Episode 1037: Sign language to sea lions

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1037. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, happy family day. I like that we're spending the

Zain 0:12

Yeah, this is families,

Zain 0:14

families, you know, can be defined in many ways. And you guys are not my family. No, really just one for the purposes

Zain 0:21

of this whole. Yeah, exactly.

Carter 0:22

You're not even close. Don't you have to be a cocaine sniffing member of a, you know, the premiers? How many people

Corey 0:28

people do you think know that? Let's tell this story very quickly. I don't even... The reason there are family days. Yeah, okay. Well, I thought you were talking about the cocaine sniffing. Is that related to the story? Yeah, that's the origin of family days. So this

Corey 0:39

this is a real thing. So the reason there are family days across Canada is

Corey 0:44

is Don Getty's son was

Corey 0:47

was arrested for cocaine trafficking. I

Carter 0:49

I believe so, yeah. I'm

Carter 0:50

assuming that he was using

Carter 0:51

using it as well, but...

Corey 0:53

Yeah, Don Getty was at the time the premier of Alberta. and you know there wasn't like direct cause and effect my son uh you know uh was a cocaine trafficker therefore i'm creating family day but it was you know i gotta i think we all need to spend more times with our families and then you know like a month later family day is created as a bit of a turn the dial did it work now it's everywhere did it

Carter 1:14

it did it like i mean he no uh but

Corey 1:18

it worked for us it did work for us yeah

Corey 1:21

yeah i mean you know

Zain 1:22

know as someone whose parents immigrated we just you know didn't really know the history of the holidays we just took what we could get and we're just like family day i guess that's what family day is when the whites wanted to celebrate family i guess

Zain 1:32

guess i don't think the whites meet with their family yeah

Zain 1:35

we honestly thought that it's the one day that you guys would just get together as family and then you know i

Corey 1:40

i mean that's not entirely we look down on how general

Zain 1:44

general western society integrates family uh but that's a different podcast uh that's

Zain 1:50

part of my other series called the uprising i will talk about

Corey 1:52

about the failures of western

Corey 1:54

to you by strategist me yeah

Zain 1:55

yeah i know it's it's it's excellent uh it just documents uh the fail points uh and and how we've been able to take advantage of them and we means you know it means we uh carter you're doing well cory you're doing well anything before we jump into it uh with uh with this monday family day uh non-poked up my kids

Corey 2:12

kids are all over my kids are about three years behind the trends they've been playing a lot of among us oh really with this okay yeah

Carter 2:19

yeah you hear about this you hear about this among us yeah you heard about that Did we do a whole show around that month?

Carter 2:27

I'm eating prunes because I couldn't find my magnesium. So this is the only way I can think of to

Corey 2:32

to work. Thanks. You know what? I always love how much you share, Stephen. Is

Carter 2:35

Is that an overshare?

Zain 2:37

is an overshare. We're going to move it on. It is family day. Let's stick with the letter F. We have not done this in a while, guys. It is our first segment. Our first segment. Corey, Stephen, it's fine. It's fabulous. Or it is fucked. There are many things in the Canadian political zeitgeist going on right now. And speaking of sharing, Stephen Carter, speaking of perhaps even oversharing, the five-volume, 2,000-page report on the Emergencies Act is now out. Justice Paul Rouleau has released it. And the summary is, Stephen Carter, are you going to go with the drumroll? Please, the drumroll.

Zain 3:14

Thank you, Stephen Carter. that the liberal government has indeed met the bar to invoke the Emergencies Act. Stephen Carter, there's many details in here, but I want to start with this top line. Is this fine? Is this fabulous? Or is this fucked for the liberal government, for the Trudeau government? And I don't want to color it a bit more than that, but maybe I will. Fine, because great, it puts it behind them. Fabulous, because it puts it behind them and the PM performed amazingly well. Or is it fucked because it now re-litigates the issue? You might have other narratives, other reasons, other rationales. But Stephen Carter, over to you first. Fine, fabulous, or fucked? The Trudeau government meets the bar on the Emergencies Act inquiry.

Carter 3:54

I think that your earlier point about this being F for family is really what it's all about. This is clearly something that Trudeau kept in the family by appointing the right commissioner and getting the right outcome. So this is an F for family in my mind. Thank you,

Carter 4:08

this is an F for family, because obviously, you know, he kept it in the family, the decision was made. I would like to point out, though, that months ago, months ago, Corey and I went asked the same type of question from you said that this would be the exact outcome, because it hadn't worked before. And it started to work when the Emergencies Act was invoked. So thank you. We were right. I don't think is there something that we could say that we were right that starts with F?

Zain 4:34

I'm going to come back to Carter for a real answer, but instead I'm going to go to Corey to explain what Carter means by it's all in the family, or F is for family. Thank you, Carter, for that deviation that we did not need.

Corey 4:46

I assume that he is not talking about this conspiracy theory that Trudeau is related to the man in charge of that, Rouleau, the man in charge of the commission. Yeah.

Corey 4:55

Yeah. So that's been going around the internet. Not true. true yeah um but you know there was kind of a familial energy bringing canadians together with this report right you know f really is for family right now i think but also um maybe fine and fucked at the same time excellent so you

Corey 5:13

you put mostly family i don't want you to

Zain 5:15

to thank you i'm it's rooted in family which makes sense why it's fine and fucked at the same time i mean yeah i think that's very very self-explanatory so i'd say a

Corey 5:23

a majority of the people listening yeah um yeah Yeah. So, look, this didn't change anybody's mind. This is exactly what you would think would happen. There was a lot of downside risk for the Liberals, but that, you know, while the consequences were high, the likelihood was low. So they ended up exactly where they were. You've already seen, for example, Tyler Shandro, Minister of Justice here in Alberta, say, well, we disagree, basically, because of course, you know, that's exactly how the system is supposed to work. somebody gives a thoughtful inquiry and then you just say no i don't think so um you've had people talk about this be the end of democracy and kind of the further fringes of um of uh the internet communism

Corey 6:03

but i think that's yeah but that's also why it's fucked for all of us like it's a great example that we are we are not able to come together on these things i don't want to overstate the healing power of an inquiry in years past that's just nonsense that's not how it actually went down. But there's just, this was never going to heal the wounds, shall we say. And it didn't.

Zain 6:26

is it actually? Is it actually, is

Zain 6:28

is it this combination of fine and fucked? Or is it one of those things? What do you think it is for the liberal government? If you're in their orbit right now, how are you processing this? Like in its most objective fashion, not how are you spinning it to your leader or to your ministers, but how are you actually processing it as a competent, capable staffer within the government right now?

Carter 6:47

People who agree with us will continue to agree with us. People who didn't agree with us will continue not to agree with us. That's why it's part of the F is for family. The family of people that are going to vote for the liberals will still vote for the liberals. The family of people that will not vote for the liberals will not vote for

Carter 7:04

So this polarization, this being kind of created and pushed off into different directions has created families of voters and those families of voters aren't going to move. they're going to stay exactly where they were um the inquiry uh to cory's point you know that you know not to put too much of a of a spin on former inquiries it's not like people who you know the romano inquiry just all of a sudden comes out and everybody goes oh well then everything's okay um you

Carter 7:33

you know not to put that that that fine a point on it but right now it's so polarized that really all

Carter 7:41

all that anybody can expect from anything like this is the people who agree with you the family of voters that you're going to appeal to um now

Carter 7:49

now have talking points to say oh no it was totally legal unexpected as proven by this inquiry and not one person who thought this was communism is moving one iota away from that position well

Corey 8:02

well and the family of voters who didn't agree with you also have things to point to for example it did say that justin trudeau shouldn't have inflamed the situation by using the language that he did earlier so the other family now has their marching points too they they're both disavowing the report but also using the details and elevating the details to say see this

Corey 8:21

this is actually was a bad thing the way people got their accounts frozen was a bad thing because rulo did identify some challenges with how that was implemented although he did kind of say like abba what were you going to do like it was almost impossible to disaggregate this stuff but yes he said it was kind of a failure of justice that that people would have their accounts frozen who had nothing to do with it, which was a consequence of some of these more extreme actions. So now that other family can point to it and say, see, look at that asshole, see? And that's a problem. That's, you know, I think that it's not the problem itself, but it certainly is identifying this divorce into two families that's occurred over time in Canadian politics.

Zain 9:00

politics. I mean, look at that asshole is definitely something that gets repeated in many families. Carter, just before we move on, I'm just struggling here. A six-letter word that means all the descendants of a common ancestor. Six letters? Six letters. I'm struggling to fucking place it.

Carter 9:15

A six-letter word for descendants of a common ancestor?

