Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 984. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is going on? Carter,
Zain
0:10
Carter, you're live on location. I'm
Carter
0:13
sent to the lower mainland.
Carter
0:16
You know, this is where I am now.
Zain
0:18
Live on location usually means you're at like some open house on a weekend or selling whirlpools on a Saturday. What are you doing live on location?
Zain
0:27
less good. What are you doing live on location? Making money. What are you promoting today for
Carter
0:32
Yeah, well, I'm promoting my fixer services so that people can hire me as a political fixer. That's great. It's going really well. I'm
Carter
0:41
I'm set up in the Walmart parking lot, and people are just driving up, and they're saying, and I got a sign. It says political fixer, little tent, flag on the top of the tent. I'm pretty excited about it.
Carter
0:53
Everybody's asking me what I fix. Three guys came in and asked me to fix their windshield washers You know, where it sprays Their windshield washers
Corey
1:01
washers Yes, that's very good
Carter
1:02
good It's where it sprays Like the wipers work, but the spray was not working But it's also
Zain
1:11
So it's you and the rock chip guys In
Zain
1:13
In a Walmart parking lot Yeah,
Carter
1:14
Yeah, I sent them to the rock chip guys Because I couldn't do it Did
Zain
1:17
Did you inflate the bouncy castle we gave you To inflate live on location Are the hot dogs there
Carter
1:23
the pepsi i got stuck in the bouncy castle if your foot goes into a certain spot you're stuck there for a while so i had to i had to barrel roll out but
Carter
1:32
but that's good this is
SPEAKER_04
1:33
is a great that's a great start good
SPEAKER_04
1:38
accepts the premise too often cory that's the issue well yes and everything yeah
Zain
1:44
it's kind of an issue carter it's really an issue carter i hear there's some flight delays i wanted to talk about it
Carter
1:50
it being an issue there
Zain
1:51
there were there There were some flight delays. Now, I do want to clarify. Did you fly Flair Airlines?
Carter
1:55
No, no. I flew WestJet, which was a mistake as well. And I was stuck on the tarmac for, I think, eight hours. So it's
Carter
2:04
a pretty good time. Actually, we did get in. We got into this terminal for an hour and a half of those eight hours. So I shouldn't exaggerate it.
Corey
2:13
We call that the quarter flare. And just enjoy it. Appreciate it. It's a quarter flare. I overpaid for my flare
Zain
2:21
that's right you got a flare you got a full flare experience on a non-flare flight i mean we're having an impact okay we're having an impact uh which is all i can say uh flare airlines uh we don't want to be here either carter not not our sponsor
Zain
2:34
and not not our sponsor absolutely not our sponsor uh cory i don't care what you have to say we're moving it on we're moving it on to the headlines oh good here we are carter it is a thursday you might be saying are we doing headlines the answer is today we are uh and the first headline comes to us from the guardian man who paid 2.9 million dollars for nft of jack dorsey's first tweet set to lose almost 2.9 million dollars that is right carter crypto entrepreneur who made headlines in march when he paid 2.9 million dollars for the nft of the twitter boss jack dorsey's first tweet is now going to be selling said tweet for a top bid of drumroll cory do we have a drumroll do you have a drum roll we do actually
Corey
3:15
actually have a drum
Zain
3:16
roll oh my god we've
Zain
3:17
got a drum roll
SPEAKER_04
3:21
6800 carter he's gonna be selling it for 6800 after purchasing
Corey
3:27
purchasing it there was no reserve bid he just he has to sell it for 6800 that's
Zain
3:31
that's the top bid and that's what it seems like it's where it's gonna go i i okay even if cory let's just say he tenfolds on that a hundred folds on that I don't think he's going to be making a return. Carter, you have been a big fan of NFTs for a long time.
Carter
3:46
Yeah, for sure. Well, I think what's going to happen to the guy who paid $6,800 for this NFT is this guy who paid $6,800 is going to lose his $6,800 too. So it just continues on.
Carter
4:00
Yeah, it just continues on. Because he probably didn't even spend real money. He probably bought it with, what is it, Dogecoin
Carter
4:07
Dogecoin or something like that, or Rethium. Arethia? No. Eurythia? I can never keep these things straight.
Carter
4:18
That's a pretty funny actually.
Corey
4:22
there a gas leak in both of your houses today?
Corey
4:26
What is going on?
Zain
4:28
Carter's just at Surrey. It's like that all the
Carter
4:30
the time. I'm fucking killing it today. I'm killing it in Surrey.
Zain
4:33
Corey, $6,800. Carter makes a really good point that the person who's going to purchase it for $6,800 should they be questioning the history of this tweet and how it's loses near this nft and how it loses nearly 100 of its market value every time it's sold i
Corey
4:49
wouldn't be so worried if i were them because apparently there's at least one idiot willing to pay almost three million dollars for the tweet so there's the chance of recouping is pretty good at 6800 i
Corey
4:59
i think the guy who bought it in the first place might be down six million before this is all said and done this is my prediction.
Zain
5:04
Here's what I say, and here's a real lesson here, that the only way to preserve your hard-earned cash is to invest it in strategist merchandise, okay? The Not Our Sponsor t-shirt, it stays. The mouse pad, excellent. A poster, museum quality. I mean, that is where you need to put your money, thestrategist.ca. By the way, we're having a live show also available on thestrategist.ca. Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us from apple insider brazil orders apple to pay iphone buyer a hundred a thousand dollars for not including the charger steven carter according brazil's uh guana city says apple is in violation of consumer protection laws and must compensate a customer who sold an iphone without a charger i smell class action lawsuit oh
Carter
5:48
oh yeah i'm in on this you know who i'm calling jonathan dennis of the guardian law group i think that we can really make some money on this uh i'd like to point out that my iphone did in fact come with a charger i'm pretty excited about it so you
Carter
6:02
you know not the right charging cable here it's not a usbc but it's the lightning but i'm gonna make it work i'm gonna make it work i'm very excited this
Zain
6:10
this is this is good carter you're giving some real quality content to the people this is almost as good as the content on cnn plus by the way which i don't know if you heard got canceled today after being out for a month which was excellent we've
Carter
6:21
we've been We've been doing the renewed version for well over a year. Still not canceled. Who had that in the pool? No one.
Carter
6:31
Corey, Apple Insider Brazil
Zain
6:32
Brazil orders... I'm trying to move on, Carter. This is what happens when I try to move on.
Zain
6:36
Brazil is ordering Apple to pay iPhone buyer $1,000 for not including the charger. This is the type of headlines we live for. And the type of headline I'm going to serve up to you, Corey.
Corey
6:47
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, this is this is, I think, just just desserts for Apple who continue to take things away from us. I'm actually expecting to get half a phone next time I purchase one. And it's always sold as like a feature. They take off another port. And this is really this rant is my transition into middle age. I think this is the official market. Yeah,
Corey
7:06
but what you can do. My question is, they can't possibly be the only person Apple didn't sell the charger to. That's
Zain
7:14
what I said about the class action lawsuit, Corey. Corey. I think we've got to start it. Stratus.ca slash petition. I've always wanted to be an advocacy platform. I don't see any reason why we don't join a class action or we don't even start a class action lawsuit. The amount of lawyers here is at zero. We've got Corey Hogan. And what's your GMAT score there, Corey? Oh,
Corey
7:33
Oh, it was a 770. Thanks for asking.
Zain
7:34
asking. Yeah, 770. I mean, I feel like that's good enough for a lot. I'm confused.
Zain
7:41
Yeah. Corey, there is a gas leak. We've got to check it out. There's a gas leak in his place.
Zain
7:47
Let's move on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us from CTV. Pierre
Zain
7:51
Pierre Polyev defends investments in rental properties while campaigning to address housing affordability. That
Zain
7:57
That is right. Even as he decries government policies for pushing up the cost of housing, conservative leadership candidate Pierre Polyev is defending investments in his wife of made in rental properties of the kind that some economists contribute to the rising real estate prices. You know what, Corey? We've got a clip. You
SPEAKER_00
8:16
co-own a real estate investment firm in Calgary, and your wife also owns a rental property in Ottawa that she doesn't live in.
