Episode 1043: Johnston

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1043. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, guys, it's been a while. It's been a while since we've recorded. Of course, we were trying to trying

Corey 0:15

trying to, of course, buy

Zain 0:16

buy an airline in the meantime. And yeah, we were unsuccessful. There's a couple planes on sale. And we decided to run. I mean, I can't you tell us that there's an opportunity and we run for it, Carter. I can't believe

Zain 0:27

believe that we lost out.

Carter 0:28

out. I mean, I guess technically we haven't lost yet, but I thought that they would accept our first bid, which

Carter 0:33

which was, of course, continuing the advertising on the strategists. I mean, I thought that would be... Corey,

Zain 0:41

we listened to your strategy. You're the one with an advanced degree, an MBA, you like to tell us. Why is the strategist podcast now not in possession of a couple of airlines or a couple of airplanes, I should say?

Corey 0:55

these things take time, Zane. I think the first thing you've got to appreciate is that conditions might

Corey 1:02

might be right for us to own an airline. Certainly between the collapse of the financial sector and the overall anxiety in the airline sector, there's room to maneuver, I think is what I would say. But it takes time. It takes time. And sometimes you use time as pressure to get the deal that you want. And there's a bit of an arc in any negotiation that goes from it looks like the deal is close to the deal is very far away at the 11th hour to look, we found a deal. And you've got to sometimes use the clock in order to get what you want in negotiations. And so, look, anything more, I think, would perhaps jeopardize our own negotiating strategy at the table. but um you

Corey 1:42

you know suffice to say we

Corey 1:45

we will be offering flights to abbotsford within about three weeks here that was

Corey 1:49

was amazing steven can get his pilot's license i think

Zain 1:54

natural reasons to get my pilot's license but carter you are on the verge of getting yours uh we're also going to be offering flights to zurich i don't know if you know this uh because we're introducing a new sponsor to the program credit suisse yeah they they are joining

Corey 2:08

joining us they are they are in uh not quite

Corey 2:11

inked yet not quite inked yet

Zain 2:13

that's right that's right uh we're almost having our our merger of course uh all jokes aside this uh this episode is brought to you by flair airlines flair airlines we'll seize your day got

Zain 2:22

got it we'll seize the day because of the seizure i

Zain 2:25

thought it was pretty good that was very good that was very good uh

Zain 2:29

carter uh speaking of uh we're gonna do chatter

Carter 2:31

chatter like do you want to hear my stuff about like i I ran a package of

Carter 2:35

cross, F1, went outside today.

Carter 2:41

football. AFL started again. My Brisbane Lions got crushed.

Carter 2:44

Do you want to do any of this or are we just going to do work?

Zain 2:46

No, no. What I want to do is talk about the strategistlive.ca. It is a URL that leads to a live show, Stephen Carter, a live show where you and Corey Hogan will be competing, we'll be debating, we'll be squaring off, we'll be providing the highest level insights sites for the upcoming Alberta election, you will be dueling off with strategies for the NDP versus the UCP. Carter, talk to us about this live show. Talk to us about the state of ticket sales. Talk to us about why they haven't gone faster in your mind. What do you think the issue there was? And talk to us about which side you and Corey are going to be representing in just two Sundays. We're

Carter 3:28

We're in a very competitive market. I don't know if you guys know that. there's a young woman named Taylor Swift who

Carter 3:34

also launched a huge tour and she seems to have drawn all the ticket buyers but I have learned something from Taylor Swift yeah

Carter 3:42

if you're going to sell out a 67,000 person stadium here's what you need to do you need to give the people the eras right you need to give people the eras and give the people what they want so Corey and I are obviously I'm I'm going to do the NDP strategy because the people want Stephen Carter's strategy for the NDP. They want the winning strategy for the NDP and the losing strategy, which Corey Hogan's going to do, for the UCP. So a winner in me and a loser in Corey. Very important that you have winners and losers in these things. Also, going back in the eras, we're going to have you go back to this 500 series when you just first joined us. And you're going to be even more boring. you're not even gonna like there won't be jokes or anything you're just gonna be zane

Carter 4:28

zane belgi that new kid who tried to you

Carter 4:30

you know impress us after the chester episode cory

Carter 4:33

cory and i are currently negotiating as well with chester to bring him back after that zune that zune experience he's still a little bit bitter but

Carter 4:42

but you know he and i have buried a hatchet i think i think we've come around the corner cory's uh cory's not also an amazing negotiator he's also what the fuck is he's a therapist and

Corey 4:53

and he's and he's fixing i feel like you've drifted from the uh sales pitch that we were hoping zane

Carter 4:58

zane annalise the three hosts of the strategists will all be there it's like a the errors

Carter 5:05

errors this is what we're doing this

Zain 5:09

this is not the targeted precise persuasive pitch we expected no clear those final tickets carter this was a no this is long expensive you

Carter 5:19

know taylor swift was my example how can you be more timely can

Zain 5:23

can you bat some david ortiz and do some cleanup here for us speaking

Zain 5:27

speaking of eras that's

Corey 5:29

2004 all right we got a few tickets left these are in some ways the best tickets in the house because they're the closest to the exits so when steven starts talking you do have the ability to to get out let

Zain 5:40

let me talk about some misconceptions about these tickets okay this is where i was hoping both of you would go to to. If you go to strategistlive.ca, by the way, do not go to the strategistlive.ca. The strategistlive.ca will lead you to a website where you can get different types of tickets, which you should maybe also buy, but buy them after you go to strategistlive.ca. Okay. Now, if you go to strategistlive.ca, when you load that seating map, many of you will notice that there's some tickets left in the middle section, just very few. And there's some tickets left on the right-hand and the left-hand section now carter these look like a straight line so a a person a less thoughtful person might think that they're sitting uh in in a seat just by themselves uh but that's not the case that is actually not the case with these particular tickets right as we head into minute six of the podcast can we explain well those

Carter 6:31

are these tickets those are special tickets those are the mezzanine tickets and at one point i'd say only only for the patreons because you know we We care about the patrons more than anything, anything, because they give us money and the rest of you fucking give us nothing. But then I said to myself, you know what? Fuck the patrons. Let's get back. Let's give the people what they want and let's give them these tickets. So there are tickets side by side. And I will tell you, if it's going to help us, there are

Zain 6:58

are side by side. To be clear, they're side by side. Not not not not not sequential. One after the other. I

Carter 7:04

I explain this to you at great length on the telephone. You're the only person who is confused.

Zain 7:11

ticket buyers, Carter. What is wrong with you? You're

Carter 7:14

You're very confused. I don't need to buy a ticket. I explained it to you. I expect that you would know it now. Let me tell you something else. If it matters to people, we can reverse the order of the seating. We can do anything we want. It's our theater for the night. So if people buy the tickets and sell us out before Thursday, here's what I'm planning to do. We reverse the seat. So we'll change the whole order. So if you buy your tickets now, you could be in the splash zone with Corey and I.

Corey 7:43

I like how what you've done has actually reduced the value of every other ticket. They've

Carter 7:47

They've already paid us. So fuck them. You're

Corey 7:49

You're a real master salesperson.

Zain 7:50

.ca, 7.30, two Sundays from now. Two weeks. We're going to have the live show. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, in two weeks, we're going to have the live show. Carter, Corey, head to head. We might do some Q&A. We might just answer random questions on stage. you guys will come what with powerpoint decks we're doing power different categories and sections

Zain 8:08

explain it on a future show we don't need to get into the details the details don't sell the tickets just ask steven carter let's move it on to our first segment our first segment the strategy scale guys there is so so much to talk about on the fed

Corey 8:21

fed yeah and unfortunately you're too much of a coward to talk about half of it can i just

Corey 8:25

i said i'm just

Zain 8:25

just on the federal side yeah on the federal side there's so much to talk about can i jump in

Zain 8:29

in what do you want to jump in about it okay jump let's just get out of the way i didn't know

Carter 8:32

know that there was even an opportunity to talk not to not talk about campaigns we were working on i seem to recall the sandra jansen soft launch where you fuckers pushed me to soft launch an entire campaign that we weren't ready to soft launch because you would you guys are work you're working on it this

Carter 8:50

this is bullshit i'm getting

Zain 8:51

getting screwed that you own that by the way one thing i love about you is that you own everything that you've done, including that campaign, which was barely a campaign. Yeah.

Zain 9:01

It didn't even get off the ground, but you still like to recall it as part of one of your past glories, Carter. Well,

Carter 9:07

Well, I mean, it was pretty, I mean, the soft launch does live in infamy.

Carter 9:12

you know, you win some. Keep going.

Zain 9:13

What was your point? You were driving towards a point. I want to keep you on track towards.

Carter 9:17

Oh, no, I'm done now. I need to get a drink of water. I got distracted.

