Episode 1096: On accident

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1096. My name is Zain Velji with me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, it

Zain 0:10

it has been too long. It has been way too long.

Zain 0:13

By which I mean, original trio. Oh, I mean, I saw Carter like, yeah, I was gonna say, we actually

Corey 0:19

wasn't this last week? Zain's

Carter 0:21

Zain's kid likes me more than he likes Zain.

Zain 0:25

yeah this is entirely

Carter 0:26

entirely maybe like he just he thinks i'm hilarious uh

Carter 0:33

you know i put you do

Zain 0:34

do have a demographic you appeal to started does have some good dad moves yeah i have to say he's

Zain 0:40

he's got the uh he's got the oh is the bag fallen on the ground let me take you down there and lift the bag up oh

Carter 0:46

oh that was good he's

Zain 0:47

he's got the i can make you laugh for any photo by uh

Zain 0:51

uh constantly recently jiggling you move um those are pretty good those are pretty solid solid dad those staples in the day and you

Carter 0:57

you know what pretty good of me to teach you right like i could have hoarded them all for myself but i was like here watch watch and learn velji

Carter 1:07

watch and learn boom

Carter 1:10

boom gave them all to you sufjan

Zain 1:11

sufjan was concerned that uh that he has more hair than carter

Zain 1:16

of observation by the

Carter 1:17

the way he kept reaching for my forehead and i'm like that's a lot of terrain to reach for like yeah slow down there big fella yeah like

Corey 1:23

like where are you going there that's like trying to conquer all of asia you gotta be careful but carter

Zain 1:30

carter did come over uh came with gifts uh and of course um the rule applies just reminding everyone now that we're not on the patreon uh anymore this is the vast audience i will dox myself for gifts so uh please i'm happy to uh individually give you my my my home address my social insurance whatever it takes uh for a 15 to 50 gift that's the that's the price range i operate now carter is a high roller he comes in with

Carter 1:57

some legit gifts 50

Zain 1:58

50 to 55 come on

Carter 1:59

on now i i went way over that no

Carter 2:03

yeah i was he went

Carter 2:04

way trying to win a trying to win best what best white uncle and i think i got it i think i'm there you're

Zain 2:11

you're second uncle uh cory's done the best white uncle uh by not showing up at all and i I think that is the sweet spot. I think that is the white uncle energy I was looking for. You are acting more brown uncle who happens to be white. I

Carter 2:24

I see where you're going. Yeah, I see the mistake.

Zain 2:26

mistake. There is a real logic. Yeah, okay. Right. You're there too much, right? Yeah. Whereas

Zain 2:30

Whereas Corey, minimal, minimal footprint, which is very white uncle of him and puts him first in

Corey 2:36

in the race. Appropriate wonkle energy. Yeah.

Zain 2:38

Appropriate wonkle energy is right. Corey, do you have anything going on in your life? Oh, absolutely not.

Corey 2:43

not. not no because you guys are talking about you

Corey 2:47

you know having two people deal with one kid and i've got i've got three kids so is

Carter 2:51

is that how many it always felt

Corey 2:52

felt like more ever you

Carter 2:53

you know like there was a lot more yeah

Corey 2:55

yeah it's always felt like you know i actually got down to counting them today i had a little bit of time with them and turns out it wasn't in

Zain 3:01

in the four to six range okay

Corey 3:02

okay well you know it was like the one too many counting and i thought well what is many let's unpack that yeah

Carter 3:08

yeah i see where you're going turns out three carter

Zain 3:10

carter uh you missed an excellent episode in fact we were thinking about ending the pod after that last patreon uh that you weren't on uh i feel like i

Corey 3:17

feel like it was that was

Corey 3:19

was a sneaky good episode after the 18 minute mark i gotta tell you like you really had to earn the episode you know the first 18 minutes we subjected you to but then we got to what i think was legitimately excellent content by you and annalise by the way i was the host last episode and it's you

Carter 3:37

you would know that if zane uh cory was like you should try being the host carter and i'm I'm like, no, no, I

