Episode 1022: Goats and Dogs

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1022. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is going on?

Carter 0:11

Well, I'm really excited to be back on squad cast, you know, Riverside squad cast. All the technologies are fucked for me. So this is really exciting that I can break a whole new technology or at least the ordinary one. It's great. It's

Carter 0:25

yeah we continue to go around

Corey 0:26

around the horn uh avoiding the most obvious solution to your problem here which is just get a new computer getting rid of the computer wait

Zain 0:36

will abide by the results of this poll should carter leave cory i'm yes what are you

Carter 0:41

you up there oh

Corey 0:42

oh i'm yes too carter

Carter 0:43

carter are you yes or no no

Carter 0:45

no i'm not but i think we should throw it up on uh post because

Carter 0:48

because um everybody's on post now right like cory you're on no

Zain 0:52

no one no one is on post i don't know what the fuck you're talking to me about i'm

Carter 0:56

i'm on post no

Zain 0:58

no one's joining post no

Corey 0:59

no i have a post account i'm not on post i have

Corey 1:02

have a post i've

Carter 1:03

i've seen you mention me on no one's i've seen you mentioned this weather

Zain 1:11

it's weather it's really something hey i had a really hard time a indeed just carter

Zain 1:15

carter yeah you you're the one who told us you texted us ahead of time to bring up up the weather fine go ahead tell us your story no

Carter 1:23

it's really cold like

Carter 1:24

like so yes thank you my

Carter 1:26

my tesla is plugged in as you guys know and uh it's

Zain 1:31

it's not a relatable story relatable shit the purpose i get it the purpose of the segment at the beginning is to lose a lot of our audience it's but it's to lose them in a joking fashion not a it's so entitled white dude fashion it's

Carter 1:42

it's so cold that the tesla is just keeping itself warm it's

Carter 1:45

it's barely charging at all just trying to keep itself warm which

Zain 1:49

which is how i feel you have a tesla why do you have a tesla this makes no sense i ordered tesla

Carter 1:54

tesla when he was sane and

Carter 1:57

and now i have a tesla

Carter 1:58

tesla this is not

Zain 1:58

not this is not a conversation that i wanted to have this was a way for me to end the conversation cory

Carter 2:02

cory why don't you fill us in on your weather story because it's fucking freezing and why don't you fill us on your electric car situation well

Corey 2:12

i'm less fussed about the weather just isn't really bothering me i think it's It's actually the wind that is bothering me more than the cold, cold temperatures. And in terms of my car, I

Corey 2:23

I haven't gone anywhere with my car for the past couple of days. So totally irrelevant, but probably works better than your car. That's my assumption. Carter,

Zain 2:31

Carter, before we move on, quick thoughts on the World Cup.

Carter 2:35

Listen, I'll tell you something. That

Carter 2:36

That game was so boring when Argentina was up 2-0. And then at the 70th minute, all hell broke loose. and between 70 and what was 125 that was pretty fucking amazing soccer football football it was pretty great and i'll tell you messi

Carter 2:54

messi and argentina were the absolute right winners france can come back i

Zain 3:00

mean it's hard to one fact him on the world cup the most popular sporting event we've seen the last half decade let's move it on to our next segment our next segment grabbing eggnog and shaking talking points guys i want to talk about the the holiday season the christmas season of course we will get into our annual cory what's it called it's our we do it every year holiday our

Corey 3:22

spectacular i'm just i

Zain 3:23

i know what it's called i know it's called the

Zain 3:25

holiday spectacular is coming up very shortly of course we will have our standard holiday spectacular uh segments including the ever popular uh eulogies of the year because what's a holiday day without eulogizing something. But Corey, I want to talk about the holiday season more broadly. I want to talk about the holiday season as it relates to two things. Parties, outings, Christmas events that political parties hold, and also the year-end interview. These rituals that we see in politics that we're now seeing play out this year as well. The sit-down, the year-end interview, all orders of governments, every single leader, they clamor, they sit down, they have a deep dive discussion. Corey, talk

Zain 4:07

talk to me about the year-end interview. In your mind, what is the purpose of this long-held tradition? And in your mind, does it still hold?

Corey 4:18

so it is a long-held tradition. It's this idea that at the end of the year, you get retrospective about the year. It's like a Counting Crows song, but we all have to live it in politics every 12 months. And one of the challenges I've always had with it is, almost by definition it's not going to break news yeah

Corey 4:36

it's summarizing news it's recapping news it's like the aggregator of media events and as a result i think it's like uh you know value is pretty pretty low and um rather than casting backwards i think nowadays a lot more about it is uh casting forward what's going to happen in the next year you

Corey 4:54

what's the reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last and um what you often find is uh just this this rose-tinted version of it that, again, serves no value. In many ways, it becomes almost like the slowest of slow pitches, the softest of softballs that allow politicians to tell whatever story they want. And I just, I do not understand why media outlets continue to give people these year-end interviews, year-forward, you know, perspectives, because they offer nothing except the opportunity to provide soundbites. You know, there's no news content in them, for the most part. Carter,

Zain 5:30

Carter, talk to me about that, because Corey's perspective is one that I share in many ways in terms of what its strategic value is to the end voter, to the viewing audience. I kind of see the value for a politician. It's a microphone. And if I'm going to be given opportunities to give two to three minute answer, not to say some of some interviewers do more of an accountability interview, right? To be fair, Corey, there are some that look at it as an accountability. But Carter, talk to me about your frame of the year-end interview, because we're seeing as political watchers, you're seeing a shit ton of them right now. I just saw the preview of the Rosie Barton and Justin Trudeau one. We're seeing a shit ton of these across multiple political outlets, across multiple orders of government. Talk to me about the year-end interview from your strategist, Lance Carter. Well,

Carter 6:14

I think that it's taking the wrong turn. I think that Corey's right insofar as, you know, why do even people even want to do these things? And I think that it's taking the wrong turn because the politicians have decided that this is when they're going to do these year-end interviews. And I'm not sure if it is because there's less impact at Christmas time in the new year when people just really aren't paying attention so they can do their year-end interview and not worry about gotcha questions and things like that. And there's really nothing happening. So the chance of screwing up is dramatically reduced. But I mean, so I can see the politicians like you, Zane. I can see the politicians why they do it. I struggle with why the media want to do it. I'm assuming it has has to do with, you know, filling

Carter 7:02

filling an air filling, filling, filling airwaves when there's nothing going on. I can't see any strategic reason for the media doing it. So I'm kind of a little bit of a loss because they're

Carter 7:13

they're not particularly valuable to the politician. And I don't see the value to the general population. I don't I don't hear everybody talking about. Did you see Justin Trudeau's amazing end of year interview with Rosie? man, that's really changed the entire political landscape. I don't think anybody's paying attention.

Zain 7:32

Hold on to that thought for a second, Carter. I want to come back to that. But Corey, talk to me about accountability for a second. I just threw it out there as some interviewers are a little bit more accountability focused. They'll give you your 15 minutes. They'll give it to you on a prime spot of a national program should they be able to hold that. But they might ask you some hard-hitting questions. It's not the mistletoe softball that we've seen in the years years past. Talk to me about the accountability element.