Zain 9:20

Corey, yes. Do you want to just finish this so I can address the elephant in the room? Well, yeah, you're

Corey 9:26

you're on the NDP campaign, so you, being a coward, don't want to talk about provincial politics. We're worried about the potential conflict of interest. This is my analysis. God forbid. Yes.

Corey 9:37

God forbid we provide you our pearls of wisdom that would allow you to be more useful on that campaign. You

Corey 9:42

You know, maybe Rachel would move you up from Waterboy if you actually brought some of your A-game. And by your A-game, I mean the repackaging of Stephen and I's C-game,

Corey 9:52

which is, you know, your A-game. listen

Carter 9:54

listen we know she listens to the podcast saying we know she does okay she's admitted this to us she's

Carter 9:58

she's listening right now with lou in the car they're driving around

Carter 10:02

right now she's like fuck i was saying would ask some questions she's probably texting you questions right now that she wants asked of cory and i look at your look at your phone look at it

Carter 10:14

oh it's not live fuck never mind she will text you tomorrow and she'll be really pissed that you gave up this opportunity.

Corey 10:22

Are you done? Hi,

Corey 10:23

there's a real chance there.

Carter 10:24

Danielle also listens to the show.

Zain 10:27

There's a good chance that...

Zain 10:32

Fucking idiots. This is why Annalise is here. She'll ask all of the questions you guys want to talk about about the provincial side of things. I mean, she's literally not here. She's not here right now, which means... I mean, okay, to be clear, though, to be clear, the federal scene is fucking exciting right now. There's a lot of shit going on. would you not agree shut the fuck up Carter you're tanking the show you're tanking the show

Zain 10:54

you're tanking the show

Zain 10:59

Corey you want to jump in before I get into the federal scene yeah

Corey 11:01

yeah I mean there's a lot that's going on in the federal scene that affects things in Alberta that I'm hoping we'll get to I'm

Zain 11:07

I'm sure we'll get into it when Annalise shows up it will be very exciting for both yourselves and the listeners did we even try

Zain 11:13

try to get Annalise tonight we could have gotten her

Carter 11:17

just by making a phone call i

Zain 11:19

think i inserted myself into tonight to be totally honest yeah i feel like it wasn't my night but here here i am yeah here i am um stephen carter on the strategy scale let us talk about this first

Zain 11:31

first of all how do we go about about the strategy scale for those that are new to this particular segment what i do is i introduce a particular issue a a particular item, a particular political strategy, announcement, press release, tweet, message, could be anything. I put it on the table and you give me a score between one to 10 on how strategic that move was for the party or the individual in question that I mentioned. Then we have a discussion, we debate it, we strip it down, we try to make it a 10. That's what we're going to try to stick to this time. We're going to try to give it a score. And if it's not a 10,

Zain 12:07

between the two of you, we're going to fucking make it a 10. You

Carter 12:09

You should totally do this with the NDP. provincial strategy then that would make it almost like i'm giving ideas to the person yeah wow yeah

Zain 12:20

we go here we go cory i'm gonna start with you because i i hate steven's attitude today i

Corey 12:24

i can't i can't stand mainly after that piss poor job of selling our show that was a great uh

Corey 12:30

yeah taylor swiss go nowhere

Zain 12:32

nowhere carter watch those sales go we're

Corey 12:34

we're gonna mention the price is is an affordable 30 before some very modest facility fees yeah exactly that's a very Very good price. It's amazing.

Carter 12:41

that to Taylor Swift. Jesus.

Corey 12:43

Do you want to know something? Do you look at the inflationary environment we're in and these tickets are actually cheaper than our last live show?

Zain 12:51

We're losing money and we're filling out less seats. So, I mean, it's working really well, Carter. It's

Zain 12:57

Corey, I'm going to start with you on this. Yeah. The first item on the strategy scale, the liberals, the federal liberals, of course, because we're sticking it all to the federal side because the provincial liberals in Alberta, not a thing. think, Corey, they have announced David Johnston as a special rapporteur on a scale of one to 10. Tell me what this was for the liberals. And then we're going to have a big discussion around it. But give me your one to 10 scale. They announced to some background that the special rapporteur would be named in weeks. It would not take a long time. Well, they were pretty quick in naming it. And they named David Johnston, a Harper appointee, former governor general of Canada, Canada, former professor of law, Corey

Zain 13:37

Corey Hogan, on a scale of 1 to 10, the strategic sort of prowess of this move for the federal liberals.

Corey 13:45

I'm going to give it a 3. The reason I'm not giving it a 0, which is below your scale, but it's where your scale should start. I start at 1, as you know, yeah,

Zain 13:52

yeah, on this show. Okay.

Corey 13:53

Okay. It's because he didn't, you know, pick Sophie Trudeau. I guess that's what I can say about him choosing David Johnson. Listen, David Johnson's a great guy. he's a smart guy he's a committed canadian he's certainly a man of integrity but it also takes all of 30 seconds of google search to identify a couple of potentially troubling connections to trudeau that even if they are not conflicts of interest you know arguable one way or the other they have the potential of being perceived as conflicts of interest and for something like this that you would choose somebody who has the potential to be perceived as in conflict of interest is just inexcusable. It's totally crazy. And if you're going to go with somebody like this, you should have put the

Corey 14:36

the politics aside. You should have gotten together with Pierre Polyev. You should have gotten together with Jagmeet Singh and said, I'm thinking David Johnston. How do you guys feel about this? Do you think this might be a potential individual? I know you don't like the special rapporteur. This is not what this is about. But if there was going to be one, how do you feel about this? Do you have any objections to this name?

Corey 14:57

But they didn't do that. Instead, they got back together behind closed doors and they high-fived each other when they came up with the idea they thought was genius, which was to pick the governor general that Stephen Harper appointed.

Corey 15:11

I mean, not actually that clever, guys. Not that special. Not a very good idea. Because ultimately, all you've managed to do is identify that Stephen Harper thinks some people are good at some things and that doesn't mean all conservatives think that same person's good at everything. And so, too clever by half. and ultimately so damaging to the outcome of this report that i don't know why david johnson's even

Corey 15:33

interested in doing it anymore and if i were him i'd be walking away from the position i've

Zain 15:37

i've got many follow-up questions including the strategy for johnson so i'll get to that cory you are giving this a three um you know i was one of the folks when i and i have not to be honest been super clued in on this until you know catching up on it so when it initially came out my instinct was like smart fucking move that

Corey 15:54

that was my what

Corey 15:54

what was my instinct zane you said

Zain 15:56

said something like uh not so quickly some version of that i

Corey 16:00

think you're not so sure not so sure not

Zain 16:02

so sure yeah um

Zain 16:03

um you give it a three uh

Zain 16:05

uh the current environment probably dictates it in and around that but carter is cory wrong is this a three in your mind the david johnston special rapporteur on a scale of one to ten what do you give the liberals on this i'm

Carter 16:16

i'm gonna give a six uh cory is wrong you know in many many regards as always uh but he's not completely wrong uh which is why I'm going to give it a six.

Carter 16:28

He's wrong in the sense that, you

Carter 16:31

you know, if the Liberals picked a candidate, that there was another candidate, they wouldn't find the Liberals in this type of political pressure. There just simply wasn't. There's no way that Pierre Polyev or the media is going to give Trudeau this opportunity to kind of choose his own investigator to kind of quote Andrew Coyne. And really, that's where the problem lies. This isn't someone who's investigating Justin Trudeau. This is someone who's investigating foreign interference into Canadian elections. So Justin Trudeau, last I checked, isn't a foreign entity interfering in our elections. But, you know, Coyne got a little confused and it looks like Corey got a little confused, too. So I'm going to give it a six because I honestly think that

Carter 17:17

that this could have been done better using some of the elements that Corey just talked about, which is the reaching out across the aisle and trying to make this less partisan across the board, which really we talked about before. it should have been done. It hasn't been done. And that's where the real weakness in the strategy lies, not in David Johnson. The weakness in this strategy lies in not reaching across and making it nonpartisan sooner.

Zain 17:45

Corey, we do know, we do know that from reporting by CTV News, at least, that Trudeau did seek input from

Zain 17:51

from other parties on potential names for the special rapporteur. And for example, in a letter responding to what his office said said, was an invitation to contribute to the process. So we know that there's some invitation to contribute to all of the party leaders. The Bloc Quebecois said they're not going to be submitting any names until Trudeau calls a public inquiry. They said, fuck this public inquiry, bullshit special rapporteur. So to be clear, the

Zain 18:14

the Trudeau government did in some way, shape, or form. It didn't seem like it got all that public exposure, and it wasn't a public sort of put your swords down, what do you think of this name? But they did try to seek some input. Does Does that change your mind at all?

Corey 18:27

No, because I, you know, when you think about the spectrum of engagement, right? Like kind of the very classic, you move from inform to consult, to collaborate, to co-create, right?

