do you ration it? How do you save it? How do you keep it up without looking crass? In this case, you will look crass if you try to like introduce that amongst the humanitarian crisis. So this is like from a strategy perspective. And I know other people want your insights on this as well, as we can hear, Carter. um but but but what would you do like if you're the conservatives here because this is this worked really well for you you knew you had him at the proverbial sort of wrestling ropes in some ways if the conversation extended if this is all we talked about leading up to the 30-day like review like we're waiting for the fucking report this guy's got blood on his hands like why did he do this why did he do this they don't have that opportunity anymore that doesn't mean there's still not fruit there that doesn't still mean there's not political juice there what's the art between when your opponent successfully changes a channel, how do you kind of ration the hit and make it useful down the road? And I know it's a very broad question, but I think it's one worthy of exploring. Because if I'm not reading the tea leaves incorrectly, I think that's what's happened here.

Carter 34:05

Yeah, I think that what you need to do is you need to separate the tactical attack versus the strategic or brand style of attack, right? So ideally, every one of of your tactical attacks should reinforce a brand style of attack right justin trudeau is in over his head is a strategic level of attack of attack right and let's say that we were going after him with the emergencies act this

Carter 34:28

this is the move that that a insecure prime minister makes someone who has doesn't have confidence in his law law enforcement right so now you're doing something that reinforces the strategic and i think that one of the challenges that i have with opposition parties is they tend to only do the tactical attacks right and this is something i think we've been pretty critical of the alberta ndp about is that they're very much stuck in the tactical moments you know cory said you know i hope they don't do the uh the kitchen sink approach to to the budget you know opposition they did the kitchen sink because they don't have a strategic focal point on the kenny government that they're always going to go after and the best way to think of it is you've got an open sore that you should always be going back to even if there's another issue somewhere else and the opposition you know you're making this specific about the emergencies act i'm not sure that that's the strategic attack point that the um the

Carter 35:28

the p you know the conservatives should be going after you

Zain 35:30

you think it's kind of like a proof point to a larger thread right i

Carter 35:32

i think that you know i think that there's other things that they can define him on you know But what's

Zain 35:37

what's the narrative that the Emergency Act speaks to? Like, if you were to kind of bundle it up as a sub-point of X, which is this larger, broader point about Trudeau, what is that point? He's

Carter 35:49

He overreacted to COVID. He's overreacted to, you know, he brought in too many constraints. He, you know, he's made it impossible for businesses to work because he continues to overreact. And then when we get a little bit of a protest, instead of asking the police to do their jobs, he, you know, declared draconian emergency act. He overreacted. And then you can carry overreaction through quite a few different things, right? When he brings in the budget, oh, my God, what an overreaction to, you know, the minor inconveniences of the, you know, look at him spend, spend, spend. This is an overreaction to the fiscal situation. He is, you know, his reaction now is going to drive inflation.

Carter 36:31

you know those are the types of things that you'd want to be reinforcing always putting your finger back into the open sore cory

Zain 36:36

cory same question for you and this broader sort of point on how do you park a uh a effective um you know strategy that or a message that you've had when your opponent has or is or changes the channel successfully uh under your feet so to speak we'll

Corey 36:54

we'll get back to it you know i don't think this is a channel that you can change that easily because it's like you know dusting hands job well done all right canada no longer has concerns in this i don't know about you both but if i'm i'm pretty struck by the fact that in the belt line in calgary which is like an inner city calgary neighborhood and for those of you not from calgary not from alberta you may have a view of calgary and alberta but this is an area that that votes ndp and would probably vote further left if there was the possibility to do so So, right. But I would agree. Yeah.

Corey 37:30

there in massive numbers protesting the protesting the the vaccine requirements in Alberta, which is really funny because we don't have any anymore. Right. We don't fucking have any, which is another issue that we need to talk about here. But there is still a pretty problematic thing that's happening in society at large where where there's a sense of people on the in and people on the out. I keep thinking, are folks so desperate for any kind of connection that they're willing to hold on to this cause when even the cause is done? Like they won. They got what they wanted here in Alberta, for sure. But my point is, those people are still there. They still represent a big chunk of the population. They're not going away. They're still mad about this. You are going to have an opportunity when

Corey 38:12

when everything circles back, probably

Corey 38:14

probably in the context of, you know, a broader review. you and you can you can say like you

Corey 38:20

you know put on your conservative persona here and you can say he did it because it was good television he's the instagram prime minister you know he didn't have a good reason to do it he didn't have a reason to end it but he wanted to look tough he wanted to talk about the tyranny of these protesters you know these people in ottawa fighting for their rights that he was willing to stamp on with all of the forces of government he wanted to be a tough guy prime minister he wanted to just watch him right you know just like his dad good

Corey 38:47

good television maybe, but senselessly curtailing rights in a democracy is never good government. Like, you can hear that speech coming from somebody in the Conservative Party. Might be done, Corey. And I actually think

Corey 38:58

with time, when we're going to forget the anxiety of that moment and just sort of remember the more absurd moments. The action, yeah.

Corey 39:05

Well, the action and people sitting in hot tubs in the middle of Ottawa, right?

Corey 39:09

That might actually sell better then. So I don't think that they've necessarily missed an opportunity here. They may have an opportunity to come back to it because it's not gone. It's not done. I

Zain 39:18

I will kind of footnote that for us to maybe do a special on how to react to channel changers when your opponent is successful on them, when certain things have limited shelf life. In this case, I hear both of you say in different words, this does not. This actually has shelf life either as a broader narrative attack, Carter, to your overreaction, or Corey, to a reintroduction of the attack, maybe not necessarily just as a proof point, but also as it kind of keeps the conversation going, which I think finishes

Corey 39:45

finishes up. What I'll say is the risk of jumping off an issue very quickly, like the liberals have done, is you're basically giving up your opportunity to further define it. And the conservatives have not given it up. And this conversation is still going on in conservative circles. They'll hone their arguments. They'll continue to push them out to the general public. And when we revisit this thing in a month, two months, whenever we get back to it,

Corey 40:07

know, the liberals may find themselves all of a sudden behind a curve that they were ahead of before.

Zain 40:12

Corey, what door are we going to next? We've got three seals of approval off the board. Are we still doing this? Yes, we are, Carter. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. I told you I wanted to only record for an hour. This is not going to happen. Corey,

Zain 40:23

Corey, you guys have just given seals of approval. We haven't tweaked anything yet. Fuck. Corey, what door are we going to?

Corey 40:31

What doors have we got left here?

Zain 40:33

here? We've got doors one. We've got doors two. We've got door four, five, and six. Where are we going, sir?

Corey 40:39

I'd like to go back to eight and talk about Patrick Brown a little bit. Can

Zain 40:44

Why is the fact that – how is Patrick Brown eligible after all that happened with him and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives? Maybe he won't be.

Corey 40:54

be. We haven't seen the rules yet. We

Carter 40:55

We haven't seen the

Carter 40:57

When you get reelected for a different office, it takes away all your previous seats. Automatically. Okay.

Zain 41:02

Okay. Well, that's the rule.

Corey 41:03

rule. There's some truth to that, actually. There is a bit of like a cleaning that happens regardless of the next group that elects you. But how

Zain 41:08

how did he – and

Zain 41:10

and I missed this. But, like, how did he go from pariah, the Ontario PC's having to hold a leadership 15 seconds before the election, to becoming the mayor of Brampton? I mean, I missed that story entirely. I was like, oh, that's interesting. And now he's, like, on the exact same path, arguably on a higher terrain, an order of government, one might say, trying to, like, seek federal office. Sure.