Corey 7:57

know, it's so funny, because insofar as it offers accountability, it's to people who try to avoid the media, because otherwise, I don't think there's actually a ton of accountability. But when you think about, for example, Pierre Polyev, doing the cycles and, you know, holding news conferences, people are like, oh, now's a chance to ask him about the by-election and the Alberta Sovereignty Act and, and things that I think in more normal times, you'd have access to anyhow. Anyhow, but I also do believe that this accountability is overblown. None of these people are holding them to the fire and saying, that's great. You want to talk about this? I'm spending this entire half hour on

Corey 8:30

on the Alberta Sovereignty Act. Pierre Poliev, you are going to squirm. I'm going to do this. Like it's one question, one follow up, maybe another supplemental beyond that. But it's really very surface level. Like, ultimately, Zane, I guess I'm pretty skeptical that you find any accountability in just one question and one follow up. If they've got soundbites, they've got their soundbites and they move on. I just don't, I don't personally feel they dig deep enough for it to be like, it's not Frost Nixon, let's put it that way. And so really, most of it is about just one more day up in the canyons, one more night in Hollywood, they're just, they're just doing their show, they're doing their normal thing. And, you know, I just don't think there's a lot of nutritional value in that.

Zain 9:10

I want to stick with you for a second, Corey. And of course, I loved Frost-Nixon, great movie, also known by its international release title, Dave. Dave

Zain 9:21

Frost to Dave Nixon, I believe. So they just made it Dave. Corey, that

Zain 9:26

that being said, then, if that is your belief, a guy that you've mentioned has been avoiding the traditional media for the longest time, Pierre Palliev, if you were to advise him, would you say, fuck it, take the opportunity for a sit down right

Zain 9:38

right now? Yeah. And I'll get to his polling numbers in a second. But spoiler alert, he's not doing so well. He's kind of disappeared in the fourth quarter. He's not doing so well with women. His kind of traction has kind of maybe been limited since the leadership race. If you were advising him, this is a guy who's avoided the traditional media, and you believe that the accountability interview is not necessarily going to dig deep enough or have the runway or the depth enough, would you say, fuck it, go do a year-end accountability interview? Bit of a charm offensive. Let's start getting your story out there. Would you advise him to do that today?

Corey 10:10

oh totally since the by-election it's been a lot of oysters but no pearls for this man and he needs to um you

Corey 10:16

you know he needs to find a way to flip the switch and the best way to look like you're not hiding is to not hide and i think this is kind of a great opportunity to go out there still have an opportunity to control your agenda still be able to cast forward and not worry so much about being again like how many questions are you possibly going to get on the by-election maybe there'll be a few but you'll be able to control the overall weight of the interview to your favor.

Zain 10:38

Carter, would you advise Pierre Polyev to do a year-end interview now that we're on this?

Carter 10:42

Before we do that, before

Carter 10:43

before we answer that question, and I will get back to you, Zane, I'd just like to point out that Corey Hogan just said the best way to not hide is to not hide. And you guys give me a hard time about, you know, money is the currency of politics. No, but

Zain 10:55

but he said it with emphasis, like, as in the sense that, like, I'm going to just make a, I'm going to coin a new political statement. You said it, I have to say, as someone who was searching for words and then thought nailed a political victory with

Zain 11:10

coining a new phrase. I did coin

Zain 11:12

phrase. I feel like it's different. I don't know why I'm defending Corey. Fuck you, Corey. That's

Zain 11:15

terrible. I don't know what you're doing.

Carter 11:16

doing. That was a terrible

Carter 11:17

Anyways, let's return back to your question.

Zain 11:25

Listen, you've got to try to hold on to these moments as they pass. Here's my point. I've actually got two questions for you.

Zain 11:31

Would you do it? If you were advising Pierre right now, right? Right. We'll talk about polling numbers in a second. Really? You'd actually break mold and say, let's go to traditional media. Isn't that not going

Carter 11:41

going to the reporters? You're not going to the traditional reporters you're going to give. I mean, Rosie Barton's an example is not necessarily the right example. Instead, you know, Jyoti Gondek got to do an interview, year end interview with the anchor at CTV. Well, the anchor at CTV is super smart and stuff, but she doesn't follow the story every day right she's she's the anchor she's not the person who's you know watching every debate at city council or watching every debate in the house of commons most often these interviews are conducted by people who are given scripts uh by the regular reporters and then they're interpreting them themselves it's like when cory and i talk and we try to explain to you afterwards what we actually meant and you're trying to figure it out and then being able to regurgitate that on on all the CBC shows you do.

Carter 12:31

That's essentially what happens.

Zain 12:33

I don't need that anymore. I've got chat GPT. I actually don't need you guys. You guys are actually very useless. Carter, hold on. If Rosie Barton or Vashie Capellos or an Evan, I guess not Evan Solomon anymore, but if Rosie or Vashie said, we want to sit down with you,

Zain 12:48

Pierre Polyev, what would you say to that? What would you say to the leading quote unquote political journalists in the country saying, do a sit down with us?

Zain 12:56

If you're advising Pierre right now.

Carter 12:57

now. If I was advising Pierre, i would i would say given

Carter 13:01

his polling i'd say yeah we got to do these i

Carter 13:04

i think that really he's got to reset who he is for the national um for

Carter 13:11

for the nation if you will not the national i was gonna say the national media and things like that but you don't actually he needs to set it so that um you

Carter 13:18

you know martha and henry the the the people in alberta when they're you know people across canada when they hear him when they see him they don't immediately have a distaste in their mouth. And that's where he is right now. And he needs to try and reset that with the general population, or it's going to be his legacy for the next three years until he gets defeated in the next election.

Zain 13:41

Carter, Corey, I'm coming to you in a second. Carter, would you get him to do it alone? Or would you have him do it with his

Carter 13:48

Oh, that'd be really interesting. I mean, with his, I mean, neither, none of us. And

Zain 13:52

And the reason I mentioned that is because maybe the the high watermark of humanizing, I was going to say Trudeau, Pierre was at his victory speech on the leadership election night when his wife made that introduction and she was kind of heralded as the co-star of that production. I'm kind of curious, would you have him do it alone or would you have her with him? I want to go to Corey right after that.

Carter 14:12

that's brilliant, Zane. I think that's a really good idea. You should be in charge of this stuff.

Carter 14:17

I'm making a call. I'm going to to call uh pierre's people and we're gonna get you out there i'm

Zain 14:22

i'm gonna make it happen yeah cory jump in on this what do you think well

Corey 14:26

well i guess it comes back to what are you trying to do so it's one thing to say yeah it's a softball environment yeah you can maybe you'll have to deal with a few difficult questions a follow-up or two but ultimately you can you can do what you want to set the table but

Corey 14:38

but if you go in with no plan you're not going to set the table you're going to end up with all of the quotes being about those attacks so if your goal is to humanize yourself then yes sit there with your wife or your partner. And if your goal is to look like you're in command of the file, maybe you don't want to look like you have anybody with you, but that you can stand on your own somewhere. And so you've got to make this decision. And that decision is going to drive a lot of the things that come after that. And if I'm Pierre Polyev, like, let's do a thing here. Yeah, sure. You ask me, do you think you're avoiding of the media is why you lost the by-election?

Zain 15:10

Do you think you're avoiding of the mainstream media is why you lost the by-election? You You couldn't reach the voters where they were, what they were talking about, could kind of vibe with their frequency on the issues they cared about?

Corey 15:24

I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. I'm sitting here with a member of the mainstream media. I don't avoid the mainstream media. What I do try to call out is when the mainstream media has a certain hypocrisy and is willing to let slide Justin Trudeau's many, many faults. Okay, I'm going to stop you right there. I'm going to stop

Zain 15:39

stop you right there. I

Zain 15:42

you're trying to do, right?