Corey 18:38

What I'm hearing is the Trudeau government, you know, what I'm understanding from reporting was at most, they said, like, give us your thoughts, right? What I'm saying is that they should have actually gotten, and

Corey 18:48

and you know, that's a classic consult. That's like, I want to hear what you think about this, but I'm going to make my decision at the end of the day. What I'm saying is they actually needed to collaborate on this particular one. They needed to get people to agree that the individual was acceptable from a baseline integrity point of view before they proceeded any further with this. And the idea that Johnson is just looking at foreign interference, ergo, of course, there's no problem that there's a conflict with Trudeau or a potential conflict with Trudeau is patently absurd. absurd because that is the anxiety that underlines all of this and it is just delusional to pretend otherwise and if canadians are going to have faith in the outcome of this it needs to be with the view uh that it is not based on somebody's personal relationships how could they possibly have come up with someone else i don't know probably one of 100 different federal judges would have been a bitter pick maybe a supreme court justice maybe a failed supreme court justice like mark nadon you know There are names out there that are still tied to Stephen Harper that are nonpartisan, that are judicial, that could have done this in a way that would have not gotten the blowback that the liberals got. There's where you're wrong.

Carter 19:53

wrong. If you need – There's where you're wrong. If there's

Corey 19:56

one thing – There's where you went off the scale.

Corey 19:57

There's one thing you need to justify the fact this is a three and not a six is the last week of coverage on this particular

Carter 20:03

particular fucking thing. Oh, yeah, because the

Carter 20:03

media are noted. What was the liberal party's ambition with

Carter 20:08

is actually – Corey's question

Zain 20:10

like it's not my next one on the strategy scale because i've got one about the the government sort of messaging around johnston because i want to talk to you guys about that and how you would improve that um and i don't i want to stick with the heart of this segment which is how do you make this a 10 so cory i'm i'm am i putting words in your mouth by saying for you it would have been a different pick it

Zain 20:28

different pick would have carter talk

Zain 20:29

talk to me about this talk to me about the ambition the question cory puts in and then i want to try to figure out how you would have gotten this appointment to attend and then i'll ask you a series of other questions on this particular one what do you think the ambition was here like did they have like high profile like as soon as that article goes every political know who's this person and no one's googling who david johnston is you know a lot of canadians aren't googling with david johnson there's a swath we're not paying attention no idea who he is but this is a household name in canadian public life yeah so what do you think their ambition was by choosing a household name in canadian public life in that in that sense well

Carter 21:01

well they they what they wanted was they wanted someone who was was unimpeachable on his credentials and someone who was deemed to be nonpartisan because of his um you know his appeal to uh stephen harper to make you know to put him in to make him the lg or i'm sorry the gg uh the governor general the challenge though is that no

Carter 21:23

no one really allowed this time to unfold properly if if in fact the

Carter 21:30

the ndp or the the uh the liberals liberals wanted this to actually work properly they needed to take those negotiations that you just referenced uh and pull them out into the public eye a little bit more we

Zain 21:42

you mean the ones to invite people in the process that cory called simply a consultation that those ones we

Carter 21:48

we tried to get the ndp to consult we tried to get the bloc quebecois to consult we tried to get the conservatives to to consult they wouldn't they weren't interested enough they could you know The liberals moved too quickly to actually present the solution before they'd actually articulated the problem. The problem has still been articulated as the problem is foreign interference. Actually, the problem is that the other two parties or the other three parties won't allow this to be a nonpartisan solution. They are only looking for partisan wins when we're facing an external threat. threat that's where the uh the the liberals fucked up because they moved too quickly

Zain 22:32

cory i'm going to come to you in a second i'll stick with carter for for a moment really

Zain 22:37

well and no it requires a follow-up so it's the opposite of a good answer carter um here's

Zain 22:43

here's what the the public process was okay as far as we know okay there's there's interference in our elections yep there's push for a public inquiry yep trudeau says no to a public inquiry for about 10 days. Says we're doing a special rapporteur. Mandacino says we're going to announce it in a couple of weeks. This is a matter of weeks, not months. And a couple of days later, David Johnston. In the broadest sense, there's a lot of... What are you suggesting the dominoes should have been? Because you're saying they had put the problem ahead of the solution and they should have... Okay, clean slate now. So I've given you what happened. happened now give me what should have happened if david johnston was the was the choice that you couldn't move the prime minister off of all

Carter 23:25

all you need to do was go back a few days when they say it's going to be a couple of days not a couple of or a couple of weeks not a couple of days and then you then you put out we are simply waiting right now for our engagement process with the conservatives and with the black quebecois and with the ndp we have asked them for names of people that they would like to be i and i i can't pronounce this what is this whatever um rapporteur

Carter 23:51

sure sure zane just nail it just crush it make me look horrible way to go zane thanks a lot buddy um

Carter 23:59

but you get the rapporteur and then you but you you get the same guy it just takes a little bit longer and the reason it's taking longer is because you're having problems getting the others to come to the table without making this political and you make sure that that information gets put out it's leaked out to the media the media now know that the real problem isn't that the the the liberals don't want to move on this. The liberals absolutely want to move on this. But the liberals can't move on this because the the Bloc Quebecois, the the conservatives, the NDP, they're all insistent on making this a political problem instead of focusing on the greater good of the country.

Carter 24:37

If you just wait a few more days and allow that narrative to take place, then the problem that you're trying to solve now, which is telling Telling everybody that David Johnson's a great guy that's totally nonpartisan, that is now solved because you made their partisan opposition the problem that you have to get past. We needed to name David Johnson because we needed someone to get this work underway. It's important. You know how I know it's important. Pierre told me it was.

Zain 25:03

Corey, I want to get your response to Carter's sort of new ordering of what should have been done by the liberals. But before that, I want to ask you your question back to yourself. What was the liberals' ambition in your mind?

Corey 25:15

Yeah, the Liberals' ambition was they were trying to win, and that was their big mistake. They should have been trying not to lose. And they should have been looking at it not through like who's got the most upside, but who has the least downside. And again, a simple Google search would have identified some potential downside to the David Johnston pick. And that was a mistake because ultimately the Canadians you were trying to convince and assure that the election is going to be just fine, David Johnson is not a household name to them, Zane. He's simply not. And many of them will now only know him through the filter of people complaining about his connections to the Trudeau Foundation, you know, his neighbor connection to Justin Trudeau and, you know, the lifelong, I've known this guy forever stuff, which is not going to be a good look when you consider what most people think that this inquiry is about, which is, what did the government know, and when did they know it, and why did they not act? You can't have that kind of connection in that kind of situation there. On Stephen's overall timeline, I think that he identifies a point, but I come at it a little bit differently here. I would say that the 10 days where Trudeau said, we're not going to do anything, you kind of brushed over, because it wasn't just, we're not going to have a special inquiry, it was, shame on you for even suggesting there was a problem with Canadian elections. Sure, yeah. Yeah,

Corey 26:28

Yeah, yeah, really aggressively say not a problem, Trump like suggesting otherwise, only to decide 10 days later after Canadians just were not having it, that he was going to say, Yes, this is serious. So I'm going to have this looked at by a committee of parliamentarians. And we're also going to get this special repertoire. And then he said it would be a couple of weeks. And no doubt in my mind, it was a couple of weeks, not so they could exceed expectations brilliantly by coming in a few days later, but because they were hoping temperatures would lower over that. time. Temperatures did not lower over that time. It was not enough. It was not enough to deny the calls for an inquiry, which is why they then brought out a name in spirit of trying to win by showing how fucking awesome this rapporteur could be. We're going to pick a name that everybody knows and Stephen Harper appointed him and that's going to fuck those guys. And we got them. We got a mission accomplished gang, except

Corey 27:22

except they were thinking about upside, not downside. And

Corey 27:24

And they they should have been thinking about the downside of that particular decision as they went along there. And if they wanted to make this look like it was an acceptable approach, it had to be built from more of a defensive point of view than the offensive point of view, which is what they did. And this goes back to their original sin, their fundamental problem. The liberals are deep in politics on this one. They tried to call Polyev Trump. They tried to go on the offensive for the first 10 days. That fucking failed. They went after that with their special rapporteur and their their committee that didn't really work either so then they decided they were going to go and find somebody that they thought would really stick it to the conservatives because how could they possibly possibly refute somebody like david johnson and that fucking failed they need to understand they're on the defensive on this one and the best defense is not despite what every platitude you've ever heard has said always the best offense they need to understand the serious risk they're in right now and start behaving appropriately carter

Zain 28:18

carter do you agree with that that that they went for the win here rather than preventing the loss yeah

Carter 28:24

yeah i do but i also think that my strategy did allow for a bit more victory than than the strategy that they ultimately took but to

Zain 28:32

to cory's point victory is not the goal that's i guess that's what i'm trying to say is like

Carter 28:35

like if you wanted the victory then you had to answer a different question right like this is the point that i'm trying to get across if you wanted the victory you had to ask a different question because if you were asking the question that they ultimately asked is you know should Should David Johnson be leading this inquiry? Well, they got their answer, right?

Carter 28:50

right? What they needed to be answering is, is David Johnson good enough in the face of significant opposition to

Carter 28:56

to the other parties from working on this collectively? And right now, they've put themselves back into the position where they look like they're the problem.

Corey 29:06

Yeah, I've been a communications professional for a long time. And I'll tell you, in moments of crisis, clients, people I've worked for often will say, well, well, how do we turn this around jujitsu style and win? How do we win, right? Like we're on the mat now, I want to be off the mat, I want to throw the other guy to the mat. And you know what, sometimes your job is just about minimizing downside. And it's tough, it stings, you know, it takes swallowing your pride to do it at that point. But sometimes the right response is minimize downside. Because you jump back up, you try to flip someone down to the mat, you might just be opening yourself to another attack. And this is a perfect example of that. Corey,

Zain 29:42

Corey, so to be clear then, to make this a 10 for the liberals,

Zain 29:46

first of all, was there a 10 for the liberals available to them? If David Johnston was the pick, I'm assuming you're saying 10 was not available. 10 is only available if someone else was the pick. Is that fair to say?

Corey 30:01

say yeah okay you want to make it a 10 i do like where we say like here's

Zain 30:07

like the you're yeah

Zain 30:08

rapporteur is being announced that start the gun there how do you make that 10 is optimal from the we're going to

Corey 30:14

to pick a rapporteur right yeah yeah well then a 10 is that the day after that nobody knows how to attack the rapporteur right that's that's my point of view on it uh and that is where you should have looked for somebody who yeah

Corey 30:26

yeah it would be difficult for conservatives to say they had bad judgment in that sense. I think a judicial appointment made by a conservative or an attempted one by a conservative in the case of, you know, a failed Supreme Court justice appointment, Nadon, right? I think it was Nadon, would be the, would be kind of a sensible approach in that way. But you want them ultimately not to have a bunch of things to complain about. You want them to be complaining still that there's not an inquiry, but not having really anything that they can gripe about in terms of the process that you've created through the rapporteur. Now, you've got a situation where that becomes almost a proof point in why they still need a public inquiry.

Carter 31:07

Carter? Oh, is it my turn again? I forgot to listen. I have

Zain 31:10

have to talk to you. Scale of one to 10. Talks about the liberal double down. Mendocino going on CTV News saying, David Johnston, Trudeau saying something similar.

Zain 31:18

Unimpeachable credentials and and character. We're very grateful that he's agreed to do this role. What do you think of that liberal messaging on a scale of 1 to 10? To talk about the unimpeachable nature and credentials of his character after, and I'll discuss it in a second here, the conservatives really are saying bullshit on that, especially with the family friend angle and the Bloc Quebecois jumping in on that. What do you think of the liberal double down on a strategy from a scale of 1 to 10? I

Carter 31:43

I think that it's really bad. I think that the double down is actually even worse than the choice. um

Carter 31:47

um you know you're going out and selling and this

Zain 31:50

this is this is coming from stephen carter the fan of the double down yeah i

Carter 31:53

want to mention this particular double down is a real big problem because this double down what you've done is you're trying to now convince people of something and and i think you know how many times have we talked about inoculation campaigns and trying to get to people before they know something instead of after they know something so when you get to somebody after they know something and you're trying to convince them that they're wrong it is near to impossible and that's where the liberals find themselves now now they find themselves trying to convince people that no you know everything that they've been told is wrong everything that andrew coin wrote was wrong and you know what i think that everything that andrew coin wrote on this particular thing was wrong but i don't need to be convinced you can't convince people of this stuff and because of that you're now on this defensive tact if you really want want people to believe you've done the right thing then just fucking go out and do it move past the appointment don't try and spin it just go and fucking do it that's how i would double down on this one i just say interesting you don't like our selection here's how we're going to do this and here's david's schedule for the next six months and here's how this thing's actually going to get done go do the fucking work that's your double down so if you want to double down on it you know there's many different ways to doubling down doubling down doesn't always have have to look like just running out into the public, grabbing the nearest microphone and starting talking. I mean, that's assuming I'm assuming that's what Corey

Carter 33:12

Corey just did in his last segment, but I didn't listen. So I haven't been convinced.

Zain 33:18

Corey, talk to me about the Mendocino double down unimpeachable credentials and characters were very lucky to have him. What do you make of that on that scale of one to 10? And then let's start getting into what would make the liberal messaging a 10 after and I'm going to tell you the time horizon here after the pick of Johnston is made and after they see the initial reaction? What would make that response on key messaging closer to a 10, if not a 10?

Corey 33:40

Well, I really like what Stephen said about getting down to work, right? And starting getting into the nuts and bolts of it and almost boring to people to death by saying, David Johnston, unimpeachable credentials, sure, but why not say that? But you know, he's already got a bit of a work plan going. He's going to be talking to witnesses here. He's going to be looking into these areas. He's going to be relying on these people as well and there's ways you can bolster some of the criticisms against him he's already brought in a team that includes a number of ex-justices who will be specifically looking at components to make sure he doesn't have a blind side to them there are many ways you can shore things up on the side and we don't need to create them all here but you know the other thing i would say about it is um well in many ways there's not any other approach for them to take at this point right if somebody puts a microphone in front of his face and says you know what do do you think about this either to the prime minister or to manichino of course they're going to have to say the things that you've just described but if

Corey 34:34

if for whatever reason this doesn't hold if johnson did decide to go away from this if the government did decide the pressure was too strong on this they are creating a bigger problem for themselves down the road so they are definitely limiting the you know there's they're making a retreat more painful if they end up in a place of retreat there's no question about that now again what

Corey 34:54

what are your options it's not because if if you start hedging your language, you're actually probably guaranteeing a retreat is down the road. But it's a difficult situation to be in for sure. And sometimes this becomes a situation where you do exactly what Stephen said, is rather than sit there and increase the rhetoric, you start giving them a little bit more substance down the road. Start changing the conversation to the nuts and bolts rather than the, you know, you move them past the decision and start talking about the roll on from the decision. And that's how you get past the decision sometimes. Well,

Carter 35:25

Well, I think that that's... Carter, talk

Corey 35:26

talk about this and I'm going to... Yeah, go ahead, Carter.

Carter 35:28

I just think that that's an important distinction about the double down strategy. The

Carter 35:32

The double down strategy is not necessarily, let's just put our head, you know, into the mouth of the dragon here. And

Carter 35:39

you're doing is you're moving forward, like you should be moving forward. This is, it's done. We are moving forward. I'm doubling down on this decision. It is over. That's the double down that I'd like to see from this government. We've made the decision when this report is published, and it will be published before the next election, when this report is published, then people will be confident in this because we'll be able to show the work. And when you show the work, people are going to be very, very confident with this.

Zain 36:09

Carter, and Corey as well, maybe I'll insert this question here rather than its own independent sort of one to 10 scale. What was the political misread by the liberals as it related to the Harper connection? They thought the Harper side of this thing would be like the biggest sort of preventer

Zain 36:26

preventer from any sort of attacks. And it did not stop Pierre

Zain 36:33

Pierre Polyev. And I'll talk about the Polyev communications in a second and in terms of how hard they went and some of their messaging lines, etc. I want to get your read on that. But what was the political misread on the Harper side of things? Was it the fact that Harper doesn't have that same political power? Was it the different political eras? What was it? Carter, both of you want to go first on this, which

Zain 36:53

which means I'll let Carter go first on this because his desperation level is definitely a 10. It's definitely a 10 on that scale of 1 to 10. Carter, what was it here? What was the political misread on the Harper being the inoculation against conservative attacks? Hex. Governor

Carter 37:08

Governor General's not a political appointment.

Carter 37:11

The Governor General is, you know, it doesn't imply that Stephen Harper thought that this is the best guy politically. This was a, you know, this is a person who held well-rounded credentials, similar to your mother-in-law, for being appointed to the LG. But it's not political. It's not like your mom, your mother-in-law was appointed because she had really strong relationships relationships uh with um with the government of the day the the point of the exercise is these people are in some fashion unrelated to the government and so you don't get any of that stephen harper uh protection because it actually wasn't a stephen harper decision you know it wasn't a stephen harper political decision i would imagine that the governor the governor general has thought about for about 15 or 20 minutes when the decision is being made you know is this going going to hurt us yes or no oh no great because the lg is going to do the lg and the gg do what they're told to do period end of sentence um and so there was no real upside to be gained i think would probably be the simplest way to put it there was no upside to be gained from making this particular gg decision so

Zain 38:22

so cory carter's carter's ultimately saying that david johnson doesn't wear the blue jersey he's not on the team so to speak he he didn't get the the the tap on the shoulder to be on the team, so to speak, in that sense. And he doesn't have that political air cover that perhaps the liberals would have expected conservatives to kind of be like, no, no, he's a no-go, when in fact, he was definitely a go.