Carter 3:42

don't care enough. I

Carter 3:43

I don't care. Well,

Zain 3:44

Well, I mean, we'll fucking do this musical chairs that you guys have imposed on the pod. We

Carter 3:49

We imposed it. Let anyone host it. You imposed it by not being available. Between, if

Zain 3:55

provide a gift to this podcast between $50 and $50, you can host, okay? I'm just letting the floodgates open on anything these days, Carter. It does not matter. Carter, we are looking forward to when you host. But for now, let's move it on to our first segment. our first segment green belt red light stephen carter the

Zain 4:16

the housing minister well the

Zain 4:18

the former housing minister steve clark has resigned in the wake of the green belt controversy in ontario we can get into all the details of his resignation came today today labor day monday uh earlier in the morning as a result of a letter saying that he's become a distraction you know that general general um stuff we see that very

Zain 4:39

stuff that we see in some of these resignation letters um quote although my initial thought was that i could stay in this role and establish a proper process so that these mistakes don't happen again i realized that my presence will only cause further distraction from the important work blah blah blah we've seen it we've read it a million times if it's not been seen

Corey 4:57

seen or read this particular

Zain 4:58

particular time yeah we can do one of two things exactly i'm sure we can uh yeah well i'm sure you have carter here's here's two things on the table I want you guys to choose. Do you want to talk about the Doug Ford Greenbelt controversy as it stands right now? The moves that need to be made, the follow-ups that need to happen, Doug Ford shuffled, I put shuffled in quotes, his cabinet today. We can talk about that. The second thing we can talk about is do resignations actually help? And I want to go into a deep dive on that a bit. Do they add more fuel to the fire or do they actually calm the waters? We've talked in in the past about resignations. We've, in this case, have a chief of staff that's resigned now, a minister that's resigned. It's happened in sequential order, not necessarily altogether. But do resignations like this help? What are the conditions of when a resignation will help? What are the conditions when a resignation actually hurts and opens a floodgates and admits a soft spot rather than a finality or a conclusion? So we have a choice. Carter, I want to get your vote. Corey, I'll get your vote. We can go either of the two directions. I'm going to let you go.

Carter 6:04

go. Oh, I think that we have to talk about the resignations question. I mean, we can certainly go back and talk about what's

Carter 6:09

what's going on in Greenbelt. But you and I discussed that, Zane. I think you were a strategist that day when I pointed out that this was going to haunt Doug Ford. And you were, of course, wrong, as you always are. And you were all like, no, this is going to blow over. And I was like... I'm

Zain 6:26

I'm sorry, are you taking a victory lap right now? how many

Zain 6:29

many years before an election listen

Zain 6:31

listen i put my takes out there and they'll get validated oh my god okay

Zain 6:37

listen you may not you may not be around for when the next election i understand

Zain 6:44

why you're like visiting friends and their kids and like doing these final things to kind of really you know keep your affairs in order taking victory laps needlessly on the the podcast so i'll give it to you but what i will say is that you're also wrong yeah

Corey 6:59

yeah well like not not actually canonical it was an episode i wasn't on so it doesn't really matter you guys are like arguing about which character in a fan fiction did the best thing you know it doesn't matter we'll see we can talk about it now and we can make predictions that are actually relevant if you want steven but actually my vote is also probably to talk about the resignation question i mean there's some big questions but i feel like because you're so wrong zane we'll be able to talk about the the land swap and the green belt challenge in general for many many months this is going to go on for so long uh it will certainly be an issue we can return to so we should talk about the resignation one that seems a little more topical oh

Zain 7:37

oh okay i see what he's trying to do um he's also a very bad host carter i don't know if you heard that last episode not very good but he's got a sweet spot and it's being a prick and he should stick to that this is what he should stick to that

Carter 7:49

like this you know this just this this podcast didn't happen right like this there was casting involved. We thought, you know, we need another prick. We can't just have one prick. We need two. And we brought in Corey.