SPEAKER_00
8:23
Buying and renting properties as an investment can contribute to increased competition in the housing market, so aren't you contributing to that problem? No,
SPEAKER_01
8:30
No, not at all. We're helping solve the problem by providing affordable rental accommodations to two deserving families. Foreign
SPEAKER_00
8:36
Foreign Canadians against using equity in their homes as an ATM and your wife last summer took out a $425,000 mortgage on her rental property. That's
SPEAKER_00
8:46
That's nearly twice what she paid for it. Why did she decide to do that?
SPEAKER_01
8:50
Well she followed all
SPEAKER_01
8:52
all of the rules and used
SPEAKER_01
8:56
used the equity that she has built up through a very responsible and intelligent investment to maximize the best interests of her financial position. And she has, my wife has followed all the rules and reported all of her financial decisions to the ethics commissioner as the rules require.
Zain
9:22
Okay, thank you, Corey, for that clip. I really appreciate it. We're all laughing during that clip. Let me tell you why I'm laughing. I don't even get to get to get to the questions. Here's what I need you to go do, Corey. I need you to just push your glasses up a bit. Push your glasses up a bit. And can you repeat the following phrase? No,
Zain
9:38
No, not at all.
SPEAKER_04
9:45
no, not at all.
SPEAKER_04
9:47
I will not be
Corey
9:48
be doing that at all. I think we'll move on.
SPEAKER_04
9:50
We're helping solve the problem. Keep
SPEAKER_04
9:58
you're even wearing the same pig you
SPEAKER_04
10:03
it's a blue shirt
Corey
10:05
it's a blue button-up shirt 10
Corey
10:08
10 of the business population of the country is wearing this shirt today oh
SPEAKER_04
10:14
oh that's so stupid
Zain
10:15
stupid okay keep going we're helping solve the problem by providing affordable rental accommodations to deserving families uh
Zain
10:22
uh carter what did you think of cory's statement there
Carter
10:25
Corey was sounding an awful lot like I was last week. And I got to be honest with you. I've rethought my argument subsequently. I'm very upset with myself.
Carter
10:36
All rental property owners are heathens and wrong, as Corey was when he was a rental property owner.
Zain
10:44
OK, here I want to actually spend a bit of time on this. You know, is there any value here, Carter, for Pierre Pauly Everett to try to do
Zain
10:54
do anything but lean into the statement that he did, which is say, no, we're
Zain
11:00
we're doing exactly what Stephen Carter suggested last week, which is we're providing rental income. Does this is there any other line that he could have used after the story came out that he had investment income? income. And of course, this comes on the heels of our conversation last week when he talked about liberal cabinet ministers, a fair portion of them having investment income. You were on the side of saying they're doing nothing wrong. Corey was on the other side of that conversation. Was this the best line for Pierre Pellier?
Carter
11:27
Well, I mean, if it was the best line, it was surely poorly delivered. It wasn't a great line. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I did nothing wrong isn't a great place to start. And the two deserving families, it's just too hyperbolic. How are these families deserving? I think that if he just simply said, listen, it's
Carter
11:50
it's not all about homeownership. It is about having good places to live. And my wife and I make sure that we are providing excellent excellent accommodations, uh, to our, to our renters. Um, we are not responsible for the housing market. We are, uh, we're, you know, we, we've, we've kept our rent stable. We are, you know, trying to keep stable tenants, blah, blah, blah. That would have worked, but instead, you
Carter
12:16
you know, and the $425,000 being taken out on
Carter
12:20
on the mortgage, um, you know,
Carter
12:22
know, like fuck off. That's not your business. I wouldn't even have tried to answer that question. question uh
Zain
12:27
cory you know does this weaken the pure polyamory housing argument it
Corey
12:32
makes it money you never want this to be the thing that comes out after you've taken a stance like you've taken and um it
Corey
12:39
it is very funny to me that it is exactly the argument that steven carter was putting forward and fair enough many people who listened to the episode where we talked about this said there was a pretty good chance the reason why he wouldn't do this is his his own investments and that was certainly borne out really
Corey
12:53
really two parts of that clip that you ran us there the first one of course being yeah he also owns uh property and all of the deserving tenant stuff and then the second part about taking the money out of the house uh in order to further invest and throwing
Corey
13:09
throwing back in his face his own lines about how your house should not be an atm i guess i like i wasn't familiar with that but they both parties
Corey
13:15
parties seemed to think that was an actual thing his
Corey
13:18
his answer was wildly weak uh you know just a bit flailing talking but well i mean uh we followed all of the rules and the laws and all of that when you start dissembling like that i mean both the content and the execution d
Corey
13:32
d minus on that particular one it's it's like i'll say this like that we followed the law defense if you ever find yourself saying that in the court of public opinion you are fucked it's over it's gone you've lost the argument i mean here's a thought exercise for you imagine say a reporter throws that microphone in his face and says mr poe f there's footage of you running in front of an old lady to get the last teddy roxman doll at toys r us and uh and then turning around and yelling in your fucking face hag and running off he's
Corey
14:00
he's like well i mean it was it's not illegal and what i did was technically within the rules and i think the spirit of the christmas shopping season i mean that's not gonna work it's
Carter
14:09
it's really upsetting that you used uh my own Christmas shopping experience against me there. It makes
Zain
14:16
dunks on old ladies all the time. Why wouldn't you?
Carter
14:20
They can't fucking stop you. Right? Like, dunk, dunk, dunk.
Carter
14:25
Just stop. It's like the Celtics taking on the Raptors. You know? Let's go. The Celtics.
SPEAKER_04
14:34
Do you want to tell
Carter
14:36
yeah. Hold on. Let's park this. Yeah, let's pause here. yeah yeah philadelphia philadelphia sorry my my bad yeah the
Corey
14:44
the philadelphia celtics that's right philadelphia
Carter
14:46
philadelphia celtics those guys are fucking insane you
Carter
14:49
can put it down uh
Carter
14:55
jesus christ carter that's
Carter
14:56
that's what the phrase is this live
Zain
14:57
live on location bit is not working for you carter you're selling very few hot tubs and we're getting very little return on investment um what What does this do to his argument, Carter? Does it weaken his housing argument overall, the argument that one might say, the policy platform that one might say that he's gotten a lot of traction with? And I'll come back to you, Corey, in a second here on this.
Carter
15:19
Well, I'm not sure that it should. I
Carter
15:21
I mean, as much as I wanted to walk away from my argument
Carter
15:24
when Pierre made it, I still fundamentally believe that renting is part of the marketplace. Not everybody's going to be owning their own home or owning their own house. And it's ridiculous to to think that the only people who are going to own these houses that are being rented or these apartments or these townhouses or these duplexes are going to be corporations or larger corporations like BoardBlock or Main Street or whatever the corporation is that's renting out the home.
Carter
15:55
It is one way that people can build wealth is to own more than one property. And it's a fairly intelligent way to build wealth. So I don't object to him having those positions, those houses. And I don't think that it undermines his position on the argument. The argument should still be, I mean, his core argument seems
Carter
16:17
seems to be like, if we can increase supply, let's get the government out of the way and increase supply. And that's still a core argument. If you take a look at what's wrong in the cities, whether you're in Surrey like I am right now, or you're in Calgary, or you're in Southern Ontario, all
Carter
16:33
all of it hinges on
Carter
16:36
the actual availability, supply and demand. Corey has gone back to that a
Carter
16:40
a number of times, because it turns out that supply and demand has a significant impact on
Carter
16:48
he's not undermined in that argument, just by the simple fact that he owns more than one property.