Carter 9:19

descendants of a common ancestor.

Zain 9:20

No, it's not Carter. I think you might start with an F.

Corey 9:23

No, I think it's

Corey 9:25

it's Carter. Move on, Zane.

Zain 9:26

Zane. It's family, Carter. It is family. That is the answer. Oh,

Zain 9:29

family has six letters.

Zain 9:30

That's where I was off. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, six letters. That is right. I

Carter 9:32

I forgot about the I. Family. No problem. It was five. it was five garter

Zain 9:35

garter hey listen fine fabulous or fucked pierre pauliev's response on the emergencies act i'm gonna give you i don't have the audio clip because why would i prepare why would we yeah

Zain 9:44

i was i was with my family okay yeah but pierre pauliev when the report comes out he stands in front of a microphone and he says it was an emergency justin trudeau created by attacking his own population by driving up their cost of living and by making it impossible to pay their bills he poured more gasoline on the fire with nasty insults jabbing his figure in the faces of his own citizens, something that even today's report acknowledged contributed to the length and intensity of the protest. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, if you are Pierre Pauliev analyzing that straight-up strategy, is he fine, fabulous, or fucked for picking that particular lane of tone, message, and response to the Emergencies Act? Give me your take, Carter.

Carter 10:24

I mean, for me, it's more family. I mean, here's this guy, this

Carter 10:29

this guy who who sounds like my drunk, you know, my drunk uncle, you know, at Christmas and Easter and New Year's Day. I mean, this is the guy who stands there and drinks too much and says that I've never been wrong. I'm not wrong now. I will never be wrong and just continues to spout his talking points. We all have this uncle. We all know who he is. We see him on Facebook. book he's posting all his shit he's some now he's doing videos because uncle you know uncle phil figured out how to how to use his fucking iphone and he's swinging it around and doing his videos on an ipad

Zain 11:05

ipad let's be clear uncle phil yeah and

Carter 11:08

he's talking to the camera like he's some sort of you know media personalities rick mercer all of a sudden this is a family situation this is the crazy uncle that's never been wrong it just says this is what he's thinking all the time and i mean the guy's never going to give any credit to anybody else he never will he

Carter 11:27

will never acknowledge the fact that he said that the that the sovereignty act was wrong and now it's been seen to be to be right he will never acknowledge that he will always say this was a huge mistake because this guy's tiny he's tiny like everybody's drunk uncle on holidays and that's why it's f for family

Zain 11:46

carter thank you cory fine fabulous or fucked in your mind i mean in some ways this is the tone we expect from Pierre Polyev, this is the message we expect from Pierre Polyev, but in that vein, should he have gone with a different approach here? Should he have gone back to the past and continued to defend

Zain 12:04

the protests or the convoy? Your thoughts on this. Fine, fabulous, or fuck the Pierre Polyev response, and it cannot be family or I'm going to fucking lose my shit.

Corey 12:13

Oh, you know what?

Corey 12:15

That is just such a family thing to say, Zane, because it is family, though. Listen, But listen, Carter actually hit the metaphor perfectly here because it does remind me of dinner with the family with that Uncle Phil who has that revisionist history, you know, where all of a sudden it's, well, see, people were just mad about affordability. Well, Uncle Phil, like we didn't actually have big inflation back then. This doesn't actually seem to have been the case. Well, they were just mad about, you know, the vaccines the government was forcing down our throat. Well, Uncle Phil, a year earlier, weren't you mad at the government for not getting the vaccines fast enough? you know and uncle phil will never admit where he was and what he was going to do i mean and so it does have that familial energy because we're still going to invite uncle phil back to the table because he's one of these two big personalities in our family our father and uncle phil right and so we always know at the end of the day someone's going to have to host christmas which is what government is it's hosting christmas just so you're following the metaphor yeah

Corey 13:11

and uncle phil is going to sit there and he's going to have a good shot at hosting christmas because uh at the the end of the day he's not wrong that dad screwed up a few things along the way here and so it is it is one of those things where you know that old like meme about the worst person you know makes a point i'm not saying he's the worst person i know but i think even uh liberal partisans have to admit that even though pierre poliev might be pretty hazy on the details there is kind of a general directional thing that uh that things weren't rocking and rolling and going particularly well. And certainly after we had a prime minister who ran an election in part on trying to polarize the population and say, I'm going to ride with the 80 percent and burn the 20 percent when the 20 percent bit back. Yeah, I mean, he was in some ways the author of this, which is not to say he was the exclusive author. Great assist to Russia. Great assist to some of the forces that are going on across North America here. But yeah, you know, there

Corey 14:08

there is kind of a point here fundamentally that That was made. And so I don't think Canadians are going to ding Poliev on the specifics because they feel kind of directionally he might be accurate. Carter, is it? And so it's probably pretty harmless.

Zain 14:21

harmless. Is it more than that, Carter? Is it directionally and perhaps even emotionally? Like, does he pay a price? I guess the refined version of the question is, does he pay a price for this message? That even intellectually, if you supported the convoy, emotionally, the anger on cost of living and the self-perpetuated or self-created crisis that Trudeau caused, does

Zain 14:43

does Pierre pay a price here in your mind?

Carter 14:46

I don't think so. Again, I think that the polarization is hard to reconcile, right? Right. So the polarization that exists in our system right now, you

Carter 14:59

you know, that we were talking earlier about how we kind of got two different families in politics. Well, those two different families, they're just not going to see eye to eye. So Pierre is primarily talking to his people. Trudeau is primarily talking to his people, his family. So I don't know that this has any more or any less impact. I mean, we spent how many months talking about the me, the me event, the, you know, the me, whatever foundation or whatever that was. The

Corey 15:24

The we, the we charity.

Carter 15:27

Sure. Get mad at me because I'm self-centered prick.

Carter 15:33

I'm laughing at my own joke. I thought that was hilarious.

Zain 15:36

No, it's fine. It was fine.

Zain 15:39

pretty good. It was fine. Anyways,

Carter 15:40

Anyways, these things get forgotten by the electorate very, very quickly. And I think that this isn't going to have much in the way of staying power. And I don't think that Pierre is making much hay out of it outside of his base audience.

Zain 15:55

Corey, I'm going to ask a last question on this. What would you have done differently if you were Pierre Polyev?

Zain 16:00

Would you have gone with the same message, this

Zain 16:03

assertive? Of course I would have.

Corey 16:05

Effectively, he said, yeah, this is what I've always been saying. You know, if you're going to boil down what Pierre Polyev's message was, It was what I've always said, that the government overreacted in these cases. I'm glad this is seen by the inquiry. I never said anything different than this. And this is all Trudeau's fault anyways. And, you know, Rouleau has pointed to a couple of things there. And then pick a fight with CBC, apparently, seems to be

Corey 16:27

the pivot that he

Corey 16:27

doing. But there was no reason for him to make this a giant hinge point going forward. I'm not sure he wants to die on the hill about whether this was a legitimate inquiry or not. And I don't think it hurts him. So everybody gets to move on, and that's

Corey 16:43

that's the way it was always going to be unless there was something deeply, deeply unexpected coming

Carter 16:47

coming out of this inquiry. Yeah, if the inquiry had come back and everything had been horrible and it shouldn't have been used, then there was a bigger price to pay.

Zain 16:55

Well, let's end there, Carter. Let's end there, actually.

Zain 16:59

Not with the hypothetical world of what could have happened if this report said the liberals didn't meet the bar, although that could be interesting to say what they should have done if that were the case. So if you want to go down that road, we can. But to

Zain 17:11

to Corey's point, is the strategy here for the Liberals actually to put this to bed and move on? Like, to be clear, it seems like that's the most obvious thing. But is that the right strategic move? If we think about it for a second, is there any remnants of what's happened where they're vindicated that they can now hold up as a victory banner in some ways? Or is it just minimize, to Corey's point, downside risk, not to quote Corey in saying that this is what he's saying, minimize downside risk and now move on? I'm curious to get your thought here, because the smart money or the obvious sense is let's just move on. We're done with this. Put it to bed. Year to date. Fuck it.