Corey 15:43

right? right? Well, my point here is saying, like, your unique problem right now is people are starting to question whether that, like, there's a media narrative about you that's very meta, in a way, and you engaging with them, you know, it deals with the meta media narrative. In a helpful way. You say

Corey 16:01

Yeah, I think so. Do you

Zain 16:02

you think there's risk here? And I don't want to stick on this too long, and I'm not going to do it for all the other leaders. I find that boring. But I find it interesting with Pierre. Do you feel like, Carter, there's any inherent risk with him either to brand or type? And I know you're one of always to say, let's break type, let's constantly break type. But is there actually a risk here to either his base, his brand, or some way of this looking defensive or desperate?

Zain 16:29

Or is that also a meta-narrative, as Corey would say, that the

Zain 16:32

has not picked up on?

Carter 16:33

I think that the risk is minimal. I think there's always a risk when you sit down with media, and especially when you're when

Carter 16:38

you're existing in your kind of your own uh narrative and i think that it's safe to say that pierre exists in his own narrative uh i don't think i'm outside of anybody else's thoughts on that um so it's always a risk but i think that the risk is outweighed by uh significant upside and uh

Carter 16:58

uh you know cory's made a real you know cory's answer his ability to answer that question that you asked and and kind of put put himself on the front seat i think think that the only problem with that is that he reinforces a little bit of the asshole narrative not just might be cory being an asshole instead of pierre being an asshole i mean it's hard to tell one of the

Zain 17:16

one of the same

Carter 17:17

same yeah plenty would argue

Carter 17:18

pretty similar but um if it is pierre you

Carter 17:23

you know if pierre wants that if

Carter 17:25

if pierre wants to remake himself he has that opportunity right now on on these kind of issues and so i'd get him in front of the camera i think that one of the reasons that people do these interviews the media or not the media but the the the politicians do these interviews is that they are incredibly low risk um a summary interview of things that you have happened in the past um man you're not going to get much easier than that in terms of media and i just want to take a second uh because some people may be asking why we're recommending softening by putting pierre's partner in the interview that's

Carter 18:00

that's for everybody right that's for everybody, like it's not just Pierre Polyev, it's a question for everybody. Do we want this to be a personal interview about the person, about the ideas in the person, or do we want this to be a substantive interview? And I think that a personal interview with someone like Pierre would go a very, very long ways in softening some of the critiques and criticism that he's faced over the last little a while.

Zain 18:27

Corey, you know, you said to me that this is all dependent on goal, right? What your goal is, what you're looking to get out of this.

Zain 18:35

Okay. That being said, define your goal and then define your perfect year-end interview. One that maybe, as I've used the term, breaks the mold, but one that kind of hits the home run. Maybe one that you haven't seen before. One that takes advantage of, I'm going to use this word, malleability of the situation. That, you know, know, they're asking you questions, it's year-end, you know, the downside is that there may not be many eyeballs on it, so to speak. The upside is you got to have free reign. What would your dream year-end interview, if you're advising a politician, be? If you think the repercussions are low and the risk is limited, what's

Zain 19:10

what's something that you would tell or a series of things you would tell them, be like, do this, do that, here's how we kind of, you know, get a real win or like like a capital W out of one of these things, where

Corey 19:21

where would you start?

Corey 19:23

Well, for Pierre Pauliev, I do think that he's got to look at his mainstream likability challenges. And let's just take the one Angus Reid poll and treat it as gospel for 30 seconds here. What is he, minus 35 with women, minus 6 with men? Yeah, that's right. Those are not good numbers. And, you know, there's something about a year-end interview, you know, the winner makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower kind of stuff, where you can get away uh with being a little bit more loose a little bit more personal it doesn't actually need to be all about substance be an crack a joke have your partner there with you um there is something to that and i there's probably an opportunity also

Corey 20:04

also on the defensive side to say yeah i'm not hiding from you here i am like i'm not hiding from anybody but what i want to do is make sure i'm talking to everybody and let's be honest you are no longer everybody everybody includes a lot of other outlets and there's no monopoly anymore and i'm you know i'm happy to talk to canadians no matter where they get their news no matter where those channels are but hey let me tell you something let me tell you a heartwarming story i heard about uh you know a food court operator who uh was a refugee from venezuela and socialism

Corey 20:34

whatever but like the point is you can bring more personal anecdote you can bring more comedy yeah that's

Corey 20:40

you're you're both welcome yeah and and

Corey 20:43

and you can show a human side and maybe you can you

Corey 20:46

you know there's this old cliche which i'll just pull out i'm not a huge fan of it but it's the who would you have a beer with test i'm not sure that i i want to have a a beer with either trudeau or polyev right now right but i i think i worry that it for polyev that if he doesn't change what he's doing it might be less i don't really want to have a beer with him and more like i'd leave the bar if i walked in and he was there like he's creating an energy with a huge number of canadians obviously with women and um he's got to get rid of that he's got to get rid of it now before it just becomes fact carter

Zain 21:23

carter i want to ask you a slightly different question because cory's

Zain 21:25

cory's got me thinking cory's got me thinking here like we are discussing there is strategy to this i do want to be clear right for folks listening they know while we're saying that's it's low risk. But there is strategy. There is opportunity to be seized. And if there is opportunity to be seized, there are strategic choices to be made. Can I get your amen on that, that we're clear on that, Carter? Oh, yeah.

Zain 21:44

So the question I have for you then is,

Zain 21:49

in Canadian politics, past or present, would you want to strategize for for a year-end interview? Who would be your ideal candidate to strategize for, either from the perspective that they could have the biggest upside in a year-end an interview, that they could make the biggest gains, they could, you know, have the best performance. Who and why, in your mind? You could choose anyone past or present, any order of government, doesn't have to be a sitting politician. Frankly, it doesn't even have to be someone who's in elected office, they could have just sought elected office. And tell me why, because I'm really trying to get to the opportunity of what is present with something like this. And I'll shift to my second part here, which is about the outreach and the parties and such, because I want want to talk about the humanizing aspect i

Carter 22:35

want to choose two people can i choose two people

Zain 22:38

you can choose for

Zain 22:39

reasons i was gonna i'm

Carter 22:40

i'm gonna yeah okay lay it on me i'm gonna choose nahat denchi for

Carter 22:43

for just knowing the files there

Carter 22:45

there is absolutely nothing that is going to be asked of nahat denchi that happened in the last 365 days that he doesn't have an answer to and he knows exactly what he wants to say about it and he's able to put together the soundbite there's never There's never going to be an, um, there's never going to be an, uh, he's just going to be able to nail it.

Carter 23:02

Uh, and I'm choosing Brian Mulrooney as

Carter 23:05

as my other choice for simple charisma. Someone who at the end of the year is doing an interview and at the AO makes it like Bing Crosby and, uh, and, uh, and what's his name? the uh the young guy the young kid david bowie uh

Zain 23:22

-z oh fuck david

Carter 23:23

david bowie you know singing white christmas or whatever and all of a sudden he's you know he's he's breaking out into a christmas carol and everybody's like holy shit i love brian mulrooney he's so personable and that's who he was right like when he and and do you think that would work in

Zain 23:38

in a 2022 do

Carter 23:39

do you think that would penetrate i

Zain 23:43

don't know if i agree

Carter 23:43

agree because the man that's the man is nothing but charisma and his voice. And you talk, you know, Corey's talking about the voice and it sounds a little slower in the winter. And it's just, it's just, you know, get, read me a Christmas carol, Brian, read me a Christmas carol. Let me hear it, baby, because his voice is going to, his voice, his charisma is going to come through. And I think that in today's day and age, it would be fascinating to have someone with his, his capacity for charisma to be back up onto the the center stage.