Zain
16:54
So Corey, I want to ask you about something you left on, and then Carter, of course, derailed us, which is what would a better answer have been for him on that second question regarding pulling out the equity from your home using it as an atm throwing his words back at him uh in a sense what would a better message or a line aligned with pierre polly of strategy or value has been from your perspective well
Corey
17:17
i hate to say it but i think the proper approach is is more the donald trump approach of going on the offensive for something like this so i want to take you back back to the first question right where he's he said like well but you're doing this isn't this part of the problem and he could say no i mean this is a big problem but i'm trying to be part of the solution here he did go too far in my opinion same as steven like was saying these two deserving families but if he had said i'm providing this at market or below i don't know the specifics
Corey
17:45
of it very easy to say market because markets whatever somebody's willing to to pay right and below is perhaps something less uh if it's changed over time if you have comparable properties if you can say that it is a great accommodation i'm taking great care of it i'm making sure there's a home for a canadian who's otherwise been priced out of this market by people who are acting in an unscrupulous fashion i
Corey
18:06
i think he could have done that um and in a funny way even though it's more over the top and content it would have come off as less over the top and on the the second one you
Zain
18:15
you actually genuinely believe if he had gone on the offensive there would have played better for him yeah
Corey
18:20
yeah because he's sitting there saying uh deserving families uh uh you know stammering along and i that
Zain
18:26
that just made him sound guilty do you see that do you say that because of it made him sound more guilty or that's because it's more to type for pierre paulie ever like like the type of candidate and the candidacy he's running no
Corey
18:38
no i don't i don't actually know that i would say it's to his type it could be i mean that's some people's view of the guy but But I think it's more along the lines of when,
Corey
18:49
you know, this is one of these questions, it's like, there's no win, there's no way out of it. So you've got to reject the premise and you've got to go, you've got to come out swinging here. There's not a good answer. So just give the most I'm right, bad answer, I suppose. And on the second part of the question, where there's $450,000 of equity taken out of the house, I probably would have gone on the offensive there too. and i would have said yeah okay and what did she use it for and when they said i don't know i would have said okay next question right i
Corey
19:18
could leave it hanging and just make them think maybe i'm a giant asshole for asking what that money was borrowed for this is you know his his wife comes from a different part of the world maybe she's got family she's supporting elsewhere they don't fucking know and it's none of their goddamn business to steven's point so yeah i probably would have just given a very short curt answer and moved on carter
Corey
19:38
carter you want to jump in here
Carter
19:40
i think that the second half of the answer was the weakest because he clearly was taken aback he was trying to answer the question and really he just should have said that's offside you're now bringing my my um my
Carter
19:53
my wife into this and that's not where we should be going she gets to operate uh you know as a private individual in this and her
Carter
20:02
her decision to take this money out is no no one's interest but hers so
Zain
20:07
so i have a question maybe in a slightly different frame and you may have answered it already but i'm always fascinated especially in our modern political landscape as to whether if
Zain
20:17
if you are charged with something or tarred with something uh if you can successfully get out of it even if you've done it yourself i.e pure polyamory you know owning rental property can he successfully go after liberal cabinet ministers on this cory like last week we were talking about oh my god This is perfect. He had a great housing week, great video. He's owning the issue. No one else is speaking in clearer terms. The government's programs are technocratic. And now the liberal cabinet ministers, fuck, yeah, if you're a Pierre Pallier friend, he's just lying right there on the team. Can he still do that now that this has happened? And how does he still do that? And I think there's a broader political lesson here that I'd like to talk about as well in a sense.
Corey
20:58
Yeah, again, and I hate to use him as a model ever because he's a bad guy. But Donald Donald Trump did this with taxes and the ideas of tax, not tax evasion, but tax avoidance, right? And he said, yeah, I mean, this
Corey
21:10
this is what people are doing. And I know this because this is what I've done and only I can fix this. Now, he doesn't need to go that far, but he could actually say, yeah, this is, you know, people in this system have, this has been part of the problem. Now, I'm trying to act in a, you know, upstanding toward fashion with my particular rental property, but that's just my opinion. you may feel different about it. The fact is Canadians are finding themselves in a bad situation here. And
Corey
21:37
And there's an awful lot of Liberal cabinet ministers that are complicit in this. And if
Corey
21:42
if he was maybe a slightly different person, I think he could even said, I
Corey
21:46
I did this because it makes sense, right? I did this because it makes sense for me. It makes sense for me financially. The incentives that have been put in place, the runaway economics that have been been behind housing have made this a savvy investment, but
Corey
22:01
but it doesn't need to be that way and it shouldn't be that way. And the Liberal cabinet ministers who actually control the government of Canada and can make changes here should
Corey
22:09
should not be benefiting so directly from a policy that they continue to prop up, a policy of making housing unaffordable to Canadians.
Zain
22:16
Carter, how would you make this a sword for Pierre? Would you shift the focal point, for example, and to Corey's earlier point, say, I'm renting out at market rates. You may want to to go ask all these 20 liberal cabinet ministers if they're doing the same for example i'm just throwing that out there how are you trying to say my sins might exist or my sins don't exist and avoid them or brush right past them but their sins are worse especially if as we discussed last week we at least corey and i thought this was an attractive sword
Zain
22:44
sword for pierre polly to use against the liberals well
Carter
22:47
well i mean i and you'll recall i didn't think this was a good sword and so i'm
Carter
22:52
I'm now telling you to
Zain
22:52
to bend that mind,
Zain
22:53
that Stephen Carter mind
Zain
22:54
mind for causes you don't care and believe in, which is a new thing, I know.
Carter
22:59
Well, I'm accepting the premise. I'm yes, anding.
Carter
23:05
I'm a little bit different category than Corey. Like, I think this does stop him from going after this particular part of the issue. Oh, I
Zain
23:12
I think that you think so. I don't
Carter
23:13
don't think he can go after the liberal cabinet ministers. I think instead he has to shift it and say, the
Carter
23:19
the only solution to this isn't in taking away the property rights of Canadians, but in fact, to incentivize supply. And
Carter
23:27
And this is what, you know, this is what my initial policy was about. This is a supply and demand problem. And we have to, we're never ever going to fix an economics problem through policy. This is what my fundamental belief is as a conservative. My fundamental belief is as a conservative, government has to get out of the way of these types of issues. And civic governments have stood in the way.
Carter
23:50
I don't care what city you're in. The fact that they are controlling and stopping the growth of housing supply is why these houses have gotten out of people's reach. reach.
Carter
24:02
That's what he should be going into. Don't criticize the liberal cabinet ministers for owning properties, but go after the municipalities that have made it so hard to build houses.
Zain
24:12
Corey, you want to jump in here?
Corey
24:15
Well, I think that's right, is all I wanted to say. You asked how you would go on the offensive. We talked about how you could go on the offensive. I'm not sure it's wise to go on the offensive. It would probably make a lot more sense to pivot and talk about the housing issue from different angles. And if people come back at you and say, but you're benefiting from this. That's when you bring in the language of, I
Corey
24:35
I am renting out a property to somebody at market value.
Zain
24:39
That's interesting because from the confines of his conservative
Zain
24:42
conservative leadership race, he just needs to find an enemy. He doesn't need to necessarily make it his ultimate enemy in the liberals in some way, right? So I guess what I'm hearing both of you say, especially Carter, with your last statement is that as long as he finds an enemy, i.e. municipal governments who are faceless, nameless, and not coordinated, he can still keep pounding on this issue. Is that not right?
Carter
25:02
Well, this is the mistake that a lot of politicians make. They think, for example, I'm running for mayor. I have to run against the other mayoralty candidates. You don't. You
Carter
25:10
You don't have to run against the other mayoralty candidates. You can, in fact, run against another bigger villain. Who is the villain that you want to run against? Who do you wish to be perceived as the hero for? Because what we're doing is we're building a hero narrative for our candidate and a villain narrative for someone else, it may be easier to go after a different villain, right?
