Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1015. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, guys.
Zain
0:10
We are recording on a Monday. Oh, and I am so glad we waited a day.
Zain
0:26
uh steven carter you
Zain
0:28
you know what sometimes we just got to jump into it you can insert your afl predictions in the middle of the episode let's move it on to our first segment we'll
Corey
0:35
we'll do mid-roll for that yeah
Zain
0:36
yeah we'll do yeah we'll do mid-roll advertising carter you remember when that was a revelation well let's move it on to our first segment our first segment doctor who
Zain
0:46
cory dr dina hinshaw is out as alberta's chief medical officer of health that's not a surprise to many, many folks expecting that, as Daniel Smith's rhetoric about Dina Hinshaw has been quite loud and quite sustained throughout her leadership campaign and even her first day as a premier. That's not the surprise. We have a new chief medical officer of health, replaced by Dr. Mark Joffe, an Alberta Health Services vice president. His interim role began today and, of course, will continue until rescinded by appointment of the health minister. Mr. And there he goes. As scheduled, Stephen Carter has left us again. This is, Corey, before I continue, because I don't want to spoil the nub of the point, the reason why you and I are so excited. Should we discuss Stephen Carter's technology? Should we discuss Stephen Carter's lack of accountability to the show?
Corey
1:43
Every time we start recording, Stephen Carter's computer crashes. is um
Corey
1:48
it is uh a real inspiration to uh to mend his age everywhere carter
Zain
1:55
carter i was on a roll and here he is he leaves us for for the greatest punchline you know what cory i'm gonna roll with it and then i'm gonna do the punchline again when carter is back because that's what i want to do i don't want to wait for him i want you and i to experience this moment together as we deserve to and then i i want him to experience it alone as he deserves to okay so ahs
Zain
2:16
ahs has hired a new well there's a there's a new chief medical officer of health i just mentioned mark jaffe alberta health services vice president uh appointed by the premier an interesting appointment cory because this seems like a very mainstream doctor who's an infectious disease specialist has very mainstream views on on COVID, lockdowns, measures.
Zain
2:39
But is there a chance, Corey, that the government of Alberta may have appointed the wrong Dr. Jaffe? Because according to some Twitter activity that has just begun, there is a Dr. Jaffe that Danielle Smith has talked about, a pediatrician who's been a contrarian on COVID, on lockdown measures, on masking. I'm not sure if he's been a contrarian on the vaccination, but he's certainly been a contrarian. And Stephen Carter, you can come in for the end part of the punchline. He's certainly also named Dr. Jaffe.
Zain
3:17
a chance? Is there a chance? As I set it up for you, Carter, I was going to do the punchline for you twice, but I'm not going to since you caught it. Is there a chance that
Zain
3:28
Premier Daniel Smith and the Alberta government may have appointed the wrong Dr. Jaffe, not the one that they did eventually appoint, Dr. Mark Jaffe, but the other Dr. Jaffe, who's been the contrarian on COVID measures. Stephen Carter, let's start with you. Is a grand fuck up like this possible?
Carter
3:50
The way you ask it is really annoying because, yes, it is possible. It is possible in the same way that it's possible that we'll get snow in august or snow in july i mean i've been along i've been alive long enough we've had snow in every month except july it is possible is it likely is it likely i don't think so but is it possible absolutely it's possible well
Zain
4:14
well good carter i'll come back to you in a second cory carter says it's possible he says it's not probable tell me why it could be possible okay
Zain
4:28
and control your excitement control
Corey
4:30
so let's just start here if it happened it is the funniest fucking thing to happen in a generation in alberta politics it is our own four seasons total landscaping and so part of me like i just want the joy of that i want the i want the glee that would come with that so
Corey
4:49
so i i have to kind of you you know, get
Corey
4:51
get out of that and just think about these things. Is it possible? It's
Corey
4:54
It's like in the movie 12 Angry Daves. Yeah, it's possible. You know, if all you're asking is, is it possible? Yes, it is possible.
Corey
5:02
Is it probable? No. Is
Corey
5:05
Is it something that could conceivably happen? Yes. Yes, it is for a couple of reasons. The way these things work really depends by the appointment. Some appointment
Corey
5:15
processes are very rigorous. Some appointment processes are as simple as i want that person go get me that person and depending on what flavor of the appointment process we got let me let me put this let me paint a not insane picture that
Corey
5:28
that could have happened yeah
Corey
5:30
yeah and then it'd
Carter
5:30
it'd be insane and
Corey
5:31
and then we're gonna
Carter
5:31
gonna go that it's gonna be nuts it's gonna be crazy you go ahead no
Carter
5:36
no go ahead so bring it on let's
Corey
5:39
let's put it this way if
Corey
5:41
if we had a situation where
Corey
5:43
somebody said we've got a list of people premier who might be good chief medical officers of health And on that list is the last name Joffy. And that's all she sees or sort of remembers in terms of the person she thought was pretty good when she made comment about him being a voice she listens to on COVID. She said, oh,
Corey
5:59
oh, Joffy, I like Joffy. Joffy's great. Then they would say, okay, Premier, no problem. We're going to go get Joffy. Right? That's possibility one. Possibility two is goes the other way where the Premier says, I've thought a lot about it. I want Joffy. Right? And so then they go, and they find the wrong Jaffe, and nobody sort of catches the first name thing.
Corey
6:18
Is it possible? Yes, it is possible.
Corey
6:23
Not probable. It's just like, life is just not that fun. You want to
Carter
6:27
to know what's pissed me off right here? What?
Carter
6:31
Your option number one has me thinking that totally could have happened. I'm so pissed off, because seconds ago, there was no fucking way, and now I'm like, you
Carter
6:40
you know what? That totally could happen.
Zain
6:43
Communications for the Government of Alberta. Carter, you were former Chief of Staff. Explain to people how this is in the realm of possibility. Why did number two just automatically tweak you? Was
Carter
6:55
Was there some PTSD?
Zain
6:57
Sorry, why did number one just like, was there a flashback or something? Tell me what's going on here.
Carter
7:02
Because you get a list of names, right? You get a short list. Every time something like this happens, you get a short list and you read Read the short list.
Carter
7:10
Who's you? Like the
Zain
7:10
the premier's office in this case. The premier's
Carter
7:12
premier's office reads the short list, right? The minister of health has put together the short list in conjunction with the bureaucracy. They come in and say to the premier, this is our current short list. Is there anybody on this list that you don't like or that you do like? Or is there anybody you'd like to add us?
Carter
7:30
This is a very interesting... Oh, I
Carter
7:33
I recognize that name.
Carter
7:36
Joffy. I spoke to Joffy. i've met with joffy i really like joffy and
Carter
7:42
and the bureaucrats are like fuck we like we like joffy too joffy's our top pick and all of a sudden you're like well then go get joffy go get him i mean that's fantastic that's
Carter
7:58
that's fantastic so yeah
Carter
8:00
yeah i mean sometimes it's like
Carter
8:04
well yeah but usually you're not appointing the next cma cmo h you're not trying to appoint a cmo h in two weeks usually right like i'm thinking the list of uh uh i guess they're now uh queen king kings uh what's it called the bench qb or whatever q qc uh queen's council now they're king's council that
Carter
8:26
that list comes through and someone's names on it that or someone's not on it that should be on it and like their cousin is on it instead that that's happened right where you you have the wrong person on the on the king's
Carter
8:39
king's bench list that's that you know like jonathan dennis for example got a a qb or a qc that couldn't have happened that had to be an accident um so that would be something that you could see was
Carter
8:52
was not oh yeah
Carter
8:53
yeah he was the minister of justice oh
Carter
8:58
hard to even remember hard
Carter
8:59
hard to even think about gory
Zain
9:02
you're rubbing your eyes you're laughing because to you to both of you this is interesting because it's it would be too good okay but this also likes a possibility angle it's just like let's just relish that a bit longer explain to listeners a bit more like around this concept of a short list or um how this could get get lost in translation by
Zain
9:23
by literally in some ways right like explain to folks how that how that works the mechanics of government there because i don't think everyone appreciates i would say myself included in some cases well
Corey
9:31
well look i there there is a process and that process is constantly evolving depending on the preferences of the premier and the premier's office and the premier staff right um there have been appointment processes that were quite rigorous and looked much more like hr processes in my time in government and
Zain
9:47
and then there were appointment
Corey
9:48
appointment appointment processes that were, get,
Corey
9:50
get, appoint that person, draft up the order in council. I want that to happen, right? With not a lot of discussion and not a lot that went on beyond even, listen, I mean, I've seen it go out of sequence so many times. I've seen them appoint someone and then say, oh, we better do the background check once they're appointed. And, you know, this kind of stuff does happen all the time. I want to stress. I also want to stress, I do ultimately, as much as I would find it amazing, I think it's pretty unlikely that in in the course of conversations, there wouldn't be like a clear misconnection if they started talking about the individual and the bio didn't line up with what the premier thought like that, that to me for such an important job, it
Corey
10:30
it seems really tough to imagine. Um, but
Corey
10:33
but boy, it's funny to think it might be the case. You
Carter
10:35
You know, the, the only reason I think it could happen is the speed, right?
