Transcript
SPEAKER_00
0:02
Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1034. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Hey, guys.
Carter
0:11
Hey, we're going to work on those openings. You know, we're just going to work on the energy. We are going to bring it next time.
SPEAKER_00
0:18
I don't think you understand.
Corey
0:19
Why don't you show
SPEAKER_00
0:21
Yeah, can you demonstrate? I'll
SPEAKER_00
0:23
count you in. I'm
Carter
0:24
I'm not saying that my openings are good. I mean, I just listened to our podcast from last week, Corey. our openings and endings remain shit but
SPEAKER_00
0:31
you did not have anything last week carter what
Corey
0:34
i mean that was the greatest ending of them all just in a way yeah
Corey
0:38
yeah it was a kind of a testament and you know a commentary on life yeah
Corey
0:43
there's no endings things continue no
Carter
0:45
no i just speaking of things continuing i brought up then it's
Carter
0:49
broke out in hives with 10 34 you
Carter
0:52
you know it's kind of bringing back a bunch of bad memories i don't care something
Corey
0:56
something about 34 Yeah,
Corey
0:57
I can't put it back. Do
Corey
0:59
Do you know, that's an interesting point. Can I say that our last Patreon episode, I'm just going to, you know, toot our own horn here. It
Corey
1:07
was described by people as not
Corey
1:09
not as bad as they thought it was going to be. Listenable, somebody described it as. Yeah.
Carter
1:16
Very high praise. Made us wonder why we even have a host at all. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00
1:20
Yeah, I know you wondered that. I saw you tweeting about that. Why am I here? we were
Carter
1:24
were wondering really annalise when did you like stop fearing us and being able to say no to us like it took a very limited
Carter
1:31
amount of time i
SPEAKER_00
1:33
i i'm gonna blame it on my um child who came home from daycare puking and uh and that happens and then he gave me pink eye so so here we are heather
Corey
1:45
that to steven all of the time yeah and he and
SPEAKER_00
1:48
and gives him pink eye and he still is part of the story i show up
Carter
1:52
up for work every day annalise every
SPEAKER_00
1:55
yeah but carter do you have a working computer when you show up for work that's the real question um
Carter
2:01
um let's move how's that first segment looking you
SPEAKER_00
2:04
you gotta first hey
SPEAKER_00
2:05
hey don't tell me about your outdoor experiences how you don't have a new computer but you have a tesla
Corey
2:13
i want to hear more about that yeah yeah
Carter
2:15
yeah bad choices have been made and
Corey
2:17
and didn't they drop the price like fifteen thousand dollars couldn't you have bought 20, 22
Carter
2:26
That's true. I could
Corey
2:27
have bought like a fleet of computers.
Carter
2:31
But it's back up now. So I feel marginal. Oh,
Corey
2:35
Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay.
Carter
2:36
Okay. But thanks for bringing that up,
Carter
2:37
up, Corey. Wow. What a friend. What
Carter
2:39
What a friend. You
Corey
2:41
don't worry, pal. My car is still as expensive as ever if you go order it. Yeah,
Carter
2:45
Yeah, that's right. Well, that's what I'm excited about. You and I are racing electric vehicles this week, aren't we? We're going to meet somewhere at
Corey
2:51
at a race yet? Yeah, we're going down to the drag strip. Perfect.
Carter
2:55
You're not invited, Annalise, because you are annoying. Yeah, I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00
2:59
Because I'm annoying. Okay. I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00
3:03
Let's move into our first segment. Hold on. Annalise,
Carter
3:05
Annalise, do you have the Queen's Jubilee medal?
Carter
3:09
Not asking for any reason. Okay. Okay, good.
SPEAKER_00
3:14
Okay, I don't have it, but everyone has it. We,
SPEAKER_00
3:18
We, this is the whole thing. If you'd listened to the Patreon episode
Carter
3:21
episode last week, you'd
SPEAKER_00
3:23
you'd know the whole fucking
SPEAKER_00
3:24
bit. I did listen because I knew that it didn't have an ending.
SPEAKER_00
3:27
Everyone has one. You're sad that you didn't get one. 7,000 people got them. You were not among those 7,000 people. Neither
Carter
3:34
Neither were you. Don't make it sound so fucking judgmental.
SPEAKER_00
3:40
to a Queen's Jubilee Medal ceremony. No, you
SPEAKER_00
3:45
not. I did. I'm not kidding. To support a friend. Oh, my God. yeah because
SPEAKER_00
3:48
because i'm a good friend carter uh
SPEAKER_00
3:51
uh i brought i brought my baby even it was on a sunday and was
Corey
3:55
zayn's was that would be really upsetting it
SPEAKER_00
3:57
it was not it was not zayn's no no
SPEAKER_00
4:00
no it was not zayn's we
Carter
4:01
we didn't have to go to zayn's child's uh religious indoctrination on the weekend you you weren't invited but yeah how
SPEAKER_00
4:09
how did that go
Corey
4:11
they served tiny kit kats yeah
Carter
4:12
yeah it was cool and then did you get the uh the expensive chocolate on the way out no
Corey
4:16
no was that all gone yeah i think you just stole that from a wedding i may have
SPEAKER_00
4:22
did they wear matching outfits no
Corey
4:26
think no much better dressed than zane the baby the
Carter
4:29
baby looked great but the baby looked drunk drunk or drugged one
Carter
4:33
one of the two like i've never seen a baby's arms just hanging from its body the way that baby was i'm
Corey
4:38
i'm not remotely convinced it was the kid i think they brought a prop baby for the ceremony i
Carter
4:43
i i think it was the right kid I just think it was drugged. I think it was his kid, but just completely drugged. He didn't make a noise through
SPEAKER_00
4:52
Sounds like a good baby. Yeah, it's
Carter
4:54
it's a great community there. Great community. We had a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00
4:58
But you didn't go to his Queen's Ghibli medal ceremony?
Carter
5:02
No, didn't care. No.
Carter
5:04
Okay. I objected for... What was the reason that we came up with, Corey?
SPEAKER_00
5:10
Oh, you were invited. Yeah,
Corey
5:11
Yeah, we're Republicans. Republicans. No, we weren't invited,
Carter
5:13
invited, but we came up
Carter
5:14
reasons why we didn't go. You
SPEAKER_00
5:15
You wish you were. Okay.
SPEAKER_00
5:17
Good start. Okay. We're going to move into our first segment. It's a new segment I've created because I'm the host and I can do that. Yeah. It's called Update Roundup.
SPEAKER_00
5:30
And because I care about our audience, I'm just going to give like some little updates from some recent episodes. And you guys are going to just give me your reaction. Just like short and sweet. We don't need to dive deep. We have on previous episodes. But there's been lots of updates. So the first one we talked about, I
SPEAKER_00
5:51
think, a week ago. Where is Daniel Smith? It was a question that a listener had asked in the lightning round. Today, CTV has a story. Again, strategists ahead of the news cycle. CTV has a story. Daniel Smith was on a vacation. She was away for a week and a half. And they said she hasn't appeared publicly to take media questions since January 10th. when she had a press conference and she promised to be more accessible to journalists. So
SPEAKER_00
6:16
So just quickly, Corey, what's your reaction on this, taking vacation and not taking media questions?
Corey
6:23
To be fair, she didn't say Albertan journalists. So perhaps in Hawaii, they had great access wherever she was. Real
Carter
6:31
Could have been. Perfect. Carter,
Carter
6:32
Carter, your thoughts? I never begrudge politicians their vacations. I know that she'll be entering into a very challenging time with session and then a potential election afterwards so i don't have the oh how dare she go on vacation thing i just kind of i do think that saying that she's on vacation is okay and um i was kind of disappointed that they just didn't say oh yeah she's on vacation and she'll comment on this when she returns what
Corey
6:58
what yeah you don't second that like why go
Corey
7:01
go ahead cory why do they make it such a deep like secret oh i know politicians go on vacation It's the most ridiculous thing. She is now going to be going full out until the end of May, at least. Of
Corey
7:13
course she went on vacation. Of course she did it in January when it's quiet, relatively, in the legislature.