Corey 17:47

Is that actually the

Zain 17:48

the right thing to do, Carter, strategically, politically for the Trudeau liberals? Having

Carter 17:52

Having been somebody who's occasionally taken a victory lap once in a while, twice, maybe

Carter 17:58

three, four times, a lot of times, people don't like that. They don't like when you take a victory lap on something. and and not only they not like when they take a victory lap on something they prefer that you talk don't

Zain 18:09

don't you have to like it's like no one else is going to toot your horn like don't you have to you

Carter 18:13

you know you won you won last week's game good for you good

Carter 18:16

good for you you got to now focus on next week's game and that's i think where um the opportunity lies for liberals i mean this does not dog them anymore this does not follow them anymore that's

Carter 18:26

that's good not to push you hard though carter but

Zain 18:28

if you're just playing the game and silently winning you lose elections isn't that the case yeah

Carter 18:34

yeah but they don't have to just stop playing they don't have to stop playing the game they just have to not play this one they've got all kinds of other things they can go to fair

Zain 18:43

cory not to get too esoteric same question to you though same question to you is this a victory lap moment or is this a move-on moment i

Corey 18:51

don't think it's either no but i'll say this the liberals fought the 2021 election on this issue they can't fight the 2025 election on this And no, I don't mean Ottawa specifically, but I mean this idea of whether we were going to act in a certain fashion, put up with a certain amount of blowback from the population, or if we were going to push forward on public health standards, which is, you know, at the end of the day, when you strip everything else away, those frustrations were somewhat the root of Ottawa. People will say, oh, no, I think it was other things. No, it was this. We talked about it at the time. It wasn't even clear what they were asking for. It was just a channel for frustrations more vaguely, just like the Tea Party became channel for frustrations more vaguely instead of, you know, being this low tax revolt that it originally began as. But it is just another proof point in the character and judgment argument that people will be making against Pierre Polyev. And it might be very potent with certain audiences. It might be very potent with Ottowans, for example. and uh the liberals should make sure that it's not the main story but it can certainly be part of the story about pierre polly of the person as they move forward but yeah like you can't sit there and be like we were right they were wrong okay

Corey 19:58

okay so what that doesn't really mean anything about the future to stephen's point it's got to be more future focused than that it's a long way to 2025 and frankly i think if they're talking about this issue in 2025 not only are they not going to be talking about the things canadians want to talk about they're going to be actively talking about things that canadians want to forget and that

Corey 20:17

that is not a particularly great place for them to be so

Zain 20:21

so carter just to round out on this um i want to get your thoughts on this i said i wouldn't go here here

Carter 20:26

here we go this

Zain 20:27

like your fourth last why not why not who gives a shit who's keeping track

Carter 20:30

track besides you hogan fuck off hogan fuck

Zain 20:33

fuck off hogan yeah you

Zain 20:35

want the show to be shorter we can end right here i

Carter 20:37

give a shit good show move

Carter 20:39

move on ask me the question question.

Zain 20:41

Carter, if you were scenario planning for the liberals last week with a half a page memo of if Rouleau comes back with a, we're fucked, we didn't meet the bar, what were a couple of points on that memo would have been in terms of how to effectively move on from this story? What would you have done this week if on Friday you were scenario planning for that? I'm just really curious in like your strategist mind, what are a couple of things you would have done for the opposite outcome sort of thing? And I know smart money wasn't on it, but you still have have to plan for those things, right?

Carter 21:11

Yeah. So I think that there's a couple of options and I'm not sure which one of these I would have chosen, Zane, because I haven't really thought that deeply on it. But in general, you get the option of blaming somebody. So you could blame one of your team members and have them take a fall. You could declare that, you know, we've already learned from this and try and move on, right? We'd already learned from this. That's why we called the the inquiry uh we knew just in calling it that there was a very reasonable chance that this would be the outcome um you

Carter 21:44

you know which i would call the minimization strategy for lack of a better term um

Carter 21:49

um so you you know so those would probably be my my starting places someone drop falls on their sword or um or

Carter 21:57

or you're doing a minimization strategy uh the other would be to change the channel immediately um you know you're already working on a you know big health packages how do you kind of double down on those health packages to make them um more immediate uh more into people's hands like the dental thing is starting to starting finally to roll out um you

Carter 22:20

how do you make that more real for people or what other things can you do that make make things more real that you're actually doing uh because keeping in mind that this is now you know you're you're in three months old so it doesn't have it's the same the same impact so um but i think that the fall on your sword strategy would be really interesting to kind of dig into and figure out who would be the person that would fall on their on their sword you'd obviously want it to be someone who wasn't going to compete in the leadership moving forward someone who wasn't um you

Zain 22:52

you gotta you gotta behead someone in the family yeah as

Zain 22:56

you would think yeah

Carter 22:57

and and but how close right could it be a you know could it be does it have to be an elected could it be someone who's not elected um you know could we change out the deputy minister of the privy council over something like this we got bad advice um i don't know i think that i think that this would require the sacrifice of of a relatively senior politician um but it wouldn't be trudeau because he's never the one who puts his head on the chopping block well

Zain 23:25

well let me tell you something after after um after asking you this question and cory shitting on me for asking multiple follow-ups he now is i

Carter 23:33

i just he's so fucking egress to

Carter 23:35

it on just like a

Zain 23:37

small chunk like my son does my son does this yeah you're welcome cory how would you have scenario plan last week cory for for the for the outcome come that eventually didn't happen well

Corey 23:47

well look carter saying that it can't be true no he's the only one that would make sense in that particular situation

Zain 23:52

situation i'm glad you're going down that path because that's where i was gonna go afterwards yeah

Corey 23:56

yeah like unless there was a smoking gun saying this minister deliberately misled the prime minister and somebody externally validated that like if that didn't come out of the you know inquiry itself then what do you what are you going to say the decision was yours resign and it's the only way that you can pretend like it's It's not going to save the Liberal Party. In a situation like that, that's

Corey 24:15

that's a very bad day. And, you know, that's the kind of thing that doesn't just bring down prime ministers. It brings down governments. And you could see in a minority situation.

Zain 24:23

situation. Can I be clear on that, Corey? I know you want to continue. But you think a outcome

Zain 24:27

outcome that would have said they didn't meet the bar on Friday would have been the downfall of the government? Could you think? Yeah,

Corey 24:34

Yeah, of course I do. So, like, because what's going to happen is the conservatives would bring in, with all of, like, kind of the righteous indignation possible, a no-confidence motion in the government the first moment they could get, you know, an opportunity. And what are you going to do as the NDP? You're going to say, no, we support them in that particular moment? I don't think so, unless there was a giant sacrifice from the Liberal Party. And I think that kind of giant sacrifice would probably have to be Trudeau. and so to me that does seem like the most obvious consequence if it was there and you know as the prime minister you could say i disagree uh but we have a system of laws and as the liberals we believe in a system of laws and the decision was mine that decision was called into question that that was uh you know an inquiry decided that that did not meet the bar and so i resign and i am sorry to canadians that i let them down in this particular moment i want you to know i I got lots of advice from other people that I should be walking a different line. I didn't do it. But ultimately, as prime minister, that was my choice to make or something to try to minimize the damage to your party. What

Zain 25:39

you were in that PMO and Trudeau said, fuck it, if it's against us, I'm not leaving. Find an alternative solution. Corey, it would have been 1A on alternative solution list for you.

Corey 25:50

Well, then Carter is going down the right path. You can't really say it's why. I mean, you can say it's why we called the inquiry. But let's be clear, the inquiry was required to be called underneath the act, right? But you say, yes, it was a 60-40 decision. It was very tough. Canadians were confused. We were confused. We didn't know the right answer, but we knew we needed to do something and we did something. And I'm not sorry that I did something. I wish that I had the perfect information that the inquiry was able to get when I made my decision. But this is a sign that the system works. We're a government of laws, and the system works. And so now, I'm bringing in all of these new safeguards and all of this new legislation to protect Canadians, so that in the next time there's a moment of crisis, you know, the right thing happens. And we have better information, because if I'd had better information at the time, I would have made better decisions. Carter,

Zain 26:42

for the, for, yeah,

Corey 26:43

yeah, I was going to, and

Zain 26:44

and maybe I'll just add my question. For Lavalin, it was Jerry Butts that left. Could a senior staffer here have done, and add your thing and maybe answer my question too.

Carter 26:53

Well, I wouldn't actually mind necessarily fighting the election on this.

Carter 26:56

You know, even if the elect, you know. You

Zain 26:58

You mean calling an election on this, on the back of this? No, losing the government. No way. Losing

Carter 27:02

Losing the government and having it go. And staying as leader.

Carter 27:06

Yeah. And people will be pissed about the, about having to do another election. and i think that you can make the case that um there are those people who don't agree there are those people who don't see this as a that's interesting as an imperative there are those people who don't understand the importance of how protecting this country and i think that there's 40 of the population that agrees that giving control to those people is a bit of a problem

Carter 27:33

could have worked i mean could it work maybe but

Carter 27:35

but i think that it's it's got a you know there's There's a high risk tolerance involved there, but, you

Carter 27:42

know, it's either that or have them step down, I think.