Carter
25:33
right? So, for example, if you're running for mayor, it may be easier to go after the incumbent mayor, even if they're not running again. It
Carter
25:39
It may be easier to, you know, as Joe Tugendag did, to go after Kenny instead of going after Jeremy Farkas. Who the hell is Jeremy Farkas? We all know who Kenny is, right? So, you don't have to choose the enemy that, you know, you're running against. And Pierre Palliet did not in this particular case have to make it Justin Trudeau's problem. He
Carter
25:57
He very easily could have just simply chosen the city governments loaded with new Democrats, loaded with socialists that are trying to control the situation.
Carter
26:06
You know, those city governments are the reason why we don't have the free enterprise market that would work. If we had the free enterprise market that was working, these investments still might make sense for me, or they might not, depending on what the supply looks like.
Zain
26:19
i'll tell you that is that persuasive to you cory what carter just said to close us out there i
Corey
26:23
i mean i suppose it is but this is already like 25 minutes in probably our most cynical episode ever because ultimately it's a really disingenuous approach to politics right and it isn't in many ways it's the corollary or the very next thing after that you know if you've ever seen the movie thank you for smoking i believe dave too thank you for smoking yeah yeah
Corey
26:42
yeah uh where he's talking to his son and he says well i don't need to be right i just need the other guy to be wrong right when they're having this argument about is smoking good no liberty is good he's like but you didn't answer my question right or i think it was about chocolate ice cream uh
Corey
26:59
you also get to pick the other guy who's wrong in politics and i think that's what steven's trying to say but it is ultimately a very cynical approach because it's not it's not on the ballot it's not what the decision is why
SPEAKER_04
27:11
why is that a cynical coach i actually
Zain
27:14
i i listen we who cares about time i'm curious about this this is actually the most fascinating more fascinating than whatever fucking audience
SPEAKER_04
27:20
audience suggestions you guys gave me exactly thank
Zain
27:23
thank you everyone for all your audience to just too many to weed through i chose the first one um this wasn't it this was this was all me just want to let you know this was all me i still control the show
Zain
27:35
carter do you that is so So because, OK, you were giving us an example, an
Zain
27:39
an example that you implemented. So to connect the dots. Right. Yeah. Talk to me about what Corey's assessment around if it's a cynical strategy. I'm just curious to get your reflections on it. I don't really have a question as much as like saying,
Carter
27:53
saying, do you think that he's unfamiliar with winning strategies?
Carter
27:57
And so it may feel that it's cynical. But what it really is, is it's just a winning strategy. Right. Right. And we see it all the time. We see it. You know, the provincial premiers pick a fight with Justin Trudeau. Municipal mayors pick a fight with their provincial premiers. All of that is done in some cases because the, you know, Trudeau is controlling resources or finances that the provincial government wants. And other times just because it is in the political interest of the party to move forward. We don't get to choose. We don't get to choose what the general public thinks is important in any given time. So if we chose to fight someone else, if we chose to pick on Justin Trudeau, or
Carter
28:37
or if I chose to pick on Jason Kenney, and the general public didn't
Carter
28:41
give a shit, it would fail. It
Carter
28:42
It doesn't succeed just because I chose to do it. It succeeds because the general public has chosen to care. It is not my job to decide for them what they care about. It is my job to know what they care about so I can use it to get my candidate elected. That's the fundamental premise of all political operations.
Carter
29:01
Find out what the public cares about, find out what the parade is, and then get the fuck in front of it. And you may want to start a parade one day. Try starting a parade. All three of us have tried starting parades for clients, and we've tried starting parades for things that we care about. And sometimes we've been successful in starting the parade, but most times, most times we fail in starting the parade because people don't care about the things that we care about. And that's frustrating for us, but that's reality.
Zain
29:30
And so what you're saying, you dovetail the thing you care about to something else that's already got built in or baked in momentum. Exactly.
Corey
29:37
Look, I'm not arguing about the efficiency of it. I'm saying it's a cynical approach to politics here. It's a great argument, in fact, for there being one
Corey
29:44
one order of government because everybody is just mashing it all together. I mean, provincial elections have become federal elections by other means.
Corey
29:52
You know, provincial elections or municipal elections are just now apparently being
Corey
29:57
being run in CPC leadership contests. It's just it's a ridiculous way to run things. Obviously, it's effective, but it's it's absurd.
Carter
30:07
oh my god you've
Carter
30:09
you've never been so wrong we're gonna
Zain
30:11
we're gonna we're gonna leave that segment there moving on to our next segment our next segment actually our first segment i should say is you can't fix me guys
Zain
30:19
guys we are 30 minutes in and we're gonna get okay we should get the yeah we'll i'll bit carter a bit we should get the show started uh what do you think about that uh but before that cory okay just the last part here uh providing affordable rental accommodations to two deserving families if you could just repeat that part there for us thank you move
Zain
30:39
for anyone who doesn't have the video feed you're missing out the glory in the glory of what steven and i uh and and some of the patreon subscribers are seeing which is uh let me be clear about it cory looks like pierre polly f okay
SPEAKER_04
30:53
okay uh let's talk about this carter i
Zain
30:56
i this is a a listener's suggestion for a topic which i actually thought was a really interesting one because there's a story here in alberta about
Zain
31:02
about a self-described political fixer helping
Zain
31:07
helping the former uh progressive conservative uh justice minister jonathan dennis to find phone records of a former calgary herald reporter now at the canadian press this fixer says that the former justice minister jonathan dennis told him he wanted to trade to trace sources that the reporter had drawn on for a a story about whether the size of Jonathan Dennis's wedding reception broke COVID-19 protocols. Of course, for those not familiar, there was a story that was published about Jonathan Dennis, the former justice minister's wedding. The size of that wedding was larger than COVID restrictions would allow at that point. He felt like someone was leaking to the press and he wanted to figure out who was leaking, and thereby he hired a political fixer to trace the phone records of this journalist. Carter, did I get that story right? I know you've paid attention to this one. Did I get the facts, at least of the first chapter, I should say, of this story right? There's many more chapters, but this is the one I want to focus on, really.
Carter
32:08
Yeah, I mean, and that report has been generated and given to a number of different people.
Carter
32:13
I'm told by people who are in the know that my name pops up in that report. It's been generated. operated.
Carter
32:21
The political fixer was engaged to find
Carter
32:24
find my home address and to dig up dirt on me. I'm happy to report that all of my dirt is public already.
Carter
32:33
So, you know, there's no additional dirt to be found. But, you
Carter
32:39
you know, I don't think there's such a thing as political fixers. I think that there is such a thing as, you know, campaigners, you know, strategists like we have on this show. And I think there's such a thing as issue managers. I've seen issue managers in government and with political spinners. But political fixers is something that all of a sudden we have a new class of people in politics that seems to be more based on a fictional television show called Scandal and Olivia Pope than it has to anything real in political life. So this is a new one for me. Not doing background research. We've all done background. We've all done oppo. Oppo is finding out what has been said publicly by candidates or our opposition and what
Carter
33:34
what has been said privately that may be able to be made public,
Carter
33:38
if there's the right recordings. And I mean, I've just never seen much of this. And I've been in this for a long time. I mean, I remember Alan Hallman and Bob Young getting into it because Bob Young tape recorded Alan Hallman asking his candidate to get out of out
Carter
33:54
out of the mayor's race in what 2000 or 2000. 2000, I guess it was.
Carter
33:59
What year is it? This is the year that Dave Brancania won.
Carter
34:03
you know, that was wild. I don't think that people expected that.