Carter
10:39
right? Cause speed is a factor too
Carter
10:42
Yeah. Speed is errors. Those two things, you know, you rush, you're going to make a mistake. And I suspect that this is one of those situations where they could have. I'm not saying they have made a mistake. I don't think that they have appointed the wrong person. But it still lies in the realm of could. And I quite like it. You
Zain
11:02
You know, I'll get in some ways it doesn't even matter. But, Corey, before we move on to kind of our strategy version of this. And by the way, I will tell people that, you know, if a premier says I want Jaffe, She could be meaning any Jaffe. So what I would suggest folks to do is if you want to be next in line, I know Elon Musk no longer allows you to just get a blue checkmark on Twitter, but you can change your name to Dr. Jaffe online if you would like to do that. That is something I'm encouraging. I'm not telling you. I
Corey
11:32
I don't encourage that. I'm
Zain
11:33
I'm encouraging everyone. Not legal advice.
Zain
11:34
advice. I'm just telling you that it is something you can do. It is within the technical possibility of Twitter for you to change your screen name to Dr. Jaffe. I'm not suggesting you should do it, despite the fact that I am. Okay, Corey, what evidence do you see besides the ideological alignment that they made the wrong choice? Carter says speed. He adds speed to the list. We know ideological alignment is... Is there anything else, either an X factor or an obviously blinding fact that you're like i fucking think despite the fact that this is this is maybe not probable i think they got the wrong person well
Corey
12:11
well okay again i'm going to start this by saying i still find it improbable that they got the wrong person
Zain
12:19
giving so many caveats this show
Carter
12:21
so many caveats after opening up how it could happen he's just now walking it all back okay let's be serious here
Corey
12:28
here the real joffy the one who was appointed somebody had to reach out to him and say do you want to to be chief medical officer of health and i doubt he went yep i'm
Corey
12:38
i'm sure he's like well i'd want to talk to the premier i assume or i want to have a conversation with the minister like it it feels really hard for me to imagine that there wasn't some sort of alignment let me
Zain
12:48
me just okay is there any world where you could have been like you got to take the job today because we just fired the old person yeah no for sure there is but i mean it's unlikely i'm
Zain
12:58
explaining it away i'm
Zain
13:03
What was your fucking question?
Zain
13:04
My question was, is there any other evidence besides speed? Yes. There
Zain
13:08
There is one. Which, oh yeah, go ahead, Corey. Deeply
Corey
13:14
And it's like, what
Corey
13:15
what an incredible coincidence that you had Daniel Smith within
Corey
13:18
within weeks saying, I listened to this Joffy, you know, the one, I think Ari Joffy was it? I can't remember the
Carter
13:25
the first name now. Ari Joffy, yeah. Yeah.
Corey
13:27
About COVID. And then two weeks later, a different Joffe is appointed chief medical officer of health. Now, that's a hell of a coincidence. But coincidences do happen in this world, right? right?
Zain
13:39
Carter, we've spent 15 minutes on this. People outside of Alberta, people inside Alberta are like, okay, we'll fucking stop. Unless they're not, unless they're totally on board and changing their Twitter username, which like I said, is technically possible for them to do. Carter, in some ways, it doesn't matter. Because this opens up a very interesting strategy conversation. Because let's just take the scenario that this was a fuck up. This was the world's funniest political fuck up outside of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. This was the Alberta version of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, as Corey's mentioned. Carter, they've got a pathway. They've got a pathway to say, oh shit, we have the wrong chief medical officer of health. and they've got a pathway to say fuck
Zain
14:25
fuck it we have the wrong chief medical officer of health and we're going to rectify it we're going to say fuck it we're going to get the right guy in place or they got the option to say fuck it we're not gonna we're gonna save face and say we went to get this guy the whole time mark chaffee's our guy this was our guy the entire time they've
Zain
14:44
they've got a choice so let's use this as an exercise let's use this as a strategy session which
Zain
14:50
which if you were were called in tonight carter and one thing is clear for this purposes for the purposes of these this exercise you
Zain
14:59
you guys fucked up the premier says what the actual fuck that is not the person i want that is not the individual we need that is
Zain
15:09
is not the joffy
Corey
15:09
joffy on the list carter's good oh i get sweats thinking about being the public servant
Corey
15:15
if that was the case carter
Zain
15:16
carter well let's let's go with carter first carter you've been a chief of staff you've been the front line of defense you've been the ultimate gatekeeper what would you say and then subsequently advise to the premier if you got a call tonight at 9 15 p.m the time that we're recording this
Carter
15:33
i'd say premier this reminds me of the 2012 campaign when we accidentally made the wheels on the bus your breasts and you we acted decisively to get rid of to get rid of that graphic and
Carter
15:45
and we We need to act decisively right now to get rid of this person, Mark Joffe, and bring in Ari Joffe. If that's what you want, then that's what we got to do because you're the premier. And, you know, this person is not going to take us the right direction. I mean, I was thinking as Corey's talking, there's one more aspect of this that we haven't covered. And I'm just going to bring it in, even though you haven't asked me this insightful question, Zane. Yes. Um, you
Carter
16:10
you know, there, there's rumors that a lot of the ministers that are currently there
Carter
16:15
are there to make Daniel Smith's life more miserable. And
Carter
16:18
And this kind of begs the question, did, did Jason Copping know what he was doing and do it anyways, right? Like, did he bring, did he bring in this person knowing that this is the wrong Jothi, but, um, Smith left the door open just enough for him to put his foot through it. And, uh, he did it. so you know i i do think that there are there may be more reasons to this than what we were thinking but um if i was being asked to do to fix this you're being summoned quick it's
Carter
16:46
it's gotta it's gotta be done before tomorrow no
Zain
16:49
no no no carter you're not
Carter
16:50
not you're not being asked to fix this
Zain
16:51
this you're not being asked to fix this you're being asked are you choosing door a are you choosing door b that is what you're being asked are
Zain
16:59
you have to fix
Carter
17:00
fix it you have to that's it's the premier's choice. You can't say to the premier, Hey, listen, we announced the wrong person. Um, you know, that's what, that's what Rachel Notley did when she kept Corey Hogan.
Carter
17:12
Um, there's another Corey Hogan. Corey Morgan
Carter
17:15
is such a better communicator, uh, than you, Corey. I mean, it's just obvious.
Zain
17:21
So you're, you're saying you have to fix it. We'll come back to that in terms of how that happens. Corey, I'm giving you the same choice. You're being being summoned. Carter doesn't exist in this scenario. You are the principal advisor to Danielle Smith. That's 9.15 that night. And she's saying, what the actual fuck? What do we do now? What would you say, Corey?
Corey
17:40
I would say after Stephen finished bloviating, I would say, now, hold on, Premier.
Corey
17:45
a thought I want you to consider here.
Corey
17:47
You announced this individual.
Corey
17:49
Your base has not gone crazy online, as far as I can tell, saying that this person is too pro-lockdown and too pro-vaccine. Somehow we've dodged that bullet.
Corey
18:01
you have always said that the chief medical officer of health will only be one of the people you're going to listen to in the future.
Corey
18:07
you've got a moderate, sensible person that's going to play with the Calgary audience that we're trying to get right now.
