Episode 1088: Sunny Ways

Annalise 0:02

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1088. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you tonight, Corey

Annalise 0:07

Corey Hogan and Zain Velji.

Annalise 0:10

We're doing it, guys. Corey,

Zain 0:12

Corey, we've been waiting for this for a long time. Oh, yeah. Get what I assume is a diet San Pellegrino. Get that cracked for us in the most Muslim way we can. I've got the Diet Coke. We are ready. It is the all Sharia hour on

Zain 0:24

on The Strategist podcast. Welcome. This

Annalise 0:27

This is a big deal. No Stephen Carter tonight. posts

Corey 0:30

posts no steven one

Annalise 0:31

one cory oh my god who's

Annalise 0:33

who's never done this before well

Corey 0:36

think we know zane yeah i think we know who's i think we know it's gonna be it's gonna continue to be you cory they're gonna sound good kind of like i'm now the oldest whitest guy here also this is how

Annalise 0:47

how does that feel it's a nice uh nice role to be in there cory

Zain 0:52

it's not great it's not great i gotta be honest our edi policy is really kicking in and i'm liking making it i'm really like it's been three

Corey 1:00

oh it's finally bearing fruit uh it's which is nice cory i like this is the first time we've done this combination this is very exciting i

Corey 1:08

i assume i don't know no

Annalise 1:09

no it is we've delayed a few times there was plans but it's here it's happening it's real built the

Corey 1:16

so i'm clear just so i'm clear am i gonna have two people asking yeah you probably are

Corey 1:21

kind of fatal questions

Annalise 1:22

questions or is it questions for now My new podcast called The Hot Seat.

Zain 1:27

Yeah. I might not even chime in for a long time. Just hang out in the corner, Corey. We'll see how this goes. Okay, we'll see. Before we do it, can I make mention of something? There's some big important news. Yeah,

Corey 1:38

Yeah, because you're the host, Zane. No,

Zain 1:39

No, no, I want to jump in with something. This is important. Calgary

Zain 1:41

No, no, that's not it. Why

Zain 1:43

Why are you jumping in with my news? I met her fan in St. Albert. I met her fan in St. Albert. He came up to me. We did

Zain 1:50

podcast for him. and and and he said listen i'm

Zain 1:54

i'm from here and i said wow i've been door knocking for a while i'm glad i finally found you so uh it was it was really good it was really good to meet him uh shout out to i forget his name but i found him i found him cory i found him for us that's wonderful thank you great news

Annalise 2:08

here's a fuck about the

Zain 2:09

the calgary search what

Annalise 2:10

what are you started off a curling team

Zain 2:11

team i have no idea what they do so

Annalise 2:13

so i thought you were going to talk about calgary's hottest basketball team there with your big name you mean only basketball

Zain 2:16

basketball team yeah hottest basketball

Annalise 2:18

basketball team okay guys let's move into our first segment our first segment is called what to do when the sun ain't gonna shine um alberta has a moratorium on renewables in a thursday news release the government said it's pausing approvals of new wind and solar projects i've heard cory that you and our friend stephen carter already discussed this on the podcast on if you

Corey 2:42

you could spend six dollars and

Annalise 2:46

patreon episode but there's been there's an update and i've got questions and uh zane wasn't there so let's talk about it so saturday a couple days ago on her radio show premier daniel smith said one of the reasons for this pause is justin trudeau you know it's ottawa's fault she said the federal government is preventing development of backup generation for renewable energy and that backup plants powered by natural gas are needed for when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Experts have said that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because there's no requirement for 24-7 power from wind and solar. So I want to get your take here. Zane, let's start with you. What do you make of this reasoning? Is it a good strategy to blame the feds? Is it a consistent strategy? What do you make of the latest development?

Zain 3:36

Well, I haven't heard what cory and stephen have had to say i suspect it was a load of that you can pay six dollars to hear um but don't worry we're gonna do a better job here i i think you know when analyzing the story to begin with it's a really confusing one is that fair to say i haven't listened to your episode but i assume it's you guys were probably losing your and it starts with what the right because it seems like on the on the baseline that to stop renewable energy projects some 90 projects in in their tracks, potentially, has so many downstream ramifications, all of which are negative, that it just doesn't compute for me from a political strategy perspective. And I'll get to answering your question in a second, Annalise. But to me, this seems like finding a rationalization

Zain 4:25

rationalization after a bit of blowback, and scrambling for a rationalization after a bit of blowback. And I think the federal blame argument is always available, frankly, to any Alberta premier, regardless of jersey color. But I think it has like a natural ceiling, it has a natural limit, there's diminishing returns. And Daniel Smith has to be really careful, because when you are choosing a file like this, based on perhaps a bit of mythology of your own, around

Zain 4:55

around what you feel like Alberta is versus what it actually is. And what I mean by that is, who's running a lot of these renewable energy projects? If you look at the heart of it, you know, many of them are these enterprising startups, significant amounts have funding and investment capital from outside of this province, let alone outside of this country. But there's also another major player in a lot of these renewable projects. There's municipalities, and of course, there's the energy companies, the oil companies themselves. And so Danielle Smith's entire fact base here might be tainted with a bit of mythology. And this is a sin previous premiers and leaders in this province have committed on what they think this province is versus what it actually is. And to me, when she has that rationalization on a radio show on Saturday, it's pretty poetic in two ways. Number one, it's poetic because it's the same thing she'd always say. It'd be Justin Trudeau's fault, his lack of doing something, her lack of depth and understanding about what argument she's making, an argument that's easily swatted away, being like, we don't need this shit for 24 hours a day. That's never how it was supposed to work. That's never how we expected it to work. That's never how it was right-sized by folks in market conditions. And poetic in a second way, that to me, this entire idea seems like an idea that would be thrown in a radio segment six minutes at a time, being like, you know what, should we maybe perhaps have a moratorium on renewable projects? More after the break, I'll take your calls and texts. And it sounds exactly like that type of Danielle Smith idea. And she's done this before. She's got a history of like throwing out and floating out things she kind of understands, barely understands, has like a top line attraction to, but does not have the depth or frankly, the level of knowledge required to kind of carry the conversation beyond a couple of minutes. And so I find it quite illuminating or quite interesting that it kind of ends up that way. Long story short, it's a rationalization, a scramble for rationalization. And why not go something to something that you've used before, but there's a natural limit. And I want to maybe talk about that a bit more.

Annalise 6:58

Okay, Zane, tons to pick apart there. Corey, let's bring you in. What do you make of what she said on Saturday? And maybe give us a little summary of what people can pay $6 to hear more. No,

Zain 7:10

No, don't do that. Don't do that.

Corey 7:13

look i think um i

Corey 7:16

i i think i can understand why zane thinks this feels like feeling a way to an answer that works um obviously she has a bit of a history of doing that obviously this is something that it's on its surface is fairly challenging to understand but i i think the answer is a little simpler than that and i also think they've

Corey 7:34

they've clearly been planning to do this for a little bit so you want you want a bit of a teaser one of the things we talked about on the patreon episode was Because she's kind of left breadcrumbs to this for a while. And with the benefit of hindsight, you can go back and say, oh, yeah, her complaining about all of that agricultural land having solar panels on it in southern Alberta, that musings in the spring. Well, that, you know, that seems like a bit of an indicator that perhaps action like this was going. And certainly she's talked about, you know, the intermittent nature of renewables. And this seems fairly consistent with that. In fact, I think her answer on Saturday was a lot closer to the truth than her comments on Thursday. You know, so Thursday when this comes out, there's like this real potpourri of reasons why she's doing this from, I can't see the mountains as one of them, literally one of the things that was put on there, to, you know, to, you know, concerns about how we're going to recycle and reclaim solar panels to the property rights. It's like, again, real effing grab bag of things, most of which can be batted down pretty quickly. And, you know, it's been observed by many people, for example, like, yeah, that's, you know, that's true that solar doesn't work as well in the winter, but neither do crops, you know, if we're going to use that as the comp. True.