Zain 24:16

It's an interesting point, Corey, I'm coming to you. But there's,

Zain 24:19

you know, the year-end interview, as I see it, it's almost the dance between the person doing the interview and the person being interviewed, right? And that charisma aspect, you can almost see it more so in terms of how it's received by the interview, usually a hardened, you know, longtime political reporter or national news anchor. And to see how that plays off of that that person, you kind of act as a proxy of the viewing audience of the journalist or the reporter. I'm really curious. Corey, same question to you. Give me your thoughts on this. Who and why? But can you react to the, could the Mulroney type of charisma work in a 2022 world, the political world? If Mulroney was thrown in today into our politics with his type of leadership, could it, I

Zain 25:02

I shouldn't say work, could it resonate in your mind? I know there's a broader discussion there but i'm curious to just hear your your initial thoughts on it i

Corey 25:11

do think that there's a more heightened expectation that uh our politicians have that personal element part of why it worked so well for mulroney as it was not the norm certainly for conservative politicians at the time and um but you know after after

Corey 25:27

after i don't know the decades that have passed everything from bill Clinton, through Barack Obama, through Donald Trump, letting it all fucking hang out. I just don't know that it has the same resonance. But, you know, you're not going to remember the last thing they said as they were leaving. The days go by so fast, but you will remember that feeling that they left you with. So if you can, if you can sort of seize that moment and make it more personal, there's no harm. And in fact, I think there's a lot of good, like the actual policy specifics will be lost. But if people a year from now sort of remember feeling not too bad about the the guy in a year-end interview that's pretty good so it's it's absolutely doable you've just got to um you've got to hit the moment and and i think we've seen a lot of attempts of people manufacturing that kind of you know like i immediately think of stephen harper trying to be normal human being who loves netflix right yeah like that you got to be careful about that too but if you can hit it uh particularly if the challenge you have is that you seem unpersonable unlikable or at least a large chunk of canadians feel that way might not be required by the way for you to win the election but you certainly want to take it off the table if you can cory

Zain 26:35

cory who is your candidate for uh strategizing the year-end interview with and why who

Corey 26:43

who is my candidate for strategizing the year yeah like

Zain 26:45

like who's who would you who would you want carter chose Nenshi and Mulroney? From anyone in Canadian politics, who would you want to kind of see perform a year-end interview? Either you feel like they can have the biggest upside, or they've just got the natural gifts for that one-on-one humanizing, I can level with you conversation, past or present, any order of government. Is there someone in your mind that you'd like to kind of be a co-pilot with in that regard?

Corey 27:15

That's tough. You know, I didn't have an answer to it the nenshi one is pretty good because he does have a good command of every file moving forward and he can bring kind of the joviality that i've talked about as being a really nice thing in this year-end interviews i did always think rachel notley was good at them um i thought they were a nice opportunity for somebody like jason kenney to show a different side and in many ways i think that's the pierre polyev mold and i hate to say it well i don't know why i hate to say but i will say justin

Corey 27:44

justin trudeau not a bad format for him either you know if he can kind of drop the performative bit he can show commands of files he can show compassion it's not a bad one i don't know i don't know who my like mvp i don't know who the goat is for these but um you know there's quite a few different ways you can approach it and there's quite a few people i'd be happy to to assist on such a thing we're

Zain 28:06

we're establishing goats that's what we're doing here which is we We get to create the goats. What a fucking cop-out. We

Zain 28:12

to... Oscar fact is the right answer because mostly no one knows him and those who don't are going to Google him and be like, I want to hear this guy talk. No one

Zain 28:24

wants to hear that guy talk.

Zain 28:25

Okay, fine. Corey's going to give us a real answer. Yeah, go ahead, Corey.

Zain 28:28

I don't have a real

Corey 28:29

real answer. I don't have a real answer. Okay, listen.

Corey 28:32

listen. But I want to make a point.

Corey 28:33

I want to make a point. Okay.

Corey 28:35

At the start, I said this was kind of cotton candy. I don't understand why the media wants to do it. They're kind of slow pitches for the politician. And so it's really tough for me. Like, I don't know anybody who's been bad

Corey 28:46

bad at it. Like, I'm trying to actually think the opposite. Who is the dog? Who is the worst at the year-end interview? I can't think of anybody who's really blown one. Can you, Carter?

Carter 28:56

Well, apparently, Joe Clark didn't do very well in 79.

Corey 29:02

guess not. Yeah. Well, there you go. Carter,

Corey 29:05

to me about this.

Zain 29:08

He's the dog. Who's the dog and the goat? There we go. Carter, talk to me about this. After that failed exercise with Corey, I need something that I can count on. I need someone that I can count on. And that's you, Carter. Because

Zain 29:17

Because this is a three-person podcast. We are in trouble.

Corey 29:18

trouble. This is a three

Zain 29:19

three-person podcast, and I've got to rely on someone.

Zain 29:22

I recall, Carter, when you ran that, you talked about Nenshi. We've discussed your political theory

Corey 29:28

theory of holidays quite a bit. Yeah.

Zain 29:29

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That holidays gathering crystallizes, solidifies perspectives. Yeah. Tie the year-end interview and the amount of content that politicians should ideally strategically produce, should spend on solidifying and crafting their legacy, should spend either advertising dollars or PR time or media time to push narratives into the holidays. Because do you believe that the holiday season, the Christmas holiday season, the one we're into, is also a strategic moment? Or does that only apply if there's an election coming up? So talk to me about when these... Do you feel like we're entering a moment of crystallization? And does that change the political calculus for any leader of any order of government in terms of how much weight, time, effort, energy, money they spend into solidifying their messages as all of us start gathering?

Carter 30:25

So there's a couple interesting things. My answer is that that

Carter 30:29

thanks Canadian Thanksgiving, I think is the most important holiday for politics, you know, obviously in Canada. And the reason for that is that we tend to have our, our municipal elections tend to be somewhere in the, in the October range. And so, you know, and a lot of elections have landed in October, October seems to be, I think it's our, our most popular month for elections.

Carter 30:52

with that comes a certain priority of election discussions at family tables and Thanksgiving. I don't think the same thing holds at Christmastime. I don't think that people are going home and going to be talking about, and an interesting test of this is the take back Alberta advertising that's happening here in Alberta. They, of course, we changed the law so that there's limited amount of money that can be spent on political advertising starting in January, but

Carter 31:18

but there's really unlimited amount of money that can be spent up

Carter 31:21

up until January. And I suspect that we're going to have a really interesting test to see whether any of the messages that are being pushed out extremely

Carter 31:29

extremely hard right now by take back alberta if they actually have any resonance by the time may rolls around um and the actual election is held because i i suspect that i'm not going to be talking with my family this christmas about the take back alberta messaging i suspect we're going to be talking about other things um you know like cory and you and how I still stay on this podcast, you know, with you two losers.

Zain 31:58

Carter, to those that don't know, what is a Take Back Alberta messaging?