Corey
18:14
Why not lean into it? Why not? I mean, frankly, my argument would be the same reason reason why I think that Mark Joffe sort of
Corey
18:22
of makes sense, right? Which is if you were trying to show that you are not going to be too extreme, you
Corey
18:29
you hire somebody into this role that reflects a more moderate position and you just dilute the advisory value of that position. So if that was not the plan, I would pitch it as maybe that's not such a bad plan. Maybe you go and you just lean into this option and you just disenfranchise it. You reduce the power of it. And so you don't You don't need to say, oops, we fucked up because that's going to follow you forever. Like you accidentally gave somebody the authority of the chief medical officer of health. I mean, that's,
Corey
19:00
that's, that's really crazy. Right? So qualified
Corey
19:04
qualified individual, like this is not a situation where it's like Mark Jaffe landscaper in Pennsylvania. Right? right?
Corey
19:13
This is Mark Joffe, Vice President at Alberta Health Services. So just lean into it. And if you're worried about what that effect may be on future policy, just reduce the authorities of the position.
Zain
19:26
Carter, why is Corey wrong?
Corey
19:27
wrong? Why is Corey wrong with that
Carter
19:30
You can't just reduce the responsibilities of the CMOH. And this is one of our discussion points. Hey,
Carter
19:37
go and then I'll tell you why you're
Corey
19:39
I'll tell you why you're wrong.
Carter
19:40
the rule, you know, well,
Carter
19:43
now I'm all nervous. I remember, I don't care what you say.
Carter
19:48
But, you know, how a CMOH gets to behave is dictated in the actual legislation. Dina Hinshaw didn't behave that way. That was her, I think, a strike against her, frankly, from a lot of people who thought she should have acted a lot more aggressively. This new Joffrey
Carter
20:05
Joffrey may be a more aggressive CMOH and may take the responsibility of being in the office a lot more literally than Dina Hinshaw did.
Zain
20:20
And Corey, isn't there an ideological inconsistency that she has to make up for if this was the wrong choice?
Corey
20:28
But what I would simply do, because we know that there's big changes coming to Alberta Health this fall.
Corey
20:34
We know that there's going to be a
Corey
20:36
a person given the authority effectively to begin overhauling the entire system. There are changes that she's considering. I suspect at least one or two of them will require changes to legislation.
Corey
20:46
Put this in it. Make it part of a bundle of health reforms. Fetter his authority. And so even though, yes, I agree with Stephen, his authorities are in legislation, it's
Corey
20:56
it's been a little murky because of the way they're appointed and where they sit in the public service,
Corey
21:00
whether they can fully exercise those authorities. I tend to think, you
Corey
21:05
you know, don't look for the CMOH to save you. Look for your politicians to be better, is my general feeling about these things.
Corey
21:12
But you could, if you're that worried about it, just take the opportunity of reform that's going to happen this fall anyhow, and just make this part of the reforms.
Zain
21:21
Okay. So let's do this. Corey, you stay on your team. You are team. Let's not acknowledge the fuck up. Let's deal with it down the road. Carter, you are team. Let's fix the fuck up right away. Okay? Okay. So stay on your teams for a second. Carter, you are on team fix the fuck up.
Zain
21:38
How are you doing it? What is the message? What is the tactic? You said you got to do it quickly. You gave us a few principles. I want you to now start rolling out the strategy and I'll get Corey to build on it in a second. But you are going to go first on this because this is a position you've taken. So what are the initial raw ingredients? What are you doing? What's some of the framework? How are you thinking about it? Talk to me about speed. Talk to me about timing. Talk to me about how. Talk to me about, does someone need to be thrown under a bus? Talk to me about messaging. Throw it all at me. How are you tonight strategizing getting the right Dr. Jaffe in place with the least political hurt to your principal and possibly, possibly to yourself as her chief of staff?
Carter
22:25
i mean as you know i'm quite good at this uh i'm very capable of not getting fired right away um so i would say you think someone's gonna set
Zain
22:34
set the uh set the land speed record the steven carter land speed record is gonna be
Carter
22:38
be broken carter land speed yep i think you need a
Carter
22:42
yeah i think you need a a fall person uh someone needs to be the person who recommended this this doctor and that person needs to fall on their sword and say that they'd made a mistake. And this is, you know, they misunderstood the premier's instructions. The premier was very clear that she expected the other Dr. Jaffe. And he's far more qualified. He's far more open to looking at different sets of data, the full sets of data. And so we're going to make sure that he's actually the CMOH. This current Dr. Jaffe was brought forward by a bureaucracy that is trying to protect themselves. And they're
Carter
23:25
they're not going to be able to just, you know, to pull the wool over our eyes for very long, just a day or two.
Carter
23:31
And at that point, you just kind of, you
Carter
23:34
you know, put it out of the way.
Zain
23:36
I've got a few things.
Zain
23:38
I'm going to shape,
Zain
23:39
I'm going to shape, I'm going to shape a few things. The fall man is a fall person. Just to be clear, your fall person isn't the bureaucracy. Is it someone in the office?
Carter
23:48
It'll be someone. It'll be like a person. It'll be whoever put that name forward. I mean, maybe if, depending on how Minister
Carter
23:56
Minister Copping carried himself, it could be Minister Copping. If this was Minister Copping trying to pull the wool over the Premier's eyes.
Zain
24:03
eyes. It's a political fall person, just so I'm clear. Oh,
Carter
24:07
Okay. So it's a political
Zain
24:07
political fall person, not a bureaucratic fall person,
Zain
24:10
so we're clear. Your message is we're
Zain
24:12
we're not going to let the bureaucracy pull the wool over our eyes any longer. We want the doctor that's open to it. Talk to me a bit more, Carter, just so let me get a few more ingredients on that. How are you doing this? Is this a statement? Is this a 9am press release? It'd
Carter
24:26
It'd be a press conference. It'd be somewhere where she stands up. She stands up and she says, you would not believe what happened to me last night.
Carter
24:35
Last night, I thought we were putting forward a highly qualified individual that broke the mold of CMOH. And instead, Minister Copping and his Jason Kenney goons
Carter
24:49
put forward a person with the same name, thinking that they'd be able to pull the wool over our eyes. And I will admit, they did get the better of us for an hour or two. But as soon as we got on to it. As soon as we understood what was happening, we've made the right call and I've accepted Minister Copping's resignation.
Zain
25:09
Okay. Corey, I'm going to get you to build on this. This is Carter's strategy. You're going to build on it. You're going to play for the other team in a second, in a second, in a second. Nope.
Carter
25:17
do you mean, nope? You are going to... This is the point
Zain
25:19
point of the game. You got to play the game. That'll let you go first. Yeah. That'll let you go first on yours, but you're going to help him.
Zain
25:25
Hold on. Hold on, Carter. What else do I i need from you i got your fall person it's political i got your message the
Zain
25:31
the timing tell me about your timing tomorrow morning tomorrow
Carter
25:34
tomorrow morning you got to get it done as fast as you can i mean it happened here on a monday you got to get it finished by the end of tuesday how
Zain
25:40
how are you how are you rolling out this other guy what if he says no
Carter
25:47
well he's gonna get the nicest severance package in the history of mankind i mean someone's got to break my record right no no no
Corey
25:53
mean the other guy the other guy the other guy's like like fuck that he's like no i'm i'm more than happy to stay here in
Corey
26:01
in my current room well
Carter
26:01
well maybe we should ask him first then that's a good point we should ask him first yeah
Carter
26:06
yeah you guys have made a good point there that was unexpected i did not expect a good point from either of you cory
Zain
26:12
cory i've got i've got enough clay uh from carter uh you you got most of that or do you mean to summarize it for you i think you
Corey
26:19
you uh yeah you've been in the mud with him but that's actually a turd my friend that's not play at all okay
Corey
26:25
okay so that's just a big piece of dog shit what
Zain
26:28
what are you breaking what are you fixing because you have to play you are you are on team let's fix that so what what are you dismantling of carter's what are you keeping uh
Corey
26:37
okay so i have to actually be on the okay we're changing yeah
Zain
26:40
yeah and then i'll get i'll get you then i'll get you no no i'll then i'll get you to play your team and you'll go first on that carter will go second yeah Yeah, sure.
Corey
26:47
I'll clean up your mess.