Annalise 8:55

True. It's hard to grow crops in the winter. It was a lot,

Corey 8:58

lot, but let me tell you something.

Corey 9:00

I made some comments on X, as it's now known, and I got a real insight into some of the conversation that's

Corey 9:08

that's going on on the other side of this issue, the take back at Alberta folks, and got a

Corey 9:14

a little bit of an exploration, shall we say, into this.

Corey 9:19

Let me tell you something. A lot of people, pretty supportive of what the Premier did. I think they're a small minority of the province, and we got to get back to that. But a lot of people online, pretty supportive of what the Premier did. None of them talking about sight lines. None of them really talking about recycling.

Corey 9:35

Most of them just talking about the fact that they think that solar and wind suck, right? Like, that's what it comes down to. And it's a hostility towards it relative to their preferred energy sources. resources, you know, thermal plants of gas and coal in particular, which are much more consistent in their output. And so I think on Saturday, while

Corey 9:54

while I can easily, easily

Corey 9:56

easily see how you would get to feel into an answer that works, I think in reality, she did the classic mistake of saying what was actually kind of the truth. Like, she thinks these suck. And she wanted to, she wanted to put the screws to a federal government that's trying to force Alberta and all of Canada to use far more more renewable energy. And that's my view of it. So I, you know, I think that in many ways, we're just sort of peeling back the layers of the onion. I think that the Premier was a little bit more direct with Albertans in a funny way than Neufeld was when he was announcing these things on Thursday. And this is much closer to the truth. The simple truth of the matter is this is a province that's not particularly enthusiastic about wind and solar, you know, from a policy I think that's an absolute shame for a lot of reasons. I think that it's way offside of what Albertans want. But here we are. And I can also say this has been an issue that the Take Back Alberta group have been seized with quite some time, quite some time. So again, with the benefit of hindsight, this probably shouldn't have been as surprising as it felt on Thursday.

Annalise 11:05

zane do you have reactions that i saw you kind of taking some notes and shaking your head a little as cory was talking like do you have reaction to to um what he's saying and i guess to and maybe cory you can jump in first but like it

Annalise 11:18

it your your premise of that this was the truth why not come out with it on thursday because

Corey 11:24

because it's petty because it's fucking small because it's petty and small and people know that they're not supposed to be petty and small so they created a different version. And, you know, this is a conversation that's happening in rural Alberta, don't kid yourself.

Corey 11:38

There are people who are very concerned with the fact that there just seems to be more turbines and solar panels going up all of the time in fairly prime places. And there are people who are, you know, as a result, somewhat hostile and have started asking questions with, I mean, no sense of irony about, well, how are we going to clean these things up as though Alberta doesn't have a massive problem with oil wells in the same space. But yeah,

Corey 12:03

yeah, I mean, at the end of the day,

Corey 12:06

they tried to address a real concern, but that probably wasn't the actual reason they were doing it or the actual reason why their supporters are so ginned up.

Zain 12:17

is interesting for her to spend so much political capital early on this, right? And the timeframe is also fascinating around when she does it in the summer. I actually have no insight around that other than to think, well, if you're going to make a major policy change like this or a moratorium like this, halt a lot of projects in their tracks. And if you're going to own it, if you're actually going to own it, would you not want to actually spend more time on it? Maybe do it with a little bit more fanfare? What I don't understand is, to Corey's point, I feel like the reasons he gave, the ones that the Premier gave on Thursday, The ones that were shot down immediately, and not to say her answer on Saturday was not shot down, as you mentioned, Annalise, leads me to the belief that she just like she's found a feeling and blaming the feds, especially for your base, is never a bad strategy for your base. And I think what we should be talking about is less so the base on each side, but the persuadable folks, the folks that are looking at this around a much more practical, pragmatic sense of what this place is versus what Danielle Smith wants it and wills it to be for a very small minority of people, specifically in rural Alberta.

Corey 13:30

Yeah, here's the thing. It's pretty clear to me that they knew this was going to be unpopular. They released it a Thursday before a long week. That was around the same time as we heard that the Prime Minister was getting divorced, just for some context here. You're like, this is when you, okay, dead of summer, long weekend. Of course. I mean, this is not when you do the things you think you're going to be proud of, frankly. And so, like, let's be really clear. They knew this was going to land with a thud with an awful lot of people. If they thought otherwise, they wouldn't have done it on that particular time. For me, the blaming of the feds was always going to make an appearance because this is Alberta. I don't actually believe there's diminishing returns there, Zane, because I haven't seen them yet. I've been waiting over 40 years to see diminishing returns on blaming the feds. It hasn't happened. On

Zain 14:20

On an issue like this, I feel like you

Zain 14:24

you have the sole action taken by a premier.

Zain 14:30

The rationalization she has around the feds is weak at best.

Zain 14:35

And we know that this is something that a premier with her sort of tendency of just throwing stuff out there does. This is her decision, her decision fully. And the fact that it took her three days to get to a rationalization of it, that many people have not heard. I suggest we are probably one of the first sources of indicating her federal government rationalization. Yeah, it comes

Annalise 14:56

comes out on the Saturday of the long weekend on her radio show, Picked Up by CP.

Zain 15:01

CP. To me, what this actually indicates, right, and where I think we might agree, is this is positing a challenge to that general public and perhaps even the opposition. How long can you keep this alive? Good fucking luck, right? Like, I've got this policy. I'm spending a bit of political capital. And if we agree, Corey, that it's going to be unpopular, right, regardless of who the blame game goes. goes to. It's about how active can you keep on this file, folks, right? Like, are you going to spend time, energy, and you're going to organize around it to keep this ball in the air? Are you going to let me have this one? Because I'll move on to the next story. And she's actually been quite masterful on moving on to the next story, as we've seen over the course and leading up to that campaign. So the one thing I'm looking forward to in the next little bit is to see what strategies are in play by third party groups, by advocacy organizations, and perhaps even by the opposition NDP to keep this ball in the air? And how do you clearly communicate what's going on here?

Annalise 15:55

I'll let Corey respond, but I want to talk about the opposition in a second, because there's a big question there. So put

Annalise 16:02

put that on the side for now.

Corey 16:05

Well, look, I actually think that one of the comments you made at the start here, Zane, is a little more important. I'm going to elevate one of your comments and pick the comment that I think is better. And I'm going to ignore all of the the things I disagree with, Fruman, and I'm going to be very selective here. And when you talked about a

Corey 16:21

a lot of people fall into the mythology of the province, I do think the Premier has done that. So my personal feeling on this is she may have really

Corey 16:29

really screwed herself on this particular file. I think that this is a real opportunity for any opposition, and I think we should jump into that. I don't believe Albertans at the end of the day are going to be particularly satisfied with any of the answers she's put forward there. I can tell you something, as the guy who ran polling for the government of Alberta for like four years, I've never seen a poll that shows Albertans are opposed to renewable energy. Never seen anything like that. And there was quite a bit of polling that was done in the lead up to the launch of the carbon tax and during the creation of the climate plans in 2015. And obviously, you know, in an ongoing basis, those issues are checked in on here and i'll tell you something generally

Corey 17:09

generally speaking the things that albertans universally conservatives

Corey 17:13

conservatives new democrats you know federal liberals people who wear purple and go to the mayor's office whatever you want to be one of the combining things here in alberta or you know unifying things i guess i mean has been people

Corey 17:28

are fine with climate act they're fine with the investments in uh you know making us energy efficient they're fine with us making investments in changing the power system. By the way, the phase-out of coal was very, very popular in polling for good chunks of it. Obviously, that was very variable depending on communities, much less popular in Hinton and coal mining country for obvious reasons. But people like renewable energy. People like the notion that in the future we will have a cleaner grid.