Corey 41:32

You know what? And I'm running for secretary general of the UN today. So I'm on a very high trajectory.

Corey 41:39

God. You guys. But how did he do it? But Carter, how did he do it? You know how he did it, Zane? He went to door number six.

Zain 41:45

And behind door, I think you're going to like this one. This is an interesting one to me. This is about, okay, this is about. This is not

Carter 41:51

not going to be interesting. It's

Zain 41:52

It's about Ukraine and Russia. Okay. Finally, but it is, it is not the primary one. This is about one Khrushchev Freeland and the strategy of our deputy prime minister. Now, we've talked about for a while that there seems to be a strategy, a narrative, certainly a story, a cinematic story, being told about our deputy prime minister, right? We saw it with the, I shouldn't even say leaks, but with, yeah, some of the leaks about her previous negotiations and how the KGB had nicknames for her, especially related to Russia, her unbelievable intellect, the brand created with her, as we've talked about on this very podcast where Trudeau shows up, you know, sleek suit, slim fitting. She shows up with a binder you're full of papers being like okay let me tell you what the fucking plan is right like that that sort of story being told about her so to speak and so now we lean into um what many are calling the showdown that she's been looking forward to you know fluent in ukrainian she's a published author on russia's post-communist transition she's delivered extremely poignant remarks earlier this week invoking mlk the gettysburg and the battle of britain as analogous to this this historic democratic showdown against the bloodthirsty tyrant that is Russia. You know, she kind of even leans into hyperboles. From the perspective of what Chrystia Freeland is trying to propose as her brand, from this perspective, especially now talking about Russia, talking about overreactions, as we've kind of introduced, not about her, but as that concept to the table, this seems like something she's been waiting for. Like, oh my goodness, Like, I can lean in to my lane so aggressively. From

Zain 43:34

From your perspective, Corey, then, is this what you're seeing thus far from Krista Freeland? Does there have a seal of approval from political strategy and branding? Does it require a tweak or

Zain 43:45

or does it require an entire rewrite from what you're seeing thus far? And let's assume everything we've seen thus far has been a bit deliberate, right? The leaks about her past, her intellect, her expertise on this file, the KGB nicknames, the brand that she's trying to own more broadly in the canadian political zeitgeist seal of approval rewrite or are we doing a tweak to uh christopher freeland and what we're seeing right now cory

Corey 44:09

well this is only the fourth time in strategist history this has happened but i i

Corey 44:14

think i have to give it a seal of approval oh my goodness

Corey 44:17

and i'll tell you why lay it on me she

Corey 44:20

she has always seemed like the tough one the smart one in that partnership with justin Trudeau, not trying to kind of damn Justin Trudeau by comparison here, but she carries a certain gravita, right? And it's

Corey 44:34

it's not necessarily, it was a good thing to have when Sunnyways started to fade, right? You know, the serious, tough, you know, former world-trotting journalist with, you know, a serious background in international affairs.

Corey 44:50

At this moment, and I remember when when there was talks about leaks of a book about her and we did a bit of eye rolling, I think on this podcast, like, oh, okay, here we go. Right. But wow. I mean, talk

Corey 45:02

talk about seeming perfect for the moment.

Corey 45:04

you talk about a wartime prime minister and you know, we're, we're not in a shooting war here, but this is, this is as close to the cold war as I can remember since the cold war. Right.

Corey 45:17

I, does she not seem perfect for this moment? Like she seems cast for this moment. You know what I think about? But I think about that movie Air Force One, where Harrison Ford was the president on a plane hijacked by Russian extremists, right? Yeah, yeah,

Corey 45:30

yeah. And he just happened to speak Russian. Yeah.

Corey 45:32

And, you know, he had this background. I can't remember what it was, but like, you know, it was really good. Like the best of the Dave sequels, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. One of the best.

Corey 45:42

And doesn't she sort of almost seem almost unbelievably good in the same sense? Unbelievably comparable? Fluent in Ukrainian. And has this background, you know, tracked by

Corey 45:55

by the KGB. Now, the KGB tracked a lot of people, so let's not sort of overstate that. But, like, tracked by the KGB, going against a Russian president who was KGB. I mean, the whole thing is wild. And she seems perfectly set for the moment as a result.

Zain 46:11

Seal of approval from Corey Hogan. He's casting Chrystia Freeland as the Harrison Ford character, you know, on the plane. Get

Corey 46:19

Get off my plane out of Canadian airspace. I

Zain 46:22

I mean, the plane hasn't taken off anywhere. It's a Flair Airlines flight. But she's on the plane.

Zain 46:28

They could easily get off if

Zain 46:30

they needed to. Carter, door number six, Christa Freeland. I personally would have chosen a different angle, but Corey's making a compelling case with seal of approval. Are you doing the same? Total

Carter 46:41

Total seal of approval.

Carter 46:42

This is, I mean, it

Carter 46:46

almost does seem like a Hollywood movie. You know, and in this movie, you know, she just right

Carter 46:55

You know, I think the Zaleski, the Ukrainian president, is in the same boat. You know, like the right person for the right moment coming off. You know, and part of it is the way that we choose to look at them. And people are choosing to look at Chrystia Freeland like she is this person. And she is. I mean, she's nailing the speeches, the speech today, the quotes today. you know like just nailed them and you know what are we supposed to critique what are we what would we be rewriting like what little yeah

Carter 47:25

yeah like what are

Corey 47:25

are you speaking here

Corey 47:27

why you thought we'd even yeah

Carter 47:29

yeah i mean this is outside of our capacity to make it feel like

Zain 47:33

so this is not going to be a

Zain 47:36

a major rewrite but i think a tweak around having some chill like it seems you could really see that like it's not a moment for chill

Zain 47:45

nobody's asking for chill

Corey 47:46

chill right now well

Zain 47:47

well i I don't know if this is helping, like, in the sense of the diplomatic side when it looks like she's wanting that fight.

Corey 47:54

So here's what I would say, Zane. I'm just going to go straight into arguing with Zane most. Yeah, do it. I

Carter 47:59

I think that's the point right now. There

Corey 48:00

There are moments where you need somebody to be the catalyst for action, the person who's driving everybody along, asking them to be as aggressive as possible. And even when you think back on this last week, when you think back to when

Corey 48:11

when Russia initially invaded Ukraine, right? Right.

Corey 48:14

Swift wasn't on the table taking Russia out of this, you know, financial messaging system. Airspace was still open everywhere. There was an awful lot that still could be done and needed to be done to have a strong response to Russia. And I don't want to overstate Chrystia Freeland's stance in this, but by all reporting, she has been one of the most dogged people on this file, really driving people to do more, to act stronger. And you don't do that with chill. She has been the catalyst to action at this point. She's been the moral conscience of the NATO alliance on this front because she has that Ukrainian background and can—I mean, she's not Zelensky. I'm not suggesting otherwise, but she carries something that the others do not. This

Zain 48:57

This is my fear for her, that if she overcompensates publicly and doesn't have that leverage inside NATO, as much as it might look like she does, in terms of being a compass or a guide towards action, it comes off just as hollow as our prime minister's rhetoric on vaccinations, for example. It looks divisive, it looks overcompensating, and it lacks a certain sense of understanding, not where your lane is, because I don't think this is about putting someone in their place, but where your abilities as a nation are, not your abilities as a deputy prime minister and perhaps future prime minister of this country are. That's where my tweak would come in from, which is to that downstream, and I talked about that downstream political calculation. The moment may call for it. I just, I fear she may pay a price down the road for it. That's what I'm thinking, Corey. That's roughly where my head was at. Not to say I'm playing in this game. I just was surprised that you guys both are giving up your seals of approval so fucking quickly because you don't even know what's behind the other four

Carter 49:55

That's the main thing, Carter. We have more.