Carter 27:44

Yeah, so if you want

Zain 27:46

want to keep the job, running the election on this is interesting. Corey, your final thoughts on that, and then we'll finally move on. Unless you don't want to, because it's getting too exciting for you. Because it's just too

Corey 27:54

too good. It's too interesting now.

Corey 27:56

Yeah. Well, look, maybe you need to sweeten the deal, bring your coalition together. Like the other thing is, like, again, minority government,

Corey 28:03

you say those things, you've You've also got to be able to get the NDP on side and hold your party together, which I don't think is a given if you had something come down like that, just to be really

Zain 28:14

really clear. Especially if you haven't perhaps primed them on

Zain 28:16

the sense of like where our moves might be one or two steps ahead. Well, absolutely.

Corey 28:22

Well, I think that the NDP, you would then offer the NDP a piece of theater, maybe as like a bit of a sweetening of the pot where they say this is outrageous that these things happen. There need to be more checks and balances on cabinet. So we're demanding two cabinet seats in these portfolios in order to continue supporting this government. Yeah,

Carter 28:40

Yeah, that would be interesting to see Singh try and make that play. Hey, Carter, last question on

Zain 28:48

I actually did come up with a question.

Carter 28:50

question. This is such a professional

Carter 28:51

professional podcast. That's why I love it. No, listen, I

Zain 28:53

I think this is fascinating. Okay, so tell me this. When did the liberals have their cabinet retreat? It wasn't like more than a month ago, right? It was like a couple of weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Do you feel like something like this could have been presented by the staff to a cabinet retreat on scenario planning? Because if the scale of the defeat is what Corey's saying, that this could take down the government, do you feel like they present it to cabinet? We're now getting into speculation, but I'm kind of curious. This goes back to our last episode on decision circles. Do you think they present it around how we navigate this thing, win, lose, et cetera? Corey's giving me a very strong no, but Carter, I want to go to you first. Definitely no. And then I want to hear why Corey's on a definite no camp. Because, Carter, you seem a little bit more ambivalent.

Carter 29:33

I don't think so. And the reason is that I briefed caucuses and cabinets about election planning and every single, or strategy, if you will, prime ministerial or first ministerial strategy. And every time you do, it's like explaining sign language to sea lions. They just simply

Carter 29:52

simply don't have the capacity to understand. Okay, but imagine

Zain 29:57

imagine if sea lions did understand sign language. That would be fucking amazing. No,

Carter 30:01

No, it would be great if they understood, but it's not going to happen, right? Because, you know, sea lions are idiots. And so were your caucus members.

Zain 30:12

i'm talking cabinet i'm hoping for a slight escalation gory around us out i promise it's the last point on the emergencies act uh why no why no for you why was why were these scenarios if they were present within the pmo if this was a a massive monumental uh government takedown worthy decision would something like this not get briefed to cabinet at a retreat or something

Corey 30:36

well a hundred reasons some

Corey 30:38

to this moment some that are more general on the more general i i would agree with steven this is not the place for that conversation that's a conversation you have with senior political staff and strategists here in part cabinet would spend all morning talking hypothetical scenarios and going down rabbit holes that don't exist and they would have a you know and they would leave anxious and they would be thinking about these things that have very low one of

Carter 30:58

of them would leak happening

Corey 31:01

fuck yeah and then could you imagine Like, they have plans if this goes wrong. And, like, this is the tactics in that particular moment that might allow them to continue to govern. The

Corey 31:09

prime minister doesn't intend to resign in these moments. And if there's any kind of dissent.

Zain 31:13

dissent. I'm not saying all

Corey 31:13

all of it. I'm saying some of it. Sorry. I don't mean, like, they're giving them the entire playbook, right?

Corey 31:18

Oh, yeah, sure. But then the other one, and it's kind of more specific to this particular moment, is, and, yeah, I hear what you're saying about you wouldn't give it to them. Some of the obvious solutions require you, to Stephen's first point, to throw somebody at that table to the wolves. Yeah, and if it's Cabot, good point. Right? So, you know, so like that is, that's tough, right? So, you know, you just would not go. One

Zain 31:40

One of you has got to

Zain 31:41

to leave on a conflict of interest. You might be

Corey 31:43

be talking about it. Yeah, we would say, look, we know this decision is coming. We're very confident, especially after the exceptional performance by our prime minister, that everything's going to be fine. if it's not fine we've got a group working on some of like the more remote scenarios but just know that regardless of what happens and we are sure it will be fine we've got this well in hand this is not something we need to worry about today yeah so it's it's a bit

Zain 32:06

bit of a rah-rah you know don't you just

Carter 32:09

cabinet's almost always a bit of a rah-rah like caucus is always a rah-rah cabinet even cabinet now you want them to stay very focused because that's your team of rivals too right you go down the most likely person to become the next prime minister is sitting at that table so

Carter 32:25

so you know you got to you treat them you treat them well but you don't necessarily let them in on everything well

Corey 32:32

well and look i think that there are things that cabinet provides immense strategic value on i'm not quite where steven is on the seal thing but this is not this is not one of them right

Corey 32:40

like this kind of like chess move how do we make sure the media does this or that like i actually find those are deeply unhelpful cabinet conversations how

Corey 32:49

it's good good at strategizing how on

Carter 32:50

the chess on this how do we reach out

Corey 32:51

out to these groups how do we make sure we're elevating our story those are things cabinets better at but like the like these kind of machinations is the problem is zane and this kind of goes to the first one sort of expanded too this is not the kind of strategy cabinets good at because it is kind of that team of rival steven's talking about and people are in some ways auditioning for the job you're

Corey 33:13

you're going to have someone take the righteous stand you're going to have someone take the calculated stand you're You're going to have somebody call out the calculated sin for being calculated because they're somewhat righteous. You're going to have the person who tries to broker the peace. And, you know, on a certain point, it's a stage. And you're just not

Corey 33:29

not helpful. You just don't need it at that moment. Oh, my God. Carter, I'm going to move on to

Zain 33:34

to our next one. Finally. Quebec is done adding to their family, at least as it relates to asylum seekers, Stephen Carter. Carter. Francois Legault has told Justin Trudeau in a letter, send all asylum seekers to other provinces. He says that Quebec has done more than their fair share. And in his letter, he called for asylum seekers to be redirected to other parts of the country, regardless of their profile. He's facing a lot of pushback, a lot of commentary and criticism, a lot of it, I would say, outside of the province of Quebec, and I'm sure some inside as well. Well, fine,

Zain 34:06

fine, fabulous, or fucked, the strategy for Francois Legault. I mean, this is a man who's won government through his party, his coalition party, very popular. For the last half decade, he's been probably the most popular premier in his province. But taking a stance that kind of, you know, re-emboldens his perspective on broader sort of identity politics and multiculturalism in Canada, your thoughts on this from a pure your political strategy i'll let you i'll let you play there carter fine fabulous or fucked for uh for francois logo well

Carter 34:40

well this doesn't feel dangerous at all zane thanks for throwing it to me first um

Carter 34:46

so the fine fabulous or fucked is that what what it is it

Zain 34:49

it that's the whole show thus far yeah you've you've

Zain 34:52

gone with that i'm just going to check your family for most of your answers for no fucking reason i

Carter 34:57

hate to do this to you again zane but for

Carter 34:59

for me this feels like family this

Carter 35:01

this feels like what you're trying to do is protect the people who are closest to you and bring in, like, you want people to feel like you're taking care of them. And in economically troubled times or other times, more

Carter 35:14

more people coming in seeking asylum feels like a burden rather than an opportunity. Now, personally, I disagree. I think that the immigration has been our great

Carter 35:24

opportunity in Canada. Every time we have waves of immigration, we have waves of prosperity that follow um that is you know just desperately true um but Francois Legault does not have to worry about the

Carter 35:37

the future forever what he has to worry about is how to keep his family and his coalition together in in provincial politics in Quebec and this

Carter 35:46

this is a popular you know this is going to be popular for him within a certain subset of the Quebec population is it the right thing to do No, I don't think so. But sometimes being right in politics is less important than being reelected. Now, he's a long ways from an election, but he's still, I think, right to do it this way.

Zain 36:07

Corey, fine, fabulous reflect for Francois Legault. And this is a pure political play, pure political strategy to

Zain 36:15

send all asylum seekers to other provinces. They're not welcome here in Quebec. We have done more than our fair share, he says.