Zain 8:01

We need two pricks. We need two slightly different pricks. Yeah, which was the original name of the podcast when we started. Hey, okay, Carter, then talk to me about this. Let's talk about resignations. And to get on this topic, we have to talk about the Steve Clark one, right? You have your sort of natural components of it. When I say natural components, they've almost become natural order in the political world, I've become a distraction, all those sort of things. But let's start with the ground rules, Carter. In your mind, when does a resignation work

Zain 8:31

work to end a story, to begin the final chapter, the denouement as they taught us in grade school here in the Alberta curriculum? When does it start becoming the beginning of the end versus another chapter or allowing the floodgates to open? Start Start giving me a few conditions, and Corey, I want you to build on that. Well,

Carter 8:50

Well, I think it's really interesting that you put it in as kind of the denouement. It's not the denouement. It should be the conclusion. What you're trying to actually do is reveal the murderer, right?

Carter 9:00

right? And there's two classic mistakes that I think are made by politicians when they're taking this story arc, right? The first mistake that people make is they do it too early, right? So immediately after something happens, all of a sudden you've got the resignation of of the minister, or you've got the resignation of the chief of staff, whatever staffer is going to go. And that is too early because you haven't allowed the mystery to unfold in such a way that you can actually name the killer and actually have it stick. So that's the first mistake. The first mistake is doing it too quick. And then of course, in parallel, the second mistake is doing it too late. And I would argue that the Steve Clark resignation is too late. I can't remember remember the name of the chief of staff which was just going to bother me but the chief of staff's resignation was also too late um you know it had established and um if

Carter 9:53

if it had gone earlier if the chief of staff had been pushed out much earlier i think that there might have been a case that this was uh malfeasance at that particular level but it just looked like they were looking for a scapegoat and they found one in him and then now it's cost the minister his job but it's it's way too late the story's unfolding and frankly the public have cast their villain their villain is is the uh is the premier himself uh not any of those around him it's it's this malfeasance that exists at the at the premier's office that is now the the focal point of the attention from those of us devouring this murder mystery

Zain 10:35

okay i'm going to come back to this but carter you've put timing on the table either too early too late. Corey, what do you want to give us? What are the conditions that help make this successful or help make a resignation successful?

Corey 10:44

I half agree with what Stephen said. And it goes to what I want to say is probably the more important determinant here. If you're looking to throw somebody under the bus, right? If you're trying to make somebody the fall guy, what's really important is that it can end there, right? Like it helps when you asked if can resignations help help or hurt, right? Like, what's the thing here?

Corey 11:08

Well, sometimes it helps. Sometimes it helps. And sometimes it just puts blood in the water. And when it puts blood in the water, usually what's occurred here is you have then seen somebody resign or you have fired somebody or somebody has lost their job in some way, shape or form for something that you are clearly guilty of as well. And I think that's the situation where it hurts because then you've essentially created stakes and you've said, this is what's supposed to happen under this set of conditions. So my name is Steve Steve Clark, and I did something wrong, and I am now resigning now. Would have helped if you could say, well, Steve Clark was the only person who knew about this. Steve Clark's the only person who took these actions, and so Steve Clark will take the fall. It hurts when Steve is now resigning for the very things that the premier has done and the premier's office has been accused of, right? That would be being asleep at the switch, not necessarily watching oversight of these, you know, the departmental things, and intervening and having staff intervene as we are starting to see unfold in the story here. So I think that's really the determinant for me. Now, where timing is super important is it's not necessarily clear what kind of story you're working with right away. And so if you imagine on day one, these resignations occurred, let's say Steve Clark and Ryan Amato, who's the chief of staff,

Corey 12:22

let's say that they had both resigned on day one.

Corey 12:26

Well, that might have looked okay until the other shoe dropped. And then all of a sudden, the premier's office is in the mix, too. And there is, you know, back and forth. And it looks like, you know, the, you know, the ethics commissioner's report comes out that says the premier's office intervened or made comment on these things, whatever the language was there.