Zain 49:58

You do. You could be tweaking something you love.

Carter 50:01

Like, for example. no we wouldn't do that no i i would actually feel really bad tweaking

Carter 50:06

the game of integrity

Carter 50:08

yeah because she i think she's been doing great and and and i'm not just saying that i don't disagree i think she's doing great i don't want to tweak when someone's doing great she's

Carter 50:18

she's doing great god

Zain 50:19

becomes soft carter uh i

Carter 50:21

i have become soft carter

Zain 50:22

carter carter we've got doors one we've got doors

Carter 50:25

doors we have more doors

Zain 50:26

doors we've got doors four and five where are we going next sir um

Carter 50:30

um let's go with door four door

Zain 50:34

door four okay so door four is about

Zain 50:37

about alberta balancing their budget steven carter jason kenney has come out he said listen we've due to our spending restraint this is the message on dynamic growth in the energy sector alberta is projecting its first surplus in 14 years let's underline some of those key points that he's put out there spending restraint great dynamic growth in the energy sector, but also in all other sectors, right? So they're trying to create a diversification story. It's not just relying on oil revenue. They're trying to create a fiscal management story. They're

Zain 51:13

They're also trying to create the historical nature of it, first time in 14 years. Alberta's leading Canada in growth, their economy's diversifying. You know, we also then have, you know, talking about the fact that, you know, sky-high oil prices. We're describing this as fading geopolitical risks with Ukraine. I want to talk to you about a couple of things. And then the last thing I'll add is just maybe the underestimating of the surplus, the positioning of the surplus, knowing that could be much, much bigger as oil prices perhaps keep going up and with projections. actions but overall carter how we talk about it as a political document we talk about it as a communications document how

Zain 51:57

how did the alberta ucp and jason kenney present their budget you have no seals of approval left i cannot do a seal of approval are

Zain 52:06

are you doing a rewrite on this a wholesale rewrite or would you do a tweak in how they presented this budget to albertans and by extension the rest of the country what do you think it

Carter 52:14

it has to be a tweak i think you have to to tweak this i mean realistically first of all it

Carter 52:19

it is what it is the numbers don't lie right like there is this much revenue coming in from oil sands revenue we talked about how um you know we finally reached that mythical payout in an earlier podcast and how important how important payout is to the financial health of the province i would have tweaked this i would have tweaked this to make this more long-term right by by i maybe would have added in a a component of the um

Carter 52:49

of the the uh the the carbon tax like make the carbon tax alberton again um so that we have that revenue coming in uh there was a time when essentially the the ndp was using it as a de facto um consumption tax this would be the time to bring something like that in to enable us to do more of of the energy transition that the ndp had set up um you could do that kind of under the cover of nightfall um but you're not going to make wholesale like i'm not going to do a wholesale rewrite on this because at the end of the day the the messaging that the because again i think you're characterizing this as

Carter 53:23

as a ucp person like i'm supposed to be ucp you

Zain 53:27

you you're yeah you're definitely

Zain 53:28

definitely on team kenny yeah

Carter 53:29

yeah then then kenny's looking great now kenny's kenny all he has to do if it were me i would have tweaked it a little bit more so that we he would have had um a bigger upside that he could have played a little bit more because even financial conservatives fiscal conservatives are hilarious because they always pretend like they just like they want to um not spend money but fiscal conservatives are as responsive to um golden

Carter 53:55

golden goose eggs as everybody else so if you were to put more spending into rural schools or you know they put 1.4 billion into the red deer hospital those types of things will win you over fiscal conservatives even though they pretend not to like them so i think that that would have been um the tweak that i would have made some more goodies and the best way to get to those goodies would have been because i don't think he had to budget he didn't have to balance it he could have been a 500 million dollar deficit and still been golden and that would have just been an extra billion dollars worth of spending that may have just given them a bit bigger upside. So tweak is my answer. Those are the types of tweaks that I would see.

Zain 54:34

Corey, are you tweaking or are you rewriting with how this budget by Jason Kenney was positioned? Also including the fact that, you know, based on today's oil prices, Alberta could collect more than $10 billion in extra revenue compared with the projections in the budget. So the symbolic surplus, if I can call it that, right, that small surplus in the budget, but really the headlines here are spending restraint, growth in every sector yes acknowledging the energy sector and then the historic nature of alberta leading the country and the surplus in 14 years what do you make of that positioning rewrite entirely are you tweaking it cory yeah

Corey 55:06

yeah look i'm tweaking it so the spending restraint and the dynamic growth is i think a good message because it it a it's kind of true right they did reduce spending we were letting our hair about on fire about it for the last bit but they got to balance and there has has been dynamic growth, largely in oil revenue, but we've also seen the income tax revenue go up too. My tweak is this.

Corey 55:32

They made it about what they did, right? Make yourself a populist again. You are not an elite who solved our problems. This isn't a budget happening to you. This is a budget happening because of you, because of your hard work. Albertans agreeing to live within our means again. We did it. It wasn't easy, but we did it.

Corey 55:49

And so it's less about, they called the budget like moving alberta forward or something like that if you want to be equally bland you know reclaiming the alberta advantage together something like that and the reason is you've got an election to fight and you've got to recast the last few years not as jason kenney does a bunch of shit to me some of which i like some of which i don't like but jason kenney

Corey 56:13

did the thing i wanted us to do that we all did together that we're working on here and it wasn't always you know a cup of tea but it was the thing that needed to be done And you've got to sort of reclaim that populist bend. You can't act so removed. And I think some of the language around here sounded pretty removed. And I understand it, right?

Corey 56:32

right? He's trying to show that he's got a victory in advance of this leadership contest.

Corey 56:36

That's not the right play. The right play is to make us all accomplices in his budget, right? Not to be able to pick off the side what he's doing.

Zain 56:44

That's an interesting point, Corey, that you make from a strategic and messaging perspective. And as you were speaking, I was buying into that from like a philosophical, not into what Kenny's budget, but from a philosophical perspective around making everyday people stakeholders in a budget. Carter, to that point, who is the audience here? Is this a save my leadership budget? Or did you see this as a more broader budget for a broader suite of Albertans, so to speak. I'm kind of curious what you saw as an audience. Both of you have given your tweaks. I just want a bit of analysis if we can.

Carter 57:18

Well, I think that the leadership audience is the general audience because ultimately the leadership is going to be reviewing where they are in the polls. And if they, you know, Kenny's central premise is going to be, yeah, we were down, anybody would have been down, but I'm the person who got you there and I'm the person who can get you back.

Carter 57:35

And if there's polling that is going up, then

Carter 57:38

then he has a pretty strong case for being able to say i'm

Carter 57:41

i'm already doing it

Carter 57:43

um and there is no sales job quite as good as the i'm already doing the job uh

Carter 57:48

uh sales job so i think that you know he had to appeal to general population i think that that's where cory's advice of having um of

Carter 57:57

of sharing the the success with albertans a bit more instead of it being him doing it uh probably really good idea so uh yep uh tweaks Tweaks.

Zain 58:09

Tweaks all around. Who chose last? Was that you, Carter? Was that you that chose?

Carter 58:13

chose? That was me. I chose four. Yeah,

Zain 58:15

Yeah, you chose door number four. Corey Hogan, where are we going next? We got door number one. We got door number two. We got door number five.