Corey 17:58

And people also like the idea that people are going to invest in Alberta. And so where I think the Premier has made made a very very big error here even if we want to set aside the policy is the politics of this are just not going to be her friend in any way shape or form the

Corey 18:12

the only groups that i could see her potentially having like enthusiasm for this are the groups that she's really got a mortal lock on already those rural areas but i think if you ask people in suburban calgary suburban edmonton

Corey 18:27

clearly the inner cities of both of those cities in the small communities opportunities, there's

Corey 18:31

there's just no chance that this is going to be a winner. And while we are quite away to an election, you don't want to be so offside with the population so quickly. And there's just so many opportunities now for the opposition to come in and hit them about the economy, hit them about the future, hit them about unreasonableness and kind of this self-defeating approach that's happened here.

Corey 18:53

I'm curious to see where it goes. There's a lot of tactics that are are available to all sorts of players not just the ndp but uh yeah man i i think that this is a bigger problem for danielle smith than she realizes right now what

Annalise 19:05

what what about that six months from now right like it's a six month pause so that puts us in february

Annalise 19:11

february i don't know february

Annalise 19:13

february let's say family day long weekend they come out with the results on a friday like what's the what's the uh because we all know that that is what's going to happen like what's the strategy there in terms of of,

Annalise 19:25

okay, basically, they're pausing it for six months, people are upset, we can get into opposition strategy in a second. But then what happens in February? Well,

Zain 19:34

Well, it depends on how Machiavellian you think Daniel Smith is with the implementation of this policy. Because a six month moratorium could literally not just be the shot in the foot or the shin, but could be the stab in the heart to the renewable sector for a long time. You can derail a lot of shit with a six month moratorium. And I think it starts with, and I'm sure Corey's going to add to it, but it starts with the drying up some of the capital, right? You hear it all the time in the business world that like, you know, the capital will flow where there's opportunity and it moves quick. And I don't always buy into speaking of mythology. I don't always buy into that, you know, very sort of business centric capitalism,

Zain 20:09

capitalism, you know, like we kind of like, you know, it moves so quickly. But in certain cases, six months plus the story that she is sending is

Zain 20:19

is enough time to say we're yanking out of the project. We're going to take what ever lost. And we're moving to places, other jurisdictions across North America, if not the world, that are going to be friendlier and frankly, more predictable. And this is the part where I do believe a lot of the sort of business speak around it, more predictable about what is going to happen to our dollar. We may not even mind waiting a bit longer. But if we know this thing's going to happen, that we live in a stable democracy, not a knee jerk, sort of democracy or a knee jerk, six-minute segment at a time, call and text, see what you think about it, and then I may or may not reverse course style of democracy, then I think the first order effect, Annalise, in that six-month period might be the capital drying away. And then it's going to be all the other things almost kind of don't even matter. If these projects, let's say the 90-some-odd projects that have been kind of put on ice, if those stop, good luck starting another 90 or another 200 or another 300, even if we have all of the viability, the talent, the sunshine, as you mentioned in your intro segment, if the money dries up and the confidence erodes, I think that's going to take a long time to come back.

Annalise 21:30

Corey, any thoughts on the next six months?

Corey 21:36

company likes to think that a government's going to act in such a capricious nature and really damage their opportunities for investments. We saw lots of reporting at the end of last week and over the weekend, companies saying things like, we got screwed, real anger, real hostility, real sense that investments have disappeared.

Corey 21:53

Let's just say this

Corey 21:55

this action has fundamentally changed the risk profile of investing in renewables, even when this goes away, even when this six-month moratorium goes away. So if the government's going to come out of it and say, we want renewable investment, it's going to take more than what we had in order for people to feel comfortable. You might actually have to be putting up money on the table in a way that we don't need to right now in order for people to get invested the

Zain 22:17

the irony there is amazing right like we we put money in right we said that this is a leech the renewable sector too much of a drain on the public purse to be viable it becomes viable we shut it down and we might be now we

Zain 22:32

yeah fucking nuts man like that's where we it's

Corey 22:35

here's the bottom line in business and i unlike zane i

Corey 22:39

i actually do believe money moves very quickly i don't dispute that for a moment uh because at the end of the day if you have got an environment where there is well let me put a little nuance on that you've got to ask yourself in the renewable space is there a shortage of capital or a shortage of opportunity and there is um you know there's some i'd say early evidence that like in the in the european market for example when they put things out to tender they're actually having a lot more failed tenders now where there's not enough renewable companies investing or putting forward because these companies can't be everywhere at once. There's only so much expertise. There's only so much capacity in order to build these turbines and build these solar panels, get these things from the markets where they're constructed, and they have to choose where's the best return, right? And if we have all of a sudden moved down that list, there are other places they can go. They can pretty much go immediately. They can say, hey, China, let's not ship those things to Calgary, Alberta. Let's ship those things to Berlin. That's easy enough to do. We can reroute things there, especially in this very global market. And they're just going to move down the next few things on their spreadsheets. They're going to look at the next couple of opportunities. And here's a fundamental truth about business. It's the same reason why if you, for example, Zane, were asked, are you interested in this investment opportunity in Venezuela right now? I've got a great opportunity for you. It's in i'm in cory

Corey 24:03

i can give you a four percent rate of return you're

Corey 24:07

you're going to say no it's too risky it's too risky for a lot of reasons for me the fundamental truth in business is the bigger the risk the higher the expected return and so now in order for an alberta project to be considered you

Corey 24:20

you know potentially lucrative there you're going to want a higher rate of return and see earlier comments there and that's a shame that's a real shame because we had this thing We had a really viable, thriving, renewable market, and I don't want to call it dead yet, but this is going to put quite a chill on it. And it's also going to put a chill on other industries, too, who have now seen a government act

Corey 24:43

act in such a capricious fashion. I'll

Zain 24:45

I'll just pick up on Corey's point. That's exactly where I wanted to go. The blast zone of this is not going to be limited to the sector that it happens in. And when you have large municipalities like Calgary and Edmonton fighting uphill for decades, right? Like that's not like fighting uphill for decades for a morsel of tech investment, bending over backwards to get any sort of secondary headquarters in our provinces, two major cities, right? The blast zone is going to be felt by them. It's going to be felt by young talent that's looking at, as we look at the current sort of Calgary and Edmonton housing market as being the top two most searched despite the interest rates. People are going to look at this and say, fuck, oh yeah, this is that place again. And if this happens here, what happens next? What happens to my job in tech? What happens anywhere? And then this is that sort of unpredictability, the vacuum that Daniel Smith has left, regardless of why we think she went with the federal justification. The vacuum that she has left is actually much larger. The fracture and the hole she's left is actually much larger because it's one about what does she do next on any of these files, economic or otherwise, healthcare or education. And I don't want to go back to some of the campaign narratives that we ran and, Corey, yes, we lost on. But it's elements of that, right? It's elements of unpredictability that has downstream effects and has a blast zone beyond renewables to other sectors, to the talent force, and frankly, to other even non-capitalist industries, so to speak, that could be affected by it. I think of just simply the charitable sector, right? If I'm sitting there today as a non-profit in this province, I'm looking at this and saying, interesting, doesn't affect me, dot, dot, dot, yet, right? And I think that's the main takeaway for a lot of people inside and out of this province. Interesting, doesn't affect me, yet. And I think that massive unpredictability, and I know Corey said there was morsels, but man, those morsels were vague, and they were not spelt out, and I still would question question that there was enough morsels that that kind of led most people saying this is going to happen in the first three months of her government like i was

Corey 26:54

was not predicting this right and i know you're not saying that

Corey 26:56

i'm not saying that right i'm saying we should actually be thinking a lot about when daniel smith makes comments like this going forward that is interesting

Annalise 27:02

interesting picking up the pieces

Annalise 27:05

that weather vane ad zane right with the what will she do next weather vane um let's let's talk about the ndp let's talk about the opposition and maybe it's like that discussion

Corey 27:13

discussion so badly i

Annalise 27:15

i could just see that it's

Annalise 27:18

he hasn't he hasn't said that right now right now and carter

Corey 27:21

carter would miss it come

Zain 27:22

come on i like that ad i'm gonna take that appeal

Zain 27:25

a lot of people hated it but i i liked

Annalise 27:27

it i drove by it all the time good um let's talk about this broader this kind of last part and it's almost like a separate segment in some senses about how do you be an effective opposition in general but let's let's like kind of case study on this issue so So this happens Thursday, long weekend, August. A lot of NDP staff are on vacation right now. What do you do with this over the next six months and I guess beyond?

Annalise 27:54

Walk me through a strategy. Do you just focus on this nonstop for the next six months and use kind of what Zane's saying about this speaks to how unpredictable she is and what next? Corey, what are your thoughts? What's the strategy?

Corey 28:11

Well, I think the challenge the NDP have right now is that they are in this state where they need to very clearly articulate what they plan to be going forward here. And let's just put it this way. I'll always say this. It always comes to story. What's the story you're trying to tell? How do you make sure you're doing this in a way that leads to the ballot box in a way that you want to get there? And yeah, it's many years. So there's a lot of opportunity to just try things. And this is not going to be the ballot box issue in 2024. Well, 2024, what am I talking about? 2027? I doubt. I do want to do over. 2024, there's something.

Zain 28:45

it's in 2024, I will do that episode and we'll make some of the stuff better and we'll win. Okay. All right. That's

Corey 28:50

That's good to know.

Corey 28:54

they've got choices. And the challenge with choices is that could really confuse their communications unless they hone in on one and say, no, this is what we're going to do. Let's just throw a couple of obvious ones on the table. They could say, this is insane. We've got a planet that's on fucking fire, and we need to be moving towards renewable sources of electricity. I will say one of the very interesting things about the conversation I had online with a bunch of people who informed me that the sun doesn't shine all the time and Germany electricity prices are up. Maybe there's some other things going on in Europe, maybe, but we can unpack that a different time. not too

Corey 29:30

too many people seem very fussed about the fact that the planet's on fire and you know climate change is a real thing that we need to deal with and fundamentally that's going to require us to make choices even if those choices are not perfectly optimal right like yeah it would be great if we could have energy sources that without any kind of loss as a result of storage capacity or anything like that could run all of the time and give us that power and by the way we have some you know there's hydro challenges there there's nuclear challenges there but we've

Corey 30:00

we've got to make choices here and not all of those choices are going to be as great as we always want to make them you know that's that's a simple reality but as the ndp you could make the climate change argument you

Corey 30:10

you could make the business investment argument which i think is where they're going to end up uh for a bunch of different reasons not least of which is i think it's one that everybody can kind of just innately say like if you were going to focus group that with a lot of people Yeah, that actually seems pretty unfair. They didn't consult with the industry before they did it. They shut down projects that were going to be billions of dollars of investment. But you can take that business

Corey 30:33

business angle to it. You can just talk about the erraticness of Danielle Smith. You can do combinations of these. You can do something I haven't even talked about here. But my point is, you do sort of have to pick a message track and run with it. You don't actually want to do the thing we've accused Daniel Smith of, which is just throwing spaghetti at the wall, doing a hundred different things. And, you know, if Daniel Smith manages to succeed in making this about, well, do you support Trudeau's energy targets, electricity targets? Holy cow, what a failure that will be for the NDP. so I guess the other thing you need to do as you're building out your message track is just make sure you're aware of what the counter message track is going to be and what might lead you down some dark alleys and cause you some trouble but uh it

Corey 31:18

it is the dead of summer there

Corey 31:20

there are things you need to do now there are messages you need to set up but

Corey 31:25

but this is not when conversations get driven in big ways yeah it'd be curious to see where it goes from here but I can't imagine that if I were the ndp i would be spending the next two weeks talking about this unless i was planning to spend the next six weeks talking about this zane

Annalise 31:40

zane what's your strategy i

Zain 31:43

disagree with cory on the timeline i i think this is bigger like i think this story can feed into something if the ndp can can contour it correctly and and i think i won't rehash some of the criticism that you guys had in regards to the multiple swim lanes that were constantly chosen right and i and i and i i think think that criticism was perhaps fair in certain timelines

Zain 32:06

timelines and time horizons for the NDP and discrete time blocks over the past four years. And I think it was, you

Zain 32:13

you know, worthy of talking about. I think in this case, they have to think about what's short term and what's medium to long term. And I really only have two pieces of advice, right? Pick a lane short term, I would agree with Corey 100%. And think about how you want to link this long term with who you want to be. So we'll take the Corey's advice there. There is a question of who you want to be. Are you going to spend the next two years as the opposition party? And when does your plan ultimately then put you back into government and waiting? Are you going to be government and waiting from the get go? Those two things sound like semantics. They're not. They change what you do tactically. They change what what you do tonally. They change even who you get to present. More than likely, we're hearing that there'll be a leadership race of some sort. So take that into account. But the main piece of advice that I'd have is, number one, think about how you want this to link long-term, right? Because this is a story about an unpredictable premier doing something from the hip, right? How do you want to frame that? And number two, how do you root any rationale, short-term or long-term, to Alberta. One thing that the NDP can't afford to do is to go back to the social democrat NDP roots. Now that the election is over, this has to be rooted back in that same of Alberta mentality, right? And I like what I'm seeing thus far, the focus on jobs, economy, investment, that makes a lot of sense. To Corey's point, it's the most palatable, it's the easiest. But just because the election is three and a half years, four years away at this point, does not give you the opportunity and does not give you the mandate, I would say, to be like, let's just do the classic NDB thing, put all of our eggs in the climate basket. Hey, as much as I agree with you, that's not the of Alberta strategy. So that's the one sort of kind of, those are the two pieces that I kind of put on the table.

Annalise 34:05

Corey, it looks like you were just itching to say something there. Just itching.

Corey 34:09

Really, really interesting. Because of course, when you're coming up towards an election, there is this there

Corey 34:16

is this thing that happens in every political party where you are not talking about the things your base wants you to talk about because almost by definition you're going for a different group in a general election right you're going for that we've

Corey 34:27

we've talked about this a million times a million ways that persuadable group that are going to give you the election and so in alberta in that last election that was calgary right it's

Corey 34:37

probably going to be calgary next election too by the way you don't know that for certain it's probably going to be calgary and you have conversations that occur with increasing regularity as you move towards an election where people say i think you should be talking about x and the leader's office and the campaigns rejoinder is that's not what this election's about we're going to talk about why because all of our polls say we're going to talk about why and

Corey 34:57

and you get away with that because it's it's like so immediate it's so urgent people can understand the urgency and the expediency and you've got to have the conversations that are going to drive the votes at that time but that That base does have some sort of like implicit belief that, okay, but in those other times, we're going to talk about our stuff, the reasons we're here. And the challenge with right after an election, at a moment like this, is the base is going to want to talk about those things. It's really interesting to me. Well, look, I was at a Stampede. I was doing the circuit. I was going to all the different Stampede breakfasts. And one of the ones I went to was the NDP caucus breakfast there. I saw Rick Bell going around taking his notes. And, you know, I saw a lot of MLAs going and chatting and saying hello to people after the election. And there

Corey 35:47

there were some speeches. And, you know, there was an introduction that Samir Cantney gave that was longer than the speech. By the way, Samir, if you're listening, you got to make your intro shorter, man. That was a little much, okay? Just a little much. but uh when rachel notley came up she started talking about the things that this ndp opposition was going to go and i was kind of sitting there as you know i was looking at what that crowd wanted to hear right like what were the applause lines for a crowd in calgary after this election you know is

Corey 36:22

is it yeah so rachel notley says oh we're gonna fight for the economy polite applause and we're going to fight for health care much more sincere applause there and i

Corey 36:31

all to say they

Corey 36:34

they are going to have different issues and it's going to be very difficult very difficult for a party particularly a party that might be going into a leadership race to

Corey 36:43

to not gear at least a little bit towards that base so you know the challenge for the ndp will be how do you keep it between

Corey 36:49

between the navigational buoys on the way to the the pier here like to the next election while still doing the the kind of base service that needs to occur at a moment like this in a political party.

Zain 36:59

question really is, what is the NDP if we want to get more existential?

Corey 37:02

existential? Is it fully

Zain 37:06

locked in? Is the Rachel legacy locked it in yet that she has provided the blueprint for success? And the question is, how locked in is that? And I think that becomes a driver of your strategy, your messaging, and frankly, how much red meat you can throw back to the base versus how much you need to keep going in that sort of particular election lane. And the one thing I'll add, the one thing I'll add, Corey, is anytime, and you might disagree with this, but I'd say anytime you run a campaign where the concept of lend us your vote becomes an explicit thing you hear from the leader's mouth, you've got a retention, not problem, but you've got retention work to do. That as soon as that election is over, there was a lot of people that voted for you for the first time, and the sun still came up, despite what Danielle Smith might think, right? The sun still came up the next day. And you still have work to do with those folks to lock them in. So there's really interesting work the NDP has to do, even beyond this file, and I'm talking about now around directionally locking in what the party is, and ensuring that those voters that came out in record numbers and writings like Acadia and Glenmore, also see this issue as saying, here's another proof point and something that makes me comfortable about why I voted for the NDP, right? Like, lock it in. There's a lot of retention work that can be done now so that base is larger. And the leadership race, should there be one, might actually help with that. But there's work that this file offers as an opportunity for many of those folks in Calgary, as Corey, you've alluded to, might be the battleground again today. And I say today, yes, in the next couple of weeks after these dog days of summer.

Corey 38:46

Yeah, look, so I think the retention issue is a bigger problem when you become government, because then you actually start to make promises like the one of the nice things about the lend us your vote if you're in opposition is those people can for the next four years every time danielle smith and the ucp fucks up any file be like well i didn't vote for him i lent my vote to the ndp you know and

Corey 39:06

that and that's actually that's a pretty great thing and that you know naturally a lot of those votes will solidify um a pretty great thing if you're the ndp i mean uh because Because like, people will be thinking like, well, you know what, I voted for them. And so I'm not on the hook for any of the bad decisions a government makes, and governments do tend to get less popular. The other thing I want to say, and this is the interesting thing going into a race, like if you're a leadership candidate, and you're thinking about that base, that maybe, especially like I was talking about their base in Calgary, let's

Corey 39:36

let's talk about their base in Edmonton, which tends to be another eight degrees ratcheted towards like kind of the progressive or the left of the spectrum here.

Corey 39:44

that's uh that's really going to pull you in certain ways but if you're a leadership candidate

Corey 39:50

you know what do you want your base to be is another question like you have the party as it exists but you also get to help shape and build the party in different directions and create a different type of base that requires a different leadership strategy is that going to be available based on the rules of leadership tbd but i would say your base also doesn't have to be destiny although you're going to create some interesting tensions in your party if if uh if

Corey 40:14

if you don't sort of follow where that is a

Zain 40:17

a simple answer for you annalise uh weathervane at every billboard in every um part of the province uh two weeks fucking government in 2024 according to cory just

Annalise 40:26

just a perfect thing just last one and we will end this and i'm honestly curious your thoughts here i know we had chatted you

Corey 40:33

you were insincerely curious about our thoughts on the yeah you're doing 40

Corey 40:37

on this one topic

Corey 40:37

that's very zane belgium you're

Annalise 40:38

you're rubbing it off on me zane but

Annalise 40:41

but during the election zane wasn't there but cory we had those conversations about the strength of candidates for the ndp especially compared to 2015 one of those candidates and just quickly on this we don't need to like deep dive but i'm curious nosh

Annalise 40:55

nosh one um who was the director of the business renewable center of canada like very well known award-winning we talked about kind of that good

Annalise 41:02

good candidate diversity this is like her area does

Annalise 41:07

does that does that matter in something like this like when we're talking about strategy and what opposition should do is it a like yeah this is great we have an expert in this or is it well we need to you know rely on our comps people because they're the expert like how the fact and i'm just thinking of the fact like the 2015 candidates compared to this time around is that a big deal this with this thing that that you have someone like that as part of your caucus?

Corey 41:32

Well, for two reasons, I think, yes. First of all, when you're in opposition, you don't have a government, right? You don't get to call up the department and say, what's the fact base here? Tell me about it. Give me the pros and cons. I want, you know, a rundown on what people would say who think it's a good idea and what people would say who think it's a bad idea. That's a really great thing about government. Just a lot of policy experts doing that kind of stuff. You don't have that in opposition. And so when you have an expert like Najwan, then you're kind of a leg up. It's going to keep you from saying

Corey 42:03

on the face stupid things, which happens all the time in politics, right? Because you have to make, you're dealing with live ammo, you're shooting from the hip, you say things, turns out that somebody who has even a degree of expertise would be like, that's a bad idea. And you've said something that's stupid. Happens all the time in opposition politics. You're not going to do that when you've got someone like Najwan there. So that's great. And I think that's the primary value. I mean, that's the primary value. You're going to make sure that when the leader is up there, when any of the other critics

Corey 42:32

critics are up there, you're going to be making

Corey 42:35

making sure that they are always dealing with a very durable, very thought out case. And that matters, right? The second one is obviously herself as a critic and herself as the person who can go out there and speak and and passionately deliver the issue and communicate it well. Well, she's got policy expertise, and she's got communications expertise as a politician. I think having a certain humility on both fronts and making sure you're still using those caucus resources is important.

Corey 43:02

You know, but she'll, you know, she's by all accounts a, you know, a very talented MLA, even in these early days. I won't say who, but I was talking to an NDP MLA who'd been around the band, And they were telling me that she was one of the standouts in their opinion from Calgary. And so having somebody on that file that you can really activate on that, particularly in the dead of summer when, I

Corey 43:27

I mean, if you're Rachel Nolley, you might be on vacation. That's

Corey 43:30

That's really useful too. And that's really great. Although I still believe that the ultimate value is just, you're going to make all of the communications better because of the expertise that you bring.

Annalise 43:41

Zane, anything to add there? Nothing

Zain 43:42

Nothing to add. Lean in. When

Zain 43:43

When you've got domain expertise, that's the entire point. Lean in, let the comms people scaffold it, and then find the larger story where you're going to add to this, where you're going to make the linkages, right? That really matters. I think the way you don't get into the sort of situation or sort of the cycle of having 95 different issues constantly is you think about the linkages. What are the one or two things that feed into this constantly so we can make this a case? And you might think it's early right now. It's not, because you're going to have these discrete chunks of time with potentially a leadership race the next fall, the session coming up in October as we hear. It's not going to be a lot of time before you're back to election month. Frankly, one would argue you need to be back there relatively quickly next six months. That story in three acts with the scenes all mapped out, regardless and agnostic, I would say, of leader is so helpful when you're now having to then, you know, insert different sort of chunks as they appear over time as part of that story. I would get started on that early. Yeah,

Corey 44:42

Yeah, look, I'd say that communications obviously matters more when people are paying attention, but it's easier to win an election in four years than in four months. And so use this time well, don't just sort of sit on your hands and think this is coming.