Corey 36:22

let's talk about that more than our fair share for a moment here uh because principal charity at all times he's not wrong that quebecers by far like on a per capita basis accept more asylum seekers than you know any other province here at least based on the statistics i was pulling up from stats canada for the year 2022 like it's not even close i and you know ontario would be the next highest one but yeah there quebec is in the thousands and alberta is in the the tens, just to give you a sense of the differential here. So it's certainly true that there are more asylum seekers showing up in Quebec than they are showing up in other parts of the country. Just as that's probably true, there's more in Florida and Texas than there are in other parts of the United States, right? Just part of its geography, part of its cultural, part of its history, you know, all of those things.

Corey 37:12

But you have to keep in mind that those seeking asylum asylum are just a small, small, small, small subsection of overall immigration in the country. And when you look at it through that lens, first

Corey 37:24

first of all, I just want to be clear. I agree with Carter. I think immigration is one of the great unalloyed goods in this world. It makes Canada so much stronger and so much more diverse and so much more interesting and connects us to the rest of the world. And it generates that economic growth. But Quebec is not maintaining their quote-unquote fair share of overall immigration you know ontario number one with a bullet but when you start you know bc number two in raw numbers quebec in raw numbers number three but alberta in per capita numbers it probably number two or three i haven't done the quick math here but the reality is quebec starts to fall down that list pretty quick when you start thinking about a per capita here quebec is not this big magnet of immigration overall now what they've They've identified as that a higher percent of their population of asylum seekers. I got a real problem with Quebec having problems with asylum seekers as a group and thinking there's something fundamentally worse about that group of

Corey 38:18

And I think that's what sort of grinds my gears. Now, obviously, they are higher needs because almost by definition, they are coming with some people that, you know, a lack of resources. But a lot of the supports come from the federal government in that case, not exclusively. And certainly it's a burden on the provinces. But I think a more humane, more sensible solution would have been to increase the number of supports and increase the demands for an equity of support rather than saying they can't come here, we're full, which seems like an utterly bullshit solution, especially given the nature and the diversity of the Quebec community and the fact that we know that these asylum seekers will be ultimately more successful if they are in communities that are supporting of them and not thrown all of a sudden to balls and have

Carter 39:01

have no bloody relatives and no family.

Corey 39:04

family. No community connection. Yeah. No community. Yeah. So, you know, I've given a couple of different nuances on here. Right. But ultimately, this is family. You know, as much as we've been using this as a joke, the reality is Quebec is trying to define for themselves the right to determine who their family is. And they can say it's about their overabundance of asylum seekers. It's not. It's about Quebec wanting to control, and they do control to an extent, immigration to the province of Quebec. And they want to maintain their

Corey 39:36

their ability to define what the Quebec family is. And I think that's a real shame because there is this growing divergence between viewpoints, between what English Canada sees as the value of immigration and what French Canada sees as the value of immigration. And there's reasons for that. Let me just be super clear.

Corey 39:54

When you're in Quebec, there is this sense the French language is under assault.

Corey 39:58

Certainly, when you look at North America, how could you kind of not think that from a pure demographics point of view?

Corey 40:03

So they're less likely to see anything that changes or morphs the French identity as a welcome thing. In English Canada, English

Corey 40:10

English is obviously the prevalent language. There's a little bit more like, yeah, okay, we're going to grow and diversify this country, and English will continue to be the prevalent language. It's just different dynamics, but I'm not giving Quebec a pass. I think this is really unfortunate that their view of family is so limited that they would see it as about, you know, defining Quebec in this way. Hey, Carter, let's

Carter 40:28

let's actually, let's, yeah, let

Zain 40:31

me, let me fucking lean into this, because it's not going to get better.

Zain 40:36

Carter, are you surprised, like I am, that there is no national or federal, and I don't mean that in a simply elected position, voice of defending multiculturalism, of kind of, you know, pushing back harder against Quebec? Quebec. We know why the political federal elected leaders are not doing it. They fucking need Quebec. But like, when you compound Bill 21 with the asylum seeker conversation and the undertones of it, the pressure against the special representative against Islamophobia and putting her through the wringer over the last couple of weeks, there's a almost underlying message that multiculturalism is not welcome in this province, that it's a failure akin to perhaps what Germany He said a half decade ago or so. Are you surprised that there's no voice on the federal or national stage pushing back against this? Or does your strategy brain say, yeah, but it's not tenable? It's not tenable to have that voice because every political party, every stripe needs Quebec in its current state to kind of pick up a political victory whenever the next election happens. I'm kind of curious to delve into that a bit as an offshoot from this conversation on asylum seekers in Legault.

Carter 41:50

Let's look at what happened to, um, um,

Carter 41:53

you know, Jyoti Gondek when she decided to pick up the, the, the bill 21 argument. Um, you

Carter 42:01

you know, that went, that went poorly. It went horribly for her. Um, because it turns out

Zain 42:06

out like, oh yeah,

Carter 42:06

yeah, it went horribly.

Zain 42:08

just in the confines of Calgary. Yeah,

Carter 42:10

Yeah, just in the confines of Calgary, trying to find the money, trying to connect, because the taxpayers lost their minds. How dare you send $150,000 of our hard-earned income to try and fight in the courts this absolutely horrific decision that is Bill 21 coming out of Quebec? How dare you take money from our pockets to fight that which is wrong? wrong and so then they go out and try and raise the money and no one wants to donate to it either um because at the end of the day these voices that you're looking for they're not just going to appear out of thin air someone has to pay for even if it's just paying for you know digital ads or or someone's time to to make a facebook post these things don't just happen overnight um yeah some of them are groundswell some of them come from from big volunteer bases and things like like that but more often than not we need to have some money to pay for lawyers or some money to pay for the activities of the of protest and

Carter 43:12

and in canada we basically rejected that the only person who was able to get away with it was patrick brown who is serving in uh in brampton which is which is a different socio you know demographic makeup um you know when we saw that same discussion across across Canada, the places that didn't have that demographic makeup completely rejected it, which goes to show that we needed more. We needed more understanding of how multiculturalism actually matters. There's nobody standing up for it right now because there's not enough people who believe it, not enough people who understand it. You know, Corey and I both had to make sure that we were saying what we thought because, you know, people will think differently of us if, you know the the this it's easy to assume that people want to be uh protective because that feels to me like it's the normal place um it's not the normal place for people who i think have studied this issue multiculturalism has done nothing uh but benefit canada um on basically every statistic every statistic um but small-minded people don't read stats small-minded people just just make up their minds and fight

Carter 44:28

fight the wrong fights.

Zain 44:31

I've got two follow-up questions. One is the same one I asked Carter to you, Corey, as it relates to are you also surprised that there's no national or federal voice fighting against this thing? And then I'll jump into my other one, which focuses on one particular leader. But your thoughts here.

Corey 44:47

Yeah, well, am I surprised? Not really. It's a reflection of the two solitudes, right? I mean, we've talked about this on the show So in the context of the Quebec election, I

Corey 44:57

think that Canadians should care about elections in the provinces. I think Canadians should care a lot about elections in Quebec for a ton of reasons, not least of which is the politics there is discussed in an entirely different way. And I think in ways that would surprise and or alarm other Canadians.

Corey 45:13

I think that's part of why federal politicians get away with it. Listen, let me be really clear. There's a there's a cleave that has occurred in all sorts of discourses. it's not new, it's decades old, but we seem less willing to sort of follow it all, right? You know, we were aware of what René Levesque was up to, and we were talking about the thrust between, you know, the Quebec liberals and the PQ back in the 80s and the 90s. But now it's just like,

Corey 45:42

you know, some of these examples I could give you, like, they're just not our view of what federalism is in a lot of the rest of the country, which doesn't actually mean we are right, because we don't get a monopoly view on that either, right? That's something that needs to be kind of collectively determined by the federal government.

Corey 45:57

But here's what I want to say.

Corey 46:00

I deplore Bill 21. We've talked about that.

Corey 46:03

The growing Islamophobia, the xenophobia, this asylum situation just throws more logs on the particular fire here.

Corey 46:10

These are really bad solutions, but they're bad solutions to a problem that Quebec clearly has and feels, which is around protecting the unique identity. identity so if if we as canadians as a whole canadians including quebec including alberta including ontario if

Corey 46:25

if we want the conversation to change in quebec we're going to need different solutions to protect quebec's unique identity you know if these are the ones that they're going to we should be asking ourselves what can we be doing to foster the quebec culture in quebec and through the rest of canada make sure that it has a place of prominence because the fundamental critique is not wrong. French is deeply irrelevant, I would assume, to both of your lives.