Corey
26:49
What I would look for as a strategy is to say,
Corey
26:54
I wouldn't, okay, let's put it this way. I was going to make this point when I went on mine, but I'll make it here.
Corey
27:00
The fall person who's political is a bad idea. You get to play that card once. Frankly, you get to use it once with the bureaucracy too. Don't use it here. You are the premier and ultimately you signed off on this. Literally, your signature is on the ordering council, right? Your signature is on this thing, where you made that fuck up. And the expectation in the public will be,
Corey
27:20
probably should have known who your chief medical officer of health is, right?
Carter
27:27
Did you just hear yourself? Did you hear what you just said?
Carter
27:32
Okay, I just wanted to check.
Corey
27:33
So that's very challenging.
Corey
27:35
That's very challenging for you.
Corey
27:39
I think what you probably need to do in this situation is own it. I
Corey
27:43
I don't think there's any calling it on somebody else it is
Corey
27:48
the mistake was a lot of people should have caught this but the mistake was ultimately mine I told them I wanted this individual I saw the last name and
Corey
27:58
frankly I screwed up and
Corey
28:00
and that's not a screw up I'm going to live with we're now going to correct this and we're going to move on but what are you going to do are you
Corey
28:08
you really going to look that asleep at the switch I mean it's a bad idea overall which is why i don't think you should do what steven is saying but if you're gonna do it you've got to do it in a way that doesn't absolutely
Corey
28:20
absolutely break you lose your fall guy card okay
Corey
28:23
okay yeah and you look disingenuous and asleep at the switch carter once again you get
Carter
28:28
get another fall you get
Carter
28:29
get a new fall guy card after the election so you only need one fall guy card for the next eight months and
Corey
28:36
and you think that she's not gonna need another one within the next to eight months that's
Carter
28:39
that's she's got it she'll have it nailed after this this is the biggest mistake she could possibly make cory
Zain
28:45
cory are you keeping the press conference are you keeping tomorrow morning
Zain
28:49
are you keeping the mess are you keeping them and you're not blaming the bureaucracy you're not blaming the minister on this no
Corey
28:54
no uh i think what you're doing is you're having a sit down with a friendly media person and you're burying your soul on that and
Corey
29:03
and then you are having the the minister probably
Corey
29:06
probably uh do a bit of a follow-up but you're not looking like you're avoiding it you're going out there first you're making the opening statement and and you're dealing with it wait
Zain
29:14
wait can i can i can i ask you a sit down with a friendly media person so are you sitting down like a don braid or
Carter
29:22
bell's moving his office up to edmonton right now he's just going to be based in edmonton i don't think
Corey
29:27
think you've read enough rick bell columns lately but But yeah,
Corey
29:31
I think that you, you want to call like a David Staples, frankly, right?
Corey
29:34
right? Oh my God. Because David Staples can say, yeah, this is, you know, he can add that editorialization that you can't do without looking defensive. Like how did the bureaucracy not know this? She has talked about this individual being a conciliary of hers in the past. And like, that was actually a Staples article, I think that this was reported in, or
Carter
29:53
or at least there
Corey
29:54
there was some Staples conversation in there. So
Corey
29:56
So that would probably be my recommendation. But, you know, again, I wouldn't recommend this course of action at all. Let me just continue to kneecap it as we move along here.
Zain
30:05
Carter, despite hearing Corey's reservations and his new strategy, I have to do a gut check with you. Are you still committed to your pathway of trying to fix this?
Carter
30:16
What's our number one rule, Zane?
Carter
30:20
All right, I'm doubling down. This is the best call in the history of mankind. kind
Zain
30:24
and that that comes from a guy who i don't think believes that at all let's
Zain
30:29
don't you just double
Corey
30:29
double down on the appointment yeah
Zain
30:31
yeah so hold on the
Carter
30:32
the problem with doubling down on the appointment hold
Carter
30:36
yes you get this guy as your cmoh and
Carter
30:41
yeah honestly i think that if you appoint the wrong person as cmoh not you're supposed to be going through a whole bunch of big changes in the coming weeks and months in health care and you you have now appointed a career, um,
Carter
30:56
AHS leader. This is a person who has led from inside AHS, and he's certainly not going to help you dismantle AHS the way you want to. So you, you have to, uh, get back onto the right footing, uh, with the right person. This, this is one of those situations where you need to, to, you know, read,
Carter
31:17
reread your from good to great book and make sure that you've got the right people on the bus.
Zain
31:23
Corey, jumping here from your perspective to what Carter said here, because let's say you didn't have a choice. The premier said, fuck it, I want to fix it and I want to fix it by tomorrow morning. Does that change anything of what you put on the board to how to rectify or how to better strategize Carter's suggestion here?
Corey
31:41
I don't think so. Because I think ultimately I would say, okay, premier, well, then we're we're going to have to do this in a way that it has no possibility of kicking into multiple stories. So you've got to take a big bath on this. You can't blame somebody else because that somebody will be mad. They got fired. And then there'll be a leak about the conversations you had where you should have known. And all of a sudden it's a two day story. And all of a sudden
Corey
32:02
it's a three day story after your denial. And all of a sudden it's a four day story. You've got to do the classic Danielle Smith move of saying my
Corey
32:11
seen her do this move multiple times already in her short premiership. she's got the template ready for the oops uh news release just dust that one off um
Corey
32:20
um have your your friendly media conversation and
Corey
32:23
and yeah it'll be a joke on twitter or ever
Corey
32:28
ever but for sure the day and you're
Corey
32:31
you're just gonna have to take that and rob it of any mainstream oxygen so that it can't go anywhere else after the first day for
Corey
32:38
for sure rachel notley will throw it in your face during a debate but you
Corey
32:42
you know then you just say well you know what some of us do rachel when we make mistakes we own up to them now
Corey
32:49
about 2015 to 2019 where you heard albertans bar you know and then you just do your pivot be
Corey
32:54
ready for it carter
Zain
32:55
carter final final thoughts on yours and then i'm going to try to distill a few lessons or a few rules on how to make an effective walk back that both of you have kind of maybe not explicitly said but we're going to make them explicit but any Any final thoughts on this particular situation, Carter, before we move on to those rules?
Carter
33:13
I think that I'm recommending a more aggressive course of action, in part because it's the CMO age. And I'm not sure how that will impact the
Carter
33:24
the actual choices moving forward that Danielle Smith has indicated that she wants to make. So if you're thinking this is too aggressive and too much, it probably is under normal circumstances. If we were just simply appointing another, you
Carter
33:39
know, King's Council, it wouldn't be an issue. But we're not. We're appointing the person who gets to decide how we respond to medical situations in the future. So be aggressive. Get who you want. It's the premier's right to choose. And if this isn't her choice, then you have to go back and make sure that it is her choice.
Zain
34:02
Corey, let's make some rules out of this. What's one of the rules for a political walk back? You guys have been discussing quite a few things. What do you think one of them is? We'll go back and forth and try to make a bit of a list.
Corey
34:12
Do it all at one go. Don't walk
Corey
34:15
slowly over multiple days. And so
Corey
34:17
so if the story is going to have anywhere to go after your first walk back, it's not a very good walk back.
Corey
34:22
Walk further than you think you need to. Don't give it an opportunity to evolve. And
Corey
34:27
And as we always say, it's the cover up that kills.
Zain
34:30
Carter, any rule you want to add to the mix?
Carter
34:34
No, I think that speed, you know, the speed with which you admit the problem, it gets you out of your cycle. So the faster you say you were wrong, the faster you're out of this.
Corey
34:45
Yeah, don't spend two weeks. If you know two weeks from now, you're just going to end up in the same place. Just do it.
Zain
34:51
Nicely done. Corey, we're going to move it over to you. But just before we do that, let's go to our headlines. Our first and only headline comes to us from the irish times this is one of those once you think about it you can't stop thinking about it headlines piers morgan denies claims that he is pigeon lady from home alone 2 that's it that is the headline thank you uh okay but
Zain
35:11
but he but he is though right but he is i don't think i've ever seen home alone 2 you're a fucking idiot what's wrong with you i this is you've just made this show worse we were on such a roll and now you haven't seen home alone 2 watching he was
Zain
35:24
was watching dave what
Zain
35:26
what do you do during christmas now i just what do you like explain this to me i
Carter
35:32
go uh skiing watch dave this was not
Zain
35:34
not about you carter this was not about you cory we're gonna go to you uh okay yeah we're gonna go to you cory you are on team let's not fix it let's punt it talk
Zain
35:44
talk to me about how you're punting and you've thrown a few things on the table and in our previous discussion talk to me about the message talk to me about the timing Talk to me about how you answer media questions tomorrow morning about, come on, you guys fucked up, right? So address all of these things around your let's not fix it, even though we totally know we fucked this up strategy.