Carter 32:02

Take Back Alberta is the PAC that's been supporting Danielle. And it is very much support, you know, the very pro Alberta Sovereignty Act, very pro privatization of health care, very pro lunacy, really, I think is the best way of putting it.

Zain 32:19

Corey, what is your take on spending time, energy, resources on solidifying narratives heading into a natural gathering point where people will share and express their views with family around the dinner table, perhaps bring in friends, you know, conversations will eventually lead to politics. This has been the working theory, at least for some in politics. Does Christmas provide that same opportunity? And this is kind of my segue into those Christmas parties and holiday parties that political parties throw, but also those gathering spots. What do you think of the value of political parties and political leaders spending that time, energy to solidify narratives at this junction?

Corey 32:58

So I do believe in the value of these moments. They're fewer and further between. I think Thanksgiving is probably the strongest one. Easter's not a bad one. The thing about Christmas is it's very busy. It's very chaotic. And we all have something to talk about because we all got presents that morning right and so it doesn't have i think the same uh

Corey 33:17

uh thirst for conversation that thanksgiving does right thanksgiving is really it's a holiday about getting together and talking to people and so we get together and we talk about the things we talk about with our friends which is politics which is religion which is all the things we're not supposed to talk about that's why we fight with our uncle that's why we fight with our aunt that's why you know you get siblings ganging up against other sibling that kind of stuff and so thanksgiving is is for sure i agree with steve and it's at the top of that list because there's just it's such like a it's a unique one right you don't have anything else going on it's a holiday that's just about talking christmas has too many distractions in terms of your broader question about this season and whether this is a good time to plant messaging i think generally speaking yes

Corey 34:04

yes and no No. Yes, because it is an opportunity to gather. And if people are gathering at political events, like if they self-select into political events, they're probably a political audience. You can probably provide them the messaging you want to. I think it's a great, great opportunity to get together people on your side, you know, to give the troops a shot in the arm and to give them the messaging going forward. but know in the sense that uh we're distracted the same point as before we we have too many things going on our attention is carried in too many different ways we are thinking about maybe we're thinking about family vacation we're doing over the christmas break maybe we're thinking about the christmas presents we've still got to buy maybe we're thinking about uh you know um the the new year's party that is coming right after that like it's a very jammed period and because it's jammed there's a lot of draws on your attention and when i even broaden it further from events and i start thinking about advertising i take back alberta a

Corey 34:59

a it's a very expensive time to advertise because every you know every consumer based product in the world is trying to get you to buy them at the moment so generally speaking if you're advertising in kind of the issue space you're probably not spending much if anything in december you know you're turning those dials right down and you're doing your heavy flighting you

Corey 35:18

you know later or earlier probably both and um because there is so much advertising again attentions get distracted and it's a crowded time and so i i think it's it's generally overrated and as i talk this out its real value is probably in bolstering your side not in persuading the persuadables because the the people who don't live and breathe politics they're living and breathing their real life in the biggest way in the month of December. Carter,

Zain 35:46

Carter, which gets me to the concept of political events, political parties, Justin Trudeau inviting every liberal, come one, come all, down to Ottawa, spend time with me at my Christmas party, because they do this every year, right, outside of the pandemic years. We're talking about political events happening all over. How do you, you know, on the surface, it's easy to read these as people

Zain 36:07

people who have their people are gathering, right? Right. So if you identify as a political person and then more specifically subdivide into this, you're hanging with your people, you're meeting your folks. It's one of your many sort of networks. That's the surface level. As a strategist and as a political operator, how do you view these political events? Is it just as simple as just what I said, that this is just a way for people to fill up their gas tank, see one another, or is there a deeper strategic value to it? And if there isn't, I'll move on and we'll go to the next segment. But I did want to bring it up and throw it out on the table to see, are you thinking about this deeper or more, I

Zain 36:40

I shouldn't say in a more sophisticated fashion, but in a more strategic political fashion than just gathering points and people filling up their political gas tank? I

Carter 36:49

can't tell you how many conversations we've had where we go back and forth between the different types of leadership selections that we can do. And I think I've consistently come down on the side of delegated selection because it builds the team. It builds the relationships. And I think that these Christmas parties, these Christmas events, this is a natural time to bring people together and

Carter 37:10

and build out these relationships. It may be the most important time.

Carter 37:17

We're in Calgary, right? So we have the Stampede and Christmas. Those are kind of the two times that everybody understands that they're going to get together and spend time together.

Carter 37:28

That's very valuable. And I think that politicians sometimes whiff on it by not hosting their smallest groups. groups it's what you talk about trudeau inviting every liberal under the under this you know in the whole world that's

Carter 37:40

that's got value but what's even got more value is inviting your core group together to share a drink to share some snacks to share some time together and that is the um that's

Carter 37:56

that's the real key i think of or the real opportunity of the christmas season to

Zain 38:02

to be clear carter and and i I think the ends might be obvious, but to what end? Is there a Machiavellian end to it? Or it's not? It's really a human end, isn't

Carter 38:11

It's absolutely as simple as having people who, you know, like, we've all worked with Greg Clark. We all worked with Greg Clark in 2014. We did not work with Greg Clark, all of us, in 2015. We did not work with Greg Clark again in 2019. Why? Because the personal relationship didn't exist.

Carter 38:28

Because the management and the creation of that personal relationship is what keeps people involved in politics. and if you don't have that you're out of there cory

Zain 38:37

cory talk to me about these holiday season events organized events uh you know i i'm not going to redo my whole spiel on the surface level versus a more strategic your thought on this yeah

Corey 38:48

yeah i think that christmas and generally the holidays is a time to bring family together and so bring your family together create that sense of family um you know time for christmas cheer time for holiday cheer uh celebrate raise a glass talk about all of the things you did this year talk about all the things you want to do next year but i'll go back to my point before it's not the opportunity to change minds um maybe you can drag one or two people on the periphery and make them a little bit closer but you're not going to fundamentally turn someone who's disinterested in politics into uh you know you're not going to arm them with all of the messages you want to arm exactly

Zain 39:24

i'm going to leave this segment there there. Moving on to our next segment. Our next segment, ladies, men. Yes, I want to talk about Pierre Polyev. We've

Zain 39:33

about him in the year-end interview. I want to talk about how he's doing in the Angus Reid polling, Corey. This is the polling you mentioned earlier. This was released just today that says Trudeau enjoying a year-end bump of sorts, while Pierre Polyev remains deeply unpopular with women. This emerging divide, as Angus Reid Institute says, as is undeniable, unmistakable. Polyev's favorability is nearly twice as high among men. He's at 44% versus 23% for Trudeau. Probably doesn't surprise us, given the images we saw of his rallies and his voter base, and frankly, who conservatives in the last decade plus have been appealing to. But also, the inverse, though not as pronounced as true, where he is significantly significantly poorer amongst women. Like, his unfavorables with women is really, really low at 23%. So, Corey, he struggles to find a foothold. Trudeau, seeming to have a bit of a bump, Jagmeet Singh performing as Jagmeet Singh usually does in that, you know, overall relatively favorable, but, you know, guys, we don't think he's viable sort of territory. Talk to me about about Pierre Polyev here. We

Zain 40:48

We talked about the year-end interview, and if you should do it, we're actually going to zoom out. I probably should have done this segment first and that segment second, but I had no idea it was going there, right? But let's just use that as fodder. Zoom out on the Polyev story here. We have not seen a lot of him. The videos are now fewer and far between. The absence of the Mississauga Lakeshore by-election is noticeable because because of the L that he took. We mentioned last Patreon episode about the strategy to not show up, and both of you kind of talked about why he did it, but also why it may not have been the right move to do it.

Zain 41:23

Pierre Polyev doesn't seem to be having a great quarter, Carter, and these results seem to be dictating it. If you are doing a rewrite of the Polyev strategy heading into 2023, what's at the top of the list for you? Let me start there.

Carter 41:38

humanizing humanizing i mean um i

Carter 41:42

i don't i want to talk about the difference between men and women and i want to do it in a way that doesn't get us all canceled so i'm going to try okay i

Corey 41:50

think just you will get canceled okay

Carter 41:51

okay well i'm going to give it a whirl and let me let us begin no

Corey 41:54

no oh god let

Carter 41:55

let us begin with the i'm

Corey 41:56

i'm going to regret those

Carter 41:57

those words let's begin with the with the obvious and that is that men and women do process things differently. They do process the same information in a different fashion. And that's not unusual. Almost everybody, we've talked about almost everybody, depending on what their values are, process the same information in different ways. And that's how come we have the beautiful diversity that we have. So

Carter 42:18

So women tend to process things a little bit differently. And one of the things that they're looking for is trustworthiness.

Carter 42:24

Trustworthiness is incredibly important. Because I used to tell my clients, when someone ever wanted to do a trust me ad, we've picked on the Enbridge's ad where they basically said, trust us when we build our pipeline across British Columbia. You can trust us because we're British Columbians. And I've said to anybody who will listen, there

Carter 42:45

there is no way a trust me ad is ever going to work with a female population. Because every man in their entire lives that said to them the words, you can trust me, was immediately not trustworthy. And Pierre Polyev does not have that. And so he's looking for someone to vouch for him, essentially. That's why when we were talking earlier about bringing his spouse in, who is Anita Polyev, that

Carter 43:07

that could open up that door. And that humanizes Pierre. You know, when you look at the pictures of them online at the wedding, of their, you know, the christening of their first child or their first child coming, you know, being at an event when Pierre's being sworn in, all of those things are the things that are missing. And when he does his rants, his rants may work for a certain audience, but they're obviously not working for women. So if he wants to work with women and be successful with women, he needs to change the way he's doing it. And the way that I think he needs to do it right off the top is to bring in a Neda Polyev with him on everything. And whether that's possible or or not, feasible or not. That's not my problem, but I think that that's the first step in humanization.

Zain 43:53

You know, Corey, I mentioned this. He's 44 with men, 23 with women. Trudeau's 35 with men, 50% with women in this polling. Carter says humanize is at the top of his strategic framework. There could be an argument. I'm not putting words in your mouth. You could disagree. There could be an argument that says, top of the list for Pierre Polyev, two words, Fuck it. Who cares? This is expected. This is not the base that got me to win. This is not the group that I want to find. I'm going to find more of the folks that voted for me, get them angrier, get them louder, be the crisis level leader that has gotten me to this point, and just mobilize them. Now, that could be part of the strategy. But I want to kind of throw it out there for you, in the sense of if you were deriving that 2023 plan, what would be on the top of your list?

Corey 44:43

well you offered us the opportunity to zoom out at the start so i'm going to take it let's let's zoom out okay first of all if somebody asked me today put a dollar bet even

Corey 44:51

even money who's going to be the next prime minister after the next election is it going to be pierre poliev or justin trudeau i'm still putting that money on pierre paul you still are

Corey 44:59

i'll tell you why oh yeah because you talked about uh the the angus reed poll saying it was unavoidable, you know, that there was a problem with, you know, Pierre Polyev's numbers. Didn't say it was unprecedented. The reality is the conservatives have trailed with women a lot over the last decade. And the reality is we've seen numbers not really move much before elections. And so let's just start there. And let's say that we haven't really seen too, too much here. This is pretty early days, especially when you consider the attention of the movable voter. Right. Let's get a little bit closer now. Let's just zoom in a tiny, tiny bit here.

Corey 45:40

You've got a situation where you and I are not seeing the videos that he's doing. My assumption in a moment like that is not that nothing is happening. It's that different things are happening. He's moving pieces around. He's talking to people. He's building teams. There's often a quiet phase in a campaign before there's a loud phase where you're getting everything assembled to get ready to move. And my assumption is that's what Pierre Polyev is doing right now. Now, I certainly don't take his silence as he's having a vacation.

Corey 46:06

Now, let's talk about Carter's point about humanizing.

Corey 46:10

Really an important idea when people are looking for a human, but that might not be what they're looking for. You know, Justin Trudeau offered us this very emotive, feeling 2015 version that over time we became deeply cynical about.

Corey 46:25

So maybe we don't want that. Maybe we don't want the conservative version of 2015 Justin Trudeau. No, maybe actually Canadians are looking for a bit of an arrogant prick who can come in and fix some problems and poke some holes in what the last guy did. Certainly. I'll let

Zain 46:37

let him jump in. It's like, keep going, Corey. Keep going.

Corey 46:41

Certainly. When I think about a 2010 election where Nahid Nenshi was brought to the mayor's chair,

Corey 46:49

he was an arrogant prick. I mean, arrogant prick works sometimes. Arrogant prick works when people are very frustrated with the government because they can take the government of the day to task. risk and that might be something that's available to pierre paul yeah but

Zain 47:00

but carter talked to me okay i'm this is i'm just opening up brackets again okay but let's do this fuck it why not isn't

Zain 47:07

isn't humanizing supposed to be like a surefire easy everyone wants this why not humanize person i guess what i'm trying to say can't you reconcile arrogant prick with humanizing like isn't okay cory wants in carter still thinking jump in court yeah give it to jump in cory yeah

Zain 47:23

i'll follow up with you cory it is your point so it is fair that i follow up with you but you know the point here is can't

Zain 47:29

can't those things coexist that's a simple way of saying

Corey 47:31

saying they can and everything can coexist with everything but you don't have unlimited hours in a day and you've got to choose where to put your efforts and if your return on assembling a team and building the right policy and being the best version of the arrogant prick you possible is there or you can fight upstream and you've got to resist people's natural inclinations to think you're an arrogant prick and you've got to invest invest 10 times as much effort to convince them otherwise, maybe that's not a good use of your time. Maybe that's not the best path to victory. So,

Zain 47:59

So, in some ways, are you saying that it might be the best investment for Pierre Polyev to engineer an environment or a suite of problems where he, who he does not have to spend any effort in contouring or changing who he is, is the solution? That this annoying, you know, university conservative...

Zain 48:18

conservative... Isn't that what

Corey 48:19

what we always say? Yes, yes. You know, it's a valid question. It's about being the answer to people's questions. It's not changing who you are. It's not changing. We've

Zain 48:26

We've generally talked about that in the form of policies, the moments, certain elements of personality. We haven't talked about being human and humanizing as much, Carter. Respond to Corey's point here. Do you agree? No.

Zain 48:45

I lead you just from, like, natural inclination, but I don't know why. I think Corey is more persuasive.

Zain 48:50

Do you want to take that dollar bet, Pierre Stevens? I think Corey's

Carter 48:51

Corey's more persuasive in his argument. Corey's right. Corey's right that Pierre's more likely to be the next prime minister than we'd like. But Corey's wrong in the humanizing arrogant prick piece. And I'm going to use Nahid Nenshi as an example. Because Nahid was not... We worked really hard to keep the arrogant prick out of what people thought about Nenshi. It was elections two and three that they started to recognize that he was arrogant. arrogant um election one they thought they were we really worked hard to position him as everybody's kid you know like he was he was the son that everybody wished they had instead of zane um but you know that that was you

Carter 49:30

know that was that that was that election i'm not sure if he'd been seen as an arrogant prick in his first election he would have had any chance and keeping in mind that the reason we won was because of the vote with women women moved significantly towards not having nenshi towards the end respond

Zain 49:45

respond to this and and and uh leave nenshi because i've got multiple nenshi lawn signs behind me out of it cory uh what would what would you know listen you don't have to but but the question the question is an interesting one right it's it's about isn't humanizing a surefire bet every time shouldn't if you have that door accessible to you to to to humanize and there's easy wins and low hanging for it to do it why not you're smiling if

Corey 50:09

if you have that door available if there are easy wins if there are low-hanging

Corey 50:14

basically in the question you're

Zain 50:16

you're an interview court yeah

Corey 50:17

yeah like basically dictated the answer here but

Corey 50:20

but the reality is sometimes that is not the approach that that would be absolutely just in trudeau's playbook that is not necessarily pierre polyev's playbook and the thing about nahed nenshi and then we'll jump off nenshi here his attacks were were the attacks of somebody who was arrogant.

Corey 50:36

thought he knew better. You know, let me tell you something. NMAX is just doing this wrong. That damn city administration is doing that wrong. You know, the mayor did these other things wrong. And that comes off very differently on your re-election bids, right? Let me tell you something. I was right. The things I did were right. Those were right. You're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong, which became Nahid Nengi's problem as days went on, in my opinion. But this is almost my point, right? It does not necessarily require require you to change who you are. It requires you to repackage the value of that in the context. And so let's be really clear here. Pierre Polyev is not going to say, hi, I'm Pierre Polyev and I am an arrogant prick. Vote for me. Nobody is suggesting that strategy. Although now I kind of am

Corey 51:20

because it sounds pretty funny.

Corey 51:22

it's going to be is, hi, I'm Pierre Polyev and I'm a pretty smart guy and I'm pretty incisive and I know where the problems are in government. And And here's 800 people who will tell you I'm sharp as fuck and I'll get the job done. And that's more the brand that is available to him, I think. So when we talk about like the risk for him and, you know, the idea of him being an arrogant prick, I actually don't see that as the reason the numbers are where they are. I see the numbers where they are because that's where the conservative numbers have been for half a generation at this point.

Zain 51:55

I'm hearing you also say... There's

Zain 51:56

I'm also, I'm hearing you also say that you'd not be that panicked.

Zain 51:59

Like the subtext of your words is like, you're not... Are either of you panics if you're a Pierce team? Is this a wake-up call of any kind?

Carter 52:06

I think there's some really interesting things that he can do to try. I would humanize. Corey doesn't have a strategy, just words. But I would put forward he and his wife more frequently. I would do more mainstream kind of sit-down interviews.

Carter 52:23

But even then, he's still got two more years. He's got a long runway to establish who the hell he is. and it may even be great that people don't really feel like they know him yet um they can they can still start to establish some opinions i think the the only risk that he's got is that people are going to harden their opinions of them and that would be a problem so

Carter 52:45

so we don't have that data we don't have that level of information but if those opinions start to harden uh then that would be an issue cory

Zain 52:53

cory you're not packing panicking carter's not panicking but justin Trudeau probably has an opportunity here, maybe a minor one, maybe one with small wins associated with it. He gets a bit of a bump, his numbers remain relatively steady, the mass erosion that you'd expect, the guy that you think is going to lose the next election doesn't seem to be happening. What best can he do with these numbers? In the short term, let me give you a window of three months, six months, heading into the next, you know, three to six months of 2023. If you're Justin Trudeau reading these, what is your like, what is your strategic thought coming out of this? Or what is Team Trudeau's strategic thought coming out of this?

Corey 53:31

Well, I think that it would show not a lot of strategic thought if this changed their plans in any way, shape, or form. Like, I don't think this poll changes the ground. And if they are running a plan where they want to try to peg him as an extremist, okay. What you know is that people are certainly receptive to that point of view. But it doesn't fundamentally change that you've got to get their attention on it. You've got to lock them on Pierre Polyev. People think they have opinions about him. They will say that they know who he is. but we also know that people said that about Aaron O'Toole and then they changed opinion of Aaron O'Toole as the election started now it slid back for sure elections matter I think that's something Stephen would say that's certainly something I would say but um you

Corey 54:09

don't really want to change your game plan if your game plan is trying to define him you're still going to be wanting to do it on character not on policy we've talked about that right because policy changes it's hard to see what's the win and what's the loss right now bitcoin could very well be zero bitcoin coin could be five hundred thousand dollars seems unlikely to me but you know you certainly don't want to say his judgment is bad because of bitcoin entirely like that can be a supporting point but you got to be careful so just continue attacking him on character continue saying he's not there to support you uh you know this is not a man who understands the smell of hospitals in winter um and just hit him hit him hit him define him it's not something that um that should change your game one bit. Like, if you get this Angus Reid poll and you think, okay, he's down, now's our chance to really go for the jugular, I don't know how to help you.

Zain 54:59

Carter? Well, I'll ask the similar question in a slightly different way about Trudeau. One of the things that at least on the surface seems like that's keeping him relatively stable, and if not giving him a slight bump, Carter, it's

Zain 55:14

It's the ownership of the healthcare file as compared to the ownership or the lack of ownership on cost of living inflation, which many people would say, and any, you know, person who's truthful about the situation or in good faith would say, Pierre Polyev has owned since the beginning, right? He's one of the first to talk about inflation. So healthcare, not COVID-style healthcare, but healthcare as the funding, the emergency room, the wait times, the struggles all of us are seeing, the provincial funding, it's rising to the top. It's the number one or number two issue, regardless of which political party you support in this country. And one would argue that that is keeping Justin Trudeau at least afloat. And that issue priority is keeping Justin Trudeau at least afloat to where he is. My question to you, Carter,

Zain 55:58

how would you, if you were tasked with the strategy of keeping the volley of healthcare in the top one or two issues for the next two years before an election, how would you do it? What are some of the things you think about? If you agree with my thesis that that is what's keeping Trudeau at least viable, or if not giving him a bump, how would you set up the strategy to to keep volleying healthcare as an active, important issue for the next couple of years? Just give me a framework of a couple of bullet points. I'm asking you to do this on the spot.

Carter 56:25

Yeah, I mean, healthcare is one of those things that's almost always in the news, almost always available to you. The trick, though, is that just because it's something that people feel is important doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be something that is an issue throughout... Or

Zain 56:41

Or that they will credit you for political victory. Yeah,

Carter 56:44

Yeah, I mean, you asked Corey, you know, what should be kind of what should be done or what should Trudeau think of these numbers? And I think none of this matters right now. What Trudeau's team need to do is they need to come up with a strategy that says we are going to have the election in, you

Carter 57:00

you know, this month of 2025. Right. So it's going to be September 2025 or April 2025. And in that election, we want to own the following issues, healthcare, children's care, seniors care, right? And then work out what you're going to do to do that at the right time. Because this idea that you're going to own healthcare from today to that election is impossible to visualize. It just doesn't exist in a single timeline that you can own that one issue for that long a period of time. You're just giving your opposition too many chances to come in and redefine the issue for you. So

Carter 57:41

So you need to start thinking in terms of timelines and people's attention spans. And that's what I would be asking Trudeau's team to be doing right now is working out what that strategy looks like for the last 29,

Carter 57:53

29, 30 months of this term or shorter. You know, there's rumors that he wants to call a shorter, you know, do another election quicker, à la crèche, which is fine if you want to try that one more time.

Carter 58:06

But you better have a plan. And that plan better be well executed, because I don't think that that's available. I worry that they're

Carter 58:16

they're just planning to, you can't take the moment that you're in right now and project it forward. It just will not work that way, will not work that way at all.

Zain 58:26

It's a good point, Carter, on the macro, you know, we talked about the 21 election, They started flat footed because they called an election, really didn't have anything to run an election on. So having a plan is really important. I'm going to leave that segment there, Corey, moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. And of course, Stephen Carter, we

Corey 58:43

we do this for you. We do everything for you.

Carter 58:45

I'm not believing you're

Carter 58:46

you're doing it for me. You

Zain 58:46

You should. You should. This whole show is plugged in because of you and Stephen Carter, overrated or underrated. Corey Hogan.

Zain 58:55

Your enders. We talked about them. I feel like there was a bit of self-talk persuasion that may have happened. But I'm going to ask you the verdict, overrated or underrated, all things considered. You say it's low risk. You collectively agree about that. We might see it slightly differently in terms of the opportunity. But Carter,

Zain 59:11

terms of the value that they have, overrated, underrated in your mind? I

Carter 59:14

I think they're probably overrated. I think it's just, you know, it's an easy opportunity to swing at a ball, and you may as well hit it, even if it's going to just be a single, not a home run.

Zain 59:23

Coy, overrated, underrated, Stephen Carter's baseball analogy?

Corey 59:28

Underrated. I thought it was great, and it also, let me build on it, you get a lot of at-bats in this game. There's not so much drama that you have to think, okay, this is my only swing that I get. Yeah, it's an easy single. Coy,

Zain 59:41

Coy, are you in or out on holiday parties, political holiday parties, in or out on your mind?

Corey 59:47

Well, I'm in. I do think they serve the purpose of bringing the team together and allowing you to show gratitude to the team if you happen to be a politician. And why in the world would you let that moment pass without taking advantage of it? Like I said, it's holidays are when you bring your family together. So show them that you're your family. Carter,

Zain 1:00:05

Carter, are you in or are you out on holiday parties from a political strategy, political operation? I

Carter 1:00:11

I am super in on holiday parties. I think that, you

Carter 1:00:16

know, politics is a tough game. There's not a lot of time off. There's not a lot of time away from it. The summer and December are kind of our three months when things slow down a little bit. And you need to celebrate with your team the successes and the failures of the previous year. here.

Corey 1:00:35

Yeah, you know, you want to look across a crowded room and see that, right? You see the people that you're there with.

Zain 1:00:42

Carter, I'm going to ask you. COP 15, Montreal, last second fill-in for China. 200 countries around the world, including Canada, have come to an agreement to have eight years to set aside almost one-third of their land in marine territories for conservation, conservation, a landmark agreement for biodiversity. On a scale of one to 10, in terms of how much energy and how loud the liberals should get on this, where would you put it? One is not so loud. Don't worry about it. It's not a major win. Don't put a lot of energy and resources into it. 10, put

Zain 1:01:13

put a shit ton of energy and resources to it. You hosted this thing. You did it on your soil. It's a landmark agreement. 200 countries. We rarely get these sort of wins. What's your take and why? Tell me why. Well,

Carter 1:01:24

Well, I don't think that there's much much gain to be made from the agreement itself, but more gain to be made from the actual leadership position that you gain from it. So instead of talking about, you know, the position or the agreement and all those types of things, which have very little meaning to people, I would focus instead on the actual, you know, we are holding people to account. People came, you know, make yourself into that world leader, the Michael or the Lester Pearson kind of example of, you

Carter 1:01:53

you know, the person who, you

Carter 1:01:55

you know, returning Canada to the world stage where Canada deserves to be because we're the ones who are pushing the international agenda and then celebrate what we do in Canada to the nth degree, really showing people that the decisions that were made, the leadership that we exhibited matters the most when we talk about our own actions and our own, you know, movement movement towards saving the environment and saving the world that we live in.

Zain 1:02:27

Corey, how loud would you get if you're the federal liberals on a scale of 1 to 10? 1 being not so loud, don't put much energy into this. 10 being put the energy, it's worth it, get loud on it. Where are you on that scale and why?

Corey 1:02:40

I'm on 1 and 10. I think this is targeted communications time. This is where you get very loud with the people where this is a very big big issue and there's quite a few in this country and you get relatively silent with people who this this may sort of just bring a reaction that you don't you don't need and there's no benefit to so don't be throwing it out broadcast narrowcast get it out to the channels that will hit the people who need to hear this but be loud with that and let them know your leadership position cory

Zain 1:03:08

cory i have to ask it we talked about goats we talked about dogs give me your political political goat for the holidays heading into the holidays the christmas season the new year who is the political goat in your mind this is trampling a bit on on the holiday spectacular but but give me a bit of a preview cory heading into the holidays who's the political holiday goat

Zain 1:03:34

who's the holiday goat

Corey 1:03:35

goat uh hmm well first of all i kind of flubbed your last goat question and if If you think I could be forgiven, I wish you would on that. I don't want to flub this one, but I actually don't know who the holiday goat would be. I think the holiday goat is

Corey 1:03:51

is Doug Ford. I think he's got exactly the right energy for the holidays.

Corey 1:03:57

Carter, your political holiday

Zain 1:03:58

holiday goat, who is it?

Zain 1:04:04

you, Carter. I appreciate it, Carter.

Carter 1:04:05

Carter. What was his name again? Jesus Christ. He's

Zain 1:04:09

He's dead. Carter, Carter, come

Zain 1:04:11

on, come on. Come on. He

Carter 1:04:13

He ran a party, though. He

Carter 1:04:14

He had a party. Carter,

Zain 1:04:15

Carter, who's the political holiday dog? Who's the political holiday dog? The political

Zain 1:04:24

this is the quality you will get from the holiday spectacular. Can I just say, Stephen Carter is struggling to come up. Yeah, except we add background music. That's true. We do add background music. And

Carter 1:04:33

And I do a very good,

Zain 1:04:36

good, I think four years running, I do a very good Gian

Zain 1:04:39

Gian Gomeschi at the front end. I think I nail

Zain 1:04:41

nail it at the front. We

Carter 1:04:43

We get complaints every year. You must be doing a good job.

Carter 1:04:47

I would say that... I'm buying time for you. The dog has to be Joe Clark.

Carter 1:04:54

you know, who loses a government right after Christmas?

Zain 1:04:58

Okay, Carter, thank you for that creative answer. Corey, can you think of anything better? As I ask you, for the 2022, I'm going to delay as much as I can. Political holiday dog, who is it, Corey? Corey, and it cannot be Doug

Corey 1:05:12

Real simple, Zane. George Washington.

Corey 1:05:18

Because he murdered a bunch of British soldiers on Christmas Day.

Zain 1:05:23

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1022 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Veldrie. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we will see you for the Holiday Spectacular next time.

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