Corey 46:48

Am I wrong? You know, it's only barely relevant to mine because I'm the son of a Quebecer and my kids go to French immersion school. And, you know, we need both to find solutions to protect Quebec's unique identity and we need to redefine that identity over time in a more expansive and permissive way. So what are we going to do? We can't just look at Quebec and say, shame on them, shame on them the reality is they are a minority group in the north american context and we need to be thinking about how we support the quebec culture and identity in a broader sense in this country or else it's just going to keep happening right

Corey 47:20

right the shitty solutions will be the only ones on the table and quebeckers will pick them and we need better solutions carter here's here's

Zain 47:26

here's my my my second follow-up and i'll start with you on this february

Zain 47:30

february 20th which is when we're recording today it's family day i don't

Zain 47:33

don't know if you guys know that is

Zain 47:36

is family day today That's

Zain 47:39

a lot of our answers have been around family. Now that I think about it. If you were to invite Jagmeet Singh to your family dining table, would now be the appropriate time to convince him, after multiple elections, that, dude,

Zain 47:52

dude, give up on Quebec, support the right side of history argument on multiculturalism, defending the

Zain 47:59

the strident sort of defense against Bill 21, the things he may have wanted to say that we've heard through some leaks in other places that he's wanted to say, but maybe he's been politically limited to say. Is now the time, or do you still believe that if Jagmeet Singh were to take that position for the federal NDP, that this would be the end of the NDP's pathway through Quebec for generations? I've stress tested this question every six months or so. I'm now kind of combining the proof points of the last couple of weeks and saying, is now the time for Jagmeet Singh. Carter, your thoughts on this? Corey, I'll get your thoughts, and then we'll move on.

Carter 48:32

Sorry, my dog's squeezing her squeeze toy again, or his squeeze toy, so you'll hear a lot of squeaking.

Carter 48:38

Ryder, go away. Here's the thing. I think that what you're saying is essentially, is it time for Jagmeet Singh to lead? Is it time for him to be authentic? And in my experience, leading and being authentic is the pathway to success. So why the hell isn't he being successful? successful? Well, because everybody looks at him and says, Jagmeet, you're not actually being authentic or true to yourself. So if you can be true to yourself, if you can be authentic in a leadership opportunity, you should take it. He should have taken it years ago. But for some reason, he thought that he could follow in Jack Layton's footsteps. Jack Layton was true and authentic to himself, and that worked in Quebec.

Carter 49:18

If you want to be true and authentic to yourself, Jagmeet, you may find that that actually works across the country of Canada. But until you are, Most of us are going to write you off as the, you

Carter 49:28

know, the weak politician that you are. are.

Zain 49:31

Corey, are you persuaded by Carter's argument? If Jagmeet Singh were at the dinner table, you were also there on this Family Day Monday. Would you double down? Would you underline and underscore Carter's argument? Or would you have a different one for Jagmeet Singh as it relates to perhaps authenticity, but things that you'd expect and you somehow know he does believe in but has not maybe said because of the political pathway that his party needs through Quebec?

Corey 49:57

Yeah. You know, if

Corey 49:59

if I had a time machine, I would do things. It's an interesting question because let me put it this way. I actually think this is much shakier ground than built one. Like now? You mean now? Yeah,

Corey 50:09

because of what I

Zain 50:09

I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. I hear you.

Corey 50:11

Quebec actually does bring in a lot of asylum seekers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mean this issue in Iceland.

Corey 50:16

I mean, the DeSantis tie-ins and the fact that this is the same tactic that just absolute shit-heel villains have used in the United States,

Corey 50:24

that's a problem, I think, for Legault. And I'm not even sure, and perhaps this goes to the two solitudes thing, just how little he appreciated how it would land with the rest of his compatriots in Canada. But this is shakier ground because there's kind of a fundamental statistical truth underneath it, whereas Bill 21 was just picking on minorities. It was not cool in any way, shape, or form in my point of view. And again, understand the problems Quebec is facing. This is not an appropriate solution in a liberal democracy, in my opinion. So,

Corey 50:58

you know, I think first of all, I would start with that lecture. Like, you know, you should have been here a long time ago, you know, Jagmeet. This is not the moment where you should have had the light bulb switch. But hey, better late than never, I guess. So let's start talking about how you can kind of create, you know, firmer positions on this matter. I do think, to go back to my last answer, it can't just be shame on Quebec, right?

Corey 51:22

Like, it's got to be more

Corey 51:24

more narrow, like, you know, shame on Legault, maybe, but, you know, shame on, you know, the Quebec National Assembly that might be considering, whatever it is, right? Here is what we're going to do. Obviously, we want to be, first and foremost, human beings. We want to make sure these asylum seekers are treated fairly and given the best chance for success going forward in their lives. In many cases, that will be in the province of Quebec, not in all cases, right? We do want to make sure it's more equitable. But you know what? That's what a federal government's for. That's where federal supports come into this matter. I think you could take positions like that and start working in firmer language and saying this can't continue. We can't continue to go down this road. We've got to treat people as people, and everybody's got to have the same rights and advantages afforded to them.

Corey 52:10

that would probably be what i suggest like i i don't think that this would be a moment where i almost treat it like a light bulb moment because i think that's also kind of shitty to everybody else where he turned the other way before this so-called light bulb it's it's almost got to be like you know we've been rolling down this hill for a while i'm not comfortable with this yeah yeah it's how they come here every

Carter 52:30

every day they push further and they finally pushed over the the line i'm

Corey 52:36

i'm but why is this over the line why

Carter 52:38

why is this over the line because i finally all of the other things because i'm dugmeat singh and i finally found a backbone you know i i mean i think he should have had this backbone right from the get-go i agree with you you

Zain 52:48

are both saying that you guys are both saying that but but what i'm trying to say is that how do you how do you come in and and and contextualize this to say here's why i've picked this moment right and i would say i should have said this earlier rather than a position of desperation or weakness or finally coming to realize that after three elections that I'm not going to, I'm not, they're not going to love me, I'm not going to love them sort of thing in Quebec, right? So it's about positioning and also like long-term positioning for the party, right? Not to poison the well for the long-term chances of the NDP in Quebec. I get the tough political navigation he has, right? If you

Carter 53:21

win this way, is it worth winning?

Zain 53:24

It's a great question. I mean, I've said no many times when asked this question about

Carter 53:28

and the NDP. It's not worth winning if you have to win this. Especially on issues perhaps so

Zain 53:31

so core to, you know, people not just like him, but people like him himself and who he represents, especially from an identity perspective. Carter, we're moving on to our final one, our final fine, fabulous, or fucked. The

Zain 53:44

The lobbying commissioner has proposed new rules for lobbying. The proposed changes would set monetary limits on what lobbyists should offer officials in the way of gifts and food, so has specific limits. They would also reduce the length of the cooling off period, the period of time after a person leaves a politician's employment when they're not supposed to lobby that politician. It used to be one full election cycle. They're now proposing one or two years. I want to talk about that in a second. So they're trying to make these rules clear, peeling them back in some areas. But the commissioner, and this is what I want to talk to you about in particular, divides political work into two tiers. The higher tier includes managing electoral campaigns, organizing fundraisers, and coordinating political research. search. The lower tier includes door knocking and handing out campaign material. The guidelines propose a two-year waiting period for the higher tier and a one-year waiting period for the lower tier. One-year waiting period for door knocking and handing out campaign lit.

Zain 54:42

Carter, you are someone who has many thoughts around money in politics, lobbying in politics, this sort of political adjacent but entirely political world of government relations. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, on the whole the proposed new suite of rules for for lobbying in this country well

Carter 55:01

well this is really this is really close to home for me so this is family for me because this is you know i'm trying to to find if you are going to lobby in this in this world if you're going to make money in this world like you

Carter 55:15

you need to have connections i i feel like we've gone to the place where we have tried to uh put rules in place of of uh actual expectations and behaviors i think cory has put this better than i just did a couple of times we've over we've made this too many rules and to what end is it does anybody feel like we've got a more ethical government does anybody feel like our government is better because of these rules i don't i personally feel that if someone when door knocks for you, they don't

Carter 55:52

much from door knocking. I don't think you need to put a rule around it. And when you say earn that

Zain 55:57

that much, you should be clear. You mean like, you're not talking monetary. You mean in terms of clout, capital, and access. A junior

Carter 56:03

junior person door knocks for you, and all of a sudden we're treating them like they're some sort of world

Carter 56:08

world dealer here. I mean, this is a volunteer who door knocked for you and now you want, you know, they want to go and lobby and now they can't lobby because so that job is not there for them. Like, I don't understand why we're preventing these relationships. I don't think that this is making things better. Obviously, I'm totally behind the gift thing. The gift thing makes total sense to me. I mean, I think a $40 gift is a little bit, you know, whatever.

Carter 56:38

whatever. whatever. I don't think anybody's being bribed for 40 bucks, but whatever, whatever the number is, we can set a number.