Corey
36:06
Carter has proposed that we have a media problem and a public problem instead of a stakeholder problem. And I'm
Corey
36:13
to propose that you have a stakeholder problem, potentially, instead of a media problem.
Corey
36:18
Because, of course, if you take this approach of, listen, we want somebody moderate, somebody mainstream, somebody with impeccable credentials. Yes, we appointed Jaffe because he was the right person for the job. Rob, we welcome viewpoints that we don't agree with, but we've always said that those viewpoints need to be balanced out with other viewpoints and other considerations. And I mean, it's hilarious you think that we got the wrong Joffe, but I'll tell you what, I'd happily listen to Ari Joffe as well as one of those voices as we're moving forward. But Mark is the right person for this job, for this job.
Corey
36:50
That's your message. It's easy enough. And in terms of selling the premier, I would just say, premier, listen, I once planned to start a political podcast with a professor of of law from Yale. And here we are years later and everything worked out okay. It's fine.
Corey
37:04
You can live with your second choice. You can live with your third choice. And all you've got to do is just manage your expectations and you've got to manage their authorities.
Corey
37:13
And I think in this case, I
Corey
37:15
I would pitch that legislative bundle that's there underneath it.
Corey
37:22
I will also say,
Corey
37:24
Stephen has somewhat misrepresented the job of the chief medical officer of health.
Corey
37:29
It's not outside of a pandemic exactly like the highest stakes job. Listen, in my time in government, I had to work with the chief medical officer of health. When I did, it was usually a big deal. Like it was something that went on. But you could go like a year without having to talk to the chief medical officer of health in sort of the normal circumstances of things, right?
Corey
37:49
And so you've just got to keep that in mind too.
Corey
37:53
It's all about risk and probability. And the probability here is that you're not going to have the same situation going forward, especially
Corey
37:59
especially given what you've already committed to with COVID-19 and what you're willing to do in terms of masking, answer, not reintroduce them. In terms of vaccine mandates, answer, not reintroduce them. So, you
Corey
38:12
you know, those are things the chief medical officer of health can't really do. Like those do require legislative authorities. The masking, I suppose they could.
Corey
38:20
Yeah, they could. But certainly, you know, the idea of a vaccine mandate is going to require more than a chief medical officer of health.
Carter
38:26
They could jump in on the school situation in Edmonton or Calgary with the high number of kids that are missing.
Zain
38:33
Carter, are you just going to
Carter
38:33
to declare all kinds of stuff? Are
Zain
38:35
Are you going to just let Corey drive by the fact that you are not the Stephen Carter that he wanted for this podcast? That he in fact wanted one Stephen L. Carter and one Ali Velshi on this podcast?
Carter
38:47
I'm not going to lie to you. if uh if he'd been available i would have preferred that that stephen carter was on this podcast too
Carter
38:56
he you know i think i've said before you know he he uh he took some bad raps with me you know there's not there's some people named stephen carter in the world that uh have trended on twitter that really don't understand what the fuck's going on in alberta so i'm
Carter
39:12
i'm i apologize to them i have I've been not a great partner.
Zain
39:16
Carter, I make this better. Here's Corey's general framework. We go out, we say, if there's any questions that you're ridiculous, of course, we value a multitude of perspectives, including Dr. Jaffe, who we've hired. We'd, of course, value Ari Jaffe's perspective as well. In fact, we might hire all of the Jaffe's on Twitter. Anyone who's named Dr. Jaffe gets a job now. But we value these perspectives. uh, you know, these multitude of perspectives, Corey, what else did you have in, in your mix? That's, that's kind of what the, the main thrust of what I wrote down. The multitude of perspectives.
Corey
39:52
Meanwhile, you're doing some restructuring of AHS and,
Corey
39:57
and healthcare more generally. So, uh,
Corey
39:59
uh, if you, if there are things that make you particularly squeamish in terms of the authorities of the chief medical officer of health, just better them, you know, make them subject to certain oversight by cabinet or, or whatever you see fit. it.
Zain
40:12
Carter, make this better. What are you keeping? What are you taking from Corey's strategy here? The Premier has asked you that this is what you guys have to do. We are not letting this go public. We are ensuring that we tell people this was the exact person that we wanted. That was Corey's sort of strategy. What is yours? What are you adding to it? What are you aware of? Because there's a few questions I want to ask you guys as follow-ups, because is with this strategy, it's not about what you need to do immediately, but what you need to necessarily plan for. So I want to talk about those things in a second, but Carter, build on this for a bit.
Carter
40:50
Well, I think the number one thing is to announce
Carter
40:54
announce maybe if you wanted to do this and you, like it's kind of premised on, did you hire the right person to begin with? If they've hired the right person to begin with, then just continue business as usual. In
Zain
41:04
In this case, they have not, Carter. The
Zain
41:07
entire scenario here is they've hired the wrong person. Okay. I do not know what the fuck you've been doing but the entire thing here is we have entered into the framework that they've hired the right person okay
Carter
41:18
okay well i'm really glad that you made that clear thank you thank you thank you slight
Zain
41:21
slight frustration because we're i don't know 40 minutes into it carter well now
Carter
41:27
now i've lost my train of thought there was going to be something really brilliant there wasn't because i
Carter
41:33
would i would also then be announcing my a number of my other advisors advisors um you know we we've assembled you know here's where we're going in health care she started to assemble or she started to announce um where she's getting you know that there's going to be updates in the next week or two about what she's going to do with ahs why not name a few of the advisors uh that she's meeting with that she's listening to as
Carter
41:59
as she's developing her uh her plan because you're not just pulling this plan out in a vacuum who are your experts what you know know what are their qualifications let's
Carter
42:10
let's start announcing some of them as well because um dr joff joffrey is just or joffy is just going to be one of the people talking to you here are four or five others um and uh these four or five other people each one of them are highly qualified each one of them brings a different point of view uh different experiences but that's why they're on this team is to make sure that we have uh the robust points of view that we need not just we're We're just getting an alternative point of view from Dr. Jaffe. But instead, we're getting we're getting significant, you know, significant internal debate from having all these different advisors, because this is this is how you get the best type of government.
Zain
42:51
So what you're doing here is you're ultimately adding to this. You're saying where's the additional appointments, almost kind of not burying it, but trying to make it less important amongst a constellation of other appointments in the healthcare sort of vision that you're trying to mold. Corey, what do you think of that? Your thoughts on that? And then I've got some follow-ups for both of you.
Corey
43:13
I mean, it's fine.
Corey
43:17
fine. Like, the easiest thing to do is simply just sort of embrace it and not worry too much about it. That it's a problem. But
Corey
43:23
the idea that you immediately rush out a couple of other people, I guess my fear would be that looks a little bit scrambling, potentially.
Corey
43:31
oh, fuck, okay, I guess we've got to have a couple of other people around. Now,
Corey
43:34
Now, is there a way to do it? That makes sense? Yeah, I think so.
Corey
43:38
There's certainly a way, there's a version of that that works, but you're
Corey
43:44
you're introducing another potential fail point. you're introducing a bunch of names that may be satisfactory or not for people why
Corey
43:50
why not just leave it vague as to who you're getting advice from and uh and just conclude there unless you have a stakeholder problem so like i said i would rather have the stakeholder problem than the media problem but
Corey
44:01
but on the stakeholder side i think i just react i think i say to people if they're calling mad i
Corey
44:07
i always said it's just going to be one of many voices i do want to hear contrary voices i'm not somebody who's afraid of contrary voices but we we do have other people around And then you almost let them lead the conversation a bit. And when they're like, well, what about a person like that? You go, yeah, that's absolutely the kind of voice I'm talking about
Corey
44:24
minute you've defined the universe of voices, the
Corey
44:27
the people they may have in mind may not be in that universe.