Carter
34:08
You know, is that a fixer or is that just a bumble,
Carter
34:11
bumble, right? A bumbling campaign
Carter
34:13
campaign manager that was trying to do some sort of TV oppo recording
Carter
34:17
recording thing that didn't
Carter
34:20
Oppo doesn't work like that. It's just, this
Zain
34:26
This is, okay, this is what I want to spend. been the time on, is really answer some of these questions. Because, Carter, in the political roadmap we've carved out on this show before, we've talked about campaign managers, campaign strategists, field directors, all the positions across the board, right? Comms, you're a finance person. We rarely talk about what I'd call the dark arts positions. And Corey, this kind of leads into your, Dave, too, thank you for smoking, the merchants of death sort of political positions, right we hear them carter you mentioned a few of them spin doctor what the hell's a spin doctor is that real oppo research is that is that really like a specialized role like or is that someone just that's good at google like i want to dispel some of this stuff for folks right fixer political fixer i you know we've heard the term but i don't think i've ever met one and if i have they haven't certainly called themselves that so let's can we talk about some of these dark arts sort of roles and politics that people either assign or apply. Is there any others you want to throw onto the table, Carter, that you've heard and maybe want to help dispel the myth of or talk about if they're real or not and what exactly their function is and how we've seen them take part in the political process?
Carter
35:39
Well, let's just be clear. Corey and I have never taken part in the dark arts. We've just seen it, right? So if we're describing anything, we've never done it. We've just seen others do it right we're going to accept that as the premise of this discussion um
Carter
35:55
um i mean i think
Carter
35:56
that that is correct thank
Zain
35:56
thank you for that carter you
Carter
35:58
you know like spinners are there right so spinners have been called rapid response spinners are called uh war rooms now um you know the spinners are the people who take a set of facts and try and spin their own particular uh point of view onto it spinners have now kind of evolved into outright liars um in a lot of cases cases. I think that that's not a spinner. I think that that's just a hack. It doesn't know what they're doing. Um, spin is, is fundamentally based in fact, in the way that we view the facts. Um, so the spinners we've certainly seen, we've also seen a lot of kind of dark arts on the social media side. Uh, we've talked about bots and trolls, uh, on this before, and, and you can buy bots, you can buy trolls. Uh, there's, there's ways of setting up your own internal, uh, troll factory Or bot factory as well. All of those types of things have been done to promote or to tear down other candidates. So social media is certainly a place. And I think that the other place where we actually see a lot of dark arts is something like what we're seeing with the Jason Kenney leadership right now, where there is mining of memberships, mining
Carter
37:08
mining of other memberships, mining of pallets, mining of participation in a process that isn't one member, one vote. But rather, one member cultivating lots of votes. And that type of mining, I think that we're fairly familiar with where, you know, a bunch of ideas have been provided for whatever reason. And those lists are then imported into membership lists and those types of things. I think we've all seen all seen that type of stuff.
Zain
37:40
okay so i've i've got i've got a few of these these these sort of positions and roles on on the board here spin doctors social media sort of strategists with strategists in air quote around some of these you know bots and trolls troll farms oppo research fixers uh those who kind of just bend the rules cory any other positions you want to add to this list before we talk about this i think
Corey
38:00
think this is a crazy grab bag of a list between slang legitimate positions propositions and things that are super shady and and probably illegal as least as we commonly understand them so that's the point yeah well yeah but like there's not an equivalency here i mean a spin doctor it's in the name they take something and they make you look at it from a different angle it's like a sawbones right it's it's like just a word that's kind of pejorative and flip to somebody who works in the public relations field it's it's not a job it's just your communications person right it's a slang for a communicator uh
Corey
38:32
uh in terms of oppo research yeah that is a real job that is something that people do i mean we can get into it in more detail it's not just google there
Corey
38:41
there are a lot of databases that are let's
Zain
38:43
let's let's actually let's start there cory get into that a bit and i want to talk about that a bit more in terms of what opposition research looks like on a campaign and then we'll hit up what what a fixer actually is or is and i'll get your take on that as well before
Corey
38:54
before i don't fucking know what a fixer i mean mean, I think it is basically based on television and movies, right? It seems impossible to me that there's enough work around in this country to sustain political fixer as a career. It's very hard to make a career as a campaigner. We are not America. We don't have elections
Corey
39:11
every two years, right? Sometimes they align and you're very busy for a while. But generally speaking, if that's the life you choose, you're probably pinging from jurisdiction to jurisdiction if your entire livelihood is campaigning. That's
Zain
39:23
That's such a good point. Like even on the campaign side carter how many full-time campaigners do we know that actually as a full-time gig
Zain
39:32
run political campaigns very
Carter
39:34
very few most are in public affairs uh
Carter
39:36
uh i mean i might be one
Carter
39:38
of the one of the only ones i
Zain
39:41
i i was kind of leading to that in the sense of across the country people who earn a living running political campaigns uh
Zain
39:49
uh most of them do what i like affairs do what i do right kind of you know come up every year or two two three four five years uh get involved in a campaign and then duck back down into my firm which does whatever and
Zain
40:02
and or you know folks who are who are in in in lobbying uh in in public affairs but cory i just wanted to push that point home yeah back to your firm that does whatever great marketing for north weather you're doing right yeah very good people people
Zain
40:16
people want to find us we'll be able to find us we help non-profits and charities advocate okay uh cory to
Zain
40:22
to that point though right on
Zain
40:24
on the fixer side to continue your comment like you don't think this is like in terms of political fixing not a work like it could be private investigating all that other sort of stuff that i'm sure there's a business line for outside of politics but in politics not really you don't think i
Corey
40:39
i mean fixer to me seems like it's some sort of brand of somebody who was in oppo research went way into the gray maybe into the dark and uh they probably are a pi and in their other life they're probably doing other things between campaigns because again it seems impossible to me that you would make that a full-time job it's just it's is there enough work to be a fixer like that if there is fuck that's crazy to me but
Corey
41:03
but there are research is one of those things go
Corey
41:09
yeah uh So there is oppo research. I mean, that is a real thing. There are a lot of databases that you can go into and you can look through records, records that are maybe accessible
Corey
41:19
accessible by the internet. Maybe you have to go down to a courthouse and get the physical records in some cases. There are systems that are connected to computers and systems not connected to computers that you can go through. There are ways to search for things. There are requests you can make through freedom of information requests and the like, where you
Corey
41:36
you will get information as to people's participation in different things in life that might not be available to a quick Google.
Corey
41:43
Many of the same skills of a private investigator without probably the physical following. But even in that sense, Oppo
Corey
41:50
Oppo will often show up to the other events. They'll record it. They'll try to get those unscripted verbatim moments. They will use it at a certain time when it will be of the most disadvantage to the campaign. That's a real campaign job, right? That
Corey
42:02
That is for sure a real campaign job. But this notion of a fixer, somebody who's going to get you phone records, which they should not legally be allowed to get if this is, you know, all proven out, like it should really be underlined that this is all crazy allegations at this point.
Corey
42:17
that's a different beast altogether so like i said like you're piling a lot of things together and i'm not even sure they're on a gradient but
Corey
42:24
but it seems to be a a comfort with following rules and not a and a fundamental set of skills which is investigating people yeah
Zain
42:34
yeah i'm going to dig into each of them and at the end we'll classify each of them so i'm fine on that front uh in terms of the conversation we're having carter as it relates to let's talk about opposition research research,
Zain
42:46
you know, Corey said it's a real job on a campaign. What sort of job is that? And who is it kind of contracted out to? What's the specialized skills here? Like, how does it work? How do you find someone to do oppo research? Talk to me about that from a campaign perspective.
Carter
43:01
In Canada, it tends to be whoever's your best researcher. So, you know, you've got a young young student that's got library access to all of the records
Carter
43:12
records of post-media going back 30 years, right, online or whatever, and they've got all the Maclean's, you know, usually a student would have access to large numbers of those databases that are kind of available that
Carter
43:25
would have every quote that a person might make. I know I've done oppo books on a number of different politicians, And most of the time what you're doing is you're taking their publicly available quotes, things that they have said and have been reported in the media or put on Twitter, and you are putting them into a book. And that book is then sorted by topic. You know, it's got every source. It could be a digital database or whatever now. But back in the day, it was a three ring binder.
