Episode 1083: Equal Pay for Zain Velji

Annalise 0:02

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1083. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Zain Velji.

Zain 0:12

As always, I've been here the whole time. It's the first time they're letting me speak. The whole time.

Annalise 0:17

time. Zain Velji in special role as guest strategist. This is a big deal, guys.

Carter 0:21

No, he's a full-on strategist. It's not even a guest thing. We've promoted him. He's never been done before. hogan yeah

Zain 0:31

it a big day we know we know i can do both carter i'm a switch hitter i'm like i'm like the shohei otani of this podcast does that reference mean anything to you

Carter 0:38

you that's very good but i don't think that that's how does

Zain 0:41

does that reference not mean anything okay wait here we go he could do it all there's been no one like shohei otani let me tell you guys i'm gonna okay okay

Zain 0:48

okay doing both what is what are the both things that shohei otani does steven carter he

Carter 0:52

he pitches and he bats not only does he bat he hits dingers baby dingers

Carter 0:58

he's unreal he is one of the best hitters in baseball one of the best pitchers in baseball how is it possible you say how could that be where's mike trout when you need him oh my god what a mess jesus

Zain 1:12

chat gpt work is pretty good i like it very

Carter 1:15

not bad i had enough time to get that all in in there yeah

Zain 1:19

yeah that's good i like it do you know anything else no

Carter 1:22

no that's uh that's my entire baseball

Zain 1:26

no that's good that is that is the most relevant baseball knowledge back to you annalee sorry i yeah no it's good anything

Zain 1:31

old habits die hard anything else we should know

Annalise 1:35

nothing nothing you should fucking know

Zain 1:36

know i just uh you know it's it's good that carter can finally take a night off cory of course is not here uh which is good i heard this i heard I've heard this has happened

Annalise 1:45

happened once in a strategist's history. One single time, Corey missed an episode. Corey prides

Zain 1:50

prides himself on being here, but there are moments, and Carter, we can talk about this now. Yeah. He doesn't show up. He phones it in. He's here, but he doesn't show up. He

Carter 1:57

He phones it in. It's like, you know, he answers questions that Zane didn't even ask. I've never done that. Yep.

Carter 2:03

You know, like, he doesn't bring the focus that I bring.

Zain 2:08

He lords over us his Mensa IQ and things he can come unprepared. and a real person a real strategist uh doesn't have immense iq and still shows up unprepared like you and i carter that's what makes the show great that's

Carter 2:20

that's what makes it great that's what makes it great yeah yeah

Carter 2:22

yeah that's good can

Carter 2:24

i just ask you a question zane this

Carter 2:26

this is the first time you've heard annalise's live reading

Carter 2:31

reading of the show what are your thoughts what are your thoughts about the energy

Zain 2:34

energy levels not good yeah

Annalise 2:35

yeah more energy low low not

Zain 2:38

um low not good i'm i'm i'm not interested disappointed like you wouldn't even believe consistent

Annalise 2:46

from carter more energy yeah

Zain 2:47

yeah that's good are you are you also disappointed carter are we are we going it's like

Zain 2:52

like the worst it's

Annalise 2:55

you're not saying saying so energetic be more like but i like this

Zain 2:58

i like this at least you're not improving you're you're sticking in your lane lane you're like you're doubling down that's also another stephen carter strategy so you're you're kind of learning

Zain 3:05

to rock in a hard spot carter yeah

Zain 3:07

be better or double down and in this case she's chosen the other stephen carter strategy which is i'm going to double down with what would i bring to the table i like that i can respect

Annalise 3:18

a show what do you guys think let's do it i'm

Zain 3:19

i'm fucking it's been ready three minutes ago we've got two

Annalise 3:22

here no cory hogan we're doing it do

Annalise 3:25

guys our first segment our first segment is called the politics ticks of sport um some news today nike is permanently ending its sponsorship of hockey canada this was a long-standing partnership it existed for more than 20 years and ending it comes after nike had announced a temporary suspension in october um

Annalise 3:44

um that came in the wake of hockey canada's handling of high-profile sexual assault allegations stemming

Annalise 3:49

stemming from an incident in london in 2018 this pause is permanent now nike is no longer a sponsor of hockey canada the company said today on Monday. So there's lots to pick apart here and

Annalise 4:01

I want to get into it. I know you both have thoughts. First question though, good move, bad move? Is this what Nike should have done, Carter?

Carter 4:08

Well, I think so. I think it's unfortunate for Nike. I don't think that Nike was looking forward to doing this. I mean, I think that there's sometimes when a sponsorship comes to an end when there's an opportunity to. Alpine Canada went through this when they had their drunk drunk driving incident uh at one of the olympics i can't even remember which olympic it was um but you

Carter 4:29

sponsors who i think were wanting to pull out anyways were used that opportunity to to quickly uh to quickly leave i'm not sure that this is that i think that this is uh nike saying you know what um we've

Carter 4:42

we've got a brand image that we need to protect and Hockey Canada is

Carter 4:48

an NSO, a national sports organization that doesn't seem to live up to its promise. And I think that that's actually shared amongst a lot of different national sports organizations, be it hockey or the Soccer Federation, which I'm sure will come up a little bit later as we're talking about this. So disappointing

Carter 5:09

disappointing move from Nike, but I i think it's totally understandable disappointing

Carter 5:19

disappointing for well boy jesus both of you're gonna ask me questions what the fuck no seriously i think it's disappointing because i think that they have a big brand presence in hockey uh they produce a tremendous amount of hockey equipment this would this is a win-win especially with a number of the tournaments that are are offered uh like junior tournaments and hockey canada is a big big organization with a big presence and to lose Nike and for Nike to lose Hockey Canada, I think hurts both parties. I think that that's disappointing, but I think that that's what you get when you can't manage your brand, when you can't protect other brands who are associated with you.

Carter 5:56

And it's something that Canadian sport better figure out.

Annalise 5:59

Zane, what's your high level? Good move, bad move?

Zain 6:02

Good move. I agree with elements of what Carter said, except the part of unfortunate. I don't know. I don't know where you're coming at with unfortunate. And I also don't think Nike has a brand image to protect. They've got a brand image that they're trying to grow, and they've been very clear about what it is. They're in the position, and they've leaned into this for better or worse, Carter, progressive politics and progressive representation is what they want. And hockey is too fucking white, man. And hockey is too fucking problematic. problematic and you add those two things together alongside the fact that the market share of hockey as a sport has been lagging behind soccer, has been lagging behind basketball, has been lagging behind the areas that Nike wants to play in. This

Zain 6:43

This is where opportunity meets strategy. They had an opportunity to pause. I bet they were celebrating that day. They had the opportunity to pause. And then when they reassessed, it was not just on the sexual harassment and the ongoing issues shoes with Hockey Canada. It was, does hockey align to us? And frankly, hockey is actually part of the backward slide we've seen in society. Fuck Gary Bettman and his bullshit a couple months ago with trying to ensure that no NHL team can have pride or military appreciation nights prior to hockey sliding backwards to where Nike wants to be. So for better or worse, Nike's evolved as a company from the Michael Jordan company of the 1990s, where he said Republicans also buy shoes to now leaning into the Colin Kaepernick and to selling to a more Democrat, more blue, more financially affluent crowd. And they know that's where growth will come from. Will that ultimately be their downfall potentially, where others kind of bastardize their woke or progressive politics? Possibly. But as it relates to the opportunity that they have and the brand strategy and the alignment that they have, I think it's exactly where they want to be. So I don't think it's unfortunate at all, because I think it's a sign that hockey has has not done what it needs to do in this country so there

Zain 7:54

there it is market conditions guys yeah

Carter 7:57

i mean we're agreeing i just think that it's unfortunate for the kids and the athletes like i'm i've come from the athlete side is it though i've had a i've had a daughter in ski racing i've got a you know the the boyfriend of the daughter that's

Carter 8:09

that's still that's still racing i see every single day national sports organizations fuck it up on behalf of the athletes i mean sure i i don't take issue with anything that you said about the future of hockey and how hockey has dropped the ball. See what I did there? I don't take issue with any of that. But there are athletes behind all these decisions. There are young children who want to play sports. And the vast majority of people who are engaged in things that Hockey Canada does are four-year-olds to 12-year-olds that are playing hockey before you even get to the stage where you have to make a team. And I feel sorry for those kids who don't have additional resources because the big kids at Hockey Canada couldn't figure out how to protect the brand.