Corey 38:43

So that's a really important point. And the thing to underline is when Stephen Harper was saying nice things about David Johnson, I had no doubt that he thought nice things about David Johnson, but he was really saying nice things about himself. He was saying, I'm such a smart prime minister i've appointed this person who is so perfect for the job right look at me i'm a great guy who's good at picking non-partisan people to be governor general and you got to consider the context of previous governors general and the complaints that conservatives had about them in particular that they were perhaps not not administrators they were a little bit of that liberal mold of being these aspirational ggs that were supposed to say something about the country you know we've actually talked about this yeah we have liberals like to appoint governors general that say something about Canada. They're supposed to speak to our better angels. And Conservatives don't. Conservatives want to get somebody who's kind of like this steady, stable, very traditional person

Corey 39:34

person in the role. And so the nice things that were said were really just a way of reflecting the virtues that Stephen Harper thought were important in a Governor General. So that's number one, and that's really important. But I also want to say, and I said this on Twitter too,

Corey 39:48

just because you think somebody is good for one job does not mean you are giving them a pass to be great at every job going forward here. You know, I might think really highly of my accountant, not going to let him do heart surgery. I might think somebody would be a great judge, fantastic judge, not going to let them oversee a trial of their cousin, right? We're not giving blanket endorsements when we endorse people. And just because we think they're people of integrity doesn't mean we're going to allow them to be in positions where that integrity might be called into question. And it doesn't mean that we never can complain about them or criticize them going forward, because we've said nice things at least once before. And so I think that was the thing. Like, it would be different if Harper had appointed Johnson to Stephen's point in a political role. It would be different if he had appointed Johnson in a role that was specifically to this, like to oversee an inquiry. The job of the GG is not that, right? And they had proven, you know, and Johnson had proven that he was very capable in that, and he got tons of accolades for it. But no, he was a ceremonial figurehead many years, well, not many years ago, it was pretty recent, he was governor general. And, and then he wasn't, and now he's being appointed to an entirely different role, overseeing foreign interference. In a way, it's a bit wild. old no given his background as a university administrator and a you know a law professor and let's face it university administrators are great they're

Carter 41:12

they're amazing at everything yeah i

Corey 41:14

think so personally um but the uh you know you know it's just it's not necessarily a comp and it's certainly not enough to say just because i thought they were good at this one job that they're going to be good at this other job carter

Zain 41:27

carter you know one thing i did assume was that the liberals did think that the harper thing would be an inoculation do you feel like that's what what they're expecting like if if their reaction was what it was this week the liberals would not have appointed david johnson just to be clear on this right from your perspective do you think yeah they do think they would have burned this much political capital if they knew this week was going to end the way it ultimately did with they knew kind of what pierre was going to perhaps do but maybe they didn't maybe thought there'd be a muted version of pierre being like oh my goodness this is a harper appointee how dare we attack a harper appointee so to speak do you feel like they're actually genuinely caught off guard here yeah

Carter 41:59

yeah i do think that i do think so because Because, I mean, what is kind of like Corey and Stephen's number one rule when it comes to the federal government? They really suck at doing crisis. I mean, how many times? This has been an ongoing theme for years. You know, we have these themes. People like the themes. If you want more of the themes, come to the live show. We'll have lots of themes at the live show.

Carter 42:23

Did you see how I did that? Really organic.

Corey 42:24

organic. I like that. It was good. Strategistlive.ca. Tickets still available. Tickets still available. Not the strategistlive

Zain 42:28

strategistlive.ca, because tickets are always available there.

Corey 42:31

there. Tickets are always available there. Cheaper,

Corey 42:33

Cheaper, too. You can get cheaper

Zain 42:34

tickets there. Way, way cheaper. Way cheaper. Seize the day. Get a ticket at thestrategicelive.ca. Carter, back to you. Anyways,

Carter 42:40

Anyways, I made a really good point, and I don't remember what it was. So I

Carter 42:44

think that it's dance.

Zain 42:46

Corey, did it actually catch him by surprise in your mind?

Corey 42:50

feel like it had to. I think you hit the nail on the head there, Zane. Would they have done this if this was the reaction? It definitely felt like, because

Corey 42:58

because of how quickly they leapt there and talked about him being a Harper appointee, that this was an inoculation strategy. But again, I go back to, they were trying to win. They were trying to find the name that would just knock it out of the park, and they should have been playing defense. And if they were playing defense, they would have not made this call. But ultimately, a very staid, boring federal judiciary pick is not going to allow them to win.

Corey 43:24

And they wanted to win. They wanted to somehow knock this thing off the front page, but that was never going to happen.

Zain 43:29

Corey, Pierre Polyev going hard as a motherfucker on this. Justin Trudeau has named a family friend, old neighbor from the cottage, and member of the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation to be the independent rapporteur on Beijing's interference. Get real. Trudeau must end his cover-ups. Corey, on a scale of 1 to 10, we always know kind of like the frequency that Pierre Polyev operates, so this is not much of a surprise because it's in that same register, so to speak. But on a scale of 1 to 10, the extremely

Zain 43:58

extremely assertive communication style of the conservatives, Polyev, Jenny Byrne, others are setting up this make it open and independent sort of landing page on conservative.ca. What do you give them on their political strategy on a scale of 1 to 10 for how they've communicated on the heels of the Johnston appointment?

Corey 44:20

I give it an 8 or a 9. I can't give it a 10 because they do go overboard. On occasion, right? But that sentence you just read from Pierre Polyev, fucking

Corey 44:29

fucking brilliant. The number of things that he put in both overt and kind of right under the surface there that are just, I mean, it's so well done. It's so on message for it.

Zain 44:40

Deconstructed. So let me read it to you again. Has named a family friend. Sure.

Zain 44:44

Sure. Old neighbor from the cottage and member

Corey 44:46

member of- Old neighbor from the cottage, right there. Oh my God, so good, yeah. Yeah, it's the elites, right? The elites hanging out and determining what's going to happen in this country, never uses the words elites. But his whole idea of like, take back Canada, and we're gonna, you know, we're going to make this work for you. And Canada is broken right now. It's just like, it's all subtext within there. It's fucking wonderful from a communications point of view. And

Zain 45:08

And member of the Beijing funded Trudeau Foundation. Yeah,

Corey 45:11

Yeah, also really solid. I

Corey 45:13

mean, technically true, but is Beijing funding all of the Trudeau Foundation? Absolutely not, right? So it's, you know, it's dishonest, it's duplicitous, but boy, it's tight communications. It's very, very tight. To

Zain 45:30

be the independent rapporteur on

Zain 45:32

on Beijing's interference, not China's interference, Beijing's interference. Talk to me about that symmetry in language between Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation and Beijing interference. I suspect that was, maybe it wasn't for you, but that was one of the ones for me, which is just to make sure that it was clear for people. Yeah,

Corey 45:48

Yeah, so the use of Beijing instead, again, like you're making me unpack it all here, but using Beijing instead of China takes the racial tones off it, right? Now we're talking about the government in power in China, not the Chinese people. It's

Zain 46:01

It's like saying Ottawa

Zain 46:02

versus Canada on an international level, smart. I see what you're

Corey 46:05

Yeah. And then the way it just sort of drips, this idea of independent after listing all of these ways that David Johnson is not independent before.

Corey 46:15

Really good communications work. Again, doesn't mean I agree with its outcomes or all of that, but like from a pure craft tactic point of view, really

Corey 46:24

really well done. one defends

Corey 46:25

defends against claims of racism, puts

Corey 46:27

puts in some of that overall campaign messaging about, you know, elites and the idea that we need to take back Canada, and also hits the key message of the fact that this individual is not independent, like really, really strongly built. Carter,

Zain 46:39

Carter, do you want to break up this bromance that Corey and I are unnaturally having on a Pierre Polyev tweet? Jesus fucking Christ. He gives it an eight or a nine. I agree that the communications here is strong. I also, of course, don't agree. But Carter, Carter, I'm asking you for the crass political strategy. Give it to me on a one to 10. What was your ranking this week? And I'm just giving you one snippet, right? But almost everything was in that sort of ballpark of what I've just read to you. What is your take on the Pierre Polyev comms one to 10 this week? I

Carter 47:10

I think it's an eight. I think it's an eight. And it's very painful for me to say it's an eight. I don't want to say it's an eight. I want to say it's a two because I want to respond with my partisan blinders on. I want to say, you know, this is all filled with half truths. well the problem with half truths is that they're mostly true you know like these statements that are being made are mostly true they are they are based in a certain reality that his voters will be very open to and that trudeau opens himself to um trudeau the

Carter 47:43

the the trudeau government and the trudeau um the

Carter 47:47

the trudeau model has apparently been to just be absolutely absolutely oblivious to what their own weaknesses are they are oblivious to how someone could attack them and because they're oblivious to how someone could attack them they make this they make mistakes like david johnson now again i don't necessarily think that david johnson was a mistake uh from who they chose but how they're now being criticized my god like they have opened the door to the fullness of these of these attacks and and the worst part is they feel like they have to defend from them and you you can't

Carter 48:23

can't defend this attack man like there is no way around this all those words um have at least a basis in fact they're at least mostly true uh even though you know i i just find pierre just

Carter 48:36

just to be the worst type of politician who is always going for our base instincts but in this particular case it's probably going to work yeah

Carter 48:44

does there have to be a cost

Zain 48:45

cost here do you think there's a cost like you know one of the criticisms you've heard is that that David Johnson statesman, like how dare you go after him so aggressively, so vitriolically, so assertively. Do you feel like there's a cost rate, either immediate or eventual price to pay for Pierre Polyev with keeping this, once again, another issue that's dialed up at 11?

Corey 49:09

Well, no, I don't, actually. I think the liberals would like to create a sense that there's a cost, That somehow by doing this, that Pierre Polyev is eroding the fabric of this country and weakening democracy. And certainly a lot of liberal partisans have picked up that message and suggested, my goodness, the fact that they would go after someone like David Johnston, who should be above all of this. And he was clearly fine when Harper appointed him to be governor general in the first place.

Corey 49:35

it's like i'm sorry it doesn't wash it doesn't actually the idea that we are going to uh you know allow our democratic institutions to to just go on autopilot and we're just going to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that's not actually what democracy is about and we're allowed to hold people to account and we're allowed to call into question things that we find a little bit suspect what we're not supposed to do is is create kind of these like really hurtful lies and and erosions like donald trump did about like the the stealing of an election and what you read in that statement did not say an election was stolen what you read in that statement listed some things that were actually fairly accurate and if you were the liberals and you're going to start arguing about them boy are you on losing ground like no the trudeau foundation's not beijing funded beijing is only i don't know two percent of the funding like is that really the argument you want to have we

Carter 50:24

we gave back that but i i

Carter 50:25

i really we gave back i actually

Corey 50:27

actually kind of i

Corey 50:28

i kind of resent the weaponization the other way of like any criticism of this government is trying to erode our democracy because that's utter bullshit as well can we just call it utter bullshit it's

Zain 50:40

it's something that i'm stealing from our friend kelly kreiderman who i was in a panel with recently and she had a great phrase she said the trudeau government always feels like they can break the rules because they're the heroes in the in the story they're the good guys in the story so the

Corey 50:54

it was a great it's

Zain 50:54

it's a great insight that she put on the table and i've repeated it without attribution. And by the way, Kelly, I'll continue to do so. But for this podcast, I will certainly attribute her. I want to move to Jagmeet Singh. Corey, I'm going to start with you. On a scale of one to 10, his communication was this. Very interesting. He said, David

Zain 51:12

David Johnston is a nonpartisan official known for his integrity. And then he moved on to his core issue. He almost tried to change the channel here to saying, how dare Justin Trudeau and Pierre probably have not attend the... And I'm going to actually try to get you an actual phrasing of it so it's correct. How dare they not show up to the questioning of grocery CEOs last week? This was a big deal for him last week, right? The grocery CEOs, him questioning Galen Weston, right? Showing up and others. This is a big sort of item for the NDP. So he went with a, fuck, I need a public inquiry. But as it relates to Rapporteur, fucking fine. He's okay. Grocery, grocery grocery cost of living on the surface you could see some merits but i'm actually going to ask you guys a question rather than give my opinion cory on a scale of one to ten that the package that was the chugmeat sing communications uh on this file and what he's trying to do with it which is not talk about it and now spend his time and energy's talking about the the grocery hearings last week of the grocery ceos your strategy scale ranking on a one to ten and then let's talk about how to make it a different number if it's not a ten i

Corey 52:18

i i'm gonna say a five only only because i boxed myself in with the scores i gave the conservatives and the liberals right but like not strong very poor uh yeah so i gave a lot of praise to the construction from a communications point of view of what pierre uh polyev did there let me deconstruct the message track that you've just gone on a little bit he took what i would uh derisively call the webster's dictionary defines approach right so he didn't say anything he said david johnson is x right or has been described as x in the past and then he tried to immediately jump onto an entirely different issue there it's kind of the laziest pivot possible in communications there is absolutely no art to that if you want to be bridging from one topic to another a bridge properly constructed is not saying one thing and then saying an entirely different thing it is saying something that naturally leads into the other thing there and it you know you if you want to get onto the grocery restore issues and talk about, you

Corey 53:18

you know, the matters that you see as more bread and butter for the NDP, you're going to need a little bit more art than what you've just laid out there. Yeah.

Corey 53:27

You can't just say, David Johnson is X. I'd like to talk about Y now. Would you

Zain 53:33

you have preferred something like, you know, David Johnston is a nonpartisan individual. He's a big name in Canadian life, has been recognized for his public service. I personally would have preferred someone with with a no name uh and speaking of no name um superstore uh galen west would you prefer something as artful as what i've just described i mean and should i be running for leader

Corey 53:56

leader of the federal ndp that's

Corey 53:58

like a clever turn of phrase but that doesn't actually connect the two issues and actually that's the the next version of but zane you know what you actually do in that situation is you say you

Corey 54:07

you know i uh i don't know how i feel about about this appointment of rapporteur. I've got concerns about how close they are to the Trudeau government. It's something I'll be watching very closely here as we move forward. But I got to tell you, one of my concerns right now is that by not calling this inquiry, Justin Trudeau has created a situation where we're all having to react and respond and talk about these issues when there are really important bread and butter issues that we should be focusing on as a parliament. Unfortunately, the security of our country is not something we can put aside. And Justin Trudeau's desire to continue to drag this thing so painfully through the weeks and months is doing an absolute disservice to this to you know this fine nation uh i i'm going to be trying to juggle the ball and you know watch two things go in at the same time i will certainly continue to be deeply engaged on foreign interference but i also want to talk about the interference of grocery stores and prices and i want to make sure that right now we are also looking at what's happening um you know at the at the supermarket i want to make sure we understand what's happening with insurance prices We can't lose sight of affordability, and frankly, we can't afford to, just because Justin Trudeau has gotten himself into such a mess with the foreign interference. And by the way, shame on Pierre Polyev for absolutely no ability to raise himself above this and talk about what matters to Canadians. He's only talking about cheap political points with Trudeau. i'm never going to lose sight on and focus on what matters which is you and your livelihood and that doesn't mean that uh i give a pass to justin trudeau here but it means we got to be able to walk and chew gum and unfortunately i don't see either of the other two leaders remotely able to do that

Zain 55:40

not bad cory carter you know david johnston was a prime minister's choice the president's choice okay i'm gonna stop there i'm gonna

Zain 55:50

uh carter yeah i

Zain 55:52

was better i like that i was

Carter 55:53

was hoping to have a joke but i didn't have one and you i'm glad you did hey carter on a

Zain 55:57

a scale of one ten what are you giving jagmeet singh and by the way to be clear to be charitable to jagmeet singh i've kind of stitched that together yeah you summarized

Zain 56:05

like read a tweet like i did for for justin trudeau but he pretty much gave a you know sure whatever non-partisan he's known for his public service grocery grocery grocery carter what

Zain 56:15

what do you think i'm

Carter 56:15

i'm gonna give it a five i'm gonna join cory right down the middle on this one because i think that it's

Corey 56:21

it's not really down the middle when one is your lowest just it's actually closer to the bottom than the top just want you to know that okay

Carter 56:27

okay i didn't really even hear what you said anyways i think that the point is that you

Carter 56:32

you know just leave it to jagmeet sing to be on last week's issue this week you know like he's always seemingly about one week behind where he needs to be and as a result his his his media relations tend to be out you

Carter 56:47

out of out of sight no one can actually see where he is because he's just he's always a week behind and trying to bring something back to the week before and trying to get media coverage for it impossible you want to send out a mailer on it go ahead you want to send out paid communications on it no problem i'm all over it i think you should try and do that but when you're trying to get free media coverage from the from the nation's media then you got to be on their topics you can't just simply segue back and hope that they follow you uh on a you know you know well that's important but this is what i really care about that that would be even my critique of what cory did um and i would think that cory's uh was a little bit more art you

Corey 57:30

you know i'd agree with it but

Corey 57:31

yeah like i mean

Corey 57:32

you gotta you gotta go with the media hook you

Carter 57:34

you gotta get the media that's available that's that's the real trick in media relations not you know hey oh the media are following our thing great

Carter 57:43

great well you know what happens when they're not and they're almost always not following your thing.

Zain 57:50

I kind of feel for Jagmeet Singh for this reason, and I'm going to ask you guys your political strategy. Because you're working for the NDP? They're all one

Carter 57:54

one party? Yeah, you're working for the

Zain 57:56

Well, they're not. They're not, no. They're all one party, and

Carter 57:58

and they're all the same group of people? I mean, I've

Corey 57:59

I've read the constitution of the NDP, Zainal. Yeah, they're all the same group, right? Hey, Carter, so

Corey 58:05

if you want... So you've gotten your marching orders from your boss, Jagmeet Singh, through

Corey 58:09

through Rachel Notley, who works for Jagmeet Singh, right? That's what I understand from your CPI. There's a 3D hologram

Zain 58:14

hologram of Jack Layton, which is where all messaging comes from.

Corey 58:22

jagmeet singh spent so much time and

Zain 58:25

and energy to get this grocery store questioning to happen and it just happened at the fucking shittiest time for him yeah right so like if you're that's life okay so the question is if you're him is simply a forget it man i don't care how much you poured into it like the the world's moving on or how do you like how would you have advised him the question slightly different than how to get this to attend how How would you advise him to maximize on his story? Because it is in it is in, you know, a it is

Zain 58:54

is a popular thing to do. It's it's polled well. It just isn't the story of the day. How would you have advised him to keep that story alive? Would you have told him to, like, pause it, come back to it? How what would your advice to have been to a person or to a political party that's poured so much into promoting, keeping a story and, frankly, generating and engineering it into the public consciousness in some way? paid

Carter 59:17

paid media is great uh higher north weather i understand they're fantastic at uh placing paid media um they love taking especially

Corey 59:25

especially for the new

Carter 59:25

especially for the new democrats uh so you know just paid media there's nothing wrong with paid media paid media in many respects is more effective than than uh than than than free media you know the mainstream

Corey 59:39

mainstream media i mean especially if north Especially if

Carter 59:41

if it's done by Northweather, which I understand is the preferred preferred advertising

Carter 59:48

advertising firm of the New Democrats all over the world. Corey, Jesus

Zain 59:52

Jesus fucking Christ. Corey, Corey, can you can you talk about this? Talk to me about what would you have done if if you're helping Jagmeet Singh on this? How would you have helped him maximize? I feel like I've been maximized something. He spent so much of his so much of his political time trying to engineer into public consciousness.

Corey 1:00:09

consciousness. That's a pretty good answer. You know, I mean, I wouldn't jump past Stephen's answer. It's right. Like, you know, you hire the Northweathers of the world. Obviously, you want Northweather if they're available, but if they're not, you hire another firm and you pay for it.

Corey 1:00:23

When you talk about public relations, it's just one leg of a stool. you know you when we talk about advert when we talk about communications we talk about earned media paid media owned media owned media being things like the products you produce your platform would be an example of owned media you know the fact that you've got a website that people are going to go to own videos you put on that website a live show podcast a

Corey 1:00:43

live show tickets available strategist live.ca but then earned is when you're trying to hook onto the media of the day and yes of course you're trying to shape that and yes of course you're trying to steer it and get them I'm talking about the issues you've got to talk about. But let's be realistic. There are only so many inches in a newspaper and there are only so many reporters out there. And if you've got a big issue like this, you're going to have to hook onto it. But

Corey 1:01:05

But that doesn't preclude paid. And if you're being smart with your paid, you're always thinking about using paid in a... There are two ways to think about paid, actually, right? And I'll tell you my personal preference for them. One is that it is a supporting element and it is reinforcing the messages that you're pushing through earned.

Corey 1:01:23

Another is you're using it where earned is not available to you, which is how I tend to like to think about it during political

Corey 1:01:30

There are messages that you are simply not going to get the media to carry after a while, but repetition is so important in politics. So you use paid to get that repetition. And because you're paying for it, you get the message in its perfect form, just your soundbites, the way you want it, expertly crafted by an organization like Northweather. so they should be uh absolutely considering using paid to continue to drive that message propagating those messages through the same keywords that people are looking for for grocery coupons right people who are feeling the pinch they're doing search terms that you can buy onto you can look at the demographics that are perhaps going to be more likely to purchase on no-name brands for example and you can make use of them some

Carter 1:02:12

some really good stuff compliment are we billing north for this one

Zain 1:02:15

compliments brand um no name brand president's choice uh

Zain 1:02:19

uh i'm gonna try to figure out if we can do all the house brands

Corey 1:02:22

brands life from shoppers dragon were so

Corey 1:02:24

good i don't know i don't know what i don't know what soby says hey

Zain 1:02:27

hey carter i'm gonna move it on to our over under our lightning round that's where we are going to go steven carter we do this for you already

Zain 1:02:33

we all of course already okay this is gonna take a while because we've got some meaty things to talk about um

Zain 1:02:39

under stephen carter a

Zain 1:02:42

a six over under on a six pierre polyev is calling for changes to allow doctors and nurses to work across canada he's calling it the blue seal program modeled after red seal program in the skilled trades saying if you can do the job you get the job regardless of where you are in the country allowing mobility for doctors and nurses seems It seems to make sense. It's something similar to what Doug Ford kind of mentioned in Ontario, letting folks from trained professionals in medicine come to Ontario and start working right away.

Zain 1:03:14

Scale of over, under on six, Carter, is it an over or an under for you for this Pierre Polyev announcement and political message? Oh,

Carter 1:03:23

Oh, I really like it. I really wish I didn't like it as much as I do.

Carter 1:03:28

It does create some problems within the system. Increasing mobility will drive more people to Alberta

Carter 1:03:36

Alberta or to wherever they're paying the most money. And that could really hurt provinces in the long run, especially some of the have-not provinces. consequences but for politics fantastic messaging um you know make it easier for people to move and try and find the money and and uh you know be a part of all canada it just sounds like one of it's a perfect conservative idea it's a perfect conservative idea reducing and removing barriers to make it easier for canadians to do what they want to do very very well done

Zain 1:04:13

cory over under on six on the pierre polliev announcement well

Corey 1:04:17

well as a policy i i really like it and i think it does speak to um some things that conservatives have pushed for many decades i feel like we don't talk enough about interprovincial trade barriers it's funny how much easier it is in some ways to trade with to work in the united states through nafta than it is sometimes through uh you know provinces that are just next door and the harmonization of these these rules is vitally important. And Stephen, I think that, I mean, this is the perennial conversation and debate, but look, I mean, this is simple economics. You make it easier for people to make that move to Alberta. Over time, that will reduce wages in Alberta. That will balance things out through the system. And over time, it makes it work better for the other provinces as well. As a country, I just think it makes sense. And it will help level off some of these massive inequalities that we have we have found have generated over time um you know where where alberta has gdp per capita way above other provinces for example right so so yeah you know people should be able to make use of that money and and i i don't i don't begrudge anybody that and i think that as canadians we should have the kind of mobility that this sort of uh policy introduces as politics i don't know that it's actually that sexy or that interesting and of Of course, the PCs in the 90s used to talk a lot about interprovincial trade barriers, and no one gave a shit, because the stuff that really engages the political class is not this, and that's why the Reform Party gets to get in the headlines with things like Tripoli Senate back in the day, and that's why, you know, you can talk about Chinese interference, and that's what's going to be driving the headlines right now. I also think that Stephen has put his finger on some anxieties that will exist around this particular policy. So, I don't know. I don't think it's going to move too much. I think it's a super, you know, sensible if you've got a conservative worldview policy. I think it's just a generally sensible policy if you believe in economic theory. And I don't fault it, but I don't think that its politics are going to be uplifting and I don't think it's going to change the terrain in Canada. Corey,

Zain 1:06:16

Corey, are you in or out on the Globe and Mail allowing

Zain 1:06:20

allowing a special anonymous opinion piece written by the alleged whistleblower of the Chinese interference in Canada's election? So this was a piece that was published a couple of days ago on Friday. At the end, it had a message by the editor in chief of the Globe and Mail around why they allowed anonymity for

Zain 1:06:40

person. They talked about at length about why they did what they did, that they weren't necessarily motivated by bipartisan attacks, so to speak. They told their story without showing their face or signing their name. Corey, are you in or are you out? We don't talk a lot about media strategy, media ethics. Oftentimes, we're probably not qualified to do that, but we can have a take on things from our political lens. In or out, Corey, for the Globe and Mail allowing this opinion piece to go up on Friday.

Corey 1:07:08

oh so um let's talk about the various lenses from the globe and mail's point of view in of course you publish it if they're willing to do that and it provides that context and you've already done the reporting that has resulted from the things that this individual has provided to you 100 in i think that the media's job is to report these things when it comes to them and i don't believe that the media should have to burn their sources or anything like that that does not mean i am in on what the individual did uh including the original leaks you know me i'm a former public servant i loathe leaks i think that they can be very poisonous i think the hero complex that some of these individuals have that i feel was very much on display in this article where they think they know best and if other people have made different decisions they have the right to override them i just don't believe that's the case and if there's systemic breakdowns there's other avenues available through which you can operate does not appear to to be how this individual has decided to operate so uh i am i am out on the individual and i actually think the article portrayed somebody who seems deeply out of touch with some some basic realities of being a public servant uh you know there were comments made about how like other people just sort of almost like disagreed or ignored like well that's their right you know just because you've provided some intelligence analysis does not require them to operate on it and you know much of the language about like i will stand by this and i you know i there will will be a moment where i will come forward like for

Corey 1:08:32

for god's sake you know like who are you who do you think you are is a statement that's overused but who do you think you are that you are writing these particular words in this particular way and i think if it had come with a little bit more humility i i probably would have reacted differently to it all told i i'm very conflicted about the entire affair i

Corey 1:08:54

i think that it's not necessarily something that should have come out i think that that there are other mechanisms that should have been activated that would have allowed it to come out in different ways. But now that it's out, I also don't think we can remotely ignore it. And I don't know. I mean, it's okay to be conflicted about this stuff, and it's okay to not be that enthusiastic about the leaker and still think that we need to do something about the subtext or the content of the leak.

Corey 1:09:20

Carter, in or out on the Globe and Mail?

Carter 1:09:21

I'm out, and everything

Carter 1:09:24

Corey just said was wrong. let's

Carter 1:09:26

let's start with the the global mail gets to publish it well the global mail gets to publish the story this person's a leaker they can quote this person anytime they want to why would they allow this person to run an editorial in their own voice why not just simply take the words that they're saying and say here's an interview that we've done now let us do both sides of this story and have opposite points of view why give this this person this unique point of view and the the ability to justify their actions which if cory you know cory has basically said he does not agree with this person's actions and yet here he is waving about in the wind like some sort of clearly newsworthy

Carter 1:10:04

course it is clearly

Carter 1:10:05

news i'm saying it's newsworthy there is a news arm to the globe mail not just an opinion arm to the globe mail run it in the newspaper take the quotes get someone else to counter quote let me get someone clearly in the public interest

Corey 1:10:17

interest to read No.

Carter 1:10:21

Do the report. You know what? If you have an opinion and you want to write an opinion piece, put your fucking name at the bottom.

Carter 1:10:27

Put your name at the bottom. That's what we do with opinion pieces. That's what makes it someone's opinion. Otherwise, if you want to write an anonymous op-ed, whatever, start a fucking blog.

Zain 1:10:40

I don't know, Corey. I don't know, Corey. I have to say, Carter was quite persuasive in that answer. Yeah,

Corey 1:10:45

Yeah, you're right. The Federalist paper should never have been published, you know, because like, why wouldn't Hamilton just put his name on the bottom? Fuck that guy. Fuck, you know, hundreds of years of democratic tradition and the idea that sometimes you want to remove your name from

Carter 1:10:57

from it. You know what? Anytime you need to pull up an example out of the fucking musical Hamilton just proves the weakness of your point. Okay,

Corey 1:11:05

Okay, but you know, that's not actually a musical. That happened in real life. You are aware of that. It did not?

Zain 1:11:15

any retort to that though you

Corey 1:11:16

you want to yeah i mean i feel like i gave one but how about this never has it been a requirement that an opinion be not anonymous that's ridiculous you can provide anonymous opinions people do it all the time you're giving this i used to do it when you worked at hill and alton i would put in the suggestion box fire steven carter let me tell you what i found

Zain 1:11:33

found compelling there's a news division why not take the quotes and make it part of the report exactly rather than

Corey 1:11:40

there's a fucking opinion division but this is

Carter 1:11:42

opinion this is news it's not opinion it's news this guy doesn't get to have an opinion without putting his name at the bottom of it

Corey 1:11:50

you're creating a ridiculous line you're telling me that at the minute it's an op-ed that it's not allowed to have what

Carter 1:11:56

what i'm telling you is the people who are people who leak don't get the leak from the from behind a barrier all the time they don't get to be protected listen

Zain 1:12:04

listen my my job my job is just to ask the questions i'll just be the neutral neutral very stable switzerland switzerland on this you know nothing nothing bad happens in switzerland uh this this uh by our sponsor credit suisse yeah uh credit suisse uh you

Corey 1:12:20

you know i don't even i don't even feel the need to say not our sponsor because they're not going to exist to sue us on monday so that's fine no

Zain 1:12:25

no i thought they got did you ever think can i can i ask when we started this podcast so many years ago did you ever think we'd outlast credit suisse i did actually yeah

Zain 1:12:33

yeah that makes three for three uh cory i'm gonna go back to you on this this one.

Zain 1:12:39

shouldn't, let me give this a time horizon. I'm trying to think of what a good appropriate time. Actually, no, let me not give it a time horizon.

Zain 1:12:44

Does David Johnson resign as special rapporteur, yes or no?

Zain 1:12:49

After the pressures felt from this week, does he, and frankly, maybe the more interesting question is, can he?

Zain 1:12:57

Actually, yeah, that is the more interesting

Corey 1:12:58

interesting question. Can he? You know what? So I don't know about resign. I don't know the mechanism, but here's what I believe will happen in the next few months. Map

Corey 1:13:05

We will end up having a public inquiry. For some reason, some other shoe will drop. Some other thing will occur with China and we'll call it all into question again. And this will just need to move forward and we will have a public inquiry and it will absolutely negate or moot the special rapporteur. So how, however soon that happens, he will not be in the job anymore, but I think that will be the, the quote unquote graceful exit is, well, we're doing this other thing now. We thank him for his service. Maybe he'll be involved in the inquiry in some way, shape or form, but not leading it. And that's, that's how it will all be. Do you

Zain 1:13:37

you think he's looking for an exit door at this point in time? Like, if you were advising David Johnson right now, especially with how his name has been dragged through the mud this last week, would you tell him to look for the exit door?

Corey 1:13:49

that's interesting so it's tough because on one hand you do that and it almost feels like an admission right and i can understand why somebody might want to dig their heels in there but i do think we are still in a window where he could say you know i was asked by the government i certainly feel i'm impartial on this matter but i also believe the appearance of impartiality is important and it's clear to me that in this current political landscape i will not be perceived as impartial i have recommended to the prime minister he finds somebody from the federal judiciary who could be acceptable to all of the political parties involved because one of the things we are trying to accomplish with a view into foreign uh you know influence in elections is to build confidence in our electoral system and i'm concerned that in the current environment i cannot build confidence in the the electoral system carter

Zain 1:14:36

carter is david johnson gone as a special rapporteur nope

Carter 1:14:39

he's gonna write us a report it's gonna come out it's gonna be great

Carter 1:14:45

okay that's what the rapid round is cory we give our fucking we get out we get out carter

Zain 1:14:52

it's been so long

Zain 1:14:53

we gonna have a public inquiry no

Zain 1:14:56

carter i'm gonna start the last question for you is it better or is it worse strictly politically okay strictly politically is it better or is it worse that cesis has now uh you know there's now a cesis briefing, I shouldn't say they've now come out with a briefing, but there's a cease briefing revealed that there is alleged Beijing meddling in the Vancouver municipal election. Is this better or worse for the liberals in terms of the federal stage? How do you kind of, if you're assessing it from their perspective, better or worse in your mind that there is now interference in a different order of government in a specific city that is now kind of being unearthed and revealed into the into the public consciousness better or worse for the liberals carter way worse i

Carter 1:15:38

mean more is bad i mean people aren't going to differentiate well that was prevent you know this is municipal and that was national what they're seeing is someone messing in our elections that shouldn't have this type of right to be involved in our our elections way worse cory

Zain 1:15:55

cory carter says way worse do you agree

Corey 1:15:57

yeah it's worse and what do you do if eb decides to call it an inquiry right you're creating pressure all of a sudden on the federal government could

Corey 1:16:04

could happen in ontario as well there could be all sorts of weird pressures i

Carter 1:16:07

i think that these i think that this type of interference depending on what your time what you're calling interference i think it has existed all over the country in the last few years but i i think that when we find out what it actually is it's it's actually far less than what people think it is it's going to be less effective and it's going to be less meaningful but because it hasn't been well defined people think it's this big bad problem and i just don't think that it is.

Zain 1:16:34

We are going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1043 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time and at the live show, strategistlive.ca. Of course, get your tickets there. This, of course, is The Strategist podcast, a podcast that has lasted longer than Credit Suisse. So we'll see you at the live show on April 2nd.

Transcript