Carter
43:58
there was a tab for every topic that you thought might come up on an election. And,
Carter
44:03
you know, when Jason Kenney says blank
Carter
44:05
blank and, you know, I know we had an oppo book on Danielle Smith. I
Carter
44:09
I know we had a doc, you know, we've had oppo books on a
Carter
44:12
a number of different candidates. And it's
Carter
44:15
this really dirty thing that, you know, how dare you have an oppo thing? It's this is what you said then. This is what you're saying now, which is true, which is the honest thing, which do you actually believe? lead. Or you said this horrible thing once. How do you defend that? You know, this is where Lake of Fire comes from. We had a whole book of
Carter
44:36
of quotes that were Lake of Fire quotes. And if you think we weren't shopping shit before Lake of Fire happened, you're nuts. We were putting out everything that, you know, every candidate had ever said that was crazy. And Lake of Fire wasn't even ours.
Carter
44:51
Lake of Fire was someone else who said, you know, sent
Carter
44:54
sent it in from like Manitoba.
Carter
44:56
And, you know, we wouldn't call him a political fixer, I'll tell you that.
Carter
45:00
He was just a guy who had some
Carter
45:02
time and access to Google. You
Carter
45:05
You know, that's what most oppo looks like in Canada.
Zain
45:09
You know, Corey, we've been talking about the dramatization of some of these roles as well, right? So, like, when we talk about opposition research in the TV shows, in the, you know, maybe even American political universities like the Manila Envelope, And I've got this incriminating evidence and information about you. Like, just to be clear, so that folks who are listening to this, opposition research is not private investigating into
Zain
45:32
into Canadian political concept. Or can it be? And I just want to talk about that a bit in the sense of, like, Carter talks about a student with library access, which seems very innocent. And it's quite possible that that's what most opposition research is. But where does this element of, like, private investigating, looking at people's backgrounds, et cetera, come into the mix? Of course
Corey
45:51
course it does. does. But like, what do you think private investigating is? It's going out and it's trying to find information often from public sources, often from talking to people. It's the exact same stuff the oppo team does. It's all degrees. It's all gradients here. But,
Corey
46:07
you know, Carter is trying to get in desperately here. So what do you want to say? They're trying
Carter
46:12
I think that the hardest place to get most of the records is actually the courthouse.
Carter
46:16
Right. So when you when you have someone who like Jonathan Dennis is in in court and, you know, finding those records of things that he's done or said, you know, you have to send someone there.
Carter
46:26
When Dave Brancani was mayor, there was a, you know, he had a tremendous number of properties up and down the west leg of the LRT.
Carter
46:33
There was a opposition
Carter
46:34
opposition report that was done into the properties that he owned up and down the LRT. In the end, he just simply declared that he had a conflict of interest and he didn't vote, you
Carter
46:44
you know, which was deemed to be acceptable. But that,
Carter
46:47
you know, that type of information is publicly available. It's just hard to get. So you pay a public, you know, private investigator to go and find that information out because it's just hard for you to find, you know, like you can't send, you
Carter
47:03
Tim, the kid who was working on his computer down to try and figure out everything
Carter
47:07
everything that was ever said in court or everything that all the different lawsuits that exist.
Zain
47:14
Corey, you want to jump in? yeah
Corey
47:15
yeah so much of it is just knowing what records are even available and the things that you can search on the ability to see if somebody is uh you know a subject to a lawsuit all of that which is public but it's not the thing where you just sort of say zayn vilji lawsuit go on google right you've got to go to that courthouse where it's filed you've got to find these things and you've got to know that you can do that in the first place and so there's a number of records of this type that people go to but i go back to my point like what do you think a pi does this is actually what pis do a lot of the time too uh it's not hollywood with manila envelopes and tailing people and all of that stuff that's that's silly and that's stalking and that's illegal and pis are something you can find it if you actually get the yellow pages in the yellow pages right where people can look into these records here and yes there are people who go way past the line there are things in the yellow pages that ultimately connect you with illegal activity but
Corey
48:08
uh there there, there is also kind of more legitimate versions of that too. And there is licenses that you get that allow you to undertake this work in a, in a, you
Corey
48:17
you know, so-called ethical fashion here.
Zain
48:19
Carter, you wanted to jump in on this? Yeah,
Carter
48:21
Yeah, I will say that, you know, Corey is kind of poo-pooed the manila envelope. I've had so many manila envelopes handed to me. I've gotten so many
Carter
48:29
envelopes too. Not from fixers
Carter
48:32
Not from fixers. They
Carter
48:33
They tend to be from the guys who are, you know, complaining that the planes
Carter
48:38
polluting you know, dropping
Carter
48:41
you know, with the contrails, right? Like, that's
Carter
48:44
that's the type of people. I mean, I cannot tell you the number of envelopes I've been handed about NMAX. Like, it's just, it's an insane number. And, you know, I imagine that there's more truth than we'd like there to be in some of those manila envelopes. But the truth, the real truth
Carter
49:03
truth story is that most Most of the time, it's not something that can be explained in an election anyways. So we tend not to worry about them.
Corey
49:13
yeah, go ahead, Corey. Corey, manila envelopes, in my experience, and the version before, back when people had fax machines is I would occasionally just get random faxes with these accusations too, right? Where somebody would go to a library, you get them through email still to this day.
Corey
49:28
But really, there's like three buckets of them, right? Right. There's the bucket of this person needs to go outside and take a deep breath. Right. There's the version which is this person is actually troubled and I'm a little concerned that I got this. And then
Corey
49:43
then there's the version
Corey
49:44
of the person who is really
Corey
49:47
really pissed off at somebody like more the whistleblower style. Often those ones like
Corey
49:53
like I've gotten some stuff there where I have just I've called the other campaign. I've said, you've got a leak. I'm not looking at this membership list. I've gotten stuff where I've, I've had to call police, right? Because this is public and this is not public information. This should not be distributed, but
Corey
50:07
but it's never come to me via like
Corey
50:10
like some like deep throat character in a, in like a parking garage handing me a manila envelope of things that they have like, they've been a fixer that I've tried to try to get. It's, that's not a variety that I've ever seen at least.
Zain
50:22
Let's get a few of these things off the board. So spin doctor, not dark arts, right? right? A colloquial name for your public relations person, your person spinning. It's
Corey
50:33
It's like Grease Monkey. Yeah.
Corey
50:34
It's just a dumb name for a profession. Off
Zain
50:37
Off the list, Carter, opposition research, not dark arts, but if someone goes deep into the rabbit hole enough, could lead into a world of weirdness and perhaps illegality. Is that fair to say?
Carter
50:51
Absolutely fair to say.
Zain
50:54
we get that one off the board. Not part of dark arts. Issues management we haven't touched on. Issues management, like there's formal positions in political offices of issues managers. So obviously not dark arts. But however, as it relates to what issues managers do, there's a, I want to use Corey's earlier term, there's a gradient in terms of what they're doing and how they're doing what they're doing. Do you want to comment on that as it relates to this constellation of things that I'm going to triangulate around what fixer could ultimately mean? But let's talk about issues managers, Well,
Carter
51:25
I think that issue managers fall on the side of, you know, normal or acceptable campaigning
Carter
51:31
campaigning or political activities. But sometimes the techniques and tactics that are used are a little bit different, right?
Carter
51:38
An issue manager may leak a story to take another story off the front page. We've seen that a lot in the last couple of years, where
Carter
51:45
where a story has been leaked, and it's, you know, off the front page. i
Carter
51:49
know that we've used techniques in the past where we accidentally email out
Carter
51:53
out an internal memo to
Carter
51:55
to the media and then try and recall it before
Carter
51:58
before they read it um
Carter
52:00
um so that you know oh shit have
Zain
52:02
have you sent our memo about our live show to the media yeah i mean to us and then yeah yeah okay the important
Carter
52:11
play is to just to try and retract it that's that's what makes it that's what sells it. That's what makes it real.
Carter
52:18
So is that on the wrong side? I think that it can get there when issues management goes to lying or attacking others. But it still doesn't feel to me like the true dark arts.
Zain
52:33
Corey, your commentary on issues managers as we kind of work our way through the list of rules. Yeah,
Corey
52:39
Yeah, well, in many shared skill sets with oppo research, because they're also undertake investigations they're often of a different kind one of the things that an issues manager needs to do before they get to what steven's talked about which is let's let's big foot that let's get it off the the pages let's talk to that person offer them an exclusive not to go that whatever the issues manager is dealing with is they have to know what the hell's going on first so
Corey
53:01
so uh it's less it's less in that case uh investigating public records although sometimes you have to go and you have to go to ground and confirm what people are saying and it's more Or sitting down with people and saying, okay, tell me what the hell has happened. And then going to the other person and saying, tell me what the hell is happening. And then looking at whatever maybe email trails might exist or whatnot, and trying to piece this together in a way that it's both coherent to you, and that you have the pieces you need to then manage the issue. Because sometimes management of the issue is also pointing to other, sometimes blurs into spin doctor, right? And it's, yes, you're looking at the issue here, but turn that issue around, and it looks very different. And so you, quote unquote, spin the issue. So, you
Corey
53:44
you know, all of these are in kind of a category, it occurs to me as we're talking this out, but, but
Corey
53:50
but they're all I missed that last word. They're all in a, in a category, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That include investigation and then turning around and articulating a worldview. But the issues manager is a bit different in that it's.
Corey
54:05
Yeah, you've got to figure stuff out and then you've got to have a plan to move forward with it. And that's where it almost hands off to the spin doctor, quote
Zain
54:13
You know, Carter, and this is kind of why I wanted to address all of these in a category to kind of clear up some rumors about what's real, what isn't. Many folks who listen probably have not been on a campaign or have an understanding of which of these roles are dramatized versus which are real and have a functional responsibility, which kind of brings me back to Fixer.
Zain
54:32
Is it a pejorative of everything we've said here? Is it a dramatization in your mind? Like when you hear it, especially in the confines of this article, do you feel like there's more of these folks out there than less? I'm kind of curious to kind of round out before we talk about the dentist story to actually round us out on this in terms of what you make of this term, having gone through some of the other, let's say, not dark arts and occasionally gray arts roles and responsibilities on a campaign. Well,
Carter
55:02
let's take a fundamental look at who Corey and I have, you know, when we've been talking about the real, kind of the real practitioners, almost all, well, all of that activity is focused
Carter
55:12
focused on people in the arena, right? We are focused on people in the political arena. We do not go after journalists. That's right.
Zain
55:20
competition, your other, yeah, right. We
Carter
55:23
don't go after sources. Yeah, if we've got a source internally, we try and root that source out.
Carter
55:29
We'll do that by providing fake information
Carter
55:34
information to people that are suspected of being a leaker or specific information that we would only give to one,
Carter
55:41
one, two or three different people. and those people, if
Carter
55:44
if that information leaks, then we know who the leak was because it's kind of patterned after them.
Carter
55:48
Those are all relatively straightforward techniques that we would use to find someone who's leaking. But that's internal. You don't hire someone to go after a journalist's telephone record. That is so beyond the pale. I can't imagine that conversation that leads you to, yeah, that seems like a reasonable discussion. That seems like a reasonable thing we should should be taking on. It's bullshit. I mean, I would never, like,
Carter
56:16
Corey, and I'm sure Corey has got the same situation. Like, the idea of doing that action is just absolutely beyond the norm in the Canadian political sphere. And I think it's
Carter
56:29
it's outside the norm of most politics in
Carter
56:32
in the democratic world.
Carter
56:34
The United States being maybe a significant outlet.
Zain
56:38
You're one step ahead of where I want to go. So this is exactly the conversation I wanted to have have to round us out, which is we talked about all these roles, Corey, right? These core responsibilities, these quality people that we've all worked with on different campaigns who've held these investigative research-based roles. And then we hear of a political fixer, and it gives people the impression that there's someone that us as campaign practitioners have access to on speed dial that can get shit done and do stuff nefariously. And I want to talk about whether If the alleged items mentioned in this Dennis story are true, how out of bounds and how abnormal, like fucking abnormal, is something like this from what we've heard in the political sphere?
Corey
57:22
So out of bounds, very abnormal. I my feeling is quite I will say, like one of the things you keep saying, like these things don't exist.
Corey
57:31
I don't think I'm the you guys know I'm not the guy you would come to and say, I've got an illegal way to do this. right like and i think that it
Corey
57:39
it to me that's
Corey
57:40
that's something that i try to keep in mind and have some humility on and say well maybe more bad shit's going on that i'm willing to sort of like look at or entertain but it
Corey
57:48
it is all on a scale like if you think of that alignment system think of like the spin doctor is chaotic neutral like they'll just they'll do whatever right but they're not bad people uh but
Corey
57:59
but fixer that's chaotic evil like that's getting into i'm willing to like at at least as i've understood it and how we're defining it based on these rules it's like i will break the law i will break propriety i will get this information however i need to get it uh and i you know i have no i have no care or interest in uh in what's right or wrong so
Corey
58:20
that's that to me is that's the difference like it's a flavor of a job like in some ways many of these are about investigation and articulation but
Corey
58:29
but are you are you staying in the law are you you're out of the law. Are you doing it for good reasons? Are you fundamentally being deeply unethical about it?
Zain
58:38
You know what interests me about this, Carter, is that all of us have worked with and for politicians at a certain point, whether they're in office or not, they
Zain
58:45
they just want to get things done and just have things disappear or go away. And I suspect Jonathan Dennis here, the former justice minister, said probably to his better judgment, I just want this to go away. I to share about, you know, politicians, you don't have to name them, or candidates you've worked with, where ethical lines like this are being asked to be crossed, etc. And you see that you're like, no, I'm not going to do this, to Corey's point, like, I'm not the guy you go to for something like this. I'm kind of curious to round out our conversation based on that, where politicians who, you know, often are in this power dynamic, where they get whatever they want, usually, in certain scenarios, ask for certain results and may have to take certain means. means i want to kind of get your commentary on what you think happened here and whether it's related to a power dynamic and a mindset perhaps more broadly yeah
Carter
59:39
yeah i mean i am the guy that people would come to to solve this problem right and way
Zain
59:45
way to own it carter we don't we wanted to all give you a pass by the way cory and i were like yeah no i'm not the guy either just if we knew a guy i wish we knew a guy if
Carter
59:55
if if if one of the three of us was going to be approached to deal with with a dark arts it's going to be me and
Carter
1:00:00
i've never ever seen anything like this um you know has there been scenarios where i've been asked to to find the person who's leaking on our team yeah absolutely um have there been scenarios where you know um you
Carter
1:00:15
you know people want things to go away you know the easiest way to get things to go away stop doing stupid things right
Carter
1:00:21
right stop doing stupid shit and the other really super easy way to allow a story to die is
Carter
1:00:28
just to let it to die like no story lasts forever there is no story that goes forever it lasts three days to five days suck it up go away to your cabin do whatever you need to do get out of town go
Carter
1:00:40
go to surrey you know do what you have to do to get away from the from the shit and
Carter
1:00:45
and that's what you do right i'm not escaping from shit right now i'm causing shit it's a different thing totally
Zain
1:00:53
you've never seen anything like this carter i think that's an an important point to make no
Carter
1:00:56
no i mean i mean really i've seen i've
Carter
1:01:00
i've seen dark stuff i mean but i haven't seen anything like this where a journalist is targeted cory
Corey
1:01:08
well for sure i have not right but i i'm not going to make absolute statements here because i simply can't i just don't know what might be going on in other campaigns in another context so the
Corey
1:01:20
this is Look, is it going on? Is it not? Almost beside the point. Deeply unethical. Should not be happening. Outrageous that if these allegations were in any way true, it is absolutely outrageous and there should be consequences for them. But I can't definitively say that these things are not happening.
Zain
1:01:39
We're going to leave that segment there. Move it on to our final segment or over under in our lightning round. Stephen Carter, we do this for you. This entire show is for you. Even if you escape to Surrey on location.
Zain
1:01:49
It's only been an hour. I know. No, but we can extend this. We can extend this for however long we want. Stephen Carter, are you in or out for
Zain
1:01:56
for the title of fixer to be added to the traditional campaign org chart?
Carter
1:02:01
I am out. I think that it is stupid and it is a fictional job for fictional human beings.
Zain
1:02:10
Corey, are you in or out for the title of fixer to be added to the standard org chart? I feel like it needs to happen.
Corey
1:02:15
I think that if it's going to be a job, it's just the issues manager. It's managing an issue, right? Maybe it can be like spin doctor, but like what we're talking about in terms of a fixer that is stalking reporters through various means, that
Corey
1:02:28
that should not be in any campaign chart.
Zain
1:02:31
Way to not have fun with it, Corey. Thank you for that. Really appreciate it. Corey, overrated, underrated, the damage to Pierre Polyever on this housing story on him owning rental property, overrated or underrated, the damage it might cause to him? Overrated.
Corey
1:02:44
Overrated. First of all, keep in mind that this is a leadership race, right? Right. This is not a general election. And I think that the message will still have resonance with people. And a lot of the people who saw him getting questioned like that will say, well, that's just not fair ball. He's just playing by the rules. You know, it's the conservative membership and prospective conservative members he's after. So it's
Corey
1:03:04
it's going to go away. And even if it doesn't, it doesn't change his odds in the conservative leadership race.
Zain
1:03:10
Carter, overrated, underrated, the damage to Pierre Pallier on this housing story that we've talked about today.
Carter
1:03:16
all the reasons that Corey said and one more, and that is that they went after his spouse. You know, Canadian politics is still primarily about the person who's the candidate. And generally speaking, we leave families out of it.
Zain
1:03:31
Carter, are you in or out on the following strategy? Jean Charest promising to permit more private health care services as Pierre Polyev attacks taxed his record as being a liberal, as being soft on conservative values.
Zain
1:03:45
Jean Charest saying, listen, I'll permit more private health services. Are you in or out? Of course, within the confines of what Corey said earlier, this is a conservative leadership race. Are you in or out on the Charest strategy that you're seeing?
Carter
1:03:56
I'm in. I mean, I think the two provinces with the most privatized health care are Quebec and British Columbia.
Carter
1:04:02
I'm in. I think that him saying that and him being able to point to the private options that were available to people in his province, plays to that particular base and gives him some real
Carter
1:04:13
real opportunity to differentiate himself.
Zain
1:04:17
Corey, are you in or out on Jean Charest promising to permit more private healthcare services as his political strategy in the conservative leadership race? So
Corey
1:04:24
So I'm out. It's obviously something where he's indisputably conservative. As Carter said, Quebec has a number of additional private health options that don't exist in a province like Alberta, for example, right? Right. And I think I think that's a space where he can clearly prove that he's a true blue conservative. All accepted.
Corey
1:04:44
What is his strategy here? Is his strategy to win the base? Fuck no. Well, is it? But it's a legitimate question. If he's trying to win the base of the conservatives, then a lot of his other comments have been not helpful. And if he's trying to broaden the party to more middle Canadians and, you know, battle for the soul of the party, as we called it. well then this comment was unhelpful because this is a bit of a like a sacred cow for canadian population here so i
Corey
1:05:10
i don't get it i don't get a number of the announcements that have come out of the charrette campaign there was a weird one this week about um he would change it so you had to be a member of the party for 90 days in order to participate in leaderships and nominations
Corey
1:05:24
this was bolted literally in the same tweet to buy a membership today so that we can make this change to the conservative party. So you're fucking want me to buy a membership in a party to create a change that if that change had existed right now, I would not be able to buy the membership. Who is this all for? Like, is it for existing members? Or is it for new members? And that is not remotely clear to me. And I don't think it's clear
Corey
1:05:47
think it's clear to him.
Zain
1:05:48
The question I have for you, I will let's talk about this a bit more Carter, what the hell do you see as a charade strategy? As much as you're a campaign strategist, you're an observer server of campaigns trying to dissect what is happening with their strategy. The charitable interpretation to Corey's point here is that he's got two audiences. So those are two messages.
Zain
1:06:06
But what Corey's also making is that, yeah, sure, fair, but you're probably undermining one audience for the other. So you're like kneecapping rather than adding to your coalition. So to that point, Carter, do you see something like as someone who spots these things and tries to trace the through line? What do you see as a charade strategy here? The
Carter
1:06:25
The Charest strategy is to focus on Quebec and to move into Atlantic Canada and control most of those ridings. That seems to be your
Zain
1:06:33
your strategy for Charest. No,
Carter
1:06:35
No, that's what he's literally doing. And every chance they get, they always tweet out, you know, we have more than doubled the Quebec membership since we have undertaken this campaign. They are clearly articulating that strategy. His communication strategy appears to lurch from bad moment to bad moment. He does not have a communication strategy. He does not have a video strategy. He does not have a social media strategy. Whoever's in charge of comms needs to have their wrists slapped. They do not know what they are doing. And it is undermining the tactical strategy of the or the operational strategy of just getting in there and actually selling memberships and making sure that they can win in key parts of the country.
Zain
1:07:18
Because it's not giving people confidence that they're buying into a winning campaign or a winning sort of moment or movement is that what you're saying by how it's under i
Zain
1:07:28
was trying to be diplomatic okay
Zain
1:07:31
cory jump in here yeah
Corey
1:07:33
yeah there's kind of a modern theory of campaigning we've talked about before where everything
Corey
1:07:37
everything is so segmented everything is so targeted people only see what they want to see that you can just fill a pantry with stuff and it doesn't even matter if it's consistent and you just take out of the pantry what you need for that audience is sure i just i don't buy that in the context of a leadership campaign i don't know if i do in a general i sure don't in a leadership because you're picking the more engaged members and these people are watching the things that you're saying in an ongoing basis to trust whether you are the true blue conservative or just saying it like aaron o'toole was for example if you're actually a moderate or if you're just a wolf in sheep's clothing and so i just it doesn't work the more engaged you are and this is a more engaged audience now i've said this in in other contexts for other politicians but you can't ride two horses with one ass and that's what he's trying to do here pick
Corey
1:08:24
pick a lane if
Corey
1:08:25
if you manage to win it will be entirely on the strength of ground game at this point because the air game is pathetic it's like world war one biplanes roaming around and there's fighter jets fucking all over your head here man get in the game yeah
Zain
1:08:38
yeah get on get on those three channels jean charre get on those three channels with a single advertisement get that newspaper ad out uh cory
SPEAKER_04
1:08:45
cory final question to you overrated
Zain
1:08:50
the pure polly air strategy and his camp announcing that they've sold memberships in every writing overrated
Zain
1:08:57
overrated or underrated that's they've come out and said we've sold memberships in every writing trying to hint at a broad appeal say that he's not narrow casting his campaign that we've sold memberships everywhere
Zain
1:09:07
is that overrated or underrated in a leadership race to come out with the can i call it a humble brag like that and what do you think is that even a brag he's saying he sold at
Corey
1:09:16
memberships fucking bravo right okay
Zain
1:09:22
is what i'm hearing from you cory's going with underrated i think it's a bad pick carter do you agree yeah
Carter
1:09:31
well look at us we sold at least one membership i mean we are dominant in x number of places is where you should be talking about we're
Zain
1:09:40
we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 984 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji with... Oh, come on, Corey. We didn't even have music. Right, I forgot. Come on, Corey. Okay, let's try this again. Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_04
1:09:52
Hold on, hold on, hold on. One more
Corey
1:09:57
we used to just add this after the fact. This is... No, no, it's fine.
Zain
1:10:01
Carter, Corey's gone with underrated. I think it's a stupid move on his part. What do you think? Maybe we don't need to go that far back. Maybe we just...
Zain
1:10:11
we're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 984 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belchie. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.