Corey 12:45

So you don't want to have those resignations until you have kind of a lay of the land. And then you can determine what the best course of action is going forward. I think it's pretty clear that at least

Corey 12:57

least in the first kick, they said, we

Corey 12:59

we can't have him resign because of the things I said, because the premier's office could be accused of the same things. But the heat just got too hot. Challenge is, it

Corey 13:09

it doesn't necessarily go away simply because you've thrown somebody to the wolves here. And in fact, now you've said, this is the punishment, this is the consequence of these actions.

Zain 13:19

Carter, you put timing on the table. Corey, you've put fall guy versus isolated incident. I'm going to kind of classify it as that, right? Are you a scapegoat for something that was more systemic, more broadly known?

Corey 13:30

known? I would say more like, are other people guilty of the same thing? And I'm using small g guilty here.

Zain 13:37

Let's use that as the second one. Carter, let's stick to timing. And then I want to get, I'll come in and out of this list. How do you nail timing? Corey's given us a bit of a scenario where if they did day one, what would happen when the other shoe were to drop? In your strategist experience, how do you nail the timing on something like this?

Carter 13:54

this? Well, I think it also depends on another factor, and that is, are you actually getting rid of the right guilty party? Timing is less important than, you know, so getting rid of the right person is kind of also a part of this model. Um,

Carter 14:13

you know, so if you're going to release somebody, if you're going to, to force someone to walk the plank because you, you know, because of malfeasance, then you have to actually be fingering the right person. You have to be pointing their finger at the right person. And

Carter 14:26

And I think that that's why one of the reasons that this

Carter 14:29

this has not become a general practice any longer, people are moving away from this because so much is controlled from the premier's offices that

Carter 14:35

that it becomes really difficult to point any fingers at anybody else. um because ultimately what is the what is the phrase you know you point your finger at someone and there's three pointing back at you or something like that i don't know how many fingers you got there cory three or like i keep the thumb in the air so it's it's it's three pointing back at me um

Zain 14:55

carter's finger guns all the time baby carter seems like

Zain 14:58

finger gun but i

Carter 14:58

i think that this is where you

Carter 15:01

you know this and let's be honest this practice has really gone out of favor right like there are far fewer ministerial resignations than there used to be There used to be this thing called ministerial responsibility where the minister would resign if something bad happened on their watch. Well, it's a hell of a lot harder to get a minister to resign when something bad happens on their watch when the watch is actually being directed by the premier's office. I mean, how happy are you going to be? And this is another factor of it, Zane. And how happy are you going to be to walk the plank, to be asked to leave the ship if

Carter 15:36

if it was actually the premier's office that told you when

Carter 15:40

when to get on the ship, what to say when they got on the ship, all the different words, right? And I think that that's one of the things that may be haunting Ford is that there's probably some evidence that this was, you

Carter 15:53

you know, like even

Carter 15:54

even the circumstantial evidence that most of, you know, many of the people who were involved in this Greenbelt thing were invited to his daughter's wedding.

Carter 16:03

I have no idea if that's related. Of course, I'm not investigating this, but it's circumstantial and it looks bad. And that looking bad might be all that's required. So I think that if we combine what Corey was saying with what I'm saying, you've got to be making sure that that person, if you want this to end, when

Carter 16:23

when you push the person out the door, it's got to be the right person. and

Carter 16:27

then that timing is

Carter 16:29

is about aha we have discovered the evidence i just finished a great murder mystery uh all my family have killed somebody it's an australian book really great mystery mystery just finished it tonight everybody should read it but the the you

Carter 16:44

you know it talks about the premises of a murder mystery and the premises of the murder mystery are you don't reveal the killer until all the evidence has been presented and the same thing with this right you must find Find out what actually happened, because you must reveal the person who made the mistake. And if you're in the premier's office, you've got to find a plausible victim. And I think that that's where Ford has really failed right now. It's really hard to point to Steve Clark and was it a motto, Corey? You said the name and say

Carter 17:19

say these were the these two were the killers and they acted alone. These are the Lee Harvey Oswald of the green belt. No one's buying that right now because the evidence hasn't been presented.