Carter 56:47

But I just don't understand why we're trying to prohibit people who door knocked in a campaign from being able to lobby a minister. Why we're trying to curtail people's economic opportunities just because they chose to be involved in politics. And what we get now is is all of these people who have political interests who say, oh, no, I can't do that. My job won't let me be involved in politics. Listen to what we're saying. We're saying, no, you can't be involved in politics because, you know, your job is so sensitive that you can't be a part of this. Well, no one should be told. No one should be told that they shouldn't be a part of the political process. It's too fucking important. We need more people involved in politics, not less people involved in politics. and ethics commissioners and lobbying commissioners. And all these fucking people don't have a clue what it's like actually to volunteer in a campaign and why people are actually involved. Do they want a huge handout? Maybe some of them do. Others just want to fucking reference or with the ability to have friends that they can call and chat with in the future. And that is called networking. That's what we encourage people to fucking do. It's bullshit. Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Carter 58:03

Okay, Corey, you cannot refute what I said.

Zain 58:06

Carter brings the heat. Fine, fabulous, or fucked. The new suite of rules, Corey, in your mind, that the lobbying commissioner is proposing.

Corey 58:14

Well, having been in the lobbyist family at some point, having been in the government family, so we talk about politics, but this also applies to senior government officials. On the other

Zain 58:23

side of it, sure. The

Corey 58:26

reality is these rules have big effect. I agree with a lot of the direction of what Stephen said, maybe not some of the heat. I certainly don't agree with him saying we

Corey 58:37

we don't need less people involved in politics. It's fewer people involved

Corey 58:41

politics, Stephen. It's a very

Carter 58:41

very simple rule. If

Corey 58:43

If you can actually count it, it's

Carter 58:45

If it's a volume thing, it's less. I let down my family.

Zain 58:48

Carter's never really seen people on campaigns as someone that are as countable figures. Yeah, that's true. It's more of a, it's true. It is more of a liquid amorphous sort of like, yeah. So no, it makes sense. Okay.

Corey 59:01

Here's the thing. The clearer they make these rules, I've really come to the conclusion, the worse the situation will get. Because minor infractions and major infractions feel the same,

Corey 59:10

same, just an infraction, right? And it gives a roadmap to bad actors. Like all of a sudden, it's like, well, you didn't tell me I couldn't do this. So I'm allowed to do it, even if it's deeply egregious and outside of the spirit of it. we need to get back to a principles-based approach on this stuff we need to get back to a common sense approach on this stuff i actually don't have problems with giving ethics commissioners more discretion if the alternative is these insane rules right and so let's talk about this gift thing a 40 cap i i think one of the people in one of the stories was saying so

Corey 59:40

so what i'm supposed to know if i bought them a coffee and bagel four times all of like they came to an event and we offered them a coffee and bagel four times they're

Zain 59:46

they're talking about the cumulative effect that they want impose on this yeah

Corey 59:49

yeah like they're all of a sudden over 40 and we can't feed them or like what the hell does that make sense for well

Corey 59:53

well i sort of agree and and isn't the more principles-based approach just to say don't give material gifts to people right like okay let's put it this way i show up at 10 of your events and i have a coffee and bagel each time am i really violating something is my is my

Corey 1:00:09

not no you hand me a card that allows me every time i go by a tim hortons to have a free coffee and bagel yeah that's different right material Serial gifts to people, common sense approaches to things. A line like, would this be something you'd offer to anyone else outside of politics makes sense. Because you invite people to a lot of things if you happen to be a nonprofit group. Who's going to be caught up in this, by the way? Everyone thinks corporation immediately, but there's going to be like, I

Corey 1:00:33

I don't know, like you're going to have like some housing. The

Carter 1:00:36

The Me Foundation. Like

Corey 1:00:37

Like affordable housing group.

Corey 1:00:42

Yeah, poor people at the We Charity, right? Right.

Corey 1:00:44

I think that's really unfortunate. I think the further we go down this road, I mean, the worse it becomes. And it was interesting reading the coverage because there were people who thought these rules went too far.

Corey 1:00:54

And I agree. And there were people who thought these rules didn't go far enough. And I agree, because ultimately it's just focusing on the small stuff, not the big stuff. It's giving passes on things I would never give a pass on. And it's drilling down on other things that don't fundamentally matter that much. And,

Corey 1:01:11

And, you know, like Carter, these these rules matter to me personally. You know, part of what I'm doing right now has to do with these rules. When I left government, there's only so many places I could take a job at my level of seniority that we're not going to touch lobby in any way, shape, or form. Like your universe

Zain 1:01:24

universe was severely restricted, I would imagine.

Corey 1:01:27

Yeah, very much so. And look, I'm lucky. I ended up in a great job. And it turns out I love what I'm doing. I could have left years ago at this point, right? But the

Corey 1:01:36

the number of sectors that I was able to go into at that moment were super narrow. And I kind of didn't like that. And so, you

Corey 1:01:44

you know, I think it's stuff for people to think about. And remember that the more onerous you make this, A, you're going to push people away. And B, you're going to make every infraction kind of feel small, even when they're not. We've got to change our approach to these things more generally. We're

Carter 1:01:58

We're going to leave that segment there. We saw this with Mary Ng, didn't we? Go ahead, Carter. We saw this with Ng, right? With the hiring of

Carter 1:02:03

yeah. And it's like, really, is Amanda really changing the world for a $6,000 contract?

Corey 1:02:14

I'm not sure she should have done that, but I take your point. Why

Carter 1:02:16

Why wouldn't she? She trusts Amanda.

Carter 1:02:18

Amanda is well known as being an effective and efficient person in this world. Why wouldn't she be allowed to hire her? I mean, Amanda, like,

Carter 1:02:26

like, I just don't see this as the big sins that everybody else is seeing it as.

Zain 1:02:32

Carter, we're going to leave that segment there, moving on to our final segment, our Over, Under, and our Lightning Round. Carter, if you look at the time, you'll see that our time is up together, right? It's the—our

Zain 1:02:43

the—our time is almost nigh here. Well,

Carter 1:02:45

Well, I'm getting pretty old, eh? Let

Zain 1:02:47

Let me tell you something. I'm excited to hear your response on this next one, okay? Okay. Stephen Carter at

Zain 1:02:53

the NBA All-Star Game, which, by the way, who were the two teams in the NBA All-Star Game, Stephen Carter? Can you one-fact this for me?

Zain 1:03:03

Yeah, the two teams. It was not East or West, and it was not North America versus the world, which has been some of the splits that

Carter 1:03:10

that they've done in the past. Yeah,

Zain 1:03:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was it this time, Stephen Carter? Lay it on me.

Carter 1:03:15

They were named after individuals, but I can't remember the individuals. Name

Zain 1:03:18

Name one of the two individuals for your one-fact.

Zain 1:03:21

Magic was not one of the big ones, though.

Zain 1:03:24

I'll give you another shot.

Corey 1:03:26

Think of a current

Zain 1:03:28

She's definitely not Dirk. Carter's self-voting. Carter, at the NBA All-Star Game where Team Giannis and Team LeBron faced off, Julie Black, well-known Canadian singer, sang the lyrics of O Canada, but she didn't. Well, she kind of changed some of those lyrics. Well,

Zain 1:03:41

Well, one word, actually. She swapped out the anthem's usual line, O Canada, our home and native land, with O Canada, Our Home on Native Land. It's earning her a lot of praise online. It's getting her a lot of sort of support from certain communities. Others, of course, saying, no, that's not where it is. Are you in or

Zain 1:04:01

or are you out

Zain 1:04:03

on a well-known, award-winning Canadian singer changing a word in our national anthem? She said she's done it with mulch consultation and talked to much folks, but it's not the right words of the national anthem. Your take on this, Stephen Carter, in or out?

Carter 1:04:17

I like this one.

Carter 1:04:19

I think this is a great idea. You're actually in.

Carter 1:04:21

Yeah, I think this is great. It's really something that I think that can bring together the entire Canadian family.

Zain 1:04:29

you saying that just so you could get family in? Because now I actually want to know if you believe this. I'm dying to know if you're actually... I

Zain 1:04:35

do believe it. Do you view it as a form of advocacy and activism? How are you kind of processing this is what I'm actually curious about. Oh,

Carter 1:04:43

Oh, man, this is going to be a bigger conversation now. Way to go, Zane. We were trying to get out of here. Uh, lightning round indeed. Um, here's the thing.