Corey 58:26

I'd like to go to door number eight, Zane.

Zain 58:28

Here's the thing, right? Can you talk more

Carter 58:29

more about Patrick Brown?

Zain 58:30

Late night, CTV reports that Patrick Brown is no longer leader. Now, Now, here's the thing. Elliott was supposed to win that leadership. And all of a sudden, we just flash forward and Patrick Brown's running for the federal conservatives. I just can't wrap my head around it. Carter, what's going on there?

Carter 58:45

Yeah, it's a lot of questions. Thanks for bringing him up.

Zain 58:48

Yeah, no problem. Corey, where are we going next? Door number one. Door number one. Well, you know what? This is nice because it's related. It's almost like it's an order. Door number one is about the NDP, Alberta NDP response to the budget. And here's a quote from Rachel Notley. Only the UCP could have soaring energy prices and still find new ways to disappoint the hardworking people of the province. Sky-high oil prices and no stability in hospitals, 1,000 fewer teachers in schools, no real plan for jobs, economic diversification, and no help for Albertans who want to pay their utility bills today. She tried to really lean into the areas that the NDP does around, obviously, hospitals, teachers, then talk about affordability, cost of living. There was also mention of the UCP's bracket creep and, you know, senior couple losing money on Asian, a bunch of other things. But that key line, sort of top line message.

Zain 59:38

Corey, from your perspective, is this a tweak? Is this a rewrite? You don't have any seals of approval left. What you saw in terms of messaging from the Alberta NDP as we talked about anticipation of a surplus budget coming from Jason Kenney, your thoughts?

Corey 59:54

Yeah, I think I'll say tweak, because it's not as though they were saying the wrong things. The problem is they said too many things, right? You know, it's one of those end your story as a sentence earlier points of view. And this is advice that we gave before. And, you know, when you look at online,

Corey 1:00:08

online, when you look at social media, they are going to throw out a lot of stuff there. I don't think they necessarily should, but it doesn't mean the weight of their commentary has been as scattered as I think it feels when you're just online. But to be clear, it feels pretty scattered online. They need to take the words they're using and do less of it, right? Fewer words. They need to hone their arguments down.

Corey 1:00:32

They are a good opposition. They are good at picking at the things that hurt the UCP. you

Corey 1:00:37

you know even even on kind of spiritual level like i kind of rolled my eyes at the the claim about the the bracket creep and taxes i mean who is that for was my first thought and then i thought oh yeah i know who that's for that's for a whole bunch of people who care about that issue and it's going to irritate the crap out of jason kenney but you know the tweak here is to narrow down to to the messages that matter for you for the audiences you want carter

Zain 1:01:03

carter same question to you from what you heard from the Alberta NDP, Rachel Notley, the official opposition here in Alberta. Is it a tweak or is it a rewrite for you, Stephen Carter?

Carter 1:01:13

I think it has to be a tweak. I think that Corey made a really good point about narrowing it down, right? Like their

Carter 1:01:20

their words aren't bad, but the number of words that they used was, you

Carter 1:01:24

you know, that was the piece that was outside of where they should have been. They just, you

Carter 1:01:29

you know, we'd given them the advice once before, don't throw in everything in the kitchen sink. sink and they threw in everything in the kitchen sink so now they

Carter 1:01:38

they you know they needed to have it more focused and we i

Corey 1:01:41

mean they put nice stuff in the kitchen sink i think that's the thing like when you talk about literally rewriting the words are fine it's just you know they got to think about where they're deploying them and why yeah for sure

Zain 1:01:54

i want to now go to our listeners and i know this is a one-way street and and talk about how steven and cory have played this game now they have uh committed themselves with two doors left without knowing what's behind any of those doors to do a fundamental rewrite. Now, I would suggest as two experienced, perhaps celebrated occasionally, strategists that this was a terrible, terrible play that both of you have done in unison. It's not like one of you said, you know what, I'm going to rewrite something interesting. That's fascinating. How did that

Carter 1:02:29

that happen? happen so

Carter 1:02:30

so explain it to me again we can't just pick what we want to pick yeah

Zain 1:02:35

we're limited yeah yeah so so so doug ford is rob ford's brother right and when when he ran people said no way and then what did he do he beer yeah for a dollar now i don't drink that means nothing to me but buck a beer became a thing at the same time patrick brown's like you know what i think i want to run for mayor and they're like dude like how are you running for mayor you just got ousted you were supposed to be the premier so i mean it's a lot of crazy shit happened a lot

Carter 1:03:01

okay so what i'm hearing is that there was some crazy shit got it carter

Zain 1:03:04

carter carter what door door number two or door number five which door are you picking uh

Carter 1:03:10

uh i would like door number two please door number two because

Zain 1:03:13

because stephen carter tell me why you are rewriting why you are committing to rewrite Right. The

Zain 1:03:19

The Jean Charest slow drip campaign. I mean, I'd suggest the amount of articles, the amount of Jean Charest has a letter signed by 25 people. Jean Charest this week is meeting with five MPs. Jean Charest says, sources say, if the rules and the financial contributions are in the right, he might run. He might, he might, he might. I mean, Stephen Carter, you want to rewrite this thing. I can see it in your eyes. I do want

Carter 1:03:47

want to rewrite this thing. This is working for me. Tell

Zain 1:03:49

Tell me why you're rewriting this, and then you'll have to obviously be honest with me at the end of it, but why are we rewriting the Jean Charest slow-drip strategy? Isn't this just the Patrick Brown strategy that you gave the seal of approval to?

Carter 1:04:01

No, I mean, Patrick Brown is not going to be a contender. This is a rewrite. This is get your ass out there, Charest, and be the leader that you're supposed to be. You were the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. you were the premier of uh of quebec for how long was it cory a decade i mean you were a leader sir lead get your ass out there and tell and tell everybody that this is not you're not going to allow skippy a child who lurches from issue to issue to define the modern conservative movement already we've seen this and too much negative has already been done so you're you You've got to jump in and actually stop that erosion in conservative ideals. This is actually the time to get that done.

Zain 1:04:49

Talk to me about the conservative ideas. What do you mean by that? I just want to be clear. Like when you say too much erosion, you mean to him, his brand, as he flirts with it? No, the party

Carter 1:04:56

party that he actually wants to lead. The party that he wants to lead is not Pierre Polyev's party. I mean, we've already seen Stephen Harper coming out and saying, you know, if you run, I'm going to protect the conservative movement. Yeah.

Carter 1:05:08

You know, this isn't the conservative movement, sir. is the language that he should be using to define this differently than what has been put forward by the small-minded conservatives of the current conservative movement. The current conservative movement is about small and petty and tiny and not winning. And the conservative movement that Jean Charest should be representing should be, must be, bigger, bolder, broader than what Skippy brings to the table. Get your ass in there. don't be such a fucking pussy i

Zain 1:05:44

feel like that is a uh verbatim clip of stephen carter in his meeting with john charrette that led him back to the podcast that's

Corey 1:05:49

that's why yeah welcome back here carter yeah cory you've

Zain 1:05:53

you've committed to a rewrite here are you rewriting for the same reasons

Zain 1:05:58

yeah i i mean i would i would have picked rewrite anyhow

Zain 1:06:00

you would have both carter you genuinely would have picked genuinely would have picked you like if this was a free fall you could have used as many rewrites would you have actually said i'm rewriting this i'm rewriting

Carter 1:06:08

rewriting this because this is weak.

Zain 1:06:11

Corey, tell me why and what are you rewriting fundamentally? You

Corey 1:06:14

You know what? It perfectly ties back to number eight, Patrick Brown, right? And what did we say there? We said, if you're a front runner, if you're actually a front runner, we started this whole episode talking this way, then you don't act so weak, acting about the rules and what's the consideration. And you don't play Hamlet when you were the premier of Quebec for 10 years. It's a tough fucking province to govern. You act tough, right? You remind people what made you a leader in that context and this is not what made you a leader in this context this hemming and hawing and geez if they don't do it in such a way that maybe they'll say no to me like that's bullshit because i

Carter 1:06:48

i don't want my feelings to be hurt if

Corey 1:06:50

if you want a movement if

Corey 1:06:52

if you want to build a movement start building a movement right and i think it's totally fair ball like to say i

Corey 1:06:59

i don't you know as long as these rules respect our constitution i don't have a problem with them i'm going to find a way to make Make them work, right? And then you move forward from there. The idea Harper says, well, if you run, I'm going to protect the conservative movement, paraphrasing the same way Carter did there.

Corey 1:07:16

No, you go straight to it. You say, Stephen Harper, you were happy to consider me a member of the conservative movement when I was premier of Quebec. Quit this nonsense. Let's be big kids here. Let's be grownups. Let's have a conversation about this. What they're doing right now, I

Corey 1:07:32

I think, is just, I think, a little bit off-putting for me because it shows perhaps not the toughness that you're going to need to

Corey 1:07:40

take this party back to a moderate center. Corey,

Zain 1:07:43

Corey, tell me what you think they're doing here. Because what is happening is deliberate, right? Like, the fact that Jean Charest is one out of every three political headlines in the midst of, like, Russia going to war with invading Ukraine. crane like tell me what you think they think they're doing here because they're definitely think they're doing something what is that i

Corey 1:08:00

i think they think they're doing a drip campaign i think they think they're biding their time and they're testing the waters and they're seeing where all of this is but you know what this is a vocation this is a calling from god if you were going to save this party and save this country you you nut up you don't just do this thing where where you're trying to sort of drift into it because these are not the times for that we talked about christia Freeland being a wartime prime minister yeah

Corey 1:08:25

yeah well pony up and it's time for serious people to take serious positions and stop playing these fucking games because this country can't take them anymore so you want to be prime minister you know what Jean Charest I don't mind you I I'm not a conservative and I could kind of see myself getting behind a guy like you but you got to get it done you got to get it done and you got to show me that you're not just going to play footsie with a bunch of right-wing reactionaries. You're not going to hem and haw until the rules are there. Get it done. Be the guy we need. Carter,

Zain 1:08:54

Carter, go ahead. And I want to ask you a more specific question here, because I want to actually get you guys to do a rewrite a bit.

Carter 1:09:01

This is being run by a bunch of old white guys that are doing a bunch of old white moves, right? You got to move. You got to get things done. Now, granted, they're getting all the stories right now. And so, yeah, sure, they could make a case that they're getting the story. So why would they change?

Carter 1:09:15

Fine. Great case. Well done. The stories are going to end when? They're going to end very soon. You know, as soon as someone else becomes more interesting, don't let anybody else become more interesting. One person, you know, the Right Honorable Jean Charest versus Skippy. If that's not your election slogan, I don't even know why you're trying. uh

Zain 1:09:35

old white moves i think old guy white moves or whatever that was carter that's a great episode title yeah carter actually you know what take the pen from one of those old white guys right yeah what are you doing what are you doing you're telling okay you're telling him to stop this fucking drip campaign right now tell me what the launch looks like what do you you gave me a headline in terms of the positioning walk me through this you you know charre right like what was the you're taking the pen you're writing it tell me what you're writing i'm

Carter 1:10:01

i'm going like i'd launch big launch launch across the country don't launch in in Ottawa do an event in British Columbia do an event in in Quebec and then do an event in in uh in

Carter 1:10:14

in Nova Scotia and you bring in Peter McKay to help you with Nova Scotia you bring in James Moore and Christy Clark to help you in British Columbia you uh you know you you find a way to make sure that you are telling the world you know Canada that you can play in all time zones and you literally play in all time zones Like, you know, land in Saskatchewan, do an event there, or do an event in Edmonton, where the, you know, do it right in the heart of, you know, places

Carter 1:10:41

places where the Conservatives lost seats. Jump into those spaces, you know, do it in Calgary Skyview. Say this seat shouldn't have been lost. It's never going to be lost under Jean Charest's leadership. You know, do that. Be big. Show people that you can play in all the time zones, because he can. He's a former premier. He's going to get all the media coverage. You know, anytime he opens his mouth, he's going to be covered. So open your mouth and be seen.

Zain 1:11:08

And Corey, you wanted to add to that?

Corey 1:11:11

Yeah, this is apropos of nothing. But one of the things that bothers me is this idea that, well, because he was a liberal premier, he can't be the conservative prime minister. Christy Clark, not conservative enough for you. The BC Conservatives, not conservative enough. Like these names don't mean very much in certain jurisdictions. contradictions and in fact i remember i'm old enough to remember the conversation the other way because he was a conservative he couldn't be a quebec liberal premier and i remember all of the arguments at the time this this works fine he can be the guy cory

Zain 1:11:41

cory anything else to add to the rewrite anything tactically just to you know blunt the drip campaign and and anything you'd add to carter's play on play in all time zone strategy yeah

Corey 1:11:52

yeah look i think one of the things that i'm sort of struggling with as I look at the Charrette campaign is it

Corey 1:12:00

it does seem to be geared for a world that doesn't exist anymore, right? What I like about Stevens is that it's about organizing, it's about getting out there, it's getting on the ground and selling those memberships and getting it done. Where I have not quite landed myself is that it seems to be a kind

Corey 1:12:16

kind of Toronto broadsheet campaign. Yeah, it's getting the stories from opinion leaders in Ottawa and in Toronto, but I

Corey 1:12:24

I don't know. I mean, like we have talked about the fact that they need to re-broaden the conservative party and perhaps that's where some of those audiences are god knows somebody's got to read newspapers these days it's it's it's probably a more conservative audience but i

Corey 1:12:37

don't know i'm just not sure this is it i don't know if they're playing the right game right now and and i can't necessarily i

Corey 1:12:44

can just tell it's not the right game i'm

Corey 1:12:46

i'm not sure what they're doing right now they're

Carter 1:12:48

they're playing the delegated game like

Carter 1:12:50

like these guys go back to the delegated game right and that's the game that they're playing you

Carter 1:12:55

you know we'll appeal to the elites and the the elites will be the only ones who get on an airplane and come on out and and uh you know vote in these elections but that's not the way it works anymore it's it's it's not a delegated convention guys you know this is a um this is a membership-based convention with points and you got to go across the country you got to win in 125 ridings um that has to happen cory

Zain 1:13:20

cory tell me why you're picking door number five and why you're going to rewrite what's behind door number five

Corey 1:13:27

well i'm gonna pick door number five and sure you don't want to pick eight

Corey 1:13:31

wait what's what's door number we

Carter 1:13:33

we don't know what door number five is yeah i don't think we've

Corey 1:13:35

we've done great yet yeah you

Corey 1:13:36

you haven't done it we haven't

Zain 1:13:37

it yet let me just look up behind it uh patrick brown now he's the mayor of brampton and cory door number five here we go canada's

Zain 1:13:45

canada's banning russian oil imports and will send a third shipment of lethal weapons to ukraine as his military continues to fight off better-armed Russian forces, Justin Trudeau said earlier this week. Quote, Yesterday we announced that we would be sending new shipments of military supplies, including body armor, helmets, gas masks, and night vision goggles. Today we're announcing that we will supply Ukraine with the anti-tank weapon systems and upgraded ammunition. Trudeau also said that the Canadian Armed Forces will provide airlift support to transport supplies and aid to participate in other NATO efforts in support of Ukraine. Ukraine. Trudeau, you know, obviously being praised for this tougher stance, the U.S. not committing to ground troops. We are also having, you know, a fair share of criticism for Justin Trudeau, saying they refused early to provide the ammunition, the weapons. They did it kind of silently mid-February when they knew things were going to escalate. And now they're kind of, you know, in some ways behind in terms of what may have been an inevitability. Corey Hogan.

Zain 1:14:48

Guys have rewrites left, so I'm curious about the Trudeau plan.

Zain 1:14:52

How are you going to rewrite, and what do you want to rewrite as part of Canada's strategy with the Ukraine? You could rewrite it around messaging. I'm going to give you more breathing room on this, because I don't want you to rewrite foreign policy on the fly, unless you want to. But around messaging, communication, timeliness.

Zain 1:15:11

What about it are you adding to the mix? And then I actually genuinely want to know what you guys think beyond the fun games we're playing here. So

Corey 1:15:17

So the Liberal Party of Canada, you'll recall, did not send troops to Iraq, right? And

Corey 1:15:23

And that was obviously a difficult conversation to happen with an ally. It was done, I

Corey 1:15:28

I think, primarily for domestic political reasons, I think it's fair to say, because the conversation with the United States really became, we're

Corey 1:15:36

we're not going to go to Iraq, but we can lighten some of your load in Afghanistan. You know, this is a conversation that cabinet ministers have shared with me, right, over the years. And so maybe not as noble, I think, as some Canadians look back on us saying no to Iraq. But, you know, one of the things that I really quite respect about that decision was it was a decision that saw

Corey 1:15:56

saw the whole board. So we're talking very specifically about what

Corey 1:16:01

what we're going to do for Ukraine and what we're able to do for Ukraine. And I think we should do more. You know, if I could rewrite it and had a time machine, I would go back in time and make some of these decisions more briskly. Although I do think the world's getting there, and I think that's a positive thing, and I think we need to keep the pressure up, and we should be thinking constantly about more ways we can apply pressure to the autocrats of the world who step over such clear red lines as invasion, as we've got here right now.

Corey 1:16:30

But see the whole board. If there are things that we're not able or not willing to do in Ukraine, what are the things we're able to do that perhaps free up our allies who are willing to take those more aggressive steps? What could we do, perhaps, with troops moving them into other NATO countries? We already are sending quite a few. Perhaps we could send even more. Maybe there's ways that we could support the Americans through some of the infrastructure that we share with them, allowing them to have a little bit more flexibility as well. In

Corey 1:17:00

the rewrite really should reflect that this is a multilateral world and that Canadians have ways that they can help besides directly helping.

Corey 1:17:09

We're a big economy.

Corey 1:17:10

We do have significant industry, and we do have significant resources. So, you know, some real opportunities there, perhaps, if you're looking for a rewrite.

Zain 1:17:20

Carter, I am looking for a rewrite. So play my game for a bit, and then let's get into it. What are you rewriting about the Canadian strategy messaging tactics as related to our assistance to the Ukraine or rhetoric and position against Russia?

Carter 1:17:35

Well, we've really painted ourselves into a corner

Carter 1:17:38

corner here, haven't we?

Zain 1:17:40

Yeah, look at that. There's a lesson. The lesson was the entire episode. Now folks at home will learn from your mistakes, your strategic errors.

Carter 1:17:50

In fairness, there was always going to be one option left, and, you know, you didn't know. Isn't

Zain 1:17:56

Isn't the right strategy to keep a tweak on the board as your final thing so you could just be mealy-mouthed about it and I wouldn't call

Carter 1:18:02

call you out on it? Well, I mean, sure, now that you bring it up. I mean, sure, whatever. But, you know, that wasn't apparent at the beginning of the game. what

Carter 1:18:09

what are we supposed to be some sort of strategy experts here um

Carter 1:18:14

rewrite i would make is is to

Carter 1:18:19

no i don't have a rewrite sorry no rewrite no rewrite available i

Zain 1:18:23

i knew at some point you were going to bail on the game i bailed on the game let's

Zain 1:18:26

let's talk about this let's

Zain 1:18:27

let's talk about this um

Zain 1:18:32

obviously we're witnessing something that's like you

Zain 1:18:35

you know that that we have in Corey said, since the Cold War, right? Like the tensions here, the force that's being applied. I want to talk about this from the perspective of the international community response. And tell me if this is unfair from

Zain 1:18:50

from a perspective of comparison. And you might tell me it's contrived, and I do think it is. But I want to talk about it from the perspective of actually an extension of a conversation we've been having with

Zain 1:19:02

with the trucker convoy, which is about that flabby majority majority, kind of sitting aside and saying, okay, I guess if this is going to happen, this is going to happen, and not necessarily being as proactive or as loud or as forthright as they need to. Do you feel like that extends to what we're seeing here in Russia, like in Ukraine, in Kyiv, particularly, that it looks like Western countries, especially leading with the United States, and of course, with their own domestic calculations, populations, that are not wanting to lean into something as aggressively, but perhaps, you know, are getting by on the goodwill of the performative rhetoric and social media commentary that's happening as an excuse for that action.

Carter 1:19:50

I don't know. I feel like the

Carter 1:19:52

the Western world is united in a way that I'd never expected. Okay. You know, I think that—

Zain 1:19:58

that— That's interesting that that's your take. Yeah,

Carter 1:19:59

Yeah, I mean, bringing Sweden and Switzerland from their neutral status. And Finland.

Carter 1:20:07

But Finland was invaded in World War II. I mean, they have a little bit more skin in the game, I think, with an aggressive Russia. But Sweden and Switzerland, I mean, they have a very long history of not going to war and not putting themselves in this type of a position. And for them to take this type of action was really, I think, indicative of the world coming together to say this is wrong and we're not going to allow it to happen. And I think also that the actions that were taken, you know, there

Carter 1:20:37

there were always going to be financial consequences for Putin as an individual. There is always going to be a financial consequence for the for the oligarchs that surround him. And there were probably always going to be issues for the Russian people. But I think that this has turned into a fairly comprehensive set of of sanctions with more to come kind of as things develop that makes sense and shows a commitment from the Western world that they're not going to allow this to happen. The only thing left that I feel, there's two things that are left. Number one, totally cutting off Russian fossil fuels. That has significant economic consequence for the rest of the world.

Carter 1:21:25

Really, really puts the rest of the world into dire straits. And the second thing is boots on the ground in Ukraine, which I think lead us to nuclear war. So I'm not sure that either of the things that are left are worth actually taking. You know, and it pains me to say that because I think that the action taken by Russia is foolhardy and it's a grave sin, especially

Carter 1:21:52

especially – and the people of Ukraine certainly didn't deserve this situation. situation but putting boots on the ground to rectify this or by putting additional sanctions on fossil fuels from russia have

Carter 1:22:05

have such dire consequences i'm not sure that we can do it already we're you know we're talking about the cold war re-emerging this means that nuclear weapons are considered in play at this moment and that's a real real problem obviously as the one who's old enough to remember this shit i can tell you this is not a great step to head back into too.

Zain 1:22:24

Koi, your thoughts on this?

Corey 1:22:28

The situation in general is something we're going to be unpacking for a long time. You know, we've just gotten through plague and now we've got war. So I assume famine and pestilence are just around the corner. This has been a hell of a couple of years here, for sure. But one of the things that I think is really interesting about Ukraine is it's not the first modern war. It's not the first time we've seen fighting in Europe. I mean, People seem to forget Kosovo and all of that, but there is something about it that

Corey 1:22:59

still sort of offends the sensibilities in like a combination of various elements here, some of which are, you

Corey 1:23:07

you know, cultural, it's in Europe, and so Europeans are paying more attention to it. Some of it, though, is, you know, social media. Zelensky is such a character, and one of the things that has happened is he's managed to to create this virtuous cycle uh you know through his actions and and these actions of ukrainians who are like

Corey 1:23:28

like also like freeland almost from central casting i feel like i am i dreaming like do i need to sort of see if i've i've been in a coma for the last bit here but the idea that you have this comedian turned wartime president you've got this old lady who is going up to russian soldiers and saying here's some sunflower seeds so when you fucking eat it at least you'll be able able to feed the national plant of my country. You've got these absolute legends, these total units on Snake Island saying, you know, fuck you, Russian warships.

Corey 1:23:59

The stories are so myriad. And every night before I go to bed, I'm reading them before I go to bed. And every morning when I wake up, I'm reading them in the morning. And it just makes me want to do more for Ukraine. And I'm not the only one. And, you know, leaders are humans too. And I think this whole thing is just so gripping like it really does feel like a

Corey 1:24:21

a television script at this point that we're all living out and and

Corey 1:24:24

that is fucking fascinating and and so i i think it's interesting what

Corey 1:24:29

what steven said about like you

Corey 1:24:31

you know we've done these things but there's only a couple things left on the table i don't think it's that pat i don't think it's that simple there'll

Corey 1:24:37

there'll also be a bit of whack-a-mole as these regulations come and others will come and we'll think of other things we can do but

Corey 1:24:43

but but what a What a moment. And, you know, Putin seems to have made two

Corey 1:24:47

two miscalculations, right? One was on his ease of invading Ukraine, and the other was on Western

Corey 1:24:53

Western resolve and Western nations

Zain 1:24:58

You know, it's interesting, I look at this similarly, right? And I think like the vast, vast majority of people, you know, see a sense of inspiration and hope, and obviously cinematic dramatic drama, to Corey, your point around what we're seeing in Ukraine. I think one of the narratives that I've been focusing attention on is, you know, what happens with this in two ways, the cloud cover that this massive story has provided to other nefarious stories across the world to be dropped and be perhaps go without the scrutiny and the criticism that they require. And secondly, kind of the parallels to what a crisis with, let's be clear, white European european people looks like versus one where those are not the refugees or the sick people and i think we're going to unpack that throughout multiple conversations but there's one thing cory you mentioned here that i think is in our lane in our collective lane which is the the concept of leadership branding i am so just like you fascinated with the zielinski story here right not just a comedian turned president a comedian turned actor on a tv show where he plays plays president, turned president. Carter, I'm going to throw this to you, right? You are the king of the mythology of the brand, the self-perpetuating nature of political leadership brands. Let's be clear. This was a guy that many people poked fun at, that many people were like, come on. There was eye rolls when he got elected in 2019. There was eye rolls in fucking January, early February about his capacity to lead, his strength, et cetera. But Carter, in the most rapid of circumstances, thankful to the digital age, social media, and of course, some immense bravery on his part. Talk to me about the narrative mythology story that you're seeing play out in front of our eyes, arguably the most interesting one that we're going to have to dissect over multiple episodes and perhaps multiple years, regardless of the outcome here. But let's get started on the tip of the iceberg of the political mythology that we are seeing of won President Zelensky in Ukraine.

Carter 1:27:08

You know, people who listen to the podcast, longtime listeners of the podcast, will wonder why we have picked Dave as our theme movie. This is why we picked Dave as our theme movie, because it turns out in order to be able to play to the people, you must be able to play to the people. And this is a guy who knows how to play to the people. And I don't say those words to diminish what he has done at all, but he knew his role, he assumed his role without question, and he committed to the bit right and and it doesn't diminish the the bit is war the bit is leadership and and and putting on but he put on the helmet he put on the flak jacket he stood outside to do his filming he knew what he needed the role that was required he knew exactly what it was and he used his theatrical expertise he committed to the dance the same way he committed with to dancing with the stars in the ukraine he committed to 100 everybody who's ever danced knows the best way to dance is to go 100% into it. This is the exact same thing that he's doing with the presidency. He's going into it 100% and he knows what he's doing. I'm sure he spends time in his office. I'm sure that most of his day, in fact, is in his office, but he knew the best place for him to do the filming is outside where the people are, where the threat is, because that was was the best theater.

Carter 1:28:31

Dave taught us all a lesson.

Carter 1:28:34

Zelensky has been able to follow that lesson.

Zain 1:28:38

your reaction? And then like, let's talk about this, this political mythology, this branding of leadership using using President Zelensky as that example.

Corey 1:28:46

Well, look, I mean, he's no Dave. Okay, like, let's just calm down, Stephen. But here's what I would say. Yeah,

Carter 1:28:52

Yeah, I'm sorry. I got excited.

Corey 1:28:54

Yeah, you got excited. You got caught up in a moment. yeah

Corey 1:28:58

here's what i would say good

Corey 1:29:00

good people can be actors and maybe actors are good politicians so a good person who is an actor who becomes a politician might actually be a winning formula here because i mean really what is the job when you get right down to it there's you know you've got to deliver your lines you've got to convey emotion you've got to evoke something out of people is that i mean that's being a thespian right and there's that old adage that that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. Well, what if you put a beautiful person in the politics? There'll be a fucking giant in the political sphere. And really, he lives larger than life. He lives larger than life. The way he presents himself right here.

Corey 1:29:37

One of the reasons I check my phone every

Corey 1:29:40

every night before I go to bed is because that's basically morning time in Ukraine. And I want to see that message that he's alive, that he made it another night, right? Like it's fucking gripping stuff. And then you check it in the morning to make sure he's made it through the a day almost right i feel like i'm his mother checking on him sometimes here uh

Corey 1:29:57

uh and you know i don't want him to die i don't think any of us want him to die he dies he becomes an absolute immortal an absolute legend and um it's just such wild wild gripping stuff here and he is

Corey 1:30:12

he did which are utterly banal with

Corey 1:30:15

with the benefit of hindsight now that he's kind of put put on this heroic persona look legendary

Corey 1:30:20

legendary so you talk about brand yeah and development and

Zain 1:30:23

and political lessons as part of that that's what i'm trying to get to like

Corey 1:30:26

what are the political

Zain 1:30:27

political lessons here that he like so here's the lesson yeah here's the

Corey 1:30:31

and i was struck by something i saw online some of you probably saw this as well too where when he became president he made some comment about like i don't think you should have a picture of your president up put a picture for your family they'll be the ones to inspire you to do good for ukraine what

Corey 1:30:45

what what what a cheesy fucking line like i can hear it coming out of justin trudeau's mouth i can hear it coming out of a million dime store politicians mouths but now with

Corey 1:30:55

with retrospect knowing that he has this heroism within him that he might actually fucking believe these things that line comes off entirely different right entirely different so the political lesson is this if

Corey 1:31:09

we can just see through you and if you you show yourself a coward in the big moments, we can see through you. But

Corey 1:31:15

But when you can actually show the metal you've got, and not everybody's going to be a wartime president, but everybody's got moments like that in a prime ministership, or like a longer term leadership.

Corey 1:31:27

Retroactively, it cleans up so much, and it changes the way people think about you. So take those moments and be the person you want to be in those moments. Don't shy from them.

Zain 1:31:36

Retroactively, it cleans up so much. It kind of reminds me of, what's that guy, Patrick Brown when he ran for mayor. It just cleaned up so much.

Zain 1:31:44

Carter, what's the political lesson here from the Zelensky leadership? Whether it could be about mythology or political branding, Corey's given us a good lesson. Do you want anything to add onto that before we wrap up?

Carter 1:31:54

Respond to the moment. Respond to the moment. And that response will take everything. If you can't respond to the moment, history will remember you poorly. If you can, history will rewrite rewrite everything that happened before to fit this new narrative. So respond to the moment.

Zain 1:32:13

Much to discuss here. I'm sure we will on future episodes. Let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Nicely done on all the doors. Poor strategy played, but I think you guys saved yourself at the end. It was extremely, extremely elementary strategy by getting rid of all your seals of approval up front and early. But people will dissect this episode uh in a meta way and really as

Carter 1:32:36

a five-star review i don't care right steven

Zain 1:32:39

steven carter overrated underrated 53 of canadians feel like they can't keep up with the cost of living uh in a new poll that's come out that's up plus five from the same poll a month ago for the trudeau government uh of course a problem but overrated underrated when you start seeing these sort of polls about cost of living coming up over and over again and now over half half of Canadians. Yeah,

Carter 1:33:01

Yeah, I think that this is the end of a very tough two years for everybody. But there's not an election at this point. So if Justin Trudeau is smart, he waits for the election as long as he can.

Zain 1:33:13

Coy, Carter's saying overrated in more words than that. Overrated, underrated. Now more than half of Canadians feeling like they can't keep up with the cost of living.

Corey 1:33:23

That's a lot of people.

Corey 1:33:24

And it probably speaks to something more foundational than the price of bread is going up. Why are people feeling so income insecure? What's the problems we can look at with housing? Why are we spending so much for a house in downtown Toronto, for example? Why does it cost so much to get your kids to activities?

Corey 1:33:44

We've got to talk about, you know, it's impossible to have this conversation without having a million other conversations tied into it. But if

Corey 1:33:51

if that anxiety is out there, and if that anxiety is growing, that's a big problem for the government. I think it's underrated. Corey,

Zain 1:33:57

Corey, I'm going to stick with you.

Zain 1:33:59

Trump targeting Trudeau, talking about Trudeau's weakness, talking about what Trudeau's doing in Canada, how he's curtailing freedoms, how he's anti-democratic, overrated or underrated from the sort of the North American relationship, diplomatic presence perspective. Trump now actively going after Trudeau.

Corey 1:34:21

i mean overrated entirely is there a single decent human being in the world donald trump has not gone after in some way shape or form with some outlandish comment i mean i'm

Corey 1:34:31

i'm not i'm not sure that if i were justin trudeau i would be feeling like i was somehow called out by somebody of high moral character carter

Zain 1:34:40

carter cory's saying overrated are you agreeing with him overrated trump calling out and targeting trudeau many of course thinking you know look this guy's coming Coming back in the chair in 24, this

Zain 1:34:48

this says something. What do you think?

Carter 1:34:50

I think it's overrated. I think this is one of those situations where the opposite, a

Carter 1:34:54

a leader in the United States attacking our prime minister is going to have us come together behind the prime minister, especially because it's Trump.

Zain 1:35:02

Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this one. The convoy protests, as Corey highlighted earlier in the episode, still going in many cities and many provinces across Canada. This despite that mandates in many places are lifting, if not have lifted. Overrated or underrated? Overrated in the sense that, you know what, they just have missed the memo. They'll stop once these mandates are done. This will fizzle out. Or underrated that, no, they actually weren't here for the mandates. They're actually here about something more foundational, something more bigger, broader. What do you think? Overrated or underrated that these protests still keep going? going

Carter 1:35:33

they're overrated i mean we're going to see more protests this weekend and basically there are no there are no restrictions left in alberta as of you know midnight tonight uh this is it it's over uh the only restriction really remaining is that you should be isolated after you get covid i

Carter 1:35:50

i mean that's it kids uh that's all we've got the lowest

Corey 1:35:54

lowest of bars that

Corey 1:35:55

makes me sad you

Carter 1:35:55

you know the uh they'll

Carter 1:35:57

they'll still protest they're still going to protest this weekend uh so as that happens They will be seen for the angry, distracted, destructive people that they are. And hopefully, though, the police will find the the internal strength to stop them from doing their stupid ass protesting.

Zain 1:36:15

Corey, overrated, underrated that the protests are still going and may still continue, I guess.

Corey 1:36:21

I think it's underrated. We talked a bit about this earlier in it. It does speak to something. And what it is, is something that we'll be grappling with for a while here. Why do people feel they need to latch on to movements like this, even when they've actually concluded their policy objectives? It's not too much of a stretch to say. It makes me think that, you

Corey 1:36:41

you know, I don't even know what to say. Like, you think about some of the crazier conspiracy theories out there, like Pizzagate and whatnot.

Corey 1:36:48

They seem to just be social clubs at a certain point. And what does that say about us? And why are people feeling the need to protest things that no longer exist? exist.

Zain 1:36:59

actually, Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one for our final one. I'll end with you, Carter. Corey, we talked a lot about campaign launches, Patrick Brown, Joshua Ray, overrated or underrated campaign

Zain 1:37:09

campaign launches, how one launches a campaign. Is it just another day on the calendar? Or is

Zain 1:37:16

is it a important milestone day on the calendar? Overrated or underrated, Corey Hogan, campaign launches?

Corey 1:37:22

I mean, it's not just another day on the calendar, but they are overrated i i think that people put way too much stock into how somebody comes in especially these days when we all know beforehand it's not as though you

Corey 1:37:34

pick up the newspaper if you're half engaged in and you're like oh wow they're they're in that's so amazing one

Corey 1:37:40

one of my favorite campaign launches of the past couple i guess the past decade we'll say was um was

Corey 1:37:47

was bernie sanders who basically just walked out into a field and was like i'm running for president Yeah,

Zain 1:37:52

Yeah, yeah, in the middle of Senate meetings being like, fuck, I'm doing it again. Okay, I gotta go.

Corey 1:37:56

Yeah, I mean, that to me is

Corey 1:37:58

is probably a little less than you should do. But people put too much into it.

Zain 1:38:04

Gardner overrated or underrated campaign launches?

Carter 1:38:08

You've got to get out, you got to get your name out there, you got to be able to set the tone and a good campaign launch sets the tone. I mean, I think that the campaign launch I described for Sheree would be very memorable. but uh apparently they don't think so that's why i'm back here so

Corey 1:38:25

uh look i i would agree if that was actually how tone was said but it's not like no like the campaign launch the the launch has become an event two months after the soft launch when everybody knows every single bloody organizer and everything they're doing because there's been explored why

Carter 1:38:42

why he's got to get out this is why he's got to get out let's

Corey 1:38:46

yeah i mean i let's let's go i'm with you on that one but i think it I think that they are ultimately a deeply overrated vehicle. Jean

Zain 1:38:53

Jean Charest and team Stephen Carter still available, willing to do anything. Price went up. Price went up. Deliver coffee. Yeah. Do whatever. He is around. He is a man of tremendous mind, body. I mean, just watch as how he took all those seals of approval off the board. If that is not a man who knows strategy, I don't know. I mean, please take him. Please, please take him. So speaking of which, leave your five-star reviews for the five-star pledge drive, and we'll leave that episode there. That's episode 971 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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