Zain 17:36

I'm not going to pick up on that last. I so desperately

Corey 17:39

desperately want to. Corey,

Zain 17:40

Corey, jump in on this. I've got three things on the board. I've got timing. Are other people guilty of the same quote unquote issue or thing? And are you getting rid rid of the right guilty party. What do you want to jump in on here?

Corey 17:52

Yeah, I want to add a fourth, and it's a really important one for the context of this particular issue. And it's part of why I think Doug Ford has a very serious challenge in front of him. If it's not existential, it's going to be very close. And that is the question of, in the public's eye, does the punishment fit the crime?

Corey 18:12

And it's really important. So if you have have a situation where for example uh somebody buys 30 orange juice and people think that's really poor judgment then you know the punishment of the crime would be that person leaving the job or taking a reprimand depending i mean obviously resigning over orange juice would be insane but i guess my point would be small small

Corey 18:35

small crime small punishment right

Corey 18:40

this is eight billion dollars of land value increases that went to just a few people based on the actions of a few people without following process eight billion dollars with a b that's eight thousand million dollars that is a lot of money that is deeply consequential and i think for a lot of ontarians i think for a lot of people following this story they are going to say you

Corey 19:06

you know what the punishment does not yet yet fit the crime. A, they still have the land. This is not resolved. And B, if that's what it is, like a ministerial resignation is worth a lot less than $8 billion. I'm sorry. That's the simple math of it. That's the calculus. And so that would be another thing I think you need to consider when you ask yourself, will the resignation actually help?

Zain 19:30

Carter, can I pick up on a point you've made around the guilty party and if the right person is getting rid of.

Zain 19:40

You mentioned it's no longer just about like, and this kind of goes to Corey's point around like the value of a resignation, where he talks about it from a monetary perspective as related to this particular issue.

Zain 19:51

In certain cases, would you say that members of a premier's office are worth more if we're now talking about monetary value of resignations than a minister? Are we in that era where if since everything is PMO or premier office centric, that staffers are now in this weird position that they could be worth more? And I'm almost kind of trying to tie a dotted line towards Jerry Butt's resignation we saw a few years ago,

Zain 20:18

where a notable all-star public figure who was not a minister was used as the only person let

Zain 20:28

let go from a scandal worthy situation. So talk to me about the current sort of new rules of value. If we want to talk about the book value of folks in different offices, staffers versus ministers, premier's offices, etc. Like you start building that out for me a bit. I'm kind of curious. Yeah,

Carter 20:44

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, Gary Butts is a good example. I think that the other one, Stephen Harper's principal secretary, wasn't it, who paid off duffy's expense expense claim i can't remember his name now uh this is so many years ago cory will google it while i'm talking oh yeah

Zain 21:01

was that banker guy the golden

Carter 21:02

golden guy more money than brains um but the the the what what happens sometimes

Carter 21:10

sometimes it's enough i guess zane i mean i'm not i'm not prepared to put a value on it and say you know a chief of staff is worth two ministers in the field. I'm

Carter 21:20

I'm just not prepared to do that. Well, I guess the reason

Zain 21:22

reason I'm asking you that, to interrupt you, is if you're saying that our politics have changed over the last two decades to be so centralized, then are these ministers worth really anything as compared to staffers in that centralized office? Yeah.

Corey 21:42

Yeah. So I mean, I think there's two questions there. One is the Like the value to the organization and the running of it and how consequential it will be to the government. And

Corey 21:52

then the other is to the public. It's

Zain 21:54

It's to your question

Zain 21:54

question about the punishment

Corey 21:57

Well, so Jerry Butz was a public figure effectively in the PMO. You know, a well-known personality, somebody who had a public persona and public profile prior to working for Prime Minister Trudeau because of his work with the Ontario Liberal Party, because of his work, you know, in the nonprofit sector. And so that

Corey 22:15

that was one thing, right? Now, if you had a more anonymous chief of staff or a more anonymous principal secretary, that might not have the same cