Episode 1084: X marks the shack

Annalise 0:01

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1084. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil. With you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Corey 0:10

I got a lot of notes about last episode. Now, I only listened

Annalise 0:14

listened for 20 minutes.

Annalise 0:16

Our first Corey Hogan free episode.

Annalise 0:19

That's true. What are your notes? How did it feel to not be there, Corey?

Corey 0:23

Really good. Really good. Instead of being one of the three idiots talking nonsense, I was just listening to three idiots talk nonsense. That was a real step up for me, I think. That's really upsetting that you talk

Carter 0:33

talk to Annalise like that.

Annalise 0:36

Zane surprised me. I thought Zane was really good with his character. Zane was really good. Zane was really good. He

Corey 0:40

He was better than I was expecting. That would surprise me, too, if I had thought he was good. Yeah.

Carter 0:45

Hang on a second here.

Carter 0:46

Why did he surprise you? I expected great things from Zane.

Annalise 0:51

zane's a great host but i didn't know how he'd do with opinions like

Annalise 0:55

like in that that direct not guised like disguised as questions and uh he

Annalise 1:01

he did good cory did did did

Annalise 1:04

did the episode get posted without help from you that's

Annalise 1:08

that's what i was mainly no

Corey 1:09

no so the next day it

Carter 1:11

it kind of did it was out it was available it

Corey 1:15

was not available i mean people could get it if they were i mean

Carter 1:19

mean if they i

Corey 1:21

i mean they were committed listeners

Corey 1:24

they looked at like you who doesn't normally post the episodes posting a link to an mp3 rather than say posting it to think the question was spotify and apple and all of those

Corey 1:37

yeah so swing and a miss swing and a miss that didn't kind of go our way it's okay we all

Corey 1:42

all learn we all next one

Carter 1:43

one we don't have you just out of curiosity hang on let me just take here august

Corey 1:48

august 3rd it'll be a while it's third

Corey 1:50

i it will be the fact that it happened cory

Annalise 1:52

cory was was impressive like no one backed out i mean but it didn't actually happen we tried to

Corey 1:58

post it there There was people... Real

Corey 2:01

There was people who listened to

Carter 2:06

So we got downloads. Okay,

Annalise 2:08

I'm glad to be back. Why didn't we make it 20 minutes? Why didn't you listen to the whole thing? I mean, you

Corey 2:12

you know, life goes on. And sometimes you just realize there's a new episode of the Rewatchables that you'd rather listen to. They're doing Courtroom Month. Stop listening to this right now and go listen to the Rewatchables

Carter 2:25

Rewatchables Courtroom Month. No, hang on. Perfect.

Carter 2:27

Great. We went through this last time because we have a promo, right? Every once in a while, we have to promo ourselves. Oh,

Corey 2:33

Oh, yeah, we do. Yeah.

Carter 2:35

So we're promoting ourselves. We're not asking them to go to other people's podcasts right now.

Carter 2:43

We've got partners now that rely on us for their revenues, which

Annalise 2:49

Carter, for why they should keep listening. Yeah.

Carter 2:52

I actually don't know why they would keep listening. It's the middle of summer. I can't imagine you've got topics. As soon as that download

Corey 2:56

download is counted. Yeah. I've got to tell you, from the moment you've heard this, as far as the advertiser is concerned, you've listened to the episode.

Annalise 3:04

Yeah. It's good. Why are we still here?

Annalise 3:08

they still here? We're still here because we have to. Let's talk about outside before we talk about our first segment. Carter, you had an adventurous weekend outside. Yeah.

Carter 3:16

Yeah. You remember how I crashed last week on my mountain bike?

Carter 3:19

I crashed two more times yesterday. I do remember that.

Carter 3:21

And then Heather took a header. Heather dove into a creek. i saw her back tire go up in the air like six feet and then she dove into a creek and now she's all black and blue it's not good it's not good there's no funny punch line to the to the story she's she's like covered in bruises because she bruises like a ripe peach heather does it's not good so anyways

Carter 3:48

that's happened so we may not be mountain biking for a while so

Corey 3:51

so this is like like your second chance to turn off the episode and go listen to rewatchables i think let's move into

Annalise 3:56

into our first segment i thought you were talking about your toddler that

Carter 4:00

that won't sleep in a tent

Annalise 4:01

tent not a uh not not a it was good we were backpacking for a couple days out of cell service it was uh it was wonderful except for the sleeping parts but the rest of it lovely except

Carter 4:12

except for the sleeping parts i remember the sleeping parts being the best part about having a toddler cory

Carter 4:17

cory was i wrong there or is that right uh

Corey 4:19

uh i mean it's

Corey 4:21

light yeah i don't i don't know what you're talking about hey speaking of not knowing what you're talking about do you really think given the hockey canada scandal and its actual content saying they need to protect the athletes was the line you wanted to go with there i wasn't

Corey 4:35

about the phrase that you thought there's

Carter 4:37

there's a much much larger group of athletes than the people who are assholes the the athletes that come next the athletes that came before the athletes that weren't involved in the scandal The point of the whole organization is for the athletes. It's not just there to talk about sports. I mean, the athletes that did stupid

Carter 4:56

should be tossed out, but that's different than their primary objective, which is taking care of athletes.

Corey 5:04

Yeah, yeah. So I agree with all of that. I think the soundbite that you have provided to all

Corey 5:11

all of your haters is pretty solid, though. Oh,

Carter 5:14

no. I don't have any haters. People just adore me. Third

Corey 5:17

Third exit chance. People adore me. The verdict they did. What are we doing

Carter 5:22

let's move into our first segment. Do we have any topics? Our

Annalise 5:24

Our first segment is called X.

Annalise 5:29

seriously? We can keep this short and sweet. Yeah, we're doing it. Because I leave cell service for a couple of days. I come back to news that Twitter has a new name. It's been rebranded as X. Is this for real?

Corey 5:42

mean, sort of. Elon Musk has wanted to create X.com since his PayPal days. In fact, it's part of why he was ousted from PayPal. And he actually created or he sold or I don't know, like it was restructured in a way that X has owned Twitter since the spring. This is not actually new at this point. But the idea is Elon wants to turn Twitter into the everything app, what essentially is WeChat for Chinese speaking populations, where you can send money, you can buy things, you can talk to people, you engage with the world, you can subscribe. It's this everything app that he's talked about for decades at this point. He would like to create it. But unfortunately, he can't even maintain the app that he has right now that does like one of those 12 things. So is this for real is an interesting question when you look at it through that. Is the concept for real? Yeah. Will the execution match his aspirations? 100% no.

Annalise 6:40

Carter, what's your take? Every, I would say, like three or four episodes, there's like a new Twitter thing. But people are still on Twitter. There still hasn't been this like mass exodus. this like why are we still talking about elon and twitter it's really

Carter 6:54

really i think i said this before it's super hard to give up a community that you've created and the communities that we've created on twitter i have you know lots of followers on twitter you know how many followers i have on uh on on um what's

Carter 7:08

what's the new one zuckerberg threads threads threads yeah you know how many followers i have on that no seriously tell me i have no idea how to tell i don't know how many followers i have it keeps going up but i don't like it's not 15 000 followers it's not like the community that was kind of created and curated that we put together over a course of i don't know how many years we've been on uh twitter cory it's been a long time because you and i are old since

Corey 7:31

since 08 for me i think so

Carter 7:33

you know twitter has gone through many iterations i mean used to be you could buy fake followers for your good friends um at work and

Carter 7:46

have to buy the you know

Carter 7:49

those things happened and twitter was great for that kind of stuff but and then twitter became about seeing information and in real time and and uh you know keeping abreast of of information as it happened uh and now twitter you know twitter is a raging cesspool most of the tweets that i am tweeted at now i i don't even read because they're from people i don't know they're they're like i'm just getting shit on i don't understand what the value of the of the enterprise is anymore and uh so my my latest tweet is uh i'm out for a bit i'm gonna i'm leaving it behind i i

Carter 8:24

find our discord i

Annalise 8:25

i was gonna let's stop there because as as you were He's taking his talents to South Beach. As he was complaining, I was going to say, when are you leaving? So

Carter 8:34

So you are leaving. I didn't cancel the account. I haven't taken

Annalise 8:39

taken anything rash. Like yes or no, are you leaving?

Carter 8:42

Leaving is an interesting word. I don't know the answer to leaving. I'm not leaving. I am not there, though. So I'm not going to be posting information there as much. I don't think I'll be posting there really at all. I'm

Carter 8:55

I'm just not that interested in the interactions, and I'm not that interested in the community any longer.

Corey 9:05

Well, this is an interesting thing. Like, I think it's not a binary. I still have a Facebook account. I haven't posted on Facebook, I think, in years. So

Annalise 9:14

So what, like, I deleted my Facebook account. Why don't you just delete it?

Corey 9:18

Well, why did you? I guess it would be my counterpoint. Like, it's a free service. I might want to dip my toe into it. There's some stuff on there that I don't mind having access to. old photos and and whatnot these things do not require big dramatic i'm never drinking again moments we just use them less you know i you know actually it's a perfect metaphor in my 20s i drank a lot i never quit drinking but i have like five drinks a year at this point and

Carter 9:45

and your 30s as

Carter 9:47

well as i recall yeah but

Corey 9:50

but but but you don't need these big dramatic binary life decisions with social media accounts or anything else. You can just gradually change your habits. And I think what Twitter is going to face is not a moment where we all decide en masse, it's all threads and we're never going to use anything else. I think it's going to be the slow loss of our interest. We're just going to slip away from Twitter. And it's funny because I'm not even doing what Stephen's doing. I'm not taking like some time away. I'm not stepping off to another primary platform or anything like that but i was talking to my wife today and she asked me something about some of thing and i said i don't know i haven't really been on twitter for the past few days and it's been a long time since i've been able to say i don't know i haven't been on twitter for

Corey 10:35

and that's just the reality that twitter is going to have to contend with so

Annalise 10:38

so do you think as more people take that stance cory like you're saying it doesn't have to be black and white just is there on it less yeah

Annalise 10:45

yeah then then what's like when does twitter just like fail if it keeps like like we it feels like we keep talking about it and and Elon keeps trying these new things but people are still there and they're going on to see what the new thing is well

Corey 10:58

well he's the world's richest man I think he's worth 150 billion dollars or something with current Tesla market prices I'm just I don't know if that's 100 accurate but the um the

Corey 11:10

the thing is he it will live as long as he wants it to live but it doesn't make money right now it didn't make money when he bought it and And now it has debt financing and it's advertising revenue by all accounts has gone down and Twitter Blue, his subscription service has not really worked. But when you're the world's richest man, you can keep digging that hole as long as you want to. You can create X, just to bring it back to your original question. You can try to create the app of everything. And you can do that as a fantasy where you're not really taking any serious steps towards it, or he could drop another $10 billion dollars into this bloody app if he wants to it's all available to him with that kind of money so when does twitter go down twitter goes down when he he loses interest or he just can't take another body blow on this particular one could be economic could be emotional the way that he keeps getting his ass kicked in the court of public opinion but you know twitter will live or die based on elon musk's whims um it and it will gradually be less relevant for the rest of us as you know will those two lines cross who knows carter

Annalise 12:16

carter two quick questions what what was the final straw like what made you decide to send that tweet that i have not seen where you said hey i'm stepping away and also you were going to plug the discord you can you can continue down yeah the

Carter 12:27

the discord's been really that train

Annalise 12:28

train of thought the

Carter 12:28

the discord's really interesting it's it's it's our patreon only uh app that people can go to i can't help but notice that on you know uh pod save america the knockoff of the strategists has also set up their own little discord channel uh subsequent to us doing it you

Carter 12:44

know they copied the whole fucking format and uh then they copy uh the discord i mean cory

Carter 12:51

cory i don't even know what to do about it i don't even know what to do about it you know

Corey 12:54

know it's it's david versus goliath they

Corey 12:57

they are literally called crooked media oh this is how they roll what

Carter 13:00

what you nailed it um

Carter 13:02

um i can't remember the question what

Annalise 13:06

what the question was what was the final straw why did you tweet i think you're staying away from twitter like was it was it one thing was it one mean troll was it this x thing what was you

Carter 13:15

you know it wasn't the x thing it was the ceo of twitter uh putting up her uh twitter defense or her her link tweets of the uh of why they decided to go to uh to x and what x was going to be and i just thought that's interesting that's an an interesting idea. But you know, a place governed by AI, that's, you know, all these things to everybody. That's not what I signed up for. I signed up to get really interesting information when I needed it. I signed up to be a part of a community. I signed up to, you know, know things and learn things that were posted by my friends and by my community, without me necessarily needing to know them. I mean, I think that that was the foundational difference between between Twitter and Facebook. In Facebook, you

Carter 14:03

you kind of needed to be connected to the person, you were only seeing what your friends were posting. Back, you know, that's, this is all back in the day, of course, but in, in Twitter, you, you could see anybody, and all of a sudden, you could develop these really interesting relationships with people that you didn't know in real life. And that became part of the, the lexicon of, of Twitter, right? You met them irl

Carter 14:28

irl right in real life and suddenly this online world developed new new meaning and that that was

Carter 14:37

was something different than facebook where you know i already knew my aunt i didn't need to you know be reintroduced to her um so this is it was a different platform and now it's kind of gone

Annalise 14:51

for telling us what irl means so just just to loop the circle with all of that i quite enjoyed that but you're saying you're not getting any of that from twitter anymore but you are getting that from the community that you found in the strategist discord i

Carter 15:05

i think it's going to be shocking to find out that we don't actually know each one of our listeners i mean cory and i started off thinking that that would be the case um you know we figured that that's why we brought zane in actually we thought he'd bring in a whole different group of friends we

Corey 15:18

we figured it'd be nice to not know what yeah so we brought

Carter 15:20

brought him in to try and handle that and um

Carter 15:23

um you know i mean And it wound up to be, it is a much larger thing than we thought it was going to be. And getting to see these people post their information, their comments, their thoughts, it's been way more entertaining than I ever thought. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I didn't think much of our audience for the first seven

Carter 15:45

Oh, yeah. And all of a sudden. Now we've got a discord. cord and i gotta tell you dismissing them out of hand has become more challenging uh much more challenging okay

Annalise 15:59

we're gonna leave that segment there and move on to our next segment our next segment is called a tiny little shack um so i don't know if you guys saw this at a recent press conference about housing costs uh pierre polyev illustrated an argument about canada's high housing market he did this by giving out a physical address for a home on the canadian side of Niagara Falls. He said, you know, the house is a $550,000 house and it's a tiny little shack. And he invited reporters to check it out. So they did. Reporters went to this house, three bedroom, two bathroom, 1.5 story home. And the renter living there, she was not like super happy. She said it was pretty embarrassing that the leader called her home a shack. It was her house. She liked it. She said, it's not the greatest house on the street. It's definitely not a shack. And I think kind of in the circles I saw and where this came up is others who live in similar homes like hers were also pretty offended.

Annalise 16:56

So soon, Polyev was apologizing to the renter. I want to bring you guys in because there's a few things to pick part here. I want to talk about this, like the housing, and we've talked about that before, but the housing strategy, kind of the idea of comparing the Canadian side to the American side, and then also the strategy of like giving out an address and saying go check it out and then reporters do that so why don't we uh we'll jump in carter what are what are just kind of your your initial take on the situation before we really dive in well

Carter 17:24

well i think that it's really bad political instincts i'm sure that the owner of the house gave them permission to do what they did but i'm sure the thought never crossed their mind that there would be an occupant i'm not even sure I like the word renter in this situation. I mean, houses aren't just occupied by people who own. And the only people who, you know, the people who matter in these equations aren't just the owners. The market is also, the way that conservatives have taken this thing on just confuses me altogether. I think this is a really important issue. And instead of trying to point They don't point out what the solutions are or what they would do. They just continually point out the problems. And I really struggle with that type of political instinct that says, look how bad this thing is. And there's no solution presented. And then, you know, the political instinct of calling something a shack where, frankly, a lot of Canadians live in a, you know, Corey and I live in the inner city. You live in the relative inner city. There'd be lots of people who I think would point at our living situations, not Corey's because his mansion,

Carter 18:33

mansion, you know, from the, you

Carter 18:35

you know, I mean.

Annalise 18:36

Old timey mansion. Yeah.

Carter 18:37

Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. In Chey. Yeah, in Chey. I mean, anybody lives

Annalise 18:40

lives in Chey. Neighborhood that no one calls Chey.

Carter 18:42

Chey. Yeah. You know, but it's

Carter 18:46

not everybody needs to live in the same situation. I don't understand people who need 2,500 square feet and a double garage that opens up onto their street. I don't understand that. I don't need that for my lifestyle to be full. I'd rather go out, be outside all the time. I don't want to take care of my lawn, right? Like there's different priorities that different people bring. And I just think that Pierre doesn't

Carter 19:08

doesn't understand anything but his own point of view. And that shows that he's got really bad political instincts in my mind.

Annalise 19:16

Corey, jump in. What's your kind of initial take on the overall situation?

Corey 19:20

Yeah, I don't feel the same way, Stephen. And I do think Pierre Polyev has explained what he thinks the solutions to this particular challenge are. I also believe this is a challenge and it is a existential one for an entire generation of Canadians who are entirely priced out of home ownership unless they happen to have really good lines of credit with the bank of mom and dad. Right. And that's really troubling for me because that's how wealth becomes entrenched in just a few people's hands and not a lot of people's hands. And that, you know, that's something that politicians need to wrestle with, because removing the dream of homeownership from a generation is not a good idea. And by the way,

Corey 20:01

I know people can say, yes, well, renting is an option. Yes, of course, renting is an option. But renting is also becoming increasingly unattainable, just because these things do tend to trickle down. and ultimately it becomes about the cost of literally living like where you're going to live and and how challenging this is so um you know he he did what politicians do he tried to make a point he tried to illustrate a point by using an example and it was it was pretty callous because of course there was a occupant there i think in general when you're casting dispersions on a house house that somebody has lived in, does live in, could live in a house like it, you're probably on some pretty shaky ground if you happen to be a politician. Because I'm sure there were a lot of people who said, you

Corey 20:48

you know, fuck you, right? Like, I'm sorry I don't live in the McMansion you think I want to. And it reinforces some of the challenges people have with Pierre Poglia.

Corey 20:58

But I think, you know, this is something that politicians struggle to do, to maintain relevance for a particular issue. They try to create hooks and they try to do that with stories. And I'm sure this was just like on a list of summer things to do. Let's find an example of a house in Canada that seems overpriced in a competitive environment where we want to be politically relevant. And let's make the point. And Southwestern Ontario seems like a pretty good one because right across the border, very close, you do have much more affordable housing.

Corey 21:29

All of that said, I do want to point out something obvious here which is there is another way to read the fact that a house in canada is worth an awful lot more than a house in the united states and that's that it's a lot more desirable to live in these environments than it is to live in the united states i

Carter 21:45

i mean aren't we talking about uh in around detroit michigan or something like that isn't that where buffalo

Corey 21:51

buffalo i mean buffalo massive

Carter 21:52

massive industries that have been uh driven away from these areas uh you know canada has been able to survive we've got um you know a totally different uh downtown situations i mean it's it's apples to oranges but he he tries to simplify everything into eensy weensy tiny little sound bites that his uh that his electorate can understand and uh and

Carter 22:16

and i guess it works with our audience but does it work with anything else that's

Corey 22:19

that's politics though like i i think that you just your dislike of the guy your evident dislike of the guy is clouding it because like the idea The idea that you would simplify an issue and illustrate it with an example is not –

Carter 22:32

mean, that's what you

Corey 22:32

you do for a living. I do it well,

Carter 22:35

right? Like the difference there

Annalise 22:36

there is that I would do it well. What was the right way to

Annalise 22:39

to do it in this case? If you want to illustrate how expensive getting into the housing market is in Canada and you want to use the states as a comparison, walk us through how you would have done it, both of you. Well, why

Carter 22:51

why am I accepting that premise? Why am I comparing our expensive housing to the United States' expensive housing? The United States, you know, they have certain areas of cheap housing, to be sure. But the United States isn't immune from the housing bubbles. There's all kinds of places. Let's compare Vancouver and the lower mainland to San Francisco. There's all kinds of places in the United States that have unbelievable housing markets that are pricing out its residents. The fact that you can find a lower—I mean, we can compare Nova Scotia to New York City if you want. Let's go for it. New Brunswick— You

Annalise 23:30

You think you just wouldn't have touched it? Like, this is not something you would have touched in this way? I would have just

Carter 23:35

just said, I don't understand what you're doing. Like, we're going to pick one market that is super high and one market that's super low? I mean, they happen to be relatively close to one another. But outside of that, they share no common—like, it's not like the people in that area are going to be like, Like, oh, yeah, maybe we should just move across the border and buy a house. Like, it's just, this is, this

Carter 23:56

this was a part of the calculation, is that it was a manufactured comparison. It's a, it's not real. I mean, we can compare, you know, all kinds of different variables for housing. Housing is, you know, what is it they say in real estate? Location, location, location. I mean, you're

Carter 24:13

you're comparing apples to oranges here. And the media should have picked up on that as well. Well, I mean, I

Carter 24:19

I just think the guy's really fucking

Carter 24:21

fucking horrible. So what do you want me to do here?

Annalise 24:22

Corey, is there a right way that you would have done it?

Corey 24:26

Yeah. Well, first of all, a couple of fact checks here.

Corey 24:29

The cost of housing has gone up way, way faster in Canada than the United States. So, yes, there are problems with affordability. This time, look for the past like 30 years. Look for the last 40 years. It's out of control in this country. This is a real fucking problem. I'm not denying that

Corey 24:45

it's a real fucking problem.

Corey 24:46

pretend otherwise. I'm denying that

Carter 24:46

that the way that he made the comparison was really bad. The comparison's not real, Corey. If you want to take a median house and a median house,

Carter 24:54

we can talk about it. But when we talk about choosing different locations based on what we can get the best comparator of, that's not real.

Corey 25:02

It's not an insane comparison to say this country that is very like us in the same geography has much more affordable housing. That said, I think that the way the point actually gets made is by talking about things things that actually lead to your policy solutions, right? And the thing is, I don't know a thing about the housing market in upstate New York, but I am guessing because it's in New York, that it's not an incredibly affordable place on account of an incredible lack of red tape and, you know, just this ability to build without any consideration of regulations or, you know, know, any zoning or any controls like that. So I don't think it actually lends itself to his policy solutions. And the comparisons, I think, were probably more readily available with, you know, frankly, markets in Texas, markets in Canada, like Calgary, where it is easier to get things built, or has been historically, that seems to be something that we are struggling with more recently here. But he has a suite of solutions. Those solutions include, you know, red

Corey 26:09

red tape productions, making it easier to build, so fewer zoning restrictions, and then ultimately reducing taxes and business costs on people who want to build as well. And if he could have pointed to a jurisdiction that did those things, and managed to make housing affordable, that would have been much more meaningful to me. And it wouldn't have had this mean spiritedness of picking on a quote unquote shack too. I think that there were ways that you could have gotten there. But again, Again, I'm answering the question mostly because it was posed. I think it was a gaffe. I think it was not very considerate. I'm not as grossly offended and I'm not as shocked by the composition, I think, as Stephen seems to be.

Annalise 26:52

nature of it. Thank you for answering the question,

Carter 26:54

jump in, Annalise? May I?

Annalise 26:57

I'm going to let you jump in, Carter.

Annalise 26:59

It's the personal nature of

Carter 27:00

of it that particularly offends me. me. When we're talking medians, when we're talking, you know, numbers, when we're talking about generalities, that makes sense. And to tell you something, if that owner had lived in that house, I probably would have said, you know what, that's fine.

Carter 27:13

But when you start picking on someone individually, when you start picking on a person as an individual, that goes beyond the pale in politics. In politics, we are not supposed to be taking our weight and putting it onto someone else's shoulders. That's not maybe someone else in the game. Maybe that's how we play. But that's it you don't put your your weight of the political party of your of your political speech and you do not bring the media down on a poor renter who just happens to occupy the space that you think is a fucking shack that's where i go over that's where the line was crossed and all the other stuff semantics we could have had a wonderful semantics conversation but pierre paliev chose to hurt someone and not not someone in the game not someone who's playing the game he chose to hurt and a normie and we don't hurt the fucking normies unless they're our audience and then we pick on the audience yeah

Corey 28:01

yeah but you you're kind of attributing an intent that i don't even believe you believe he did there i don't think like it was doesn't matter it was thought you gotta think

Corey 28:10

it through it was not intense you gotta

Annalise 28:11

gotta think it through yeah

Annalise 28:13

yeah but carter on that

Annalise 28:14

that note you're saying if the if the owner then

Annalise 28:18

then it would have been fine when you still if he had called the same house a shack without having a renter live in it other people including journalists whose houses look like this house still would have been outraged would they not like why does it make a difference they could

Carter 28:31

could have been out if

Annalise 28:31

if the owner was there

Carter 28:32

there but the owner at least would have been calling down the hell you know the the storm upon themselves you know the the owner would have been calling down the criticism of the critique on the on their own head this was something that was brought down on their head by you know on someone else's head who likes living there and is happy to have a place that they can actually live and is probably worried sick that the fucking property is up for sale right

Carter 28:57

right like there were so many things in this that that any practitioner who was actually doing politics properly should have said you know what this doesn't feel right we're not going to do this because we don't bring we don't bring down this type of heat on someone who's a normie okay

Annalise 29:14

okay so carter if ignore the america canada example because you don't like that let's say you were tasked with doing a summer press conference middle of july on how insane house prices are in canada what's your strategy what do you do i

Carter 29:28

i really liked i mean i what i would probably do is i would go and i would i would find properties that were affordable 18 months ago and aren't affordable today and i would say this is what's happening this is you know and there's there's lots of them cory's already mentioned a number of markets in which you can find this information or find this calgary's a great market lower you know lower mainland of british columbia where he was there's lots of properties where the values have escalated beyond people's ability to pay for them there there is no shortage of of discussion points or places that you can point to that make your point but you don't have to come down on someone like um you don't need to compare to the united states first of all do a comparison within market, right? Do a comparison of where they were before and where they are now. That's a far more interesting, that's a far more interesting job, I think, than going across, you know, going across the border and saying, look, they're doing a great job. Corey made a good point, which again, pains me, pains me. But Corey, if he had found a place that is building housing faster because of the lack of regulations, then he could have pointed to that and said, that's a part of our solution if he can't find that place then he can still make the case or you know like talk about jurisdictions where they are allowing that i don't know that there are a lot of jurisdictions because nimby is pretty engrossed and pretty um steadfast

Carter 30:53

steadfast everywhere but you know this is he

Carter 30:58

just didn't need to do this the way he did it and there were many many many different options cory

Annalise 31:03

cory jump in did did you want to say something?

Corey 31:06

Yeah, well, look, he is going to use a country to country comparison because he's trying to lead a country and he's trying to say this country could be doing things differently. So I don't think it's insane that he did that again. You know, he's not running to be premier of somewhere, so he's not going to compare to another province. It makes sense that you would take a reference for another country that Canadians will understand and they're going to understand upstate new york that none of that is problematic in my point of view and actually it's some pretty good questions to ask right like what is so fundamentally different here and why did things get so out of control here versus there is buffalo the same no of course not right but uh you know you have some opportunities to uh to at least tell a bit of a story about national policy which is what national leaders try to do nationwide. So like, not a big problem with that. I agree that it was a bit of a thoughtless, careless hit. And he should have considered how people might feel about a house like that being called a shack. And it is like an interesting tension in communications that I think is worth calling out.

Corey 32:13

We always want to be specific. We always want to tell these stories. And the minute we're specific, these kinds of things can happen, right which is part of the reason that pushes us to 30 000 feet for a lot of these things to talk about things in terms of look at this market versus that market look at you know this uh city versus what it costs to be in this city five years earlier it's a real challenge for communicators because frankly that kind of statistics based approach not super interesting and if you had taken it we

Corey 32:41

we you know we wouldn't be talking about it right now one of the things that i think we we also need to acknowledge is we are talking about this right now. And while there's a lot of blowback on Pierre Polyev, this

Corey 32:51

this feels a little bit different from probably a dozen other Pierre Polyev moments where he's been kind of shitty and we've been like, what are you doing? Where I think you are still left with the point, right? There's been probably a lot of conversations nationwide about, do we have a problem with gatekeepers? Do we have a problem with over-regulation? Is this a solution? Because it sure as hell a problem.

Corey 33:16

And so I'm not even sure he came out behind when

Corey 33:19

when it's all said and done.

Annalise 33:20

Corey, you mentioned something there interesting to me with the former journalist had on from the communications point of view of how

Annalise 33:28

much do you factor in the fact that the people, like, and I find this, journalists

Annalise 33:32

journalists are all over this housing story, like across Canada, in Calgary, and a lot of them are experiencing it themselves, right? They moved

Annalise 33:39

moved to Calgary. They're renters. They're experiencing the rental market. They need to find a new place.

Annalise 33:44

They live in houses that look like this, that look like a shack, quote unquote.

Annalise 33:48

As a communicator, I mean, obviously broad audience, but when it's journalists that are helping tell that story, how do you factor those people in for a conversation like this?

Corey 34:01

Well, I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting question, because I'm not sure I've ever sat and developed a communication strategy that's been like, this is how I know journalists live, right? So I'm going to put it in this way, because I feel like it will have more resonance with them. And maybe I should do that more, because frankly, they're people, and it's an interesting filter role that they serve, and they can't help but feel things. And you put something like that forward that's deeply relevant to them, they're going to kind of feel that deep relevance. Um, but yeah, I think that when you've got an issue that people are just sort of feeling, it

Corey 34:35

it is more likely that journalists are going to leap on it and stay on it because they're more likely to be having those feelings themselves, you know, whether that be, you know, concerns

Corey 34:44

concerns about the education system, if they happen to have children or, you know, crime in a neighborhood, they happen to live in that neighborhood. I can think of a ton of near autobiographical columns and stories where people have written about something that's of interest to them. And, you know, my sense is the minute a journalist feels like that's what you're doing, like you're doomed, like they're going to run the other way out of a sense of integrity. But certainly it can help propel the story a bit further.

Annalise 35:16

Carter, do you have any thoughts on that one? Well, I think that

Carter 35:18

we have, I mean, this is one of the things that I've done in politics for a long time. I mean, I've long, like, one of the strategies around media relations for Nenshi's campaign was the idea that there would be this movement to fairness, right? Right. We knew that journalists weren't just going to accept that there was only two leading candidates. They were going to have to bring in and upstart a challenger in order to fulfill their own sense of fairness. Right. They had to cover at least one more. And that's why we focus so much of our attention on becoming the third place candidate in in that race by September the 1st. I mean, really, our entire campaign was predicated on that versus trying to win at some later date.

Carter 36:09

So if you understand that journalists are, in fact, real people and they do live in the same situations and they are facing the same problems, I mean, one can look at the journalists who are covering COVID. I mean, there was a tremendous amount of semi-autobiographical kind of reporting that was going on there because there were pressures that all of us were feeling, that journalists were feeling as well. whether it was just something as simple as you know all of a sudden now they're working from home and that's a confusing environment or if it was more um you

Carter 36:53

you know having to work at all you know having to go into work and being fearful i mean there was tons of that type of reporting and and legitimately so you know so if you can tie into that and understand the you know how how to influence journalists, because they're humans too, I mean, not real humans, but still almost humans, then you're going to be very successful.

Corey 37:18

You know, I'm actually curious to hear your thoughts on this, Annalise, because one of the things that when you think about the propriety of these things as, you know, as comms practitioners, as PR practitioners, and you've of course been in both sides you do pr now but it

Corey 37:32

it seems totally fair ball to say for example oh i'll use paula simons because she's out of the game now like paula simons really cares about children and care so we're gonna make sure that paula simons gets this story attacking the government on children and care right that seems totally fair ball like this isn't this is kind of a policy interest of them and we're gonna we're gonna kind of package it in that way and say hey hey, I thought you'd care about this, you know, it's there. Now, if I had said, oh, but I know the neighborhood she lives in. And I know she likes to walk her dog to this park. And I said, oh, just to use like the extreme example, the other way, hey, this thing's going on with this park. And I know you like to take your dog there.

Corey 38:10

That would be totally off bounds, right? So where did you draw the lines as a journalist in terms of what was like legitimate professional interest? And what was, was all of a sudden, like personal and off limits, and you didn't want to hear people trying to pitch you in that particular sense yeah

Annalise 38:26

yeah i don't i don't know if it was like a black and white line but i find

Annalise 38:31

find and i would say this now in my role where i do a lot of media relations like reporters especially in today's environment where in a market like calgary there's so few reporters it's just like cut after cut after cut and they're doing so many stories a day they really like you can get them more into stories about things that they're interested in and

Annalise 38:50

and so pitching that way and And I found that when I was a reporter, too, like if someone was like, hey, I've got this pitch about something outside and it means you get to leave the office for a day and like go on a field trip. I'm like, hey, Tony, do I have a story idea for you? Right. And so I think I don't know. It's an interesting question. I don't think it's black and white. And like if someone was like, hey, I've got this story for you and Che because it's a block from your house, I'd be like, OK, we're not talking. That's creepy. Why do you know where I live?

Annalise 39:17

um but yeah no it's it's an interesting question but i do find in like this broader sense and it was carter you might have some thoughts on this because it came up during the um the

Annalise 39:28

the last provincial election some of the affordability stuff there was this thought from the ndp side of like journalists are going to cover the affordability stuff because that's them and we've had success in bc with this and and like these are numbers for for them because that's who

Annalise 39:44

who you know look at their salaries and this and that so i find it interesting on the housing one um because you do have a lot of journalists that are new to a city that

Annalise 39:52

that are renting that are younger that can't enter the market that sort of thing yeah

Annalise 39:58

didn't really answer your question cory that's

Carter 39:59

that's okay we've never done an answer to a strategist class you're doing very well then that's that's actually how we do it um

Carter 40:05

um you know the thing that's pierre

Carter 40:10

pierre polyev has really nailed something here. And that is that there is a there is a across the board across Canada feeling about of worry about affordability. And it really doesn't matter where you are in your stage, like most people are encountering this challenge. And so packaging

Carter 40:29

packaging it up for journalists and giving it to the journalists in such a fashion that they will cover it shouldn't really be that hard. I mean, the hook doesn't need to be set that deep on this, you know, you don't necessarily need to to come up with the most creative of the solutions. I mean, I think that journalists

Carter 40:45

journalists are experiencing this and therefore, you know, going as far as he did in this particular instance in order to get that coverage just feels like you swung the bat too hard. You didn't need to go that far, you know? Like, all you need is a base hit, not a home run.

Carter 41:01

And journalists will cover things that they're interested in and affordability is something that everybody's following. And it's interesting because it's not just inflationary affordability anymore. It's this crazy home market affordability that is everybody's real life. Everybody needs a place to stay. And it manifests itself in so many different ways. So you can cover, there's like a million different stories around housing, a million different avenues. And one of the least interesting is actually affordable housing, in my mind. I think that there's way more interesting questions about housing and what it should be looking like, especially when you're factoring in climate change.

Annalise 41:42

okay let's leave that one there because we could keep talking about this all night um our last segment is called a saucy costume uh

Annalise 41:53

guys we have to talk about it i'm not sure i saw cory's

Annalise 41:57

cory's last costume at

Carter 41:59

at halloween and it was saucy it

Annalise 42:02

saucy a donair costume up for auction on the government website made news this week i love the story i don't know know what you guys think it's like the perfect summertime story um initially came from alberta today's katherine gregowski costume is wonderful you've got the visuals you've got like the fun um it's a thing of beauty there's a bidding war i don't know if you guys have checked recently the costume is sixteen thousand dollars and still many days to come um so katherine had this great story just kind of about the history of it it was purchased for a 2015 ad campaign about impaired pair driving um

Annalise 42:37

um that the pc government pitched but then as you remember 2015 ndp surprised they won they kiboshed the campaign she

Annalise 42:44

she talked to a former government staffer the former ndp transportation minister etc

Annalise 42:48

etc great story um there's lots we can get into here involving like strategy of ad campaigns and mascots if mascots should have faces there's a new component which is that premier daniel smith was photographed by media with a costume late last week at the taste of Edmonton festival and I want to talk about this it's like what do we think of the strategy of politicians getting in on the joke when you have this thing it's summer it's fun people are on vacation people aren't paying that much attention they like like this costume because it's funny is it good is it bad does it make her more likable that let's start there like should a politician get in on

Annalise 43:27

on the joke in the way that Danielle Smith did here Corey Hogan what do you think I

Corey 43:31

I mean, yeah, sure. Absolutely. It is really funny. I mean, it's one of these classic things in politics where you can intellectually unpack it and say, like, we live in hell. Like, what the fuck is this? So just to unpack that story in a different way. government was going to run an ad campaign government doesn't run an ad campaign many years later goes out on surplus becomes a pop culture meme premier says i need some of that don't air shine get that costume out uh which used to say never worn i wonder if they've updated it now uh you know let's go to a street festival and hold hands with the don't air costume and just have a bunch of pictures taken then a bunch of meta commentary about that particular thing Like, holy

Corey 44:16

holy fuck. Like, what is this? Where are we? And why do we live in a world where a politician can legitimately expect a popularity bounce for walking hand in hand with a donair down the middle of the street? Like, come on, like, what are we doing here? but we do live in that world and it costs absolutely nothing and it's what everybody's talking about and the government owns it so why the hell not i mean i thought it was kind of a no-brainer it would be insane if they weren't thinking about how they got in on that particular story and one of the things in government communications and this this is more on the political side i'm sure that drove this but in government communications one

Corey 44:56

one of the things you you are always trying to do is have your head on a swivel and say, what are the natural media hooks that are out there? What is everybody talking about? And what's our angle into this story? And when what everybody is talking about is a piece of government property, you have an angle into the story. You always do. So to me, it was just smart, smart government communications. Something was going on. You saw your way into it. And yeah, Yeah, not even that hard. So maybe smart is overly generous, but really workmanlike government communications and a no-brainer.

Annalise 45:32

Carter, do you agree? Was it smart? Yeah,

Carter 45:33

Yeah, it absolutely was smart. I mean, being in on the joke is way better than just simply being the butt of the joke. I think that politicians that can laugh at themselves have a leg up on politicians that can't. I remember, you know, the glory days of this hour has 22 minutes, you know, and, you know, Mark Delahunty going in and talking to the prime minister. And, you know, those were great. It doesn't matter which prime minister it is. It doesn't matter who the politician is. When a person is able to sit down with the comedian and be part of the bit instead of being the subject of the bit, you're going to be in the bit, right? The

Carter 46:13

The only question is, are you going to be able to have them laughing with you or just simply laughing at you? And this was great. Great. I have a bigger question, though. And my question's for Corey.

Carter 46:25

why on earth would you have to buy a denier costume to do an advertising campaign?

Carter 46:33

Like, I've done a lot of

Carter 46:34

I've never bought a costume. Like, I don't think I've ever bought a costume. I've rented costumes. I've never wound up with a costume in inventory. inventory

Corey 46:44

well uh i don't actually know i was racking my brain being like did i know i i joined the government in 2016 so that i was i was wondering what

Annalise 46:51

what your role in this is cory he

Corey 46:54

but like obviously i

Annalise 46:55

i mean like i can tell you he's

Annalise 46:57

he's the mascot he's the there was

Corey 46:59

was an ongoing thing with alberta transportation and ad campaigns where they would bring these totally off the wall things and some would be like holy we're not fucking doing doing that and um and sometimes they were like big and showy and sometimes they were small and and kind of only thought out from one dimension i'm not blaming anyone it's kind of the nature of the content like there was you know you do a campaign that's talking about there was one i recall in my time there where it was pedestrians should lock eyes with drivers as they're crossing the street to make sure the driver can see them actually really solid advice people went nuts thinking we were saying it was the pedestrian's job not to be hit by your victim blaming the car are yeah

Corey 47:39

yeah but not like just trying to take a practical approach of hey before you cross the street make sure like it's safe the same lessons i would give my kids frankly but you know so you'd have things like that and then you would have like really kind of high concept ads where somebody is driving high that would show up and like weird variants and stuff that came across my desk here so i'm not shocked that there was a kind of stoned

Corey 48:01

stoned donair ad out there and i wonder if maybe i saw boards of it at some point but to your question steven clearly this was not just an ad it wasn't just a television ad a youtube ad a billboard there were activations there was you know at events there was going to be alberta transportation's donair going around because otherwise you wouldn't you wouldn't buy it the ad agency would buy it if they thought there was a need for it potentially and maybe it ends up in your inventory but like it's in your house

Carter 48:29

you know know what i mean i

Corey 48:30

i had that that was there i could

Carter 48:32

could have worn that

Corey 48:33

have been a strategist

Carter 48:34

strategist mascot like if we well

Corey 48:36

well i mean that was that would be misuse of government property that but well

Carter 48:40

well i mean we've done yeah i see weird shit before i mean we

Carter 48:44

we give it back

Corey 48:47

but yeah no i mean like i you know clearly this was going to be a big campaign with some wraparound pieces right they didn't decide to cheap out and do a cgi donair let's put it that that way what

Annalise 48:57

what cory what about the timing like can you can you speak to that just obviously you're saying you were not involved in this campaign but the fact that it's now eight years eight years later is it is it a matter of like oh eight years we've still got this sitting around it hasn't done anything trying to put it up for auction or how does how

Annalise 49:13

how does that work what are the logistics i

Corey 49:17

so archiving and surplusing rules at government are are a little bit much even for me i think the diving but uh yeah ultimately somebody decided we haven't used this for a long time and we're not going to use it so let's sell it and and that's how things end up on the government surplus website and i can tell you there were things like it's a it's a trip no matter where you live go to your government's government surplus website you're gonna see crazy shit want to buy a fire truck there's

Corey 49:46

there's gonna be one available somewhere hey how about like Like, 5,000 brochures about herpes. Hold on a second here. Maybe they're on the site, too.

Carter 49:55

too. We pissed away our money on a Che fucking bus bench, and we could have bought 5,000 brochures on herpes? We've made bad

Annalise 50:03

bad choices. You guys really missed?

Corey 50:05

Stephen, you're talking pissed away the money in past tense. Like, it's not an ongoing expense

Annalise 50:08

expense for the Spirit of Just

Annalise 50:13

Corey ruined the telling of it. No, but I remember an enjoyable story. they got me out of the office when i was a reporter is the city of calgary's auction site i was like hey i'm going to the auction i want to see who goes to these things went great people talked to a guy that bought a bus wasn't planning on it i don't know it was a good story yeah that's not bad that was my lease he was not planning to buy a bus

Corey 50:41

well yeah we finally got all our banking fixed we have a checkbook So, Annalise

Annalise 50:47

was very pleased to get paid. Cancel the bus ads and go buy a bus.

Annalise 50:51

Okay, Corey, do you have anything else kind of just to add from having worked in government comms to add to the story before I turn it back to Carter? You

Corey 50:59

You know, I guess I'll add this. It would probably surprise you how many campaigns get built but not launched, right? Almost get there. Like either have storyboards or full creative, even in many cases. And we just at the last minute say, it's not going to work. either because the moment has passed or because politicians get cold feet because politicians are famous for saying i want bold give me bold and then you give them bold and they go not that bold you know let's just do something pretty more basic there and so uh that happens a lot and then of course as was the case here at least to an extent governments change ministers change even within governments tastes are different and so it really there are a lot of campaigns that never see the light of day you also prepare campaigns for things that may or may not actually happen i'm not going to get into specifics i can't but i can tell you we were in active bargaining with everybody under the sun for for most of my time in government and we had plan a b and c we had some wild ad campaigns for certain contingencies that were were

Corey 52:04

were boarded out like they weren't actually uh like uh you know recorded in some cases but they were ready to go what

Annalise 52:10

what about and In

Annalise 52:11

In this case, that there's a costume, like that there's a mascot. Is there a

Annalise 52:17

you know, box full of them? Would it get that developed?

Corey 52:20

I have pulled the

Annalise 52:21

the plug on so many.

Annalise 52:26

the beans, Corey. There

Corey 52:28

There are so many fully completed creative campaigns that do not see the light of day in government. I'm not saying there's one every month, but there's probably one every year, minimum, like big, significant campaigns. And so, you know, there's other Donair costumes out there. They might not be Donair costumes, but there are things that are built either as ad campaigns or as activations for departments or anything else that might be public facing that for whatever reason, the Corey Hogan of the day or the politicians of the day just say, you

Corey 53:00

you know what, we're not going to do that. And it

Corey 53:03

it happens way more than you think. Keep watching that government surplus. so then

Annalise 53:07

then so then on the calm side are you like do you think there's people that were like man we can't wait until this gets posted and and i can yeah

Annalise 53:15

yeah walk me through that somebody's

Corey 53:17

somebody's probably was planning to put 200 bucks for it and is very sad that it's now hit what 16 000 you were saying 16

Corey 53:25

yeah so i mean you have to have a good sense of the nuts and bolts as to when it's all going up but i can tell you in kind of a smaller sense i knew a deputy minister who who retired.

Corey 53:39

when you're a, when you're a deputy in government, you get a government car like the ministers do. And, uh, you have the option of buying it when you leave. I did not buy my car. I bought my EV that took years instead. Um, but, uh, I knew a deputy who had a car that he rode to the ever loving ground. Like it was like 10, 12 years old. And I, you know, So what it is, is essentially the fleet group will look at what's fair market value of it. They don't give you a deal. They basically give you Blue Book value or whatever. And it was super low, the Blue Book value. And I think I'm remembering it properly, but he decided not to buy it. And he's like, I'll just wait for it to show up on government surplus. Nobody else is going to buy it. Like this car with over 150,000 kilometers, nobody's going to buy it. And I'll just buy back my car for a fraction of what fleet's willing to sell it. for me right now and so yeah like this is a so did

Annalise 54:36

did he do it that happened i

Corey 54:38

i don't actually know because that he retired that's why he got uh you know and we didn't stay in touch but but uh it's

Corey 54:47

i don't think there's anything shady about that like basically he was saying the fleet it's not worth that much they were saying it is and if he bought it at auction that's like that's the market price right but the uh you know that is a bit of a government game like it you

Corey 55:02

you know these these things are coming up and you're like oh i might i might buy that when that comes up for sure okay

Annalise 55:08

very interesting insight cory carter i'll bring you back into this you've worked with lots of politicians just to go back to the daniel smith um hand in hand with the costume is does it take a certain type of politician to convince to do that like are you know as cory says comms can say hey this is what everyone's talking about it's summer this will be fun here's a laugh go do it are there some politicians that'll just say like no i'm not doing that

Carter 55:31

that oh yeah for sure i mean i I don't think you could have paid Alison Redford a million dollars for her to do that. Like, I just can't imagine her going and holding a mascot's hand. Now, of course, a photograph of it will pop up on the Internet. But no,

Carter 55:45

no, I don't I don't think that I don't think that everybody can laugh at themselves like that. But Danielle, we've said many times she's an incredibly likable politician. She is someone who, you know, isn't afraid of these types of situations. she you know even when she posted the dishwashing photograph

Carter 56:04

photograph of herself i mean that was it's

Carter 56:07

it's about likability with her and she knows how to play those likability cards and uh she's

Carter 56:12

she's got a really good sense of it she always has had a really good sense of what will make her more likable um you

Carter 56:20

you know i think you remember the the bus that they had the wild rose had in 2012 2012 with the wheels i'll leave him i swear to god where

Carter 56:28

breasts are she could have actually she would have been far more successful if they just kept that that uh rap and

Carter 56:36

and she made a joke of it every time you

Carter 56:38

you know because she's someone who could have made a joke of it every single time and it would have played because she has a great sense of humor she has the ability to laugh at herself she would have brought people into the joke and they would have felt like they were a part of it and um that

Carter 56:54

that could have had some power but i also understand why she didn't i mean it was her and it was very uh unfortunate so is

Annalise 57:04

is that the sort of thing and for both you because it's maybe like both the comms and politics question but that you get like a bit of a gut check from multiple people on like uh hey

Annalise 57:14

hey everyone's talking about this this summer we want to do a picture with it's a mascot what do people think or carter in your case with the the bus thing to be like hey she's having fun with this let's just keep this going is it like are there many kind of heads in the room that make these decisions no

Carter 57:29

no because they'll never will there's always someone who's just checking you know who there's way more people who are going to be cautious than there are people who are going to be adventurous cory mentioned you know the the politician who comes in the room and says let's take a big swing let's make sure that this thing is a really aggressive advertising campaign. It's not necessarily the politician that says that. It's 15 people they talk to afterwards. Really? I'm not so sure. I mean, here are the 15 risks that we're taking. The

Carter 57:56

The big swing, most people would say, I'm not sure I see what's in it for you to be holding hands with a mascot. And they will have totally missed the point of what's actually available available to the politician so um it is the politicians that can actually see that that have so much more power than the politicians that that don't right so um yeah i think that that i think there's if you talk to too many people do you

Annalise 58:28

you think we need more politicians that see it like do you think we need more kind of laughs and fun and and lightness in our politics takes in today's environment uh

Corey 58:38

uh so yeah except i would like it to be legitimate and not this kind of like whipsaw thing we have where one minute you are outraged and this person's the worst and the next minute your buddies and you're laughing and all of that i think that that kind of foundational insincerity is driving a lot of the cynicism we have here this this stakes of one day of being they're the worst and the next day being uh we're just having fun with a donair here like Like, this crazy unevenness drives me a bit nuts. And it's not to say people have to be the same all of the time. But, you know, I think lightness is great, but I want kind of a more legitimate light. Like, I think it's not about the lightness with the odd donair thing. I think it's the lightness to not think that your opponent is fucking Hitler, which is what everybody seems to think these days all of the time. Yeah,

Carter 59:31

Yeah, I mean, I'll take a little bit different view than that, because I see I know what you're saying, Corey, and I don't disagree. I think that, you know, the ability to be light in your skin all the time and to present yourself as we, you know, we used to call it authentic, but I think that the word authentic has been drummed out of any meaning by this point. But, you know, I do think that it'd be better if we had more people who dress, you know, like Justin

Carter 1:00:01

Justin Trudeau and Jyoti Gondek can wear costumes. That's kind of cool because that's legitimately who they are. Stephen Harper could never wear a costume. I mean, for him, you know, showing up in a golf shirt was a was a costume. jim so you know this is it's it's a i

Carter 1:00:20

don't know i don't want to say the tricky line but i do like the idea of people who can be authentic and be real within their own skins yeah

Corey 1:00:27

yeah look for me it's like you

Corey 1:00:29

can't act so casual in one moment and have absolutely no fucking chill in other moments that's more i think what i'm trying to say right and uh and people have different ways of being being authentic. Yeah. Stephen Harper couldn't, I mean, everybody remembers, of course, that video where he like an alien's talking about how he too likes to watch movies on Netflix, right? You know, like, he just couldn't do stuff like that. But there were other times where he would, you know, play the piano at an event, right? Or he loved cats, he loved kittens, which is just just weird to me but uh you know uh in a funny way it was it was so kind of cheesy

Corey 1:01:11

cheesy that it was authentic and a little bit endearing right like who is this guy he's a very

Carter 1:01:15

very big time skier and he never put any of that forward you never knew that he had a hobby the guy never had a hobby and that was really i think a barrier to his success instead

Carter 1:01:26

instead of opening up i

Corey 1:01:28

i mean he well

Corey 1:01:29

well i think he's pretty successful but

Carter 1:01:31

but he was success he wasn't as successful as he wanted to be could

Annalise 1:01:34

could could have been more yeah

Annalise 1:01:35

people knew he was

Annalise 1:01:36

was a skier listen

Carter 1:01:37

listen i vote for skiers that's the way it goes snowboarders don't get my vote wow

Annalise 1:01:43

i'm with you carter okay guys let's move into our lightning round uh first question in lightning round if the strategist had a mascot what would it be well

Carter 1:01:54

well we have zane um yeah

Corey 1:01:56

yeah i mean we have a mask

Annalise 1:01:57

mask like a costume if you had to go and get like like a company to make

Corey 1:02:02

make it would be a donair representing aleppo which is a restaurant in i think

Carter 1:02:09

even not jerusalem shawarma

Carter 1:02:10

but that's on the west side but that's

Corey 1:02:12

that's not that's on that's it that's

Carter 1:02:14

that's not the same

Carter 1:02:17

neighborhood totally different no

Annalise 1:02:18

no one calls for all of the non-calgary listeners no one calls crescent heights east chay except everybody and he continues to try to make it a sign now

Corey 1:02:26

now there's literally a bus bench and i

Annalise 1:02:28

i heard there's a flag There is a flag. Is this true, Corey? There is a flag, yeah. There's a flag now? Yeah,

Annalise 1:02:32

Yeah, there's a flag. Where can people get the flag?

Corey 1:02:34

Well, you can get the one-sided flag at westofcenter.ca, which I know is confusing because it's an east of center neighborhood we're talking about, but that's just how it is. But the two-sided flags, we're getting samples from our suppliers right now. Stay tuned. Can it be a two-sided flag? They'll be everywhere.

Annalise 1:02:51

Awesome. Next lightning round question, mid-journey. Corey, what is MidJourney? Why do you keep posting photos

Annalise 1:02:59

from MidJourney? I literally came back to cell service and had a picture of like an AI generated thing from a text. And they were like, I saw this on Twitter. What is this? First of all, tell me what MidJourney is and why you're so into it.

Carter 1:03:12

it. You looked great in that picture. The rest of us did not look great in our pictures. So you have nothing to complain about. What

Corey 1:03:21

What is MidJourney? Quality is amazing in a certain sense, but it's not amazing in other senses. Mid Journey does simple images brilliantly and doesn't follow instructions as well as Dally does. But boy, they look really, really good, really high quality. And yeah, I've just been playing around a lot with it lately because, well,

Corey 1:04:09

well, because these are technologies that I think are going to be increasingly relevant in communication. So, you know, when you get these things from me is on Fridays and this is a thing. I'm going to turn this into some life advice for our listeners here. Every Friday morning, I book the morning off of like, I'll take a meeting if I need to. But that's professional development time. I spend that time looking up on my craft, playing with the new tools, you know, seeing what kind of like, you know, AI is a big thing right now, of course, but it might also be, you know, project management tools that are out there or things that allow you to be a better writer. And, you know, if you want to get better perpetually, you've got to find the time to actually put into it and not sort of drift. And so, yeah, I've been leaning heavy into mid-journey. It's a lot of fun. Check it out. That's

Annalise 1:04:54

Corey. This is unlike the time when I was like, hey, this guy who has high school students wants some advice. And you both gave terrible advice. You just gave some good advice. Thank you for that. Okay. Yeah, you're most welcome. Last lightning round question. I thought that was good advice

Carter 1:05:09

advice to the high school guys. i think

Corey 1:05:11

think you called one of them a dildo or all of them dildos yeah uh

Annalise 1:05:16

oh yeah that was more carter but neither of you had good advice uh last lightning round question carter you can i'll give this one to you okay

Annalise 1:05:24

the alberta party announced this week they're gonna host some virtual the alberta party they're gonna host some virtual conversations um are they gonna listen about about the election okay so they say this is their tweet the 2023 general election was a a disappointment sorry

Annalise 1:05:40

sorry a word's missing we need to review the results analyze what worked and what didn't discuss what the party is and propose a path forward discuss what the party is is in quotes the is part it says discuss what the party quote is oh well end quote well

Carter 1:05:54

well we should discuss

Annalise 1:05:55

discuss it right now

Carter 1:05:56

now cory i mean would you call them losers

Carter 1:06:00

call them extreme losers Carter,

Annalise 1:06:01

Carter, let me ask my lightning round question. What is the Alberta Party?

Annalise 1:06:09

Corey, do you have an answer?

Annalise 1:06:10

I said the answer. The

Corey 1:06:11

The only real Alberta Party is the Calgary Stampede. Yee-haw! Greatest outdoor

Annalise 1:06:17

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1084 of The Strategist. My name is Annalise Klingbeil. With you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Transcript