Corey 44:55

One thing I did want to put on the table here, though, is when you've got deep domain expertise, you

Corey 45:00

you can get real in the weeds real fucking

Corey 45:03

quick. And so that's the one thing that you've got to sort of check yourself on whether you're Najwan or anybody who's got this expertise and when people are saying that's kind of missing the point especially your comms people make sure you're listening to them and just be mindful that that that is just a that is a risk of domain expertise we all have it by the way no it's truly want to get me on a like a random tangent on I mean I don't know like color theory or something I'll do it like I'll fucking go down that rabbit hole but it often misses the point. And so you've just got to be careful. This

Zain 45:35

This is why I think good comms people listen as much as they speak and absorb and ask good questions. As we've seen, especially working with what you call elected officials, it's really about this concept of sitting down, understanding what you know, and then making it palatable to the public and saying, well, that's actually not

Zain 45:55

not necessary. Tell me more about this. I don't understand this. Those sort of questions and And that level of humility as a comms person actually gets you so much further and crystallizes whether it's written and or verbal sort of oral communications that they're going to be delivering. Yeah,

Corey 46:12

Yeah, look, put your comms person in the room. I can't stress that enough. I know we've now changed topics a little bit here, but I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting in a meeting and my value has been like realizing, oh, there's a tension attention on that particular point. Or, oh, they're a little hung up. Or, oh, they just spent 30 minutes talking about this topic. And while I don't think it's going to be the public topic, we're going to need to make sure there's questions for it. And you can learn so much just by observing the conversations that occur around here. Good comms advice, Zane. I want to second that. Yeah,

Annalise 46:46

great comms advice. I'll throw that.

Annalise 46:48

Okay, moving on to our next segment. Our next segment is called Livid Liberals. According to a Hill Times article that came out today, day some back bench liberal mps are livid with trudeau's cabinet shuffle the hill time spoke with six uh mps from different regions and all of them expressed concerns about the choices trudeau made one said that control is a major issue when it comes to choosing cabinet ministers and if quote they don't think they can control you that's a negative another

Annalise 47:17

another said the shuffle wasn't based on merit and nothing really changed i

Annalise 47:21

i know you guys you did a deep dive about the shuffle it's been a week and a half i want to talk to you about your thoughts in the aftermath you're both you're both smiling are there things you want to take back sees are there no no

Annalise 47:36

you gonna double down like talk to me about this let

Zain 47:40

let me just respond can i just i'll just start with two words fucking of course yeah of course it's about control and it's not a meritocracy get fucked like okay that's it that's my that's i mean and now cory now cory's gonna do the more more logical

Annalise 47:52

logical what does this

Annalise 47:53

mean is this just our graves like uh cory well i do i

Corey 47:58

i do have more

Corey 47:59

nuance but go ahead cory

Annalise 48:00

yeah i mean is

Corey 48:00

is it so yes well i guarantee you none of the six mps they talked to were put in cabinet or if they were they were put into like a much lesser cabinet position than they wanted yeah i mean it's the predictability of this that i think is noteworthy here and and this is just like tales as old as time oh they're mad because they can't control me that's your view maybe their view is you're a fucking asshole right and so there's two sides to every story and um one of the things that just is fundamental to this though is this does become a trigger for these kind of grievances this is why people don't generally do these big cabinet shuffles anymore it's why they've fallen out of favor it's why it's gone to more of the tinkering model literally the biggest cabinet shuffles since his first cabinet right and

Corey 48:47

so yeah there there are going to be hurt feelings. By the way, when you only do one big cabinet shuffle in eight years, that actually makes it an even bigger deal than if you're just doing a big cabinet shuffle every two years. So, I mean, this just goes back to the point. I just want to underline that we said, okay, this is a strategy that you can use. It is going to up the internal pressure. We said this, right? And this is a good example of that. This is what happens because now there are people who just feel way on the outs and they're they're now talking to the hill times using pretty colorful language by the way it's an interesting read i recommend anyone kind of go and look at it and um yeah i mean it it's not showing a bunch of happy campers and maybe it's only six unhappy people six

Corey 49:34

six becomes 12 becomes 24 becomes 48 becomes we need a new prime minister pretty fucking quick in this game so you gotta you You got to sort of watch yourself. And by maybe dealing with some of the external pressure, the prime minister has increased the internal pressure.

Annalise 49:50

Zane, what's your nuance? Let's hear it.

Zain 49:52

Well, let me start with what I left off with, which was, if I'm recalling, just reading the transcript here, get fucked. So I'll pick up from get fucked, which was, which by the way, I don't think Trudeau has enough leverage

Zain 50:06

leverage to say that. I think that's interesting. If this was a 2015, like even like, no, like he has all coattails and all.

Zain 50:14

This to me is really interesting, the fact that these leaks occurred to begin with. This is not the first one. Hill Times is the second or third newspaper to report MPs wanting to speak after Lamedi texting CBC. I think Torstar had their piece, which we based that last episode on. And now another-

Corey 50:29

- Easily be the same

Zain 50:30

same six people talking. 100%. And I was going to, right. But this is not the first time that we've kind of heard this. These people clearly have, you know, nothing to do because they're not in cabinet. And now they're, you know, dicking around in the summer, texting. That's not what happened. Yeah. Texting. Yeah. There are things

Corey 50:44

things MPs can do. Okay,

Zain 50:45

Okay, Corey. But these people clearly were taking a lot off their plate because they thought they're going to be in cabinet. Here's the issue for Trudeau.

Zain 50:54

Because as much as I have sympathy for him and the PMO, they get to make their own decisions. This is not a merit test. This is not some sort of like, you reach this bar and we give this to you. Circumstances change. We have many factors. I'd say one we haven't talked about enough is fucking loyalty and gratitude. I think a lot of the folks that he gave these roles to will probably be grateful and by extension loyal or already loyal and ergo grateful, whatever ordering sequence you want to put there. But loyalty is a big fucking one. But to Corey's point, when

Zain 51:30

when you change and swap 30 out of your 38 sort of positions, and then you come out with the rationalization that there's nothing to see here, and

Zain 51:39

and while producing a massive fucking show, like, what are you doing? Right? And I think he's caught in this position where he does not want to admit that something needed to change, and then makes this big change, and then goes on to say, nothing needed to change, but I made this big change. And when you don't have an external rationalization that becomes an internal sort of rallying cry that people are like, you know what, PM, I'm fucking bought into that. We're down 10 points in the polls, but I get every single move. And, you know, there are pieces that we are now discerning or we're adding narrative to because he hasn't given us one that we're adding narrative to that if I was in that liberal caucus, regardless of the names and the folks that got promoted, could kind of jazz me up, right? Right. Like, you know, we're building a firewall around the GTA. Everyone I've selected is going to be someone who won their seat by 10 points or less. Oh, and guess what? We know that Pierre Polyev is going to try to make a play for multicultural communities. So what we're going to do, we're going to find the most fucking talented person from some of these key communities. We're going to make sure that they're not just going to win their riding. They're going to be an ambassador and an ally in your riding. So if you feel like you're on the edge, don't worry. Arf Ron is here because he's got a lot more sway than being justice minister. He can actually make these gains. We've got our first minister from this community. We've got our first minister from that community. You put that story together. It's not there yet, from what I'm saying, right? But you put the story together, and

Zain 53:03

and you have a pretty compelling rallying cry. But the failure I see is that the PM did not necessarily have an external rationalization. And when you don't even have a rationalization externally, good luck trying to make that an internal rallying cry for people to get around, because we're trying to fill in the gaps. And the biggest thing I've learned from in the story, is so are a bunch of people inside the Liverpool dockets.

Corey 53:25

Yeah. You know, it's a really great point, Zane. We've talked about this in a couple of other contexts, but one of the great

Corey 53:33

great comms advice this episode, folks, you know, you make sure to bookmark this one

Annalise 53:37

one here. Comms heavy.

Annalise 53:39

This is going to be taught in classrooms.

Corey 53:41

There is a human need for narration and narrative. And if you do not provide a narrative, people will create their own narratives around it. And if the narrative that was provided is so weak, immediately falls apart, it's as good as not having a narrative at all here. So this need, this patternicity that we all have, right, where we say, we've got three random events, and we want to connect them through a story.

Corey 54:03

That's very true in all walks of life. It's very true in government decision making as well. well. And Zane, I think you hit the nail on the head. One of the things that is going to potentially, and let me be clear, like this level of grievance, I would have expected even if the prime minister had a great story.

Corey 54:19

What I think is really interesting, and you mentioned this too, Zane, is that of the six people they talked to, I'm putting six in quotes here, they all seem to have a different gripe, a different grievance, right? It was like, ah, they're just looking for compliant people. And I don't understand what they're doing here. It doesn't seem to consider or the regional like why does bc only have one senior minister and three you know you know minor ministers and a couple of things like that that uh look like they're like individual issues here

Corey 54:50

any of them i think could have individually been dealt with by a stronger narrative from the prime minister's office right like we are looking for people who have proven delivery have the love of their colleagues whatever it is like if you could put a kind of a sensible story together but But the fundamental sin is, and we talked about this at the time, the

Corey 55:10

the prime minister's doing this because things aren't working, does not want to admit things aren't working. Why

Annalise 55:15

narrative, though, like, shouldn't

Annalise 55:17

shouldn't it have been obvious that he needed that narrative? Like, why do you think that has been missed in all this?

Corey 55:24

Well, it's not like they didn't try, right? Right. I mean, it was lame, but it was like, oh, we're going to I mean,

Corey 55:31

mean, this is a great example of the fact based in the comms just went on two totally different paths. We're doing this to bolster our economic bona fides here, but

Corey 55:40

but we're not shifting any of the economic ministry. Like, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense at all. But like that was they did have a narrative. It was just a shitty one. It was one that didn't hold up to a moment's scrutiny. This is why comms people, when they are in the room,

Zain 55:54

asking questions. She's saying, well, okay, Prima, how does that, like, follow-up question, how does that work? Like, I'm trying to help you here make this stronger. The how here is weak. But that's

Annalise 56:05

that's what I'm getting at is, like, they're years in. Like, they're years in. They're not new at this. Why would you not have someone in the room who's, like, again, comms person to me, you always think worst case, and you remember those questions, and you have that list. Like, how did this get missed? I

Corey 56:23

I mean, the simple one is when you're years in is the most dangerous, right? Because you've done it a few times. You think you know how to do it. You think you understand everybody. I've known this guy for years. He'll be fine, right? Politicians do this all the time. They get lazy. They stop doing the checklist. They stop applying the best practice because they start having too much confidence in their own expertise and experience here, which is unfortunate because it's always shifting, right? right? You know, best practice is a moving target at the best of times. And also that's

Corey 56:51

that's lazy and that's sloppy. And you do need to sit and give yourself the rigor.

Corey 56:56

The other problem is you sometimes have this real asymmetry. Let's just use that. Let's just create a scenario. I have no reason to believe this is true. I'm

Zain 57:03

I'm just going to

Corey 57:04

But imagine the prime minister says, you know, get the comms people together here. We're going to, we're going to have a conversation about this communications around the cabinet shuffle here. Maybe the comms person's been been there a year a year that's not even that inexperienced in the particular role and the prime minister the prime minister of canada is then saying to them like i wouldn't worry about this will be fine the caucus is not going to be very concerned about it here right like there becomes like such an ace long-lived politicians and

Corey 57:31

and short-lived staff that

Corey 57:33

that cause a problem cory

Zain 57:34

exactly where i was this is like this is like a seasoned like i've been prime minister longer than you've been alive i was prime minister when you were in high school right like that actually might apply to some of these people right

Corey 57:47

right to draw the

Zain 57:48

the point and you then have been like dude just pass me the fucking ball i'm michael jordan at this shit right like there is a bit of like arrogance that washington wizard's great michael jordan wow i mean uh the the 20 points in the all-star game that shot over sean marion i mean underrated probably the best uh mj shot cory um here's the thing. I was going to go exactly where Corey is. There's a tendency, and it goes back to the Daniel Smith thing in some way, where you can do away with the fact base, you can do away with the reality. I'm a master at fucking explaining things away. Rhetoric trumps all. And there's folks that just feel like they have that superpower. And mainly because they've gotten away with it before, right? They've gotten away with it so much. They're like, don't worry, I'll be behind the podium. I'll give them a story. I'm fucking, I've done this, right? And they may not speak so arrogantly, to be totally clear, but they'd be like, don't worry about it. Or someone or more senior might be like, PM is coached. Premier is coached. Don't worry about it. We've got this. They're briefed. They've got it. Often, as junior staffers or even middle staffers, Corey, that's all you really get when you're pitching these ideas and throwing things like, oh, big time. They're briefed. They're done. You're good. We're good. We've got it on lock. We did the session. Probably didn't do the session, but we've done. They're good and the more years they have under your belt at least you answer the question right the the more often you kind of see things like this where you're like it sounded great it had the trudeau cadence the shot had the same arc but like nothing but you know rim right like really because at the end of the day um they they may may actually lose a step rather than gain a step by playing so many many years to to to kind of mix metaphors a bit yeah

Corey 59:25

yeah so i agree with everything that's been said there i do want to say i still actually like

Corey 59:32

like i this would have happened anyways this would have happened anyways you know a story well

Annalise 59:38

would have happened anyways the

Annalise 59:40

the story you'd have angry people yeah because

Annalise 59:43

now you yeah because

Corey 59:43

because now you have people who just don't see an opportunity ever to get into cabinet right and they're just they're they're in their feelings and and they're upset. And they're thinking like Stephen Carter recommended to them. I think maybe that was a patron. I don't know. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Who can say? But this idea of maybe

Corey 1:00:01

maybe the only solution for me is the next leader. And so maybe I'm just going to start being a little bit more assertive here. One

Zain 1:00:06

One thing I am surprised by was the wildly different expectations we had leaked to us prior to as the general public. That was interesting to me. From this

Corey 1:00:16

going to be nothing but

Zain 1:00:16

but cosmetic to then the narrative became, we actually don't know to guys i'm hearing this is fucking huge yeah it

Corey 1:00:24

a weird kind of run through right

Zain 1:00:26

right and and i wonder like if they had the um perhaps the discipline and maybe even they had their own strategy straight in the pmo around what they wanted to do they could have made some of those calls in advance around folks getting them in line understanding who was not going to get a gig you know talk to them about future opportunities like parliamentary secretary which if i'm not mistaken at least has not been announced yet right other opportunities to get involved other other opportunities to take down the evil that is pure polyev and the current incarnation of the conservative party they would have had an opportunity but it seemed like they were also in a bit of what the fuck are we doing because you would expect as they have done like i've said i think they're they're sort of lead up and symbolic comms have been pretty solid over the years you'd expect a bit more around what we're going to see prior to seeing it and i wonder for a second if they were actually themselves not entirely sure of that yeah

Corey 1:01:16

yeah i mean a great question i it would would be interesting to know, and I'm sure that there will be some pieces written in the next bit about, oh, the prime minister always knew it had to be a big one versus as he started to get into it, he started realizing he wanted to make more significant changes, which this kind of feels like to your point, Zane. But, you know, actually the comms, maybe I'll argue the other side, the comms makes me think almost the opposite. Like maybe they thought it was going to be bigger, right? Maybe there were going to be changes to the economic portfolios. And then that's the story the same yeah that's my point you know like i just don't know and none of us will know well

Zain 1:01:52

well i mean you can't you also like to be totally crass you can't have a story of being like we selected one of every kind and they're gonna walk in all the racial communities for us but i do think there is something to be said right like you could never say it like that but

Corey 1:02:05

but there are ways that reflects the broad cross-section of canadians yeah exactly

Zain 1:02:09

exactly exactly exactly and you could make that same political point you could acknowledge that some things needed to be changed and i think I think you could have gotten a bit of a I shouldn't say a bump because you may not have seen in the polls, but a bit of like a coalescing, at least internally. But Corey's right. Like you probably would have seen these voices regardless. I don't know about you, Corey, but I had a few folks outside of Alberta, to be absolutely clear. Members of Parliament, the liberal side texted me being like, what are you hearing? I'm like, what the fuck do you mean? What am I hearing? I stay here in Calgary, not like a liberal sort of like hotspot for gossip, right? Like you're the one in Ottawa circles. I'm not hearing jack shit. But people as soon as they heard it was going to be bigger rather than smaller. or all of a sudden imagine themselves

Corey 1:02:47

themselves in that situation network yeah exactly yeah exactly for sure uh

Annalise 1:02:51

uh cory i just want to loop back on one thing because i know there's a i know there's some young comms people who listen to this podcast and you've had both of you have had some good advice for them but in when you're in that situation and i've i've had this conversation with a lot of kind of young people when you are in that conversation where your your boss you know is double your age and is saying everything's going to be okay and you have you know your degrees two years old and you're like okay but it's not what what should you do well

Corey 1:03:23

that's a great question um a lot of it just sort of comes with experience and age and you get your own w's that you get to sort of flag around and say i you know i understand that and and i generally

Corey 1:03:35

i mean i could tell you what i would do in that room but it might not necessarily let's walk our our way to this answer maybe zane's got one off the shelf but if somebody if i was working for someone and they're like listen i got this okay and it's like i would say okay well well help me get it then like let's just make sure that the paper reflects what you're planning to do and then i would talk it out and usually through the talking out you will find the kind of the first level contradictions i'll call them right where things all of a sudden don't necessarily work and you can play almost a detective colombo version where you're like okay so so sorry i'm I'm just, you know, so then this would be the message here and that. And how does that tie to the thing, Prime Minister? You know, and you can ask the questions in a way. I'll confess, I think it comes off pretty

Corey 1:04:17

pretty plainly. If you're me,

Corey 1:04:20

me, I just come off as an asshole, I think, sometimes. No, but can I

Zain 1:04:23

I jump in here? That line,

Corey 1:04:25

line, that approach, like, help me explain it. And I want to make sure the products reflect what you're going to do. Not a bad one. this

Zain 1:04:31

this podcast is a genesis of that

Zain 1:04:34

that earnestness i would say recall you know as much as i don't know how much we want to reveal so we can edit this out cory but no we're

Zain 1:04:43

we're not going to edit the

Corey 1:04:44

the genesis of this podcast

Zain 1:04:45

podcast was me a young communications person earnestly asking you and steven these sort of questions right with with a massive age delta and uh and a clearly a race delta

Zain 1:04:59

which a massive age delta and then of course you know the race delta so that adds another 10 years but it was really born out of like explain this to me sort of stuff right this podcast

Zain 1:05:08

was very much like an explain this to me sort of thing and i that same advice right like cory i think hits it on the head here which is for my benefit can you give me a peek behind the curtain right

Zain 1:05:20

right for my benefit right and i know it's an act of you. And maybe along the way, it will help you clarify your thinking, it will crystallize a few things, it will round out some of the edges that you actually haven't even gotten to internally in your mind, and you're going to work out on stage, or you're going to work out behind the podium or in this written statement or whatever. But help me get it, I think is one of the best ways to do it. Because as much as it may present like an act of selfishness, if you're actually in a conversation, rather than help me get it and taking notes the whole time being like, oh, thank thank you. Let them go in a monologue. Be like, how about this part? Would you actually phrase it that way in the speech? Or would you be like, oh, that's an interesting part. You engage it with it as a conversation. I've found that to be one of the best ways that I personally, I'll just give you personal advice, have been able to learn from folks and frankly, steal their ideas and repeat them on CBC for a paycheck. The

Annalise 1:06:14

truth comes out soon. I would just jump into it. It's not the

Zain 1:06:18

the going trip okay just that

Annalise 1:06:21

like the pushing back thing and i think i think cory and you've mentioned it that age is hard the age difference the experience difference but a

Annalise 1:06:28

a huge thing i always say to young cops people is like you push back you and do it in a polite way as zane is saying but

Annalise 1:06:35

but you you have to like you you're your comps people who are just like yes yes yes yes yes there's nothing effective oh

Corey 1:06:41

oh totally agree like yeah that that is adding absolutely no value you're just a stenographer at that point. Like you've got to be able to challenge them on fundamental things. But if you're going to challenge, you need to be super clear with yourself where you think the problems are. I think one of the best skills you can develop as a communicator is understanding why you don't like something. Because nothing is less helpful than saying like, I don't know about that. Like that just doesn't feel right to me. Like you've got to be able to articulate the thing fundamentally that puts it at odds with the strategy as it's been built out there so you know really really get clear with yourself why you don't like something and this goes by the way for like writing like a phrase like why you don't like it to like a bigger thrust like a tactic that you're trying to pull through a strategy understand why then you can have an actual conversation with somebody but if your conversation is like i don't know that just doesn't feel right and they're gonna be like well

Corey 1:07:35

well do you have a fucking idea like do you want to elaborate on that do you want to expand do you want to explain to me why you think that like You're just going to set up hostility. It's much more important that you're able to pinpoint exactly where the challenge is.

Zain 1:07:48

In my own kind of personal

Corey 1:07:53

one of the things that I – if I run into those kinds of attitudes like, oh, I think I got this, I will often be like, well, you know, that's fine. You think that – I wouldn't say it like this. I'm shorthanded. Tell us how you would say

Corey 1:08:06

I'd be like, well, look, we're going

Corey 1:08:08

going to go through this anyways,

Corey 1:08:10

right? I just kind of firmly say we're going to go through it anyways. We're going to make sure we have it. We're going to document it all out. And this will make sure that our messages are right, because I don't know they are until I sort of hear how they kind of come out. And you can kind of throw the humility back towards yourself, but you have to be insistent that best practice be followed.

Annalise 1:08:29

Interesting. I always revert to the, oh, if I was still a reporter, this is the headline that I would write, and that's a gold.

Corey 1:08:38

gold. yeah that's what that's uh yeah uh

Annalise 1:08:42

uh lightning that works for

Corey 1:08:44

for former reporters yeah lightning

Annalise 1:08:45

lightning round we've got a lightning round to do quick

Annalise 1:08:48

quick i've only got two questions for you first one is the would you rather would

Annalise 1:08:52

would you rather have an alberta police force or an alberta pension plan cory hogan

Corey 1:08:59

alberta police force for sure i got lots of provinces have police forces that seems fine to me i think it's a waste of money but i don't find it deeply uh

Corey 1:09:10

kind of like contrary to objective the way i think of like having a pension for just a province of four million just kind of fills me with dread zane

Annalise 1:09:19

zane which would you rather yeah

Zain 1:09:20

yeah same i'd rather have a thousand police forces than a provincial pension plan thousand okay

Annalise 1:09:26

next question taylor swift she's coming to canada are

Annalise 1:09:30

are you going well

Zain 1:09:31

well that's not a question we can just answer and at least this is a hunger game style competition that includes the avion sign up that i have done which by the way you don't need to be an rbc avion member to be able to sign up for don't give people the

Annalise 1:09:44

the don't give them the tips of how to get in listen

Zain 1:09:47

listen listen i'm a traitor to my own class i'll do it i don't give a fuck okay this is all about creating a better world where we can all uh share friendship places with one another the answer is have i booked a hotel in in toronto for each of those dates? Yes, I have, Annalise. You have the

Zain 1:10:02

We're like so pumped to go to

Annalise 1:10:04

to this. I have no idea

Zain 1:10:04

idea if we're even going to have a shot at these

Annalise 1:10:06

Okay, awesome. Good luck. Corey, are you going?

Corey 1:10:10

I mean, like I could go to a flight to any number of other cities, I guess. Such a

Corey 1:10:14

a cynic. I got money.

Zain 1:10:16

well, let's leave it

Corey 1:10:17

it on I got

Annalise 1:10:20

That's a wrap on episode 1088 of The Strategist. My name is Annalise Klingville and with you as always, Corey Hogan and Zane Belge.

Transcript