Zain
44:30
That's an interesting point. Okay, let's talk about it through a few additional risks and scenario planning.
Zain
44:37
this is kind of like burying a body.
Zain
44:40
A few people know.
Zain
44:42
few people need to know. A few people have probably texted or emailed or had conversations back and forth being like, what the fuck? We got the wrong guy. There's
Zain
44:50
There's probably a constellation
Zain
44:50
constellation of a half a dozen
Corey
44:52
people that know about this. In this
Zain
44:57
ahead. In this kayfabe
Corey
44:57
kayfabe where we're saying that this happened, which – Yes. Yes,
Zain
45:01
Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. We are entering into the world of the academic for the purposes of creating content for our listener base, all who are named Dr. Jaffe. Now, Corey, OK,
Zain
45:15
so let's just say there's a half a dozen people that actually know this was a fuck up. We have seen in politics that leaks can happen, that vendettas can can easily be engineered, manufactured, bubble up. People might trade this information. They might hold it as leverage. coverage, talk to me about, because with this strategy, it's less about what you do today, more about how you plan for tomorrow. Talk to me about how you're planning to prevent a leak of this, because I might suggest that a leak of this six months, three months down the road could be way more damaging than Carter's strategy of going out tomorrow and saying, we fucked up. So talk to me about that scenario and how you start beginning planning for that and what you you need to do and i and like both of your insights on this yeah
Corey
46:00
yeah so there's two basic scenarios here either you start playing the piano outro music from leila and you take care of business or
Corey
46:09
or you deny everything and it depends like if there's text from danielle smith saying oh man
Corey
46:13
man i'm freaking out i i accidentally did the wrong joffy well then you got a problem nobody's disputing that did the wrong joffy but
Corey
46:22
if it's a different situation if it's a situation where all of a sudden staff are saying, oh,
Corey
46:27
oh, fuck, it's the wrong Jaffe. We were supposed to do it. Then you just say, that's ridiculous. That's so ridiculous. People, they let their imaginations get ahead of them. I signed the order in council. I know Mark Jaffe's name. I know Ari Jaffe's name. No mistake was made. This is the kind of nonsense that we sometimes see get spun up in politics, but this is ridiculous. I
Zain
46:50
I hear that, Corey, for the second ring of staff, but there's a first ring of staff that That probably all before the premier gave her directive tonight at 9.15 p.m., we're all like, oh, fuck. This is the wrong person. They know the baseline fact. Listen.
Zain
47:04
what do you do with that group?
Corey
47:05
Prevention is better than cure. And that first group of staff should be smart enough to keep all of that off of email and text, right? And that's just not the kind of paper trail you want to create ever.
Corey
47:18
ever. That's an insane paper trail to create when you're still trying to get to ground and figure things out. Is
Zain
47:23
Is there anything you could prevent them from, Carter, is there anything you could do to prevent them from leaking this information going forward? Let's just say they sour on Premier Daniel. We've seen that happen. We literally saw that happen with the last Premier's staff. They soured on him and were like, let's just air out some dirty laundry. Carter, how do you prevent for something like that? Like, to me, that seems like a really high risk with Corey's strategy. Maybe you guys might disagree, but that seems like a really high risk.
Carter
47:50
sure it's high risk so make you know make a joke out of it early you know neuter it as fast as you can um man did you guys see andrew leach all over this thing that was hilarious i laughed my ass off when i saw those tweets we know who are you know anybody who says that this was a mistake um has just kind of gone off the deep end of speculation uh we i'm able to tell the difference between two two Jaffas.
Corey
48:16
then also if there are those texts saying it was a joke, like
Corey
48:19
like we were all having a laugh
Corey
48:21
we saw the Andrew Leach thing.
Corey
48:24
They were just saying, oh man, we were pretending as though it was real. We obviously know the difference between two Jaffas.
Zain
48:30
Let me throw another scenario at you. Carter, I'm going to start with you on this one. Let's say what Corey mentioned hasn't happened yet, happens, which is that the base gets frustrated. They're
Zain
48:39
They're like, what the fuck? We are on the verge of potentially, maybe not in this province, but having a national conversation once again, Carter, to a point you made earlier on reintroducing masking, perhaps not using the word mandates after it, but reintroducing masking, reintroducing other measures that might be necessary. Let's say his advice leans in that direction and the base that elected her now gets frustrated being like, what the fuck is happening here? How do you prevent for that in the strategy where you're swallowing your pride and saying this was the right guy that we appointed?
Carter
49:11
um i think the best way to do that would be my you know kind of small council of people that are going to be appointed uh to be advising the premier later um bring in some new names and and to cory's point uh moving quickly again is probably not the smartest play um but you can move relatively quickly when your base starts to uh boil over just come back at them a few uh a few few days later a few weeks later and appoint new people and say if this was always the plan was to have multiple uh advisors here are four more advisors that will be advising the premier on this ahs thing it's she's already signaled that it's coming in two weeks anyways so let it come two
Carter
49:56
two more weeks yeah
Carter
49:57
yeah it's going to be fine cory
Corey
49:59
cory what do you what do you think you want to add on that no
Corey
50:01
no i think i think that's right uh
Corey
50:03
uh this is not about this particular did you capture
Carter
50:07
capture that that part where you just said that's right and then play it back for me every once in a while just
Corey
50:11
just as you're trying to go to sleep at night yeah
Carter
50:13
yeah that'd be really nice make
Corey
50:14
make the tears stop yes well we can look into something uh
Corey
50:18
right one of the things that i am having trouble reconciling right now is that a vice president at alberta health services was made the chief medical officer of health when we're talking about a future reorg of alberta health services so i'm assuming either there were conversations about his future in ahs or not yeah
Corey
50:38
this is a very weird future problem potentially for the government of alberta because
Corey
50:42
you fire them from their ahs executive job which they're keeping based on the government news release but
Corey
50:50
uh you know as chief medical officer of health that's a very strange situation so um you know i'm having trouble reconciling that but but i guess the broader point i would want to make and why i mentioned it now and what triggered it is, there is going to be change in the system going forward. And you have a lot of opportunity to revisit
Corey
51:06
revisit some of this stuff. You can treat the appointment almost as, and I think I've seen it a couple of places almost described as interim, but like you could describe it effectively as an interim position. Like, well, we did that because we needed a chief medical officer of health. Well, we figured out the system. Now
Corey
51:22
Now we have this different system. It's
Corey
51:24
It's not the same. You know, there's multiple medical officers of health. It's a triumvirate or whatever the hell they come up up with. And we, we thank Mark Jaffe for his service. Now he's only one of three CMOHs with his cousin Ari and, uh, and
Corey
51:37
and you know, with the horse paced guy, like it's just, it's fine. You know, like there are ways you can manage this. You actually have a bit of, um, one
Corey
51:46
one of the things that I think to broaden the point in the strategic lesson is when things are in flux, you've got an immense opportunity, uh, to, to kind of play with this, the rule set that you otherwise would feel bound with right
Zain
52:00
what do you mean by that what do you mean by
Corey
52:01
by that well i would agree with steven that oh no like i've appointed a chief medical officer of health i don't like is a big problem
Corey
52:08
but it's not a big problem if the job itself may be changed you know a couple of weeks later like you can
Corey
52:13
creative you can be lateral you can move your way out of that situation here and
Corey
52:19
that's just it's just an opportunity for her to avoid having an awkward reversal
Corey
52:24
reversal because she She controls everything about the situation right now. And she has already signaled everything is on the table.
Zain
52:32
Carter, let's add to that broader strategic lesson. So Corey's got immense opportunity when you're in flux. What other sort of broader strategic lessons do you have on this side of the ledger where we kind of discuss the, and I'll be totally clear, we do not think this is on the balance of probabilities what ended up happening. We used it as an academic case to explain strategy. But Carter, what are some lessons around, let's say, this broader approach of accepting your pride, maybe not trying to rectify a mistake right away? What other lessons or broader sort of rules would you add to the lesson book for people at home who are keeping track?