Annalise 8:59

Okay, so strategy-wise, what do the two of you think other top sponsors should do? You know, they have like Esso, TELUS, Tim Hortons, who all also paused their sponsorships last summer.

Annalise 9:11

Do they now follow Nike or do they do what Bauer Hockey did, which is reinstate its partnership? It's kind of a pivotal kind of two paths that you can walk as a brand strategy wise zane what would you recommend other big brands do i

Zain 9:24

think it depends right like if you're hawk if you're nike for example you've already laid out a very clear business and frankly brand strategy right and and hockey canada and frankly the sport of hockey was probably not fitting that for a while which is where my point of opportunity and strategy colliding comes into place with your bauer hockey you are literally fucking bauer hockey right so So you're going back to hockey unless there is a a new sort of, you know, creation of a new national organization. As there was a rumor about that at the time that Hockey Canada is too toxic. We need Canada hockey. We need something else that replaces it. You know, they would have gone there. So for them to come back, you know, yes, it's going to hurt a bit. But honestly, what other choice do they have? It's about hockey at the end of the day. That's where they're at. And Hockey Canada still holds the most amount of juice as it relates to Carter's earlier point about athlete-partner sort of collaboration, co-creation, and win-win situations. If you're Esso, you're looking at, and if you're TELUS or if you're some of Tim Hortons to your earlier point, these are Canadian brands. They're not necessarily playing outside of the Canadian sphere. So the brand sort of alignment for them is very much based on the audiences that they care for, right? We always talk about the audience that matters to you, right? And in this case, the audience is deeply domestic, deeply well-moneyed, and it's about alignment with Canada's national sports. So for them, it's a very different consideration than Nike, which is a global behemoth. So I suspect many of them, if not all of them, will go back. You could see something like Telus, which is actually putting a lot of its sort of chips in different categories across the board in different areas. You could see them easily pull back because of the maybe slightly indirect relationship. But I suspect hockey, which is very much considered to be aligned with Telus, which is, I'm sorry, Tim Hortons, which is very much aligned with hockey, as well as ESO, a partner aligned with the sport, not even just the nonprofit, to come back. So I suspect it's really going to be about where the brand alignment for them is and who the target audiences are at the end of the day.

Annalise 11:29

Carter, jump in. It looks like you want to say something there.

Carter 11:32

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things I want to say. I mean, one of the things I want to say is that, yeah, the brand alignment really does matter. But the second piece I want to say is that, you know, to Zane's point, you know, there was discussion about whether or not Hockey Canada is an organization that should be allowed to, you know, for lack of a better word, continue holding essentially the national charter. harder um the

Carter 11:55

government has a role to play in this uh and and it's i think it's important that we recognize that the minister responsible for sport pascal um uh

Carter 12:05

uh pascal c'est l'ange i think it is um has has really i think dropped the ball in not holding hockey canada more accountable uh they got another pass this is a this is not the first time this is not the second time this And I fear this will not be the last time that we're talking about hockey players in this type of situation. It is almost

Carter 12:30

almost endemic within the sport to see people taken advantage of, to see people who are being used by their national sport association. And I would really like to see the minister step up and represent

Carter 12:45

represent the money that Sport Canada invests in these national sports organizations. organizations and say, we demand better. Uh, we demand more, we demand better from our sports organizations. Uh, it's not like we're not going to have a national sports organization. A new organization could have been formed immediately after this happened. Um, if

Carter 13:05

if the minister had wanted it to happen. Um, and yeah, I mean, it may have had some of the same problems that may have had some of the same things, but it would have sent a message to every sports organization. organization, don't

Carter 13:17

don't fuck up like this. Protect your athletes. That's your only job. Your only job is to protect your athletes. Everything else is secondary. And from what I've seen from sports organizations that I've been involved in, far too few of them actually protect the athletes.

Annalise 13:34

Zane, is that going to make a difference, having the minister say we deserve better?

Zain 13:39

Oh, well, having the minister just say we deserve better will not make a difference. Having the minister say, fuck you, you're done, Hockey Canada will, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it's really to Carter's point about how much ministerial discretion and how much ministerial sort of authority the minister and frankly, the prime minister, who also is on record commenting on this issue in the height of its scandal, want to exert on Hockey Canada. And so you saw what Hockey Canada did over the course of the last number of months with their rehabilitation exercise, bringing on consulting firms like Navigator, trying to get a more star-studded board of directors, which, you know, was part of its governance reform. But was it really, right? Yeah. Trying to ensure there was a committee that was formed where they asked former sort of male and female hockey stars or products of the Hockey Canada ecosystem to come join. So their real core desire, Hockey Canada, was survivability, right? They wanted to, and they, of course, and I think where they nailed it strategically, Carter, and I'm curious to get your thoughts on this if you agree, is I think they, to your point, put the athlete in the center. Whoever gave them the strategic advice to save their ass, it wasn't about their ass. They actually put the athletes and the young kids, to Carter's point, that emotional resident story in the middle of their survivability existential crisis. So that broader sort of concept of we can't have a gap in the system. If you kill us, what happens, right? What happens over the intervening months? We would rather have governance reform rather than have net new governance from the ground up because what happens once again to the kids? Everything they said was about the kids, was about that emotional story, was about that cold February afternoon or morning that parents would get up and have their four or five-year-old go and play hockey. That is who would suffer. So as part of their ongoing sort of sales pitch to ensure that they stayed around, they made a compelling enough sales pitch to the minister that this gap that existed could not be filled with something that was net new, that this conversation around governance should be one of reform and not one of net new governance principles embedded into an organization, which would take many years to actually refine and find a sort of standalone culture. And I think the minister bought it. But at the end of the day, Carter's right. If the government wanted to take control on this file, they could have. And there are solutions to all the issues that I've brought up here. But they've decided that Hockey Canada is its vehicle. And we'll see where it ends up going. Because if they continue to drop sponsors, I can tell you the government is going to potentially have to, not just be forced to, and this is a government that's been pretty lethargic on many issues, have to decide around where the license goes to or the charter goes to Carter's point. point.

Annalise 16:23

Carter, just to pick apart one thing Zane was saying there, do you agree with that narrative that there was the emotional hook, they told a story and it worked in terms of strategy?

Carter 16:32

I think so. I mean, I didn't find their argument particularly compelling. I wasn't like, I wasn't wowed by the crisis response that came from, you know, Hockey Canada at the time. And I'm certainly not wowed by

Carter 16:46

by their response to this point, right? Like, it feels like there's still response required and instead what we're getting is uh you know silence um because that's that's at the end of the day silence is what sporting federations are best at um we do our own business and if we lose uh cali humphries to the american uh bobsled team who gives a fuck because ah we're here anyways haha suckers um you know i i we've got young friends that are are leaving the the the luge team this year because their national federation's a gong show and a joke um you know point me in the direction of a good national governing body and uh one that protects and grows the athletes i mean you can't talk about soccer that way we can't talk about hockey that way we can't talk about luge bobsled uh skiing um you

Carter 17:39

you know i think maybe nordic nordic

Carter 17:41

nordic seems to be pretty good uh so if you want put your kids in nordic that seems to be the way to go but you know everything else seems to be an absolute and complete shit show that's

Carter 17:51

that's nice advice carter

Zain 17:54

are some truths here right carter on like even a human element i would say that people

Zain 17:59

people like people who accept their faults people like people who are three-dimensional right people like you know if you are self-aware enough to know that you're working on something something. That's a personality fault. That's something that I need to grow here. That's endearing. And I think perhaps where you and I may disagree is that I think Hockey Canada did that well. Now, did they do it well to survive all of the sponsors perhaps not coming back? We don't know yet. But they've sold, and this is what many stakeholders do and many organizations do to government, that, listen, we're not perfect, which is endearing, but we are progress. We are not not perfect, but we're going to keep things going, right? And so to your earlier point about bobsleigh, to ski cross, so all these other sports, right, that you

Zain 18:45

much more intimate and personal knowledge on, their advocacy to government is very much about we move things directionally correct. And yes, there are things under the hood that need to be worked on and sometimes things on the surface that we need to rectify. But getting rid of us, rooting us out, that's not the answer. And I think they've made that case well in certain markets and especially to governments who have really, Carter, over the history of the last 25, 30 years, not necessarily laid a finger on many of these organizations.

Annalise 19:19

Carter, have they made that case well?

Carter 19:22

Well, I think that the problem is that government has just decided not to be a part of it, right? It's kind of like arts organizations, right? So when I was in the arts early in my my career and and in arts organizations there was something we called the status quo funding model and the status quo funding model is what government put together that enabled um you know we would have you

Carter 19:45

know a bunch of new theater companies coming in that were selling as many tickets or half as many or 50 as many tickets as theater calgary um but there would we would you know theater calgary would still get their big grant because it was theater calgary and they'd been around for a long time but they weren't producing the the interesting theater the thing that the that was drawing the real audiences, that was pushing

Carter 20:05

pushing the envelope. Instead,

Carter 20:08

know, those theater companies were being starved, right? Like DJD is a very popular, it's been established here for 100 million years now, but back when it was coming of age, it was so, it was unique, it was different. It was employing a different type of professional artist and getting its funding model put in place. You know, like the people who did that were doing God's work work because it was so hard to do because we had a status quo funding model. Well, the government of Canada has created essentially a status quo funding model for sport that is empowering and enabling bad fiscal management and bad management for athletes. And it hasn't been looked at since we created the Own the Podium program a gajillion years ago, trying to put people on as though the the ultimate end of all sport. The ultimate end of all sport is simply to put people on a podium at the end of the day so the Canadians can sing the national anthem. And I will recognize that that's an important part, but it's not the only thing that matters.

Annalise 21:14

Zane, hop in there.

Zain 21:16

feel like, you know, when Carter mentions on the podium, there's almost an emotional resonance that comes with that phrase. And I think that is one of the last times that we've had the emotion of sports enter the NSO or the sports recognition policy that the government has jurisdiction over, right? Because it is an emotional story that was told about Own the Podium. Whether you strategically agree with it or not, the fact that it was about pride, the fact that it was about success, the fact that it was about pure merit at any cost, frankly, justified the cost, frankly, justified the government intervention, frankly, justified diversified, uh, the legislation, the regulation that came with it to allow it. Right. And I'm not saying the government needs to get back to sloganeering, but there is a case to be made that if you want reform in this area, whether you are one of the, if I can call it Carter startup aspiring NSOs, right? Because this has a very incumbent advantage. As long as you're not fucking up, as long as you can show progress and you're not perfect, you're not fucking up. We're not going to revoke your, you know, uh, your, your license from you. We're not going to to revoke your overall sort of governance of specific sports. And I think for those who may want to enter this market, who may want to reform it, who may want to shake it up a bit, I think it's really about that emotional story that they can sell to government, that government can sell to the people so that they can justify their participation. Because at the end of the day, Carter, the sports ministry, if they can just fucking do their thing, right, if things can go humming along directionally correct with very few benchmarks about what success looks like, Like, that's fine to them, but I think it's really about selling them an emotional story that they can sell back to the Canadian public that would allow them and give them the runway and the rope to legislate and regulate, ultimately.

Carter 23:01

I mean, it's a complex issue, Annalise. We'll have it solved by the next podcast,

Carter 23:05

podcast, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. We've

Annalise 23:07

We've got Strategist Zane. He's good at this. Strategist Zane. I

Zain 23:10

I would ask. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Abolish the sports ministry. What a fucking waste of everyone's time. That's what I really feel. Why would

Carter 23:19

you take away George

Carter 23:23

He's going to get it. You know he's going to get it in the shuffle. You know he's going to get it in

Carter 23:26

in the shuffle. You're taking it away from him.

Carter 23:28

You're taking it away.

Zain 23:29

Personal apology to George, whose ministry has been stolen by another Stephen Carter prediction. I'm really sorry, George. You can reach out to Stephen directly at, what's your number, 403?

Zain 23:40

He's got it. What are the rest? Oh, he's got it. Oh,

Zain 23:43

got it. You're going to have to change it. Please change it after this. What about you? And

Annalise 23:47

And Carter, you mentioned it, other sports news, World Cup, Women's World Cup kicks off later this week in Australia and New Zealand.

Annalise 23:54

And it's been in the news in recent months, not just Canada's national team, but several about this equal pay issue.

Annalise 24:01

I guess going into the World Cup, having this kind of still in the conversation, thoughts

Annalise 24:07

thoughts there, strategy there on what the governing body should do?

Carter 24:11

You know, it's interesting. I'm glad you brought up that it's happening across multiple NSOs. So it's not just Canada that's having issues with our national teams. It's other national sports organizations. And when you're watching the World Cup previews, what you get is essentially this team is in tumult. This team is in tumult. This team is in tumult. And it doesn't really matter which group you're looking at, which stars you're looking to support. This has been a very tumultuous period. Period. Now, I've been watching women's soccer since I think it was Christine Sinclair's first junior tournament that was broadcast on TSN. You're aging yourself again and

Carter 24:55

I'm fucking ancient. But it was a fantastic, it was fantastic sport. The Canadians did very well. It was very emotional. It was fantastic. It was everything you could hope for sport. And the National Federation sold those rights, I would suspect, for very little. Now, that was, I think it was 25, 26 years ago. I mean, Christine Sinclair has been in the sport forever and she's

Carter 25:21

she's been the best in the sport forever. But

Carter 25:24

But there's never been enough support for her for what, you know, she's the cutting edge and we're not seeing that shift to support women's sport. forget about women's uh specifically women's uh soccer for a second women's sport has not shifted to get the support that it requires um i mean i've watched again and again and again and again federation after federation that is unable to shift from the model that there is a second tier group and that second tier group is the the women's side women's soccer specifically is selling out out

Carter 26:04

out across the country um it's selling out uh around the world there are there are professional leagues and professional teams and places that uh people didn't even dream of having professional sports and

Carter 26:17

and now this thing has taken off and the last people to survive the last groups to recognize that it's taking off are the national sports organizations themselves that are doing the deals that are getting the broadcast rights that are getting the money and they are not they're they're passing the money to themselves they're not passing the money to the athletes so

Annalise 26:36

so so what's the strategy like how do you how do you shift that and i guess on that note um there are there are teams trying to turn up the pressure on social media um

Annalise 26:45

um there i think was the france team had like an ad this week kind of like give equals give players equal pay sort of thing how how do you shift it how do you turn up that pressure and have that shift i

Carter 26:57

i mean the way i i'm the way i think of it at this stage is that it's like any labor movement and the labor side the side that is the uh you know i would love to see uh some actual sit downs from the from the teams the problem is that these young women are that have worked so hard their whole lives to achieve um making the world cup team and to and to be a part of this world cup they shouldn't be asked to sit down and stand apart just

Carter 27:28

their federations are failing we

Carter 27:30

we should be able to put that pressure on their federations for them and uh i'm

Carter 27:36

i'm hopeful that this world cup through this the enormous success that i'm already anticipating that it's going to be uh is able to put pressure on federations around the world to change the way that they're looking at not just soccer but women's sport and uh women's sport in general um skiing for example has uh purses that are identical for male and female competitors it's been that way in tennis for a very long time this is not a this is not a model that is has never been heard of and is is just going to financially cripple organizations this is a model that's been in place for quite some time in a lot of different places and it's just a simple matter of the sporting federations making the decision.

Annalise 28:20

Zane, what's your take? What's the strategy on how you raise public interest in equal pay?

Zain 28:29

I like where Carter started here, actually. I think the labor movement is a good comparator because of the preconditions of what the labor movement brings, which is a network effect of of you talking to your friends about something you care about. That has been the root of the labor movement 100 plus years, right? It's not been a large advertising heavy. It's not been a large sort of broadcast heavy. It's been a, this is important because this is fundamental. And this is fundamental because it's about livelihoods. And I think what we need to do is if I expand on a strategy, and there's a lot of proof points to this, and let me kind of maybe list a few of those, at least that are top of my mind that I wrote out here. And Carter's hit on a few of them, right? The equal effort and dedication to men, I think is a huge one, right? So whatever bullshit argument people want to make about the WNBA and the NBA, which I know is a lot of butt of the jokes in the sporting world, being like, oh, they can't sell out even one fifth of an arena. That bullshit, I think, needs to be parked aside because equal effort and dedication. You also have this role model inspiration piece, which Carter hit on with Christine Sinclair. All respect to my homie Alfonso Davies, so I do not know, but are Albertan known, right? Christine Sinclair is the best fucking soccer player that's ever set foot and put on a Canada jersey, no doubt, and the best women's soccer player ever. So you have this role model aspect. And yes, rooted in this is this fairness and equity, but there's an economic impact upside here. There's a role model inspiration. There's just a social progress element to it. And I think what you have to do at the end of the day is you have to use soccer as your sort of lightning rod. You have to use soccer as the beginning of it. And I think beyond the friend-to-friend contact, the sort of broader equity argument has to be this conversation that if we can do it for soccer, we can do it for anything else, sporting and otherwise. And I think that's really exciting to me, is the argument to say, we are actually using soccer, not just as in the bounds of a sporting conversation, So that athletes in other jurisdictions and other sports can achieve equal pay. Soccer, as demonstrated by the Canadian National Women's Team, which are the best in the world, right? Best in the world, best at what they do, do not receive equal pay. This needs to be the tip of the spear. And it's popular. It's easy to access. It has those role models. I think this is a conversation point. And then what you do is you attract people to any on-ramp, whether they're sport-related or not. But the labor movement does this really well in certain jurisdictions. They expand the scope so much that they allow multiple entry points into a campaign that you don't necessarily have to know that educational assistant that is going to be helped out in a particular jurisdiction or a particular province. We need to do that with the sports movement. And in fact, allow people who may not be soccer related or even soccer adjacent or even sports adjacent to see themselves, to see their daughters, to see their future in this sort of movement. So I would say, take the whole spectrum. Don't just restrict it, expand it, because that's what tent building looks like. and you allow people to, campaigns Carter has built in the past, to feed their own words and their own language around why they care about something. This is not scripted. This is about a broader sort of fight. And soccer is now in the zeitgeist, tip of the spear, helps you make the case. I would start there. Create your ambition big rather than narrow. You might think it's a failed strategy to begin with because of that wide scale ambition. I think it's actually the the start of something, because it expands beyond one particular federation, so to speak.

Annalise 32:08

Is that a good strategy, Carter? Look at them taking notes, having proof points. Look at this. I'm

Carter 32:13

I'm a little disappointed, actually, because now I'm going to have to start taking notes. But I think that he's right. And I also think, I'm going to return to the Minister of St. Helens, because this is It is another opportunity for federal leadership that I think would be, I

Carter 32:35

think it would be a mistake for the federal government not to weigh in in some fashion to remind Soccer Canada that a significant amount of funding, especially for big, large scale events, comes from the federal government when it comes to these sports. sports. And the federal government should be putting in a metric that says, next time we get a request for funding, we're going to be looking at the equal pay equal performance issue. I

Zain 33:04

I love that across

Carter 33:06

across the board, because it's an easy metric to add. It's not like it's going to be difficult to evaluate. I mean, yeah, there's probably some questions when we say equal pay. Is it equal pay for equal effort? Or is it, for example, an equal percentage of the box office? There's multiple ways to measure equal. But right now, the measures that we have are completely off track with what the opportunity is to start valuing the efforts and the performance. I'm remiss not to mention that there was a the french ad that i saw this week where they took images

Carter 33:44

images of the men's national team and

Carter 33:48

and overlaid the one i saw the women's national team and

Carter 33:52

and they made you know like you were cheering for you know this the french male team and you were like yes you're doing great this is spectacular and then you realize in fact it was the women's national team they were making And I don't understand soccer, but to me, they looked like spectacular plays that were exciting and energizing and everything you could hope for from watching soccer or football, whatever words we're going to use. And I thought it was a great ad to showcase that the women's game is spectacular on

Carter 34:29

on its own level. Just an amazing sport.

Annalise 34:35

it came from a telecom company did it not the ad you're talking about

Carter 34:39

about i i don't know i all i know is i found it online or i don't know i mean it's been sent around to everybody i'm sure and i just

Carter 34:47

just immediately i didn't get it at first i watched it kind of halfway through and i'm like why is someone recommending that i watch a men's ad when you know this is about the women's world World Cup.

Carter 34:59

And when you kind of click on it and you see the whole thing unfold,

Carter 35:05

was very, very powerful.

Zain 35:08

You know, I'll just maybe add one point. And I think Carter hits on something really important. I love your idea, Carter, of that equal pay clause and any sort of government funding or sports support that the federal government or the minister in particular would green light on. And I think to my earlier point around, you know, plugging into existing movements about equal pay, rather than having to kind of set up a net new movement, use soccer as kind of like a proof point or something in the zeitgeist to galvanize people around. What something like that does, that idea that Carter put on the table, is it allows the minister to pick their own on-ramp. We know governments have, I was talking about on-ramps earlier, we know governments have varying and often changing reasons for doing something. So to give them, you know, the positive health and social outcomes on ramp, to give them the public support and expectations on ramp, to give them the even the moral obligation or the economic impact or the fair recognition of effort, as we talked about, or just frankly, this clear social justice and equality. If you give them all these opportunities, the chances that one of them will be the one that they walk on, depending on the mood of the government, the priority of the government, what they feel is symbolically important. As we know, this government's key strategy, but also failure, is symbolism. You give them these opportunities and you give them these on-ramps to jump in and take action on this fight. And I think one thing that organizations often fail to do, especially those that are advocating, is that they don't give enough on-ramps to government because they want their specific one to be the right one. So they have a moral clarity as a stakeholder to be like, you have to do it because of social justice reasons or equity reasons. And

Zain 36:44

if the government doesn't walk up that ramp, they kind of say, well, fuck you. That's the only reason to do it. And I'd say that's wrong in this case, right? You have to give them several opportunities to get to the conclusion. And who gives a flying fuck which one they ultimately take? You just want the thing done. And I think that's where Carter's proposition provides several opportunities for government, should there be a desire to take action.

Annalise 37:06

What about maybe the last question here when it comes to strategy is that storytelling piece, that emotion, that narrative, that hook? Walk me through it.

Carter 37:16

i think that the hook is going to be that this is going to be probably the most watched women's world cup in history um and the canadian team is really good and the emotional hook of this moment at this time is that it's most likely christine sinclair's last last hurrah it is a team that is super strong with a coach that's really interesting um you know her strength And her leadership is kind of second to none, I think. And so you've got this cast of characters. And you'll recall, Annalise, we talked about characters a lot during the last election, right? You have to have a story, you have to have characters. And these characters are so strong that you would be almost nuts not to take advantage of this character set. And that's why I'm so baffled by, you know, Soccer Canada. I mean, Soccer Canada has the opportunity to really jump into these characters, own these characters, define these characters. I mean, I remember when I mentioned

Carter 38:21

mentioned that drunk driving incident in, I think it was the Seoul Olympics that Canada experienced. They pulled the two women's ski cross, won gold and silver, and they pulled them out of a press conference. They cost those young women hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsements because one of their coaches got drunk and drove a van. That is that's the exact opposite of how to do crisis management. This is what you know, this foundation, this this federation should be grabbing onto these these wonderful characters and telling some spectacular stories as this all all unfolds.

Zain 39:01

you know carter's hit on something interesting when he talks about this through characters right this is about finding the protagonists and and you have protagonists in this story there is plural right and then you have the biggest protagonist in this story which i think is the country right

Zain 39:16

right in the fucking frozen tundra we

Zain 39:19

dominate a fucking sport that was so foreign to us right that is dominated by the global south that is dominated by europe it's a religion there and we just casually said, fuck you, we're just going to dominate your religion. We're just going to take over. We're just going to be the best in the world at this thing. And this speaks to the broader immigration story. This speaks to the broader development story. This speaks to overcoming gender stereotypes. This speaks to overcoming a country's stereotypes. This speaks to empowering future generations. We just decided that we wanted to put our mind to something and that these women, in fact, not we, these women wanted to put their mind to something and they they just fucking did it. They just decided they wanted to dominate something. Role models, achievements, breaking barriers, support and solidarity, national identity and pride, right? All of these things are tied together when you kind of take the underdog story that so casually ended up being the most dominant force in the sport. And I think that extension of that to me is such a poetic, such an interesting, such an emotionally resonant opportunity to talk about what else could we put our mind to? I know we're limiting the scope here to soccer, right? But when I think about this as the broader conversation of equal pay, it is that sort of story that I think is very much in our Canadian ethos, right? Where we don't kind of feel confident about ourselves until we're recognized elsewhere. Well, fucking look right here. We just kill at this thing. And I think it's really, really powerful. We kind of lean into some of the narrative threads that Carter put on the table and maybe some of the ones that I did as well.

Annalise 40:49

The good story, Zane. let's leave it there and move on to another topic mandates guys last week stampede week several mandates

Zain 40:57

mandates carter we're doing it mandate letters

Annalise 41:01

for daniel smith's new ministers were released um by by daniel smith another was released today so i think we're up to six or seven mandate letters now i

Annalise 41:12

i want to talk to you pick your brains do mandate letters matter is Is this just like an exercise that you do for media and stakeholders? Do they actually matter? Carter, what's your take on mandate letters? Oh, I

Carter 41:24

I think they really matter because there's almost an infinite number of things that you can do within any ministry. And you have to put some parameters on them. Now, in a perfect sense, what would be happening with the mandate letters is that the ministers would get the mandate letters and then they would be able to go and solve the problems on their own. We've talked about kind of the first ministers problems where the first ministers are, you know, or take over and don't allow their their ministers to have autonomy. This is the opportunity to allow autonomy. Do these things. These are the things that we're hoping you will achieve through your mission. And you don't have to come back and ask permission to solve these problems. Go just solve these problems. And as a government, we will be happy

Carter 42:16

happy and satisfied that you did so. So I think that there's a real value in that. And I also think that there's a real value to the stakeholders in that, you know, we said in this mandate letter, this is what's going to happen. And now this is what's going to happen. Right. And you can hold this to account. And if it's not in the mandate letter, then get the fuck out of here. We don't need, you know, don't tell me how important this is. I've got a mandate letter that tells me what's actually important. So I like mandate letters. I think that they are a great way to establish direction, to establish priorities and to communicate to stakeholder groups. This is what matters to us. So, yeah, I like them.

Annalise 42:59

Zane, do you like mandate letters?

Zain 43:03

do. do. I struggle with them a bit more because I feel like the ones that we receive are truncated. They're more of a laundry list. They're filled with vagaries. In certain cases, this sort of specific but vague, no timelines, no specific outcomes, occasionally which stakeholders you have to work with. But I have to park most of that aside and agree with Carter because I think I think they actually are a multipurpose tool. I think that when they were originally designed and these haven't been around for a very long time. We think of this as an ancient practice, right? Like you could even look back to the Harper era government and they really didn't have public mandate letters. I'm sure that the PMO and especially the prime minister himself had direction, iterative and specific, your one go at your next three years or two years at a ministry, sir or madam. But at the end of the day, this has really been, and I shouldn't say Trudeau invention, but something popularized by the Trudeau government, this publicly accessible mandate letter. And I think to Carter's point around stakeholders, we've gotten very used to it as one of the stakeholders of these mandate letters, I would say, the broader sort of media, the podcast class, the blogger class, right? We are one of the folks that takes them apart. And they create their own media narratives, right? Like you'll see journalists pick apart these mandate letters. They will go to stakeholders to be like, what do you think of this? And that will create a new story, right? I like this. I don't like this. And as every single important one comes out, I like this. I don't like this. But to my earlier point, they've become this multi-pronged tool. They've always, since they've existed, been toward Carter's point about direction, accountability, guardrails, right? Do shit in this box, right? Don't fuck around. Your name of your ministry is very broad. I'm narrowing it for you, right, minister? So go do these 12 things, right? right? You get to decide on the order. Maybe you don't because I've given you a more detailed mandate letter that is not publicly visible with timelines and KPIs and goals that you're going to fucking execute on. But you're staying in these guardrails, to Carter's point, right? Coordination. One of the things that we see in mandate letters increasingly more so, and this was not the case in early mandate letters, but more so, you work with this person to get this thing done, right? And we see that even in the Daniel Smith letters. But even more more so these days, I find these mandate letters allow like to be a multi-pronged tool in some ways, right? You're able to, Carter's point, talk to stakeholders. And one of the things that I love that the Trudeau government has done, and I don't see it as much in the Danielle Smith mandate letters, and we can talk about this, is they outline specific stakeholders, which is really, really interesting. Not just like work with industry, but like work with the association of of welders work with this particular stakeholder. And I think that's actually quite smart because Carter, you and I have talked about this in the past, right? The best way to write a best-selling political memoir is you mention everyone's name that you've ever encountered. So they go to the index and they try to find their name in it. And I look at mandate letters similarly. If you can mention these stakeholders, if you can put their names in them, ensuring you don't commit the error or of omission, but expand that scope rather than make it more vague, it allows those folks that are potentially going to be enemies to maybe even momentarily be allies to say, okay, well, I've actually been called out as someone who's going to work with them. So let's wait and see. Maybe the minister has a conversation with me. Maybe there is possibility here. So beyond just accountability and direction and guardrails, they also allow this ability to have kind of stakeholder influence. It allows this ability to even manage your ministers a bit more, make them publicly accountable, use the public accountability mechanism in a way so that you can kind of keep cabinet control and implementation of policy. So I put aside the vagaries, I put aside the lack of timelines and the specific outcomes. And I say, I still like them despite all that because of the reasons I mentioned, the reasons Carter mentioned.

Annalise 46:59

Good, good summary there, Zane. Before we pick apart some of the things you mentioned, Carter, can you pull back the curtain at all on mandate letters, like in terms of of

Annalise 47:08

how they're created or who creates them is it actually the the premier's office saying

Annalise 47:14

here's what matters or do the ministers have input in it is the first time the minister see it when everyone

Annalise 47:20

everyone sees it like can you before we kind of pick apart some of zane's specific points can you pull back the curtain a little they're

Carter 47:25

they're made by the premier's office we when i wrote i think i wrote most of the i mean you have area specific uh specialists and then you work a little bit with the public service to get the information that you require to put into the uh into the letters um but i recall we wrote them uh within the within the premier's office um we had the pen and um we would sometimes consult with the minister you know this is where we're going this is what we're thinking and other times we just tell the minister this is what your mandate letter looks like um this was part of our control structure these are the things we want you to do. Go do those things. I think to Zane's point, we certainly didn't have as much specificity as we could have. You know, there wasn't necessarily dates where we expected certain things by. That was a weakness. But we

Carter 48:22

we were also, you know, you were writing a lot of things into one letter. You know, you're basically writing your entire government's future into a series of letters that you're creating and

Carter 48:33

one of the things i like about what danielle smith is doing is she's releasing them slowly we

Carter 48:38

we did all of ours on one day i mean that

Carter 48:40

that was a big lift uh just to get just to be prepared enough to write all those letters was a big lift uh i think that this may be maybe more collaborative than the the ones that we were doing just based on how it appears appears to be being done oh

Annalise 48:59

you you think they're not all done it's kind of they're being released as they

Carter 49:03

they get really slowly yeah i think that uh i

Carter 49:06

think that i can't imagine a scenario where you're going to be a minister and not have a mandate letter i

Carter 49:13

just think that that would be

Carter 49:15

it'd be really tough so

Annalise 49:16

so so let's talk about that the let's

Annalise 49:19

let's talk about the release strategy and it it ties into zane's point about the media is like last week was stampede week traditionally a slow week for getting coverage of things outside of stampede and i think four or five of them were released um

Annalise 49:33

um and then the way the government's doing it is like they're putting out a press release kind of summarizing the mandate letter and then including an attachment to the mandate letter that's two or three pages good and and as i say doing kind of the slow trickle of them good strategy i

Carter 49:49

think that the strategy of releasing especially the finance minister's uh mandate letter was really important uh i think that there were some things in there uh specifically around um you know the alberta pension plan the and the uh picking you know collecting our own taxes that are incredibly not fiscally responsible and incredibly unpopular popular um why you know we we this it's a big fucking deal if if the province was to go down these directions and there is no mandate for it i mean i i you know oh yes you won the election danielle good for you but you did not get a mandate on this um anyways

Carter 50:30

anyways i'm i'm fascinated to see that that that was one of the ones that was kind of i

Carter 50:36

i don't want to say rushed out the the door but i i will say it was put out more

Carter 50:42

more strategically at a time when people aren't going to be paying quite as much attention i mean the whole summer people aren't going to be paying very much attention but uh stampede as you mentioned is the lowest of the lows

Annalise 50:56

zane do you think the trickle works or does it mean that it you know rather than put 20 out in And one day a journalist has to go through all of them and pick the most exciting. It gives each day that it comes out, there's a new story about it.

Zain 51:13

You know, it's interesting. It depends on the core question, whether they want to really

Zain 51:20

really have coverage and engagement about these, or they're trying to hide them, right? And so we always think of the more cynical, like, hey, you're fucking burying these things, right? You don't want anyone to pick it apart because here's the thing, if you could put it in a letter, and if no one picks apart, or no one finds necessarily what it means, or it's so specifically vague or perfectly vague in an artist sort of way that people can't really discern what you're saying, but you said it, well, it gives you a license to do it. That's your mandate. We trial ballooned it, no one picked it up, and fucking now we can do this thing. And to Carter's point, right, like perhaps releasing the finance minister's two big sort of points around the income tax collection as well as the domestic sort of or the provincial pension plan during the height of Stampede, probably strategic to bury least amount of coverage. coverage. But the other way to look at it for them is, listen, they want to put these out there. They know that the media is not necessarily going to beef up over the summer in any meaningful way. It's still going to be a thin media that's going to be distracted over the dog days of summer. Let's just get them out when they're ready. Let's not worry too much about it. We're not necessarily gaining press from this thing. We care about our... This is a stakeholder exercise. So what we're ultimately doing is punting these over to stakeholders who've approached us or that that we want to appease, or frankly, still want some of their money filtered back to the party to ensure that they understand that we are on their side and their agenda item is our agenda item. They're probably using that sort of strategy, more decentralized sort of strategy. So for them, I think it's really about like, listen, let's just get these things out when they're done. Let's not think too much about the media cycle. And you're seeing that more and more, this concept of media relations, a lot of political parties, and frankly, governments, frankly, don't give a shit anymore. And I know this government from some of the things I've heard is part of that cohort they're like who gives a flying fuck what what the media covers it's summer it's not like they're growing over the course of the next number of days so what well they'll they'll they'll have to choose between 12 we'll have to choose between six we don't care right all we want is license to do our shit and i think that's that's the very simplistic and perhaps most optimal strategy that they're currently using

Annalise 53:32

carter do you have something to say there no

Carter 53:35

no jane zane uh zane's i nailed it yeah and you know what they did great um no one more surprised than me no

Carter 53:41

no one i mean yeah

Zain 53:42

yeah well of course you've

Carter 53:43

you've always like this

Carter 53:44

this show is gonna bomb and i'm like i don't know i think bomb might be too high level and

Zain 53:49

and boom i wish cory was here to tell you how stupid that point is i wish cory was here what

Annalise 53:54

what about um cutter what about the specific stakeholders the the naming of do you like that idea of naming very specific stakeholder associations and groups i

Carter 54:04

i mean i think it was especially effective on the environmental file where uh the stakeholders that were listed constrained the actual um you know who we give a fuck about uh and that constraint um you know if you know i i don't know that i'm calling myself an environmentalist but i'm certainly far

Carter 54:24

far more concerned about global warming and uh climate change you like the environment government like mountain

Carter 54:32

i mountain bike i you know they're going to clear cut my mountain biking uh facility they're going to crash

Annalise 54:38

when you mountain bike okay

Carter 54:39

okay it's really sore and it's getting more sore the

Carter 54:42

show where i can

Zain 54:42

can okay it's the part of the show that i'm going to tune out okay keep going yeah i've

Carter 54:45

i've really hurt myself and no one seems to care heather's reaction was well you wouldn't hurt yourself if you weren't so stupid so that was hurtful um probably

Carter 54:57

probably true true. Anyways, continuing on my point, no reaction

Annalise 55:02

reaction from either of us.

Carter 55:03

That mandate letter was the mandate

Carter 55:08

mandate letters that constrain the number of stakeholders to talk to frustrate the hell out of me. But as a practitioner, you have to respect it because it makes it so much easier for the government to say, yeah,

Carter 55:22

yeah, we never said that we were going to get impact, you know, feedback from everybody. We told people that we had clear priorities. We reached out to those clear priorities. Now fuck off.

Zain 55:33

I agree. Just to add on this point, when you can use specific or deliberately vague terms, which is an art, which is an art in communications, as the three of us know, that it feels like there's a lot on the bone, but when you look at it, oh, there's many outs for them. Did it say accomplish or did it say collaborate? Oh, it said collaborate. Well, I guess, okay, well, progress in that sense is actually totally subjective. Excellent. So if you could keep from a pure practitioner's perspective, if you can have this, it feels dense, but it's actually light feeling to your language, which they have actually successfully done. And I feel like this has become a bit of an art in mandate letters. And then pepper on stakeholders that are specific, make those specific and the actual KPIs vague. That allows you to get that that sort of feeling of we're actually trying to turn friends into enemies. And one of the things I've loved that governments in the past have done that I would really advocate for around mandate letters is the strange bedfellows technique. Put

Zain 56:32

Put on, let's say, a housing ministry. And I know this government doesn't have one. But on a housing ministry, put an association of construction professionals or builders alongside the charitable housing groups together. Put them in the same mandate letter. Put them side by side. Show that you're expanding your scope rather than reducing it or narrowing it. And that collaboration could very much just be a conversation or two. But once again, you've named someone. It's a huge GR government win. It helps you back on the party dollar side. Let's not forget about that. That's what fucking fuels these campaigns going forward. So if I'm named, I look like a friend, that's helpful, even on an individual basis. Even these corporations can't donate on an individual basis. Yeah, these execs will probably attend the premier's next lunch or dinner or fundraising event. All that shit adds up, and it matters when people can feel like friends rather than enemies. And I think mandate letters, more so than they have historically, allow government that latitude, and they allow the government that latitude by naming folks specifically. Lastly,

Annalise 57:32

Lastly, what about the what next? Like there's those media stories and the interest and stakeholders take note when these come out. But is there follow up? Is there like a report card on, hey,

Annalise 57:44

hey, you're doing the things in your mandate letter or you're not? How does that feed into cabinet shuffles? Like, do you want to kind of speak about the what happens over the next four years?

Carter 57:53

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, you refer back to the mandate letter as you're going through things. And one of the things that I used to do is when the minister would come to me with various complaints about various issues, I'd say, is that a part of your mandate letter?

Carter 58:06

And they'd say, no, it's not part of my mandate letter, but this group tells me that it's very, very important. Now,

Carter 58:11

Now, sometimes, you know what? It is very important. We need to change and we need to recognize and bring that in. And the business of government is sometimes very complex and you don't always get what you want. want um but you

Carter 58:26

know this is the you

Carter 58:28

you know the mandate letter allows you to say to that minister that's coming around and saying this is so important and and

Carter 58:34

and if we don't do this we're gonna we're

Carter 58:36

we're gonna lose this community we're gonna lose that community we're gonna you know we're not going to be able to to

Carter 58:41

to you know to achieve these things well it

Carter 58:43

wasn't in your mandate letter and because it's not in your mandate letter i just don't think that we can make it a priority right now so

Carter 58:49

so you're gonna have to put that to the side of the desk and you're gonna have to focus on the the things that we agreed as a government that we were going to do and

Carter 58:56

and you know i'm sorry that this thing that you think is important isn't a part of that but you

Carter 59:02

you know that's the way it's going to go and then the other thing uh that we would do is we would do performance reviews with the ministers now some of them like

Carter 59:11

like rachel notley had a no shuffle kind of policy but most governments have a shuffle policy and if you're not doing your job you're going to get moved and i think I think that that is a far stronger way of governing because ultimately it holds people to account and it provides outcomes for the people that matter, which is the citizens that were voting for us. So, you know, I think that the mandate letter and using it as a scorecard is a super valuable technique that should be that should be more in in more utilized by by governments as they can.

Annalise 59:50

what was that no just one side thing that the no shuffle policy was that a reflection of the fact that there wasn't a lot of qualified talent to shuffle or why why was that you

Carter 1:00:01

can shuffle people but you can take the exact same crew and

Carter 1:00:05

and move them around it

Carter 1:00:07

it doesn't have to be there's a brand new group of people who are now doing a brand new job um

Carter 1:00:13

but rachel notley for for whatever reason, uh,

Carter 1:00:15

uh, I don't know if she thought that shuffling people was some sort of admission of failure or whatever. Um, but she never shuffled anybody. And that, that, that stopped her from being able to say, you know, like the next minister comes in and says, you know what the minister that was before me, we had the wrong idea about a few things. So now you have to own all your mistakes and God knows every government makes a lot of mistakes all the way through, uh, to the bitter end, because you didn't

Carter 1:00:44

didn't want to move anybody

Carter 1:00:46

anybody from any portfolio. And it's just a silly strategy. She's the only first minister I can think of that's ever employed in no shuffle strategy.

Annalise 1:00:57

Zane, jump in. You were going to say something before I asked. Well,

Zain 1:00:59

Well, I was going to jump in on kind of this using mandate letters as a report card. I agree with Carter around the public accountability aspect of it, right? And I think mandate letters really depend on the minister, right? As certain ministers, you give them longer rope. The mandate letter is directionally correct. You fill in the gaps, right? And let's be clear about one thing. The mandate letter that is publicly provided to us is a summary of what is provided to these folks, I would hope, in certain cases. They probably have key measures, key timelines, things that are actually prioritized, right? Because right now, mandate letters, as they present themselves, are a laundry list where you're trying to seek out your thing. If you're a stakeholder, or they probably have a priority system, what's interconnected with what. And at the end of the day, as government, as a premier or the prime minister, you either give someone a script, that's your mandate letter, or a direction, that's your mandate letter. And you judge them based on that. If you trust, if there's a greater amount of trust, which is a lot of what this comes down to, you give them a greater amount of latitude. At the end of the day, though, any premier or prime minister recognizes that the political capital that they have is being spent by ministers, right? on these mandate letters. So if someone comes back three months later at a check-in, formal or informal, and saying, you spent way too much of my fucking capital not getting enough of this list done, that's a problem. Whether that's because you didn't follow the script, whether you went off the rails, you felt like you needed to explore here and see if there was a key issue that was not in the mandate letter, only to come back and say, you know what, everything is. I don't need more of that shit. So there's that ultimate element that we as a government, a minute. I, as the first minister and premier, I'm writing a story. You don't get to freelance an author unless I tell you because you're just one fucking chapter of that story, right? Everything you do may not be directly interconnected, but it certainly is for the broader story that we are trying to tell to the public to get and secure fucking reelection in four years. And four years might seem so far out to you, but I'm writing a story for four years from now. Any competent competent first minister, any competent premier's office is always looking at that saying, this is chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and you just are on borrowed time writing and authoring and helping us author one of those chapters for us. And frankly, we would do it ourselves, but we can't with all the limitations to what the premier needs to do. So you're the proxy for doing it. That's all you're on. You're on borrowed time and you're on our capital. And I know that sounds Sounds harsh, but in many ways, that's how you keep these folks in line, give them enough latitude to do the job, and then you assess them constantly. The one final thing I'll say is that all of this, all of this can be thrown out the window if public opinion of you and your job and how you're doing it, and frankly, in certain cases, you fall out of favor with either the first minister or the public, those two things can wipe out any sort of performance review formally that you would ultimately get. So I think all of that's worthy of noting, but none of it is as important as do we even like Marco Mendocino anymore, for example, which is the conversation. Exactly why do we know? Well, kind of a bit of this and a bit of this. But if you look at the mandate letter, Marco's fucking nailing it, right?

Zain 1:04:11

right? But the fact is, it just doesn't feel right anymore. All of that can override a performance that is totally logical on a mandate letter basis. okay

Annalise 1:04:21

let's leave that one there that's a good asterisk at the end that it can uh it can all go out the window guys let's move into our lightning round uh stampede it's over for me

Carter 1:04:31

do you because zane does it i do carter yeah i do it for you carter lightning

Annalise 1:04:35

lightning round lightning rounds carter we're already over an hour and we're doing the lightning rounds okay oh yeah

Zain 1:04:40

yeah it only sticks to an hour that's great i love a host we're

Annalise 1:04:44

we're having so much fun we're over an hour Corey's not here. We're doing it. Stampede, guys. A lot of people went. It's over. You two were there. You were at some events. Just overall summary, how did it go? How did politicians do? Do you have any reflections or did you miss anything in your big pre-stampede episode now that it has come and gone? Zane.

Zain 1:05:09

I forgot how boring politicians are. How they're... No, and I say this actually as a serious political point. When you're going out to Stampede, know something about something other than political speculation of what happens next in your political party or the issue of the day. Maybe be able to talk about something else because the problem with political events, as we know, around the summer barbecue season is that they're fucking redundant. redundant. You see the same 200 people over and over again. And as a politician, you have to do that. But if you don't have any latitude to talk about things that people connect with, or to break the ice or to actually show any sort of range of motion or interest, you actually look way more one dimensional overseeing someone over multiple events than you do interesting despite the multiple interactions you've had with them. And I noticed that a few times and I'm just pointing this out out as politicians of you're

Zain 1:06:02

name names i'm definitely gonna not gonna name names um i would of course you

Zain 1:06:07

you would have yeah we know i'm a guest here i'm a guest here and i'm classy like shohei carter so i don't need to name names okay um fucking

Zain 1:06:16

fucking no more shit okay

Zain 1:06:17

that's just that's just human shit like you're probably very smart no more human shit don't

Annalise 1:06:22

is what you're saying okay yeah

Zain 1:06:23

yeah don't be boring carter

Annalise 1:06:24

carter any any big stampede uh summaries thoughts no

Carter 1:06:29

no i mean i I think that it's always very interesting when the prime minister shows up and you know his popularity in Alberta is plummeting so say the numbers but prime minister shows up and you really get a sense of uh how popular he is because he's surrounded by people um you know he he spent he spent the time he he invested his time in Alberta and uh I was intrigued by how much time he spent here i thought that it was um you know it was good i i did it did dugmeat sing show up did anybody see sing i

Carter 1:07:04

don't think no i don't

Carter 1:07:05

think we saw him and i don't think so i

Zain 1:07:07

i think he's still under his mandate to not show up um i think that that blackout period still applies carter could

Carter 1:07:13

could be i mean it could be a thing i don't know um

Carter 1:07:15

um anyways i i i was impressed by the politicians i didn't find them boring at all um but then again they came up to to me and were like uh they're so they love the strategists they just love the strategy

Carter 1:07:30

and that annalise boy

Carter 1:07:33

she's got some kind of enthusiasm doesn't she that's what people always were saying okay

Annalise 1:07:38

okay she's so enthusiastic oh

Zain 1:07:40

oh actually it's power to the next question i like that one the double down in the past yeah

Annalise 1:07:43

yeah guys canadian news um it's happened i don't know if you you searched anything on google today i did here in canada canadian journalism didn't show up the results were very um american uh

Annalise 1:07:58

uh other people took note of this as well that this comes amid the liberals online news act which passed in june google has threatened and said that this would happen and people were seeing it today literally if you searched canadian wildfires none of the results are canadian journalism just

Annalise 1:08:14

just you think go ahead if

Zain 1:08:17

you google ryan gosling your screen goes pink i'm

Zain 1:08:22

i'm not even fucking joking you do it right now yeah it does it's great so uh i don't i don't really care about the rest of it because my screen is now pink and there was nice little like barbie themed sparklers carter carter i'm not even joking you do it right now carter's i can

Annalise 1:08:36

can see the light on

Carter 1:08:37

face oh my god you can

Annalise 1:08:43

but the question is yeah the question is like what next in this like ongoing now war essentially between the government and big tech go

Carter 1:08:54

go to fucking war okay go to defcon one this is fucking the idea that a corporation can constrain and restrict our access to information like this is untenable this is you if you want to do this then we are going to go to fucking war and then if you want to fight are

Annalise 1:09:12

are we are we like do people care uh

Zain 1:09:16

uh i hope this government has honestly honestly i agree with carter completely on this i've talked about some previous episodes with carter and cory uh this the trudeau's most recent reframing around democratic countries have made these platforms successful and now they want to skirt the rules of democracy that's a very very heady insider baseball sort of phrase. But the palatable public version of that, I fucking love. I actually think they have found the lane here finally. And I think they've, you know, they've

Zain 1:09:44

they've been a bit lucky. Fill me

Annalise 1:09:45

me in on that lane because I've been camping for a week. I've been out of cell service. What is the new lane?

Zain 1:09:51

I've always criticized this bill trying to do everything. Save journalism, create jobs, be morally righteous, battle big tech. I think they've now picked the lane to say, we're going to use this as a tip of the spear to battle big tech. The journalism is almost a byproduct of that. Big tech has actually fucked around way too long and we're not going to push back. And so what's at stake right now is them not wanting to pay for news. But I think what they've done is they said, this is going to be our issue that we select to fight big tech right now. And they've gotten away with it for too long. And I think this is exactly what the government needs to do, that they need to start acting like this is a political fight, and not even acting. I think they need to leave. It is a political fight,

Zain 1:10:37

That's a political fight that gives a government that has been lethargic, that has been arguably lazy, that has actually never closed a deal on so many files, but has been an expert at symbolism on them, to

Zain 1:10:49

pick a fight, devote resources, and win it. This, to me, is like finding a new purpose in the late stages of a dwindling or at least lethargic government. You're not going to win the fight on cost of living. You're not going to win the fight on this emissions green versus this balance argument that you've been trying to. This, to me, David versus Goliath, and where you could be positioned as the underdog, I think is beautiful to go up against these behemoths that are now falling out of public favor significantly. significantly. There are spokespersons on the other side, and I don't mean official ones. I mean the leaders of these organizations, the Musks, the Zuckerbergs, and less so the Googles in that sense, are not popular figures. You have a fight. Go fucking wean it. Lean into this would be my recommendation to them. What's next for journalism? I don't know. It really does depend on how aggressively the liberals want to fight this fight. To me, it's a renewed purpose. It's on the table. It's in front of you. Go fucking do it. Carter,

Carter 1:11:45

Carter, do you agree? right sing

Carter 1:11:46

sing it sister well

Carter 1:11:47

well given that those were my talking points um i'm gonna have to agree because of course zane did what zane does and he takes my talking points he goes on the media and then he gets paid for

Carter 1:11:59

saying my things that i said earlier on the podcast so

Carter 1:12:04

agree with me last

Zain 1:12:06

last last who would you have cast as uh barbie instead of margot robbie actually i think she's no one

Carter 1:12:12

than margot robbie yeah

Zain 1:12:14

perfect i think she's actually you're perfect well we're

Annalise 1:12:16

we're uh while we're talking about big tech and um zack and musk threads guys there's been nearly two weeks of threads are

Annalise 1:12:25

are you on it and is it the new twitter

Zain 1:12:28

no i'm deleting all my social media in like the next couple of weeks

Carter 1:12:33

can't figure it out so it must be good

Annalise 1:12:38

it's it's stalled so is tiktok still number one for you carter tiktok

Carter 1:12:43

there for me book talk i'm all over book talk right now getting

Carter 1:12:46

getting book recommendations loving

Zain 1:12:51

can't read that's why i use audible.com carter we're

Annalise 1:12:54

we're gonna leave it there that is a wrap on episode 1083 of the strategist my name is

Zain 1:12:58

is to pick up my literacy okay with

Annalise 1:13:00

with you as always stephen carter and zane belgium

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