Corey
7:18
Why do people need to feel shame about this particular thing? Now, I get it during the pandemic when you're sneaking off in violation of public health guidelines. But when you are taking a vacation in relatively normal times, I don't understand. I'm with Stephen there. Why do
Corey
7:34
have to be so sneaky about it? Do
SPEAKER_00
7:36
Do you guys think when you are a politician like that and you take vacation, you should tell people where you were? And does it matter where you were?
Carter
7:47
You get to go on vacation. I don't tell people where I go. Go on vacation. you
Corey
7:50
you they're regular human beings literally do live podcasts of where you are when you're on vacation that's true
Corey
7:56
do that everyone knows
SPEAKER_00
7:57
knows ricardo is yeah yeah
SPEAKER_00
8:01
you don't know everyone about your mdos just
Carter
8:04
pop by just pop by take whatever you want the address okay we've all figured out that we're in a six block you know a 10 block radius so you know everybody can as As they're dropping in my house, they can drop by Corey's place too.
SPEAKER_00
8:18
Our next update, it just has to do with Danny Dollars, which people got. I don't know if you guys knew this, but January 31st, people got the money.
SPEAKER_00
8:29
I didn't see any headlines, not very much chatter. Some people got the money on January 31st. I think it depended when people applied.
Carter
8:35
applied. Ruth did not. Ruth did not get her
SPEAKER_00
8:37
her money. Ruth didn't get
Carter
8:41
Well, listen, it's been blamed on me. I'm not sure how that came around. But I've been doubling down on Heather to say, you know what, you know, you got to get your ass in gear and get this money for your mother. But Heather's
Carter
8:51
Heather's not responding particularly well to that message structure.
SPEAKER_00
8:55
Ruth needs that $100. She'll just get double in February and then it'll seem like a bigger deal, right?
Carter
9:01
Right, exactly. That's what you said.
SPEAKER_00
9:03
Yeah. Yeah. So just a quick update here that actually we found the folks in our strategist discord channel gave us this update, which is that on at least a few of the bank statements that came in, the writing was government of a is who it came from. Any, any thoughts there?
Carter
9:24
I mean, I think it's perfectly
Carter
9:26
perfectly for me. Government of assholes absolutely fits.
Corey
9:30
Jesus, come on. What
Carter
9:32
What did I do? I
Corey
9:32
I don't think people are going to be sitting there going, government of a what? Government of a what? How are they going to finish that sentence? I think people get it. Do you think they
SPEAKER_00
9:39
they know when it's $100, it's not that $600, it's $100, and then it says government of A?
SPEAKER_00
9:46
Why wouldn't it be like GVMT of Alberta or something? Put Alberta in there.
Carter
9:52
Well, you should be a communicator.
Corey
9:54
Certainly some optimization that was possible there, probably on the bank side. But, you know, unless you're, what, sitting in Acme, then you're going to be like, maybe this is from my municipal government. But otherwise, it's like, well, here I am in Canada. Canada doesn't start with an A. Here I am in Alberta. Oh, that does start with an A. I'm also in Calgary, and that does start with a C. So I guess by process of elimination, it must be government of Alberta. Like, I feel like people have the ability to do that. that i i wouldn't critical
Corey
10:23
i think that's a little overblown i think it's almost people looking for like an excuse that the government fucked this one up cory is actually that's such a big deal cory
Carter
10:30
cory has actually met our audience and still thinks that people are smart this is staggering to me it's
SPEAKER_00
10:37
moving on to the next one like
Corey
10:40
drive bys left and right you
Corey
10:42
started it by insulting the government and you ended it by insulting all our listeners that's nice and
SPEAKER_00
10:47
and the kicker is that my next update is a compliment to you carter it's that carter was right um so maybe i should just cut this i don't know no let's
Corey
10:55
let's just marinate in the fact that carter just said how stupid they were and that they agree with him that he's right yeah
SPEAKER_00
11:01
yeah actually that is just soaking
SPEAKER_00
11:03
um but this is the mike schreiner stuff a quick update um schreiner now says that he needs time to think about joining the liberals um i think i think carter called that can we agree on that yes
Carter
11:17
yes we can carter
Corey
11:18
carter did call that we
Carter
11:19
we we also discussed cory and i discussed how how upset you were that that was the situation and that's how the world was you
Carter
11:27
you were you were visibly upset by that
SPEAKER_00
11:29
that i was i should have known that that i know that that's how the world works i've worked in politics but you know you you it just feels so calculated and that's calculated
SPEAKER_00
11:40
i know that's i don't like that i'm upset about it still thanks for rubbing Rubbing it in. You were right. Great,
Carter
11:47
Great, great joy. We felt great joy that you suffered. So things are really working out on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
11:54
Just the last one, kids Tylenol. I think you guys have talked about this recently. And I have a kid who is sick a lot because he just started daycare. So it's relevant to me. But just the update here is, remember,
SPEAKER_00
12:09
remember, the feds were going to order all of this pain medication. And then at the same time, the UCP was like, hey, we're getting 5 million bottles from Turkey. And that was in early December. So there was an update from City News last week saying this shipment is getting closer to arriving. There's still labeling issues. Hold tight for a couple of weeks. It's not on shelves yet. So just, I guess, reaction here. And I'm curious if you think the province's strategy, like, did it work or did it backfire? When people go to the shelves and they see them full of kids Tylenol, are they like, sweet. thanks daniel smith like
Carter
12:42
no we we went through a whole pandemic of of production issues and supply issues and i don't think anybody's sitting around going oh thanks daniel for fixing things things go on the store shelves things come off the store shelves unless you get an actual letter from the government saying i've got a you know a thing of children's tylenol for you here you're never going to put two and two together i'd be shocked if people are going around and saying oh thanks danielle thanks for the basic pain medication uh for my child what what
SPEAKER_00
13:12
what was your strategy then like why did what was what was their thinking behind being like let's get five million bottles from turkey that's gonna take two months to get here i
Corey
13:20
i don't know i think it i think it works fine i think the the fact that people don't put a and b together necessarily is exactly why this works for the government this is just recapping what we talked about but people
Corey
13:31
people will remember there were shortages people will remember the government declared action and people will seashells become full and they will make like a causal assumption that does not exist and so even though they are stumbling with actually getting this product out and i would say from a policy point of view this was not a home run by the government you know you know the spirit was willing the intentions were good not
Corey
13:53
not not well done um nonetheless i think albertans will largely
Corey
13:59
because they are not so tuned into it they're largely just going to say like okay daniel smith said she was going to fix the problem and the problem is fixed. Ergo, Daniel Smith fixed the problem.
Carter
14:08
Oh, God. You're so wrong.
SPEAKER_00
14:10
Carter, you don't agree with that?
Carter
14:12
No, because it's the exact opposite. People aren't running around going, oh, Daniel Smith fixed the problem. Government gets blamed. Government doesn't get the solution. It's very rare when an actual problem is solved by government and then everybody's running around going, oh, thank goodness the government showed up to help us. You cynic.
Corey
14:30
No. No, listen. The only time people cared about this is when the shelves were empty empty exactly that's when they got blamed that's
Carter
14:37
that's when they got
Corey
14:38
got no that's when they didn't get the
Carter
14:40
solution that was when they got blamed all
Corey
14:42
all they heard was daniel smith's first action they did not hear the follow-through because at a certain point the problem became backburner just not as big of a deal carter
SPEAKER_00
14:51
carter what was it following your theory like what was there what was daniel getting daniel smith's head what was her thinking she saw it she
SPEAKER_00
15:00
she actually wanted to get medicine on shelves and it would come sooner than two months well
Carter
15:04
well no i mean it sure
Carter
15:07
sure i mean sure um she wanted to solve the problem that's not actually what her thinking was her thinking was is there a way to get me out of this pain point so i don't have to deal with this pain any longer in government and someone said well i think we could probably order you know five million package packages from turkey or something i heard that they have some and she went yes let's Let's do that. I don't like this pain anymore.