Carter
53:08
when you're in government times on your side yeah you you've got more time than you think you have uh to rectify or move these things so um take the time take a look at what you've got to do sometimes there's action that's required immediately and sometimes it's not required immediately and it is a very difficult task to try and figure out which situation you're in at any given moment um but you
Carter
53:32
you know when you've signaled that massive change is just coming down the road anyways you have until at least that massive change comes down the road so
Carter
53:41
so don't you don't really need to do anything until
Carter
53:45
until your big changes are ready you
Carter
53:46
you are going to come uh
Carter
53:50
the normal pro you know like through through the processes that you've defined
Zain
53:54
corey any any final lessons to add on this before we before i move on
Corey
53:59
well yeah sometimes you've just got to steer into the skid you've got to sort of weigh what what a reversal is going to cost you and as a as a result you make a decision there based on the situation as it is not the situation as it was yesterday and um
Corey
54:11
um ultimately these these lessons all play together because you you don't need necessarily to reverse yourself uh in every situation that goes wrong sometimes you've just gotta you've gotta find a different path forward and you just gotta work the problem and move through it and
Corey
54:29
in a situation like this i'll just Again, I'll say, knowing
Corey
54:32
knowing that it's in flux, knowing you've made comments about how you're going to listen to multiple advisors, not just one,
Corey
54:40
you've got an opportunity here to think creatively out of your problem. And yeah,
Corey
54:46
yeah, I mean, I feel a little funny because some of the commentary we're giving was like, oh, yeah, just say it was a joke. That's clearly a lie. What Stephen and I were talking about was just clearly
Corey
54:55
clearly lying in the future. But you do also need to sort of look at what your potential downside risk is. And again, if there is like a group chat with Danielle Smith melting down over it in front of like her entire caucus, different strategy probably can be
Zain
55:12
As we round this out, let's keep it on the specific. Carter, what would opposing parties, opposition groups do with this as it stands as a fluid situation now? Would you beat on the drum that you got the wrong person? Would you stay out of it? What would your top line advice be? In that regard, Carter, and then I'll go to you, Corey, on the same question.
Carter
55:30
I think this is one of those situations where as an opposition party, you don't have to, you
Carter
55:35
you know, jump on everything that that pops up. This isn't going to be a thing that riles up anybody outside of the 15 people on Twitter. And now the people listening to this podcast, it just isn't a major, you know, election decider. You can't necessarily use it as a situation of bad judgment without impugning other people. that aren't political. You have to kind of go after Dr. Ari Jaffe. And he didn't
Carter
56:05
didn't do anything wrong. He's just sitting over there having crazy ideas. And that probably isn't enough to get dragged into this political discussion. So my thinking is, don't swing at every pitch. This is probably something that's not going to have real impact. And if it does have real impact, it'll have real impact three days from now.
Carter
56:26
So wait it out and see if it's really going to have impact.
Corey
56:31
Yeah, look, I agree with all of that. I do think though, that if this has a potential to be problematic for Danielle Smith, it's not actually people like us saying, oh my God, wouldn't it be funny if this was the case? It's if her base gets upset that a relatively moderate, well, not relatively, a moderate physician with impeccable credentials, credentials, very high up in AIHS, is now the chief medical officer of health. That's probably not the view of some of her supporters as to who should be the chief medical officer of health. And I don't think there's a lot of harm, frankly, in her poking that bear a little bit and almost saying, like, I'm really happy with this chief medical officer of health pick. Seems very pragmatic. I noted that they were a supporter of vaccines. I noted that they see see that ivermectin was was not uh you know this miracle cure that some people have claimed it would be and i i noted that they've got deep health care expertise they've got a lot of experience running the health care system i think this is a pretty good pick now rachel
Corey
57:35
rachel notley saying that could
Corey
57:37
could have a hilarious effect on daniel
Corey
57:39
smith's base and i wouldn't be afraid to do that but i certainly wouldn't be impugning ari
Corey
57:45
ari jaffe for the reasons that steven said plus it's It's just a distraction. He's not on any ballot, right?
Corey
57:51
And I mean, it is a complicated thing because you're basically saying, I
Corey
57:55
I think your judgment is so poor. You clearly made a mistake because this is actually somebody who is not, you know, you
Corey
58:02
you started this off, Zane, by saying this was a moderate, respected, you know, highly qualified physician and it might be a mistake or wouldn't it be? Some people think
Corey
58:12
think it's a mistake, but you know, at the end of the day, the
Corey
58:15
the outcome is not a bad one. The result is not a bad one. And
Corey
58:18
And it's pretty tough to slam somebody for doing something that actually makes sense.
Zain
58:23
We're going to leave that segment there. That segment, of course, brought to us by Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines, it's a joke. Let's move on to our final segment. What? What do you mean, no?
Zain
58:31
You're just like Pavlovian. You're just like Pavlovian. No, what do you mean? It was Bradton. They sponsored it, Corey. No, they didn't. I've got the receipts in our text group, Corey.
Zain
58:43
Okay? I'll leave it to you to say it's a joke. okay once i show once i reveal it to the world and i leak it let's move on to our final segment our final segment over under our lightning round steven carter we do it for you steven carter are you in or out on justin trudeau um
Zain
58:59
um jumping in general to make a special appearance on canada's drag race uh i didn't understand the political the thinking behind this i've never seen the show so i have to be honest with you but are you in or out on justin trudeau uh appearing on canada's Drag Race, which caught some media attention and some headlines this week.
Carter
59:18
First time hearing of it, I'm out.
Carter
59:21
Corey, are you in or out?
Corey
59:23
Not the first time hearing of it. I mean, I think it's kind of harmless, good fun. What's not to like? Everybody loves that show.
Zain
59:29
The reason I kind of say I don't understand the political thinking behind it is your thinking right there could just be it, right? It's a harmless show. It's popular. People like to watch it. Might as well have the prime minister on it. I might be overthinking it but i'm kind of curious if we if we have a couple of seconds and of course we do because i run the show um is let's talk about how these decisions are made and in some cases i suspect they're as clean as cory's carter that they're just like hey this is a fun show and they're good people um but how do you kind of choose where to expose your your your your leader and especially in a pop culture and mainstream media sense and where that kind of turns into to overexposure.
Zain
1:00:06
Any thoughts on that?
Carter
1:00:07
Well, I think that, you know, um,
Carter
1:00:09
I remember working with Joe Clark and, and, uh, Jan Arden was shooting a pilot, uh, a comedy show. And, uh, she asked Joe, Joe to be on it and it was
Carter
1:00:19
was terrible. I mean, it was absolutely tragic. And the, the, uh, the skit got canceled. The show, the prime, the, the, uh, pilot never made it there. Um, it was not a good, good situation, but we put them in because he wasn't asked to do anything else. Uh, the prime minister literally gets way more opportunity. And, uh, I think they need to just choose their spots for, you know, the, the, the PMO needs to choose spots very carefully. And the reason I'm out is I just don't think it has a high enough profile. Um,
Carter
1:00:48
Um, I think that, you
Carter
1:00:50
you know, it's, it's a niche program for a niche group. Um, and
Carter
1:00:55
and I think I would argue probably that that's all programming on television right now but uh i just you
Carter
1:01:02
you know i just don't see the upside cory
Corey
1:01:07
go ahead such obvious upside i i'm i'm surprised that you would say that for starters it is signaling like support of of a community right we've done that
Carter
1:01:16
we've done that it's over we're all there is
Corey
1:01:19
is it over i don't
Zain
1:01:20
don't i think it has to
Zain
1:01:21
relation okay Okay, anyways, let Corey finish.
Corey
1:01:26
Poliev, who I can't,
Corey
1:01:27
can't, I have a hard time imagining going
Corey
1:01:30
really any kind of lighthearted program, let
Corey
1:01:33
let alone Canada's, what
Corey
1:01:36
what is it, Canada's Drag Race? Canada's
Zain
1:01:37
Canada's Drag Race, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Corey
1:01:39
Yeah, so I think that's fine. It's a contrast. It's fun. It's probably got a fairly good audience as far as Canadian programs go, and I
Corey
1:01:49
think it's fine. like i i really i don't see the harm i think you probably get more audience for that than question period and it takes a far a lot less time the question period so why the hell not
Zain
1:01:58
cory let's talk about things
Zain
1:01:59
that produce harm carter you're
Carter
1:02:00
you're gonna be upset when uh when pierre's on little house on the prairie i
Corey
1:02:08
will we just please playing
Zain
1:02:09
like an angry tree in the corner just being like
Zain
1:02:13
relation uh no no no it's more like admiring to the point sorry he'll be the construction of
Corey
1:02:20
of the house yeah
Zain
1:02:20
sorry i forgot he'll be admiring the tree he'll be touching that wood uh
Zain
1:02:25
actually i'm gonna go with cory on this cory on a scale of one okay tell me about the damage the notwithstanding clause and its execution by doug ford has caused him and his government divorce that from what may have happened with with qp the notwithstanding clause itself itself.
Zain
1:02:39
I know this could be a two-hour discussion, Corey,
Zain
1:02:41
but the damage it's done to Doug Ford
Zain
1:02:44
on a scale of one to 10.
Corey
1:02:44
10. I'm sorry to say, I think it's a three or a four. I don't
Corey
1:02:48
it's significant. I think the way that he's managed to navigate it did
Corey
1:02:52
did not create lasting harm. Ultimately, I was always skeptical that Canadians were going to hold him, or Ontarians, I guess I mean, were going to hold him too much to account for the use of the knot with Stanley Clause, given they
Corey
1:03:04
they never have before. This is not the first time Doug Ford's used it. Now, obviously, it was a very irregular situation that he was proposing to
Corey
1:03:13
rid of bargaining rights. But, hey, Quebec has used it rather capriciously. Ontario's used it capriciously. I mean, it's overused. I think there's a bigger conversation about the notwithstanding clause and whether we should have this loaded
Corey
1:03:26
loaded gun in our constitution when we have so many children running this fucking place. But, you know, that is probably a bigger conversation. I don't think it's going to do lasting damage, unfortunately, to the general public.
Zain
1:03:39
Carter, notwithstanding Clause, Doug Ford and his usage on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very damaging, 1 being not very damaging, 10 being very damaging, what would you give it to Doug Ford and his PC government in Ontario?
Carter
1:03:53
I think that it was probably a 6 or 7. I don't think it's one of those bombs that's going to go off and haunt him forever. uh but i do think that he's really damaged his his everyman reputation um you know he's gotten in the way of of the union movement and i don't think i've seen the union movement quite as riled up against a politician for quite some time now that i don't the reason i'm not putting it at his attendance i don't think that that's his core audience um but i do think that um that's going to cost him some votes moving forward and he's certainly not going to be as popular as he was But I do think there'll be a lot of Ontarians who say, finally, someone who's just standing up to make sure that we get the right things at the right price.
Corey
1:04:39
Yeah, I'll tell you
Zain
1:04:40
this- Carter, I'm going to
Corey
1:04:42
The only reason I would give it a three or four is because of its effect on the labor movement, which Doug Ford has gone out of his way to court in the past. Yeah. It's
Corey
1:04:52
he had a fair bit of union support last election, and this is how he repaid that, right?
Corey
1:04:59
But I think amongst the general public, it's not going to have any resonance in a year. You know, it might have some now, but it will not in
Zain
1:05:08
Carter, we spent a good hour plus on something that probably didn't happen. So let's talk about something that might happen. And Carter, are we going
Zain
1:05:17
going to see, as Albertans, Ari
Zain
1:05:21
the other Dr. Jaffe, appointed anywhere in Danielle Smith's new AHS infrastructure, her vision, her other appointments? Are we going to see that name pop up somewhere? Yes or no, Carter?
Carter
1:05:34
I don't think so. I think that it would be an informal relationship if it was anything. thing um not every advisor needs to be listed on a masthead uh in the premier's office so you know if i was advising her to you know if she wanted to have um you
Carter
1:05:50
you know this this particular uh dr joffey then uh she
Carter
1:05:55
she can have that this dr joffey just why would you bother with the pain of bringing him in in some official capacity cory
Zain
1:06:02
cory are we going to see a re joffey anywhere on on the Daniel Smith re-envisioned Alberta healthcare system org
Corey
1:06:12
Nowhere that prominent. I could see him being on some committees perhaps that are struck, but I can't imagine.
Corey
1:06:21
Let's put it this way. If there's like a premier's task force on COVID
Corey
1:06:26
measures, maybe that's somebody that they would put on there, but I don't generally think you're going to see that name in like a big prominent permanent role in government.
Zain
1:06:37
Corey, final question. I'm going to have to ask it to you. I'm going to have to ask it to you, Corey. After the hour we spent together dissecting the theoretical, dissecting the perhaps impossible,
Zain
1:06:49
has your mind changed? Did the government of Alberta fuck this up with the wrong Dr. Jaffe getting the job of chief medical officer of health, yes or no?
Corey
1:06:59
It would be so fucking
Corey
1:07:01
fucking funny if that was the case. And it's not inconceivable to me how
Corey
1:07:06
how such a situation could occur yes
Corey
1:07:11
no i i think i think that the argument i made the one that was for
Corey
1:07:16
for the purposes of this exercise the lie that she would tell is the truth that she wants to have somebody moderate she wants to have somebody mainstream she wants to have somebody with credentials because she's trying to balance out what is going to be a wild ride this fall in health care and she doesn't need the unnecessary fight over the chief medical officer of health, being some sort of vaccine denier, or being somebody who was opposed to lockdowns.
Corey
1:07:39
That's not the fight that she needs or wants. And you're going to see the big dramatic, arguably, depending on where you sit on these issues, scary changes to healthcare coming
Corey
1:07:49
coming in two weeks, not
Corey
1:07:51
today. The intention was never for them to be today.
Zain
1:07:56
did they fuck this up?
Carter
1:07:57
Oh, yeah, totally. This is the wrong Javi. and uh they
Carter
1:08:03
know it he knows
Carter
1:08:04
knows it it's uh it's going to be quite the scandal quite the scandal we're
Zain
1:08:09
we're going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 10 15 of the strategist my name is zane with me as always stephen carter cory hogan and we'll see you next time
Corey
1:08:27
third possibility we didn't talk
Carter
1:08:29
talk about you we did 45 minutes on this and there's a third possibility we didn't talk about is
Corey
1:08:33
is a third could this one could this one be real could this one be real though
Corey
1:08:38
uh i i mean it's probably got as much of a chance of being real as the other one okay okay if i lay it on a possibility is this the
Corey
1:08:45
the whole conversation we had yeah
Corey
1:08:47
oh shit did this happen did this not happen yeah
Corey
1:08:49
yeah occurred before the announcement they had offered mark joffrey the job accidentally they realized it at a certain point in the process maybe when he sat down with the premier and they're like holy fuck this is really embarrassing what do we do here and they decided we
Corey
1:09:03
we stay the course and we stay the course uh almost they talk themselves into the argument that's also a possibility is
Zain
1:09:10
is there anything that you see that that like makes you think this could have been like more probable?
Corey
1:09:18
More probable? No, but I think it resolves some of the issues without being
Corey
1:09:22
being an absolute clown car, because I do think that it's
Corey
1:09:26
it's inconceivable to me that it gets all the way through the process. Like again, like if you're Mark Joffe, you're
Corey
1:09:32
you're going to, you're a senior person at Alberta health services. You're going to take the job of chief medical officer of health with all of the conversation, knowing that Dina was fired from that job. are you going to do that without talking to the premier first yeah but it's impossible to me that there weren't some steps like that where somebody
Carter
1:09:48
somebody would have realized i think it's entirely possible that he just spoke to the minister of health right
Carter
1:09:53
the minister of health is the person who was responsible without
Zain
1:09:56
without speaking to the premier you mean
Carter
1:09:57
mean yeah and the minister of health just you
Carter
1:10:00
goes to the to the to the office of the premier and says yeah we've decided for Dr. Jaffe.
Carter
1:10:05
And they write up the release. They
Carter
1:10:08
They send the release. Like, I think your timing is off. Like, I just, I don't see a moment where they come in and
Carter
1:10:14
and the premier's office is making this decision.
Carter
1:10:17
Or, you know, they've signed off on it early is what I'm trying to say.
Corey
1:10:23
Yeah. I don't want to fuel this fire, but I did note in the government news release,
Corey
1:10:28
no quote from Premier Smith. The quote was only from the minister of health.
Carter
1:10:31
So what you're basically saying is that at the end of the podcast, I was right.