Carter 1:04:50

Um, the truth and reconciliation report and how we view and how we are progressing on it, it has almost entirely been just boiled down to a discussion about, you know, land acknowledgements and speeches and stuff like that. We're not doing a lot of the work that needs to be done. If we're going to actually be talking about first nations issues and where the first nations actually, uh,

Carter 1:05:12

uh, fit within our Canadian culture and i think that this

Carter 1:05:16

this is a great way to recognize um the colonialism that that started canada it's not one of those judgy things it's going to end the country if we if we do this um but it does give us the ability to restart a discussion about first

Carter 1:05:35

first nation issues and how we're going to uh

Carter 1:05:38

uh tackle them moving forward and i think that that's an important conversation to to have gore

Zain 1:05:43

gore are you in or out on on the julie black uh changing one of the words in international anthem at the nba all-star game i

Corey 1:05:50

i i'm out i'm a hundred percent out i'm as out as when people say in all thy sons command i don't want the national anthem to be something we arm wrestle over and just pick the lyrics that match our worldview that's not the fucking point

Corey 1:06:01

of a national anthem and by the way since when do we use the phrase native land in your answer steven you you talked about first nations you talked about indigenous you didn't say native because we don't say that anymore so i don't actually think it was a particularly awesome thing that was done and at the end of the day let's

Corey 1:06:18

let's not wordsmith the canadian anthem let's just get rid of it because it's not actually very good what that's that's

Zain 1:06:23

that's which which which drake song should replace it with corey is the question uh well clearly hotline bling but uh carter hold on no no

Carter 1:06:32

no you have to ask me if i know a drake song no

Zain 1:06:34

no no i don't i actually i'm very curious about this if

Zain 1:06:37

if okay if your worldview saying

Zain 1:06:40

saying that this is a piece of activism or whatever it is you're in you're in on this right okay so go in with me for a second should

Zain 1:06:47

federal or provincial political party join you on going in on this what i'm saying is should a political party jump in and say you know what i like this or is this just too riled

Zain 1:06:58

riled up in in too many other things i'm kind of curious if you see political opportunity here i mean that's the fucking point of the show so like I'm curious if you see it that way, or conversely, you see it the other way, to speak strongly against truly black from a political opportunity, a political perspective. Your thoughts? I

Carter 1:07:16

I think that you'd have to go against character if you're going to speak against this or speak for this. So I think that the liberals could speak against it, the Democrats could speak against it, and the conservatives could speak for it. I think you'd have to go against type.

Zain 1:07:30

type. Why do you have to be against type? Why do you have to go against type on this? Why? Because

Carter 1:07:32

Because otherwise, you're just going to be thrown. own so if you're the liberals or the ndp and you speak for this it's just again another example of your woke culture trying to tell us what to do and

Carter 1:07:43

and changing everything that we just barely got comfortable with i still sing the words in all our sons command man because that's my anthem you know so you're going to be stuck in that woke not woke conversation but if you if you were the conservatives and you chose this and you said you know what this is the type of change that we could could actually get get behind because it actually signals uh something that we want to signal which is we're more open to how we as a country uh

Carter 1:08:10

uh work work around first nations issues then maybe i could see it but

Carter 1:08:15

like i wouldn't i would not be advising jagmeet singh to jump in on this and he'd be the most likely to jump in on it

Zain 1:08:21

i was trying to get there that's ultimately the question yeah and cory the political the

Zain 1:08:24

the weekend political opportunity that some might be kind of batting around over over whatsapp and such for their political parties or their political leaders to say do we jump in do we do we scold what do we do your thoughts on this fuck

Corey 1:08:36

fuck i mean don't please but i'm sure somebody will i'm sure people will talk about the fact that we're now apparently just editing the canadian anthem by committee again not a very good song let's just start there

Carter 1:08:47

there with not particularly

Carter 1:08:49

lyrics my eyes with tears at every olympics it's

Corey 1:08:53

it's only been our anthem since the early 80s we don't need to act like it's Sankrasek but like I also it just irritates me so much I

Corey 1:09:02

I also again to some of our other conversations with how quickly we forget

Corey 1:09:06

our French-speaking compatriots in in Quebec and beyond like how do you intend to feather this one through so in English we say first of all the lyrics are totally different in both languages

Corey 1:09:16

the French one is basically a song of conquest right and it talks about Canada being land of our ancestors you know that's how it starts tear the nose are you right that's how that's how it opens up and now it's our home on native land is the english one like the divergence again is pissing me off here and

Corey 1:09:33

and it's it's just like we've got we

Corey 1:09:36

we got other things that we got to focus on here and

Corey 1:09:39

and one of them should be getting rid of the anthem overall because it's a bad anthem so let's just get a better and let me instead of trying to

Zain 1:09:45

me carter listen listen to this hard

Zain 1:09:47

hard building build and trust from a distance. I think we should rule out commitment for now because we're falling apart. Leave in, you're just doing that to get even.

Zain 1:09:57

Don't pick up the pieces. Just leave it for now. They keep falling apart. Passion Fruit by Drake. That is my contender. So good. Such a timely, effective piece of anthem

Zain 1:10:08

writing. Anthem writing, Stephen Carter. I'm actually curious to see where this one goes, personally. I think this is going to be a topic that we talk about for a long time. Carter, next

Zain 1:10:16

next one. That kills me. but cory can't you imagine it kills fucking talk show tomorrow it's there it's going to be it's it's literally going to be it's one of those 51 49 60 40 issues that's just not going to go away so is

Corey 1:10:28

is this just what we do now somebody throws out a change to the anthem by singing it at a major sporting event and we debate it is

Corey 1:10:34

is this what we're going

Carter 1:10:34

going to do now this

Corey 1:10:36

this is fucking just the worst because

Corey 1:10:40

it's a bad anthem it's not a bad anthem

Zain 1:10:43

so your your problem is that she didn't edit it enough oh

Corey 1:10:48

she just sang a better song if that's what her plan no i know that's not my problem my problem is the national anthem has lyrics and just like i think it's just the

Corey 1:10:58

the height of stupid when people start saying in all thy sons command when they know it's in all of us command is the lyric i don't want people to start meddling with the anthem we actually have a process if you feel that strongly about it use

Corey 1:11:10

use that avail yourself of that process don't just Just go around making changes because it better reflects your view of what needs to be prioritized in the anthem. Corey?

Zain 1:11:21

Overrated or underrated is our next question. Canada will soon get a new electoral map on the federal landscape, and that map seems to be tilting in favor of the Conservatives. With the five seats being added, three are in Alberta, Conservative stronghold, one in B.C., a seat that is carved out of the southern B.C. interior that tends to vote Conservative. And while Ontario gets one more seat itself, Toronto loses a seat, dropping from 25 to 24. Overrated or underrated, the magnitude of impact this might have in terms of benefiting the Conservatives? Overrated or underrated in your mind, the five new seats that we're going to be adding to the map?

Corey 1:11:55

i could make a case for either i'm going to ultimately say underrated because it's pretty close and in some ways it's overrated because this is just helping us catch up to demographic changes and let's not forget the conservatives won the popular vote the last two elections so why shouldn't there be a couple more seats that are more likely to to shift conservative once you let the dust settle here carter

Zain 1:12:16

carter overrated underrated the five new seats seems like it's tilting more conservative net overall your thoughts on this well

Carter 1:12:22

well let's bring it back to the alberta family um

Carter 1:12:25

um when you can look at the seat redistribution and the seat redrawing that occurred under rachel notley in her first term um you know that that

Carter 1:12:35

that has is having significant implication right now on the election that we're about to fight these things um to cory's point you know this is just simple math uh but that simple math changes outcomes and it changes elections uh so this is likely underrated when you put it into the uh just into the simple context context of the alberta family carter

Zain 1:12:55

carter on a scale of one to ten how big of the was a how big was the ruler report a win for the trudeau government one being not so much ten being the massive political earth-shattering victory that you you desperately needed wanted desired on a scale of one to ten what is it for you stephen carter as we round out the episode two

Carter 1:13:12

two ounce two answers it was a um it was a three in the liberal family and it was a uh zero in the conservative family because they'll just reject it anyways carter

Zain 1:13:23

carter cory uh and uh finishes off here on the scale of one to ten how big of a win was this for the trudeau liberals zero

Corey 1:13:31

zero didn't change well no i'm gonna four you know what it was actually the best version of it best

Carter 1:13:38

best version you were all over the place there man like can you try and take one position going

Zain 1:13:42

going from a zero to a four holy what are you a flight airlines flight whoa

Corey 1:13:46

whoa i think it would have actually been worse if it was more More of like a clean bill of health. I think it was good that there were a few things that the government was called out for, which

Zain 1:13:56

with legitimacy. That they should have done better, needed to do better. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1037 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, on your family day holiday, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. And we'll see you next time.

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