Carter
15:30
So it had very little, I think, to actually do with, you know, color
Carter
15:34
color me cynical, but I just don't believe that this was done because the general population was having difficulty finding pain
Carter
15:41
pain medication. I think this was done because they didn't want to have this particular nightmare to deal with as they were, you know, assuming the reins of power. though
Corey
15:51
though see i think this is a new government problem and obviously not everybody in our government's new but daniel smith came in daniel smith saw a problem and daniel smith said this should be easy to fix we'll just get medicine from somewhere else there was medicine somewhere else in the world and then all of the reality came crashing down upon the challenge like oh yeah you know what we actually need to worry about safety requirements here that are not everywhere in the world you've got to worry about these labels actually being readable you've got to make sure that these labels actually talk about things to a canadian standard and you
Corey
16:26
know i'm sure her first reaction was this is ridiculous let's just get it fixed and i'm sure her second third fourth fifth and sixth was shit this is a lot harder than i thought and this happens with new governments you see it all the time with new governments they think they come in there with such swagger they believe their own press they believe all they need is some common sense and some smart people and all of the walls will come down and they'll just be able to walk freely towards their goals, but it doesn't actually work like that. Government is full of smart people. And often when we run into problems, are they intractable? Not as often as the public service sometimes treats them, but they're usually a little trickier than politicians initially think they are as well.
Carter
17:04
But I don't think that your answer and my answer are mutually exclusive. I think in some ways you're reinforcing my position.
SPEAKER_00
17:15
We'll let the listeners weigh in on that one, Carter. Why? Why? We've Why are you doing this? Because this is my new segment and it's brief. I care about the listenership.
Carter
17:22
listenership. What is that?
Carter
17:23
You invite the listeners into this and then...
SPEAKER_00
17:25
You're going to be sorry.
SPEAKER_00
17:28
to be sorry. We're moving on to our next segment. Okay. Our
SPEAKER_00
17:30
Our next segment is called Political Walkbacks.
SPEAKER_00
17:34
This one is interesting to me.
SPEAKER_00
17:36
It's kind of an interesting intersection of politics and policy, and I want you two to weigh in. So stay tuned. So just super briefly, last week, we saw two walkbacks from the federal liberals. one involved amendments to the gun bill which basically removed the most controversial part of it um
SPEAKER_00
17:54
um amendments g4 and g46 would have outlawed currently legal rifles used daily by hunters and sport shooters um polyev is calling this a humiliating climb down and then the second one i'm putting it in this category because i want to chat about both i don't know maybe you might call it like a extension not a walk back um but it has to do with the the medically assistant uh the the maids sort of stuff. So the Trudeau government is delaying the expansion of medically assisted dying to people with mental illness as their only underlying condition, delaying that until 2024. The federal justice minister told reporters last week they need more time to get this right. So
SPEAKER_00
18:34
So two different issues here, very different issues. I want to acknowledge that. But I want to dive into this walkback aspect from the strategy perspective. So in one case, with a maid case it almost feels to me like you had policy that was written like years ahead of its time um and they're now dealing with the reality of that some could argue on the gun control stuff maybe it was written on the fly and they're now realizing there was issues that weren't intended um but cory let's start with you from from that strategy perspective like let's dive into walkbacks are they good are they bad are you only allowed a certain number does this show that people writing this legislation are humans and they make mistakes?
Corey
19:15
You have an unlimited number of walkbacks, but you have a certain amount of time.
Corey
19:21
How can I put this? You have a certain amount of time that you can hold on to a position and then be forced to walk back. So like, you're better to fail fast is what I'm trying to say. Like if you're the government that's holding on doggedly in four month stretches and then retreating, you're not going to be government very long. And you're certainly not going to be an effective government but you can fail fast as often as you want if it's like one week oh this is going bad let's get out of here second week oh this different thing's going bad let's get out of here that's okay and government should be more willing to to walk away from the policies that are deeply unpopular something i always tell crisis communications clients and you know even corporate masters is like do not spend two weeks defending the indefensible there's this thing that happens everywhere it's not just in politics it happens in boardrooms across the nation it's just like i said it's it's human nature stuff where you
Corey
20:13
you come under attack for something and your first instinct is defend defend defend no no no i wasn't wrong to do this here's the 12 reasons why i was actually correct and
Corey
20:22
and you really need to sit there and say does
Corey
20:25
does that pass any kind of reasonable person test would an external viewer see this as me acting reasonably and you've got to put your ego aside and you've got to determine whether a you were actually maybe in the wrong which i think is perhaps more so the case with the medically assisted dying i've got thoughts on that and and then b like even if you don't think you're in the wrong is this a thing that you're just never going to win on and is it going to become a distraction from the things that you actually want to do that will actually have value which i think is more the gun climb down one so i
Corey
20:54
i you know i i think both showed a certain maturity a government seven years in understanding they don't need to win every battle.
Corey
21:03
I don't agree with Pierre Polyev that this is humiliating in any way, shape or form. I think it's smart. And I think it's frankly, relatively mature considering the baseline I start with when I look at politics. Yeah.
Carter
21:17
that the made decision is smart. I mean, keep in mind that this whole made situation kind of comes from a court decision and has been been reluctant has been thrust onto a reluctant government uh trying to find a way of on let's just say exceptionally difficult circumstances um you know i we had a friend of ours uh take you know die as a result of actions with the made decisions and and boy you know it's tough he had early onset alzheimer's um and frankly i'm just really thankful that made enabled that decision decision um for him right it doesn't need to be everybody's decision it doesn't need to be but for him i'm happy that it did and for people who are suffering from extreme mental illness and and want options um i
Carter
22:06
i hope that they come up with something that makes sense however that's really freaking hard i don't think that you know any room of 20 qualified experts is going to come up with a unanimous decision on how this thing makes act you know how this makes perfect sense because it's It's just a very, very complex issue. And I think that the MAID decision was backed away from relatively quickly for more consultation.
Carter
22:29
I do think that the gun control back away was a mistake. I think that that's the one that they hung on to for just far too long. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. And not only that, this is something that we saw with the NDP and their defense of the just transition, right? The people were out front. The people were defending where the government was, and then the government took them out at the legs. And that's one of the critiques that Corey had on the just transition messaging from the NDP. It was right. Again, don't like admitting that, but it was a right critique. And I think that that's also the critique now of this backing down on the gun legislation. You've had those people out there for four months on the power and politics and the, you know, the, the, the, the, the punditry shows and on Twitter and everybody's been defending, well, it's not as far as you think it is. And it should be, you know, we should have control of these guns and blah, blah, blah. And now all of a sudden the, the government has backed away from it and it has taken the legs right out from its most vocal proponents. It may have been the right decision, but if it was the right decision, then it was probably the right decision three weeks ago or three months ago, not the right decision today. and it isn't pierre pauliev's humiliating defeat or anything along those lines he's probably most pissed that he doesn't have that as an election issue that he can bang on um now it's gone i mean he's still gonna bang on it but maybe the government comes up with a better solution
Corey
23:59
yeah you know the big difference steven and i agree with you they should have if they were gonna get here again you don't want to be dragged kicking and screaming to the inevitable conclusion fail fast right the
Corey
24:09
big difference though is it is 2023 it is february of 2023 and they've got some time they
Corey
24:16
they do and that was not the case with the ndp and their particular actions no
Carter
24:21
no but it's the same kind of disease and i think the way you describe i
Carter
24:25
this is the way you described it as kind of a as a disease or as something where you know we fall into this defense of uh this is part of the problem with punditry you know we like to think of ourselves as uh you you know, several degrees better than any pundits.
Carter
24:43
But that's because we're trying to look at why something is happening, as opposed to just simply defending every action of the government. And this is one of the places where you really see that weakness, right? Where you see that, you know, we were out there defending the government and we were pundituring as hard as we could, and now the government has gone and reversed themselves. And now I have to go
Corey
25:03
go out and say
Carter
25:04
say how great this is, right?
SPEAKER_00
25:06
On that why question, though, is there, I
SPEAKER_00
25:10
I mean, do you look at like when we change this, here are the voters that might come our way and like that, well, you know, Polya is going to slam us right now for the walk back. But if we keep this, he's going to continue slamming us for months. Like chat through that kind of why on a decision like this where, you know, timing aside when you're doing the walk back.
Carter
25:30
I think it depends on why you're walking it back. Are you walking it back because it's politically unpopular? Are you walking it back because you found that there's actually a problem within your legislation? Made you're walking back because there's a problem within the legislation. It is a difficult, complex problem. And I think that they are walking back the gun decision because it's politically unpopular. So those are two different motivations. And I think that the politically unpopular, you
Carter
25:55
know, that decision should have been managed differently. In a perfect world, it would be managed much differently. The
Corey
26:02
The guns one is interesting to me, and it's probably worth digging into more in polling and trying to figure this out. But liberals will always tell you something like 80% of Canadians support gun legislation. And some variant of that was a talking point for a long time, right? As though that was in its own right enough. off but it reminds me a lot of um new coke so new coke was a product brought in to replace old coke in the 80s because um people liked pepsi more pepsi was winning that taste test challenge the original taste test challenge was coming out and there's a couple of reasons why that was the case one of them is that pepsi is sweeter so if you're only having a little bit of it maybe you do like it more coke fans will say that they like coke more because it's not as sweet it's not as cloying long-term, but that's not here nor there. The point is Coke said, we're going to have to change up this very old formula. And so they created just Coke. We call it new Coke now with this new formulation and they brought it to focus groups. And most people were like, yeah, it's fine. And there was always one or two people in the focus group who just railed against it and talked about how awful it was. And they absolutely hated it. And they would over time poison the entire focus group against the
Corey
27:13
the formula. And what famously happened at the time is the people running the focus groups told the brass at Coca-Cola, don't worry about it. It was only one or two people in each focus group. It's not a big deal. Now, the reason why this is a notorious story in focus group stories is because it actually was quite reflective of what happened in the real world. Most people don't give a shit about colas, right? They don't sit there and care about the formulation of them. And the one person who does, because you do not give a shit, you're like, hey man, whatever. I dust my hands of this. I guess you're right. I'm not going to sit here and fight with you about whether this is the right formulation for coke and notoriously what happened was population
Corey
27:51
population turned against the new coke formula and they had to go back and that's why it says coca-cola classic on your bottles of coke now and that was at the end like an accidental marketing coup but the thing about guns is this most
Corey
28:04
most of us do not think about guns at all you know at all all in so far as we think about them we worry about handguns we worry about assault rifles we We worry about guns in an urban context that might be used against us. We're certainly not thinking about long guns. But one in five Canadian households have a gun in them, right? There are a lot of gun owners in this country, and they were pissed about it. They
Corey
28:27
They were pissed, they were ready, they were activated, and the rest of us didn't care. So in a way, the Liberals sort of landed on this thing for the oldest reason in the books. Salience, right? It was an issue where if you just voted it on popularity, people didn't like guns. But if you thought about it in terms of salience, how much the issue mattered to that one-fifth of Canadians, big
Corey
28:48
big fucking deal. And nobody wants to deal with one-fifth of Canadians yelling at you on an issue that the other four-fifths of Canadians don't actually care that much about. That
SPEAKER_00
28:57
was well explained, Corey. Thank you for such
SPEAKER_00
29:00
such a coherent explanation that made a lot of sense and had like an engaging story. And then you related it really well and you tied it together. Thanks for that. okay
Carter
29:11
just an ad just adding because you know you haven't praised me on my storytelling but if there's corporations out there that want to learn about what we call an inoculation strategy to avoid that you can call me at decide campaigns uh and i will answer your calling and you can pay me money for the inoculation nice
SPEAKER_00
29:29
nice nice plug there yeah
SPEAKER_00
29:31
yeah very good there carter yeah
Carter
29:34
wants to retire which sounds weird so i'm gonna have to make some money which also sounds weird in
SPEAKER_00
29:41
um while we're while we're talking about this federal stuff um just a little a little
SPEAKER_00
29:47
little segue because i think we've dived into the walk box um but cory i know you really want to chat about this and you just explained things so well so i'm gonna like hand you this softball here what the fuck happened
Carter
29:59
happened with you two that's
SPEAKER_00
30:00
that's well carter at At the beginning of the episodes, when your computer doesn't work, we've got some time to chat before you hop on and start recording. What
SPEAKER_00
30:10
What do you think we do for those four minutes? I assume
Carter
30:13
assume you're talking about how much you miss me. I mean, this is...
SPEAKER_00
30:18
So, Corey, I know you want to talk about this line that Polyev has been using. Canada is broken. broken um there
SPEAKER_00
30:26
there was national polling today that showed apparently most canadian surveyed agree canada is broken you've got some some thoughts um tell us your thoughts on canada is broken
Corey
30:40
well and there may be not what listeners are expecting i think it's a brilliant calm strategy by pierre poliev he has managed to really and so i did a bit of this on twitter too too, we often talk about ballot questions. And obviously, we're not in an election right now. But this is a great example of somebody defining the entire focus of the conversation rather than trying to win the conversation. There is no way, as long as we are all debating whether Canada is broken or not, for Justin Trudeau to win. At absolute best, at absolute best, Justin Trudeau, if he could convince 100% of people who are like, wait, is Canada broken, that it wasn't, he's managed to convince them that's not broken which is not a reason to vote for him it's just you know it's it's like it's the it's the lamest victory humanly possible and so i i gotta give him top marks this is pretty remarkable how he's got everybody in the pundit class debating whether our country is broken that's incredible and and there's just very little ability for government to win on that turf because anything that goes wrong becomes a proof point that canada is broken The liberals that I see writing tweet threads and long-form opinion pieces about this and why Canada is not broken,
Corey
31:55
I wonder if they know what they're doing. I wonder if they appreciate exactly how much they are playing into the Pierre Poliev game. it reminds me so much of a more polished it's a more polished version of donald trump in 2016 you know make america great again we laughed about it we chuckled about it but that that had some stopping power because we could sit and we could think about it and if you're an american and the idea is great or not great you
Corey
32:22
you know do we want to be great or do we not want to be great that's an amazing amazing
Corey
32:26
amazing frame uh for somebody who's railing from the outside similarly the
Corey
32:31
the idea that that the country is broken and needs to be fixed is an amazing frame, but the debate around it is amazing for
Corey
32:37
for a opposition leader like Peter Polyev. And I think that's why you're seeing he is currently leading in the polls more than any conservative leader
Corey
32:45
leader and conservative parties led over the liberals since 2015. What
SPEAKER_00
32:48
What about, what about the timing here? And I saw some kind of feedback to what you put out there. People saying, yeah, but the federal election isn't for a year. No one cares.
SPEAKER_00
32:56
Speak, speak to that. Well,
Carter
32:58
Well, can I jump in on that? I mean, When you preset something this strong and you preset that it is broken, and let's be clear, there's three of us on this podcast. Each of us could have very different reasons for why it's broken, including one of us could be saying, yeah, it's broken and that's why we have to keep the conservatives away. way. But the premise
Carter
33:19
premise that Canada is broken will set and become the default position if the liberals don't find some way of breaking this down and stopping this from being the default discussion point. When you're successful in setting these questions, you don't have to set it within a four-week rip period or a five-week rip period.
Carter
33:41
You can set it well in advance. I mean, one of of my most successful questions that i ever set was would you rather have the right honorable joe clark or what's his name and once you set that positioning it doesn't matter if it's six weeks in advance six months in advance who is what's his name if he spends the next six months answering the question have you heard my name he is in fact reinforcing my primary problem trudeau needs to find a way to get past this this is a place where the channel needs to be changed and it needs to to be changed right now and this has always been what we've characterized as one of the big the big weaknesses of uh this liberal government is the inability to
Carter
34:24
recognize that something's a problem and then to be get past it with a uh with a really resolute channel changer and i just don't think they have it in them right now so
Corey
34:36
so there's i agree like there's two reasons in my mind
Corey
34:40
mind one of of them is basically steven's reason but i want to expand on it when i hear the comment it's so far to an election that's that's shorthand to me too because the second half of that thought is and nobody's paying attention right it's so far to an election and nobody's paying attention but as you pointed out we have polling that shows this is actually landing with canadians canadians are starting to feel like this country is broken listen it's
Corey
35:03
it's been a wild fucking ride in the past few years it's not a crazy thing that canadians would be really kind of in
Corey
35:10
in sorts about covid 19 and inflation and you know trucker convoys and you know this sense that alberta has gone lawless and quebec has gone lawless and it's january that this country is not working what
SPEAKER_00
35:21
stood out to me with the polling i just read one brief story about it was that it's um it was women and young people who had the highest answers in terms of canada is broken which speaks to your point if you know maybe some of those people are saying well canada is broken because of
SPEAKER_00
35:38
of the trucker freedom stuff whereas people in the trucker freedom stuff are saying canada is broken yeah
Corey
35:44
yeah but ultimately if your your thesis is canada is broken and you buy into it as a canadian that's not helpful to the trudeau government so you know it's so far from election only matters in if you're bringing up issues that are you know most people are not going to be paying attention to of course you think about half-life of course you think about the fact fact that these you know natural natural stories that pop up like if if an issue of the day came up right now i guess i'm saying at least i would say yeah it's so far to an election who cares but that's not what this is this is a field testing of a narrative that the conservatives are clearly going to use and they're going to use every issue of the day as a proof point and what we're seeing so far is that the uh the liberals don't have sort of any answer to it and that leads me to my second second reason why I think it matters now, which is, it is showing us something
Corey
36:32
something about the liberals and something about the conservatives. And it is that the conservatives are much more adroit at setting the table on these matters at this particular moment. So when I think about all of that,
Corey
36:44
know, I don't wave my hand away at this, like, it's telling us something about the next election. Does it mean everything? God, no, of course not. We don't even know when the next election is but it sure means more than nothing like we're learning about the parties and something is being established in canadians brains so
SPEAKER_00
37:00
so carter how do you let's say you're advising the liberals and this
SPEAKER_00
37:04
this is on the radar this is a big issue we can't keep going down this road um how do you counter this what's what's the strategy to to shift it well
Carter
37:13
well the strategy is don't counter it per se like you don't go out there and say this is this is why we're not why we don't suck you you cannot accept the premise of the statement. So you have to be able to change the channel or change the question. And when the liberals were successful with this, they changed it to childcare or they changed it to dental
Carter
37:38
dental care, right? Or they were able to change it to issues that mattered to Canadians. And when they are successful in doing that, then they are well on their way to good things. When they are unsuccessful in doing that, that's when things really can turn negative on them so my thinking would be how do we change this channel to something that we can win on what is the thing that canadians are going to be listening to or looking for from us right now and that's going to be i think in the uh you
Carter
38:08
you know in the in the budget and in the uh in the in the spring legislative session i wouldn't worry too too much about it right now but if when the budget comes in the spring legislative session recession happens people are still talking about this
Carter
38:22
this you know the country is broken then you've got a bigger issue and i honestly do believe it will improve with the weather
Carter
38:30
when it is cold when you're through you know this is a daunting time in canadians lives every year and then spring arrives and we get happier so this may not have the resonance when when the liberals are bringing the spring springtime uh legislation in cory
SPEAKER_00
38:47
cory do you agree with carter's point that just kind of hold tight or does it does it have legs and it runs
Corey
38:54
well i don't think hope is much of a plan i think they need a little bit more than that oh my god
Carter
38:59
god what a simplification oh my god did you actually oh once
Corey
39:03
the weather gets nice everybody will be in a better mood oh
Corey
39:09
i think that ultimately they do need to change the frame right and if they're having a problem talking about canada
Corey
39:19
you know idealized version of canada that has never really existed right just this is the same problem that happened in 2016 for the americans maybe there does need to be a frame change you know canada is resilient canada is a beacon to the world canada tops freedom indexes tops quality of life indexes there is no better place to be than canada you know it's not it's not canada's broken canada is an envious place to be and and we've got to protect it and build it and we never rest on our laurels and there's probably more there than the liberals are giving a credit for because they do seem to be playing a lot of defense right now and a lot of evidence of that is in this coming out of their cabinet retreat caucus retreat this idea that they're they had almost this mini slogan logan of meet the moment i've been dying to talk to you guys about this tell
SPEAKER_00
40:02
tell us so meet the
Corey
40:04
the moment the idea of meeting the moment first of all the moment implies that it's this bad moment like things are happening here but what
Corey
40:12
what is the moment what who is meeting the moment are we talking about them meeting their negative popularity are we talking about canadians meeting a broken canada i don't think that either is super helpful to them i don't i don't understand what they're doing and i'm i i want to know if
Corey
40:28
if either of you knows what the hell they're doing on this front meet
Carter
40:31
meet the moment just sounds like one of those things that someone came up with in a room and they thought oh that's really great this is the moment and you know they they use marketing slogans like they're trying to sell you know a bottle of jolt cola or something like that i've never understood yeah jolt jolt cola annalise if you're wondering is an old caffeinated beverage back before there was red bull uh i know
SPEAKER_00
40:55
know what it is yeah
Carter
40:58
saw it in a museum
Corey
40:58
museum saw it on like a retro show
Carter
41:08
does that apply to me right
Carter
41:10
right we have talked about this a thousand times put the audience in the center of the story meeting the moment moment like i met the moment in the pandemic i would like the moments to fucking end thank you i would like to actually savor the fucking moment you know this meeting the moment shit is just it's over for me but
SPEAKER_00
41:30
but like how do how do slogans like that like is that just because you're so in your bubble and you're all patting each other on the back and you're like this i got a story about this like what like here we go at what point does
SPEAKER_00
41:42
does no one say before they go public with that like Like, this is a shit slogan. Let's not do this.
Corey
41:48
They might have. So, okay, I can't get past who is meeting what moment. But let me tell you a story about my time in government here.
Corey
41:59
And it goes back to 2016, 2017. And there was, you
Corey
42:04
know, this was the Alberta government. And there was, you know, popularity
Corey
42:09
popularity had dipped a fair bit. You know, government approval was on the wrong track for sure. this was just when the carbon tax was introduced it was the moment of maximum anxiety people didn't know whether it was going to bankrupt them or what certainly the opposition was suggesting that it would be this massive financial hit you'll remember all the theatrics of people going you know filling up gas tanks before december 31st rolled into january 1st absolutely stupid shit right um and there was this moment where uh you know there was a conscious refocusing of government towards things that were much more meat and potatoes for Albertans. And it was sort of encapsulated in this idea, this idea that people needed, you know, the government needed to work to make life better for Albertans, like that had to be the focus. And it was literally like words on a slide. It was kind of this joint, you know, it was post kind of political direction, okay, now how would the public service sort of make this into a mantra? And like, it was like, Like, this is the concept. This is the concept we're going towards, right? And then, but never meant to be a slogan. And then all of a sudden, you know, when it came time for us to sort of be putting bundlings together and pitching slogans to the political people for like government, you know, lecterns and things like this. You might even remember these Annalise said like working. There were
Corey
43:30
were a lot of proposals and the chief of staff at the time said, well, I thought we agreed it was working to make life better.
Corey
43:36
It was like, no, we didn't. We agreed that was the general sentiment we were going towards, but we didn't agree that these were the words. But ultimately, the chief of staff has that power to sort of make that the thing. And then it became working to make life better. And it was a total accident. I mean, it was ultimately the
Corey
43:54
the sentiment they were going for, but it lacked poetry. poetry and sometimes that's what happens sometimes somebody just has words up on a slide and they resonate with the people in the room which is where i go back to like who was meeting what moment like it did it resonate with you because you're like yeah we gotta step up we gotta be the people who turn this around and get re-elected or
Corey
44:14
or were you actually thinking about your audience of canadians because i have trouble thinking about the second one and having it make any sense but it has resonance in the room with deciders and then deciders make it so and
Corey
44:24
and and it's the story as old as time like there for every bad slogan out there i guarantee you there are two
Corey
44:31
two dozen brand experts who are so fucking frustrated because they absolutely knew it was not a very good idea yeah
Corey
44:37
but ultimately the brand experts don't often get to make that call when
SPEAKER_00
44:41
when we saw with the making life alberta going into the election the provincial one it was jobs pipeline economy on certain podiums and making life better on um on others right that's a big contrast
Carter
44:56
I mean, I'd actually rejected slogans, you know, I just because, you know, Joe Clark slogan was honesty, integrity and trust. I mean, like, fuck, man, like, that doesn't mean anything. Like, what does that even mean? So the slogan, I think that I've come to appreciate the slogan a little bit more, especially after my time in Surrey, because I needed a soundbite that would put the idea into people's heads of what they were going to get, what it is that they were going to get by choosing the candidate I was pushing. And I think that that's where we got off track. We get these kind of aspirational sentences. You know, this is what I think I want. You know, this is, you know, but I want health care tomorrow. Right. I want health care right now. I want to take my kid to the fucking doctor and have the doctor see my fucking kid. Right. That's a pretty good one. Take the kid to the fucking doctor. That's really on brand with Rachel. She would actually fit
SPEAKER_00
45:48
fit on the podium. Yeah, but
Carter
45:52
isn't what we wind up with. Instead, we wind up creating these stupid words that don't mean anything. And that's where I think the problem or where the brilliance of Polyev's slogan is really working. Canada is broken. I know where I fit in that story. I don't want to be in that story, but I am in that story, right? right? Because I
Carter
46:17
I still haven't got my life back after the pandemic. And
Carter
46:20
And I'd like it back, please.
Corey
46:22
Yeah, so well put. And the thing about, I think slogans get a bad rap because there are a lot of bad slogans. But one of the problems that there is, I think, in politics in particular, but everywhere is people confuse positioning statements, they confuse brand position more generally with a slogan, right? And quite often, they also confuse values with a slogan, and they they will make some pretty basic values. A slogan about integrity, by the way, that is so classic insider thinking because you assume that everybody sees you as being the one with integrity and your opponent as being the one without integrity. You
Carter
46:58
You know what slogan actually worked when we finally unveiled it?
Carter
47:02
Joe Clark, not just another pretty face. That one worked because we were contrasting with Stockwell Day.
Corey
47:10
Well, so let's get to what a good slogan actually
SPEAKER_00
47:11
actually is. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is do you have examples? And I mean, you talked about the make America great
SPEAKER_00
47:17
great and this Canada is broken. Like what are kind of good examples of political slogans?
Corey
47:26
let's start with corporate. Let's start with corporate.
Corey
47:29
Like a slogan is supposed to be like a mnemonic that evokes a brand promise, right? So you'd have like, I think it's united as like fly the friendly skies, right? So that suggests a certain type of experience you're going to have while you're on the airplane. plain uh apple famously in the 90s was think different right and even that it's grammatically would be think differently and so it's almost like an inside it's like a joke within the joke there right where they they're willing to act differently by acting different and it tells you something about them in an economy of words and it evokes something that's what a slogan does but evoking is the important part there where i think a lot of slogans fall down is they either forget the economy of words and then you end up with a total mouthful and it's like this big positioning statement or it evokes nothing like some of the examples that steven's given here and
Corey
48:21
and and so the reality is donald trump was very good at this make america great again was a really good slogan the idea of uh of uh making everything about the economy was a really good kind of internal position that they had on the uh on the bill clinton campaign but it's not it's not something that um that
Corey
48:45
that politicians generally have a lot of success with i would actually say the liberals in 2015 real
Corey
48:51
real change was not a bad slogan because it it spoke to like a brand or market position that they wanted to have you know so yes there was change that was coming from the uh ndp you got gotta keep in mind it was a three-way race but they were offering the liberals i mean they walked away from so much of it so quickly those those guys you're
Corey
49:12
you're still a whole new generation of cynics here
Carter
49:15
takes us all the way back to 2015 and you're still bitter i
Corey
49:19
believe it's gonna be the last election under first past the post you know we were gonna bring in all these syrian refugees we're gonna change everything about how we ran our country right
Corey
49:26
right it was real change that's what they describe themselves as and that's not a bad slogan in my opinion what
SPEAKER_00
49:33
what about um provincially like we're going into a provincial election in the next couple months um do you have any advice for the ucp or the ndp on slogans yes
Corey
49:44
yes start with market position first like if you don't know your market position you're wasting your time jumping right to slogan like what do you actually want to be relative to your competitors in in this competitive marketplace that is ucp versus ndp what's the space you're carving out here and so let's just say it is um for the ucp and i'm not going to come up with poetry on the spot but kind of directionally where it is right let's just say it's the thing that steven was talking about a few weeks ago and it's the economy it's all about the economy yeah
Corey
50:14
then it's you know uh
Corey
50:16
uh you know then the slogan becomes something like prosperity that propels right and then like this the the thing underneath is like Like, that's what allows us to pay for all of these programs that we want to do. Right?
Corey
50:27
Right? Now, say if you're the NDP and
Corey
50:29
and you want it to be about...
Carter
50:31
I want to do the NDP. Yeah, you go for it. You do the
Carter
50:33
Because the NDP... The prosperity that
SPEAKER_00
50:35
that propels on one podium what's on your NDP podium. Yeah,
Carter
50:38
Yeah, I mean, we're going to continue with the alliteration theme and go with families first.
Carter
50:41
We're going to put your family first. We're going to put your families first in health care. We're going to put your families first in education. We're going to put your families first in the economy. Right? And you can propel what is the central difference between these two different organizations. One is about the economic engine that is Alberta, and one is about the people who make up that economic engine. And you can play with both of those. You know, these are, you
Carter
51:07
know, those are off the top of our head. But what's most important is that those are the actual brand structures or brand positions of who they have to appeal to. they have to appeal to their core audience and it has to make sense to them they have to understand where they fit within it and that's where the you know economy for the for the ucp and families for the ndp just make sense i think you'd you'd want something
Carter
51:33
something more you know poetic to be sure but um
Carter
51:37
you can go with that those are good starting points let's
SPEAKER_00
51:40
let's uh just lastly and then we can move move on let's rate each other's cory what do you what do you think of families first uh
Corey
51:47
uh d minus really trite been used by so many people but also more importantly i actually don't think that's what their positioning statement i don't think that's what their position will be yeah
Corey
51:56
yeah no i think it's much more about stability yeah
Carter
52:00
mean cory uh falling for alliteration like the way he did and just kind of creating this you know idea for the nd for the ucpa first of all i think he should should be shot for giving them anything positive um and secondly uh it's just not very good what's
SPEAKER_00
52:16
what's your what's your letter grade i
Carter
52:19
don't have to give a fucking letter grade have you not listened to the podcast before what is this what's your letter grade thanks for listening
SPEAKER_00
52:25
on a d minus carter um
Carter
52:28
there's a cory and i core
Carter
52:31
core i can't believe we're still doing this podcast after After all these years.
Carter
52:40
fucking Corey Hogan time.
SPEAKER_00
52:42
Corey, did you want to give us your NDP positioning and slogan or we're moving on?
Carter
52:47
think we should move
Carter
52:47
move on. I mean, it's not going to be any
Corey
52:48
any better. Yeah, they got to rope in stability. He knows
Corey
52:51
knows that he can't do it.
Carter
52:51
it. He knows he can't come up with anything better than lying. You know
Corey
52:54
know what? I'll just drop it at the end. That's what I'll
SPEAKER_00
52:59
Okay. Do you want to talk about Calgary next or do you want to move into the lightning round? what
Carter
53:04
what do you want to do you're the host we don't get any i
SPEAKER_00
53:06
i know i'm the host i
SPEAKER_00
53:08
know okay let's talk briefly about calgary this is
Corey
53:13
is great you're becoming zane slowly your questions have
Carter
53:17
lasted longer today than they ever have she has gotten six of the podcast in today she'll
Carter
53:24
up to uh she'll be up to a third you know it's gonna happen uh
SPEAKER_00
53:28
uh i did get recognized today for my voice on the strategist carter so it's just going to my head and uh it's gonna keep going listen i told
Carter
53:36
told you this would happen and you didn't believe us you were like no one listens to this shit i don't even know why it's
SPEAKER_00
53:44
it's true that is exactly how our conversation went um
SPEAKER_00
53:50
okay let's just chat briefly uh the question here maybe the segment is called are we really still talking about calgary Next.
SPEAKER_00
53:58
Long story short, I'm just going to set this up because you have informed me lots of our listeners don't live in Calgary and I care about our listeners.
SPEAKER_00
54:09
So negotiations continue for a new event center in Calgary. These have been happening for years. There was this plan for a mega hybrid arena stadium field house complex in the West Village that was known as is Calgary next? I was a City Hall reporter, actually, when a lot of that chatter was happening around 2017.
SPEAKER_00
54:30
That died. And then there was a deal for an arena in Victoria Park.
SPEAKER_00
54:36
That also died. And then the city recently launched this new event center committee. And Daniel Smith is now premier and seems to be more keen on the idea of subsidizing billionaires and um other people that we've had previously um so in terms of what's new there was a meeting today monday among the new event center committee and basically one of the things reporters picked up on after the scrums when the meeting was done i
SPEAKER_00
55:03
i think the meeting was behind closed doors um was that the committee is looking at all possible options when it comes to location um so just briefly again for those like not following this or from calgary there's a long list of reasons why Calgary next was a bad idea from what I remember reporting this story at the time um
SPEAKER_00
55:22
um the number one reason is that the land is contaminated by creosote also
SPEAKER_00
55:27
also like the number two three four five six reason like the land is yeah
SPEAKER_00
55:31
it's really really uh yeah it's quite
SPEAKER_00
55:35
I can't tell you how many stories I wrote about how contaminated this land is and then another reason is um that
SPEAKER_00
55:42
that that the cost balloons to nearly $2 billion. That was in 2017, and taxpayers would have been on the hook for two-thirds. So, Carter, I know you've got some thoughts here. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00
55:56
But what do you think? Should we revive Calgary next?
Carter
56:00
No, it's a dumb idea, Annalise. Thanks for asking. First of all, let me just say I don't think that the worst idea or the reason for not doing it is actually the creosote. I mean, obviously the creosote's a problem, But one could argue that using a giant public works project to clean up the creosote might actually be good for Calgary, just throwing it out there. But the challenge is we have a number of areas that are currently under redevelopment. We have the East Village, we have the Rivers District, where we were planning to put the arena in the first place, or in the second place, I guess. We also have the west end of downtown and the entire downtown, which has currently got a 30% occupancy, or vacancy, because no one's working in these places anymore. more. All of which to say, there's a lot of problems that you need to solve before you start going up and figuring out the next problem, which is trying to put in an arena in a place that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a whole lot of economic reasons. To me, this is a,
Carter
57:06
Danielle Smith also has no business being in this discussion. This is not a provincial issue. The province wasn't involved when we built the Oilers' new facility. That was built by the city of Edmonton. The deal was done by Edmonton. All the province did was allow our MSI funding to be used for the arena. That was it. That funding is really up to the municipality how to allocate. We removed some restrictions and that was it. Why on earth is Rick McIver even sitting on this committee? Why would you see the province of Alberta dropping in people? This is one of those things that you should watch for regardless of where you live. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, wherever you live, when you're watching the provincial government taking on municipal responsibilities, it's because something is happening there that's not necessarily a good thing. We're seeing it in the Greenbelt in Ontario, where all of a sudden, Doug Ford is mandating new housing construction. And we're seeing it here in this arena deal, where Danielle Smith seems to be pushing for a solution that the municipal leaders had rejected for all kinds of valid reasons this is a huge overstep by this provincial government and it doesn't make any sense at all unless the province is bringing their fucking checkbook well
SPEAKER_00
58:21
well does it not make sense if the province has made promises to certain
Carter
58:27
well sure but even then the province doesn't get to tell the city how to make a decision the only reason that the city would make a decision like this that would that would favor the billionaires as you eloquently put it it in your opening would be because the province is choosing to fund parts of it um because otherwise the city's not going to say well we're not going to you know we'll be on the hook for whatever whatever promises you made to murray edwards uh danielle it sounds like a great idea how can we pony up uh billions of dollars for for your for your political promises that's not the way that it works at city hall and
SPEAKER_00
59:02
and just one more question for you there carter does moving it like Like moving it away from Victoria Park, and
SPEAKER_00
59:10
you would probably know this better than I because I haven't paid super tons of attention to the Green Line stuff. Does that not essentially really harm the Green Line?
Carter
59:18
Well, the Green Line makes sense not for sporting events, but it makes sense for the city. The Green Line and better transit is just a good idea for the city writ large. What happens, though, is the Green Line passes within two or three blocks of the new event center location and the red line which is the north south line also passes within two or three blocks and the um the other line the blue line which is the east west uh lrt is within one stop of the event center um so you have a integrated transit solution to uh for the city of calgary and a large you know a large public gathering space which would be the arena arena um there is no such support none at all um that
Carter
1:00:06
that we have a stage a station that was built for a residential uh out in in sinaloa that would be overrun in seconds if we put something this large uh near it so it just it doesn't make any sense at all this is a uh a stupid idea we're
Corey
1:00:22
we're a podcast that once talked about a dairy queen for an hour so i can appreciate a good deep dive but But these
Corey
1:00:29
these five minutes, we've become the sprawl cast. I do realize that maybe
Corey
1:00:35
should focus on the politics of this, Stephen. And I'll tell you, you were all into like, can the station allow this? Can the station not allow this? That's not the province's interest in this, not a bit.
SPEAKER_00
1:00:46
bit. Well, it also wasn't my question, Carter. My question was like, don't we have a premier who wants to kill the Green Line? And by moving this out of the place where it's supposed to be, that would help kill the Green Line?
Carter
1:00:57
It can't kill the Green Line. it's the green line stuck the
SPEAKER_00
1:01:00
the green line can be kills yeah
Carter
1:01:02
yeah okay well i mean anything can be but it would it's impossible now really quite
Corey
1:01:07
quite just empty fate now yeah
Corey
1:01:09
yeah i know tell
Carter
1:01:11
me about the politics mr happy tell me about the tell me what she's aiming for then like
Corey
1:01:15
like i don't know i don't i don't think that i whether it makes sense doesn't make sense that's almost immaterial there's
Corey
1:01:22
there's a simple reality that the nhl is really good at pulling the strings of sports fans particularly particularly around this time of year and threatening people with the notion that their franchise is not going to be there anymore. You've got down in Glendale, not Glendale anymore. I can't remember which of the suburban areas now is
Corey
1:01:40
is ponying up $2.1 billion potentially for the Phoenix Coyotes to get a new arena for the love of God, right? If you can get $2.1 billion out of the good people of Phoenix, I think that, you know, when you start talking about hockey, crazy calgarians you start to see where the politics come at play here i don't even think daniel smith cares if there's a solution per se she wants to look like she is the the broker who made it happen except our
Corey
1:02:04
our numbers willing to pay a little bit of money for that except
Carter
1:02:07
except our numbers don't support that it
Carter
1:02:09
it turns out that calgarians don't want to support this club in that fashion they want this they want the flames they do not want to pay for the arena they don't understand why they need to pay for the arena when they're paying for their tickets and that's okay that's that polling is super strong it's been consistent for about four and a half years and it's not going anywhere and every time someone tries to dip their toe into this they wind up getting hurt because the arena does not you know it pulls well with a small group of people but they don't have the rest of us don't give a shit yeah
Corey
1:02:41
yeah no doubt that's true municipally but
Corey
1:02:44
but when you start thinking about provincial money it starts to feel like it's not necessarily my money to the same degree, right? Oh, that's being paid for out of the oil sands. Oh, that's coming from the entire province. Oh, that's a good way for Calgary to finally get our fair share of it. The other part is, and we've talked about this, the NDP need to run the tables in Calgary. Danielle Smith doesn't need to pick a winner. She just needs to pick an issue that makes her a winner on the edges of Calgary.
Corey
1:03:07
And just with certain populations and certain groups of people. So
SPEAKER_00
1:03:10
So do you think this is a vote getter in Calgary, Corey?
Corey
1:03:13
I don't, but I think it's not a vote loser amongst the population she needs. You know, Annette?
Corey
1:03:19
No. You know, I totally accept what Stephen said about the cynicism Calgarians have about paying for it. But again, she doesn't need to win all the votes or even most of the votes. She just needs the right votes. And I think she's calculated this will get her some of the right votes. i
Carter
1:03:34
i i think that she's jumped into a problem that she doesn't understand and will ultimately backfire on her if a she can't come to a solution and i think that's probably the most likely outcome even with a bucket full of cash um the solutions aren't easy to reach um she can try and blame this all on gondek uh which probably will work given you know that's that's the strategy that the uh the liars that on the flames tried um so
Carter
1:04:01
so whatever i mean i think that this could work for her but it's probably not going to do
SPEAKER_00
1:04:05
do you think it can work for her cory i
Corey
1:04:08
i i i don't think it needs to work she just needs to give hope through may right like this doesn't need to be resolved by then okay
SPEAKER_00
1:04:16
okay let's leave it there we'll do a quick lightning round um a two question job focused lightning round the first question is um hazel
SPEAKER_00
1:04:29
the former mayor of mississauga she died last week she was 101 she was mayor for 36 years starting in the 70s until november 2014 um mayor into her 90s the question is do
SPEAKER_00
1:04:43
do you think a politician could have a career in municipal politics for that long like nowadays let's say they were elected in like 2023 do
SPEAKER_00
1:04:53
do you think do you think this could happen they could still be serving 36 years from now carter uh
Carter
1:04:58
uh yeah i do but i don't think it would happen on the big 10 cities i think that it would happen on something like you know airdrie or um okay you know like the the kind of suburban type cities where you've got someone that you can blame for all your problems um and also a big tax base that you can kind of piggyback on and keep your your taxes artificially low so you can always point to the next the guy uh one one community over and say aren't you ever so lucky you don't live there where their taxes are super high we're just uh we're just moderately high right underneath them cory
SPEAKER_00
1:05:33
cory how about you could it could it happen again
Corey
1:05:38
but it would require such a unique set of circumstances is when hazel became mayor of mississauga i mean mississauga was brand new it was barely a new municipality and i think there were about 200 000 people there was about 800 000 now that city its growth is
Corey
1:05:56
is synonymous with her reign and uh you know there was just such an amazing set of conditions that allowed her to build what was essentially a bedroom community of toronto into a second core would be beyond extreme like if you've been to mississauga you know that's just not the case but there is a downtown mississauga now i hear there's even a cactus club cafe there if that's
Carter
1:06:16
that's the kind of thing
Corey
1:06:19
and so i think there was just so much goodwill i also think the reality is that being a mayor is
Corey
1:06:25
is is a less objectionable job right you don't need to over you you could have returned everybody new except for hazel and entirely changed the composition of that council and hazel could still be there as the figurehead and and so she rode a wave and i think that it's not impossible to ride that same wave but you would have to be at just like a moment of all good news for a city like all prosperity and that's that's pretty rare i i think it generally comes
Corey
1:06:53
comes with being the bedroom community of a major city that
Carter
1:06:55
that that's what it is because you need that big comparator where you're not as bad as that guy you know you're not john tory so you You did okay. If you're the Nahed Nenshi sitting next to, you know, running Calgary, there's no way you're
Carter
1:07:08
you're going to be able to do it because you're the trendsetter. You're the one who's creating the problems.
SPEAKER_00
1:07:13
Well, and who wants to be
SPEAKER_00
1:07:15
be a mayor for 36 years? Like, that's nuts. That's so long. That's older than me. There's a lot of people
Carter
1:07:20
people that, you know, first of all, that's older than you. Fuck off is the answer from Corey and I.
SPEAKER_00
1:07:30
Okay, next question. just very
SPEAKER_00
1:07:34
also job related um former alberta premier jason kenney he's got a new job guys he tweeted last week that he's joining the public policy group at bennett jones law as a senior advisor um the question is and cory will start with you are
SPEAKER_00
1:07:51
are you surprised that this is where he landed no
Corey
1:07:55
no i mean when we think about where stephen harper landed you know very comparable role. And look, it makes an awful lot of sense. There are clients that come to law firms for all sorts of problems. The one commonality they have if they go to Bennett Jones is they have deep pockets. They're probably big multinationals. They want people who understand these files. And Jason Kenney is a policy wonk. He will be so good at that job. He's a super smart guy. I'm so happy whenever somebody leaves politics and has a next act because it seems to get get rarer and rarer. And I, for one, wish him the absolute best. And I think more people should hire former politicians who worked at his level.
SPEAKER_00
1:08:35
Okay. Carter, anything to add there?
Carter
1:08:38
No, I agree with Corey. People always ask us what books we recommend, and I always recommend The Dark Side. And part of The Dark Side is understanding just how hard it is for former politicians to land on their feet. And I'm pro former politicians landing on their feet. I think think that uh jason you know landing on his feet at bennett jones is going to be good for bennett jones is going to be good for their clients okay
SPEAKER_00
1:09:03
uh let's leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1034 of the strategist my name is annalise clingbeil and with you as always stephen carter and cory hogan
Corey
1:09:18
stability supports for families for health for education they need to get to a space that's more like a government ability
Corey
1:09:25
government that you and your family can rely on has got to be almost the feeling the sentiment the market position there god
Corey
1:09:32
i think they should follow that up with policies that really are a package of stability measures for the economy including taking things like tax hikes off the table stability for services absolutely investing in services the slogan though is going to be something more in the space of like count
Corey
1:09:46
count on us right it talks to the stability the grown-upness and the and the reliability of government under
Carter
1:09:55
I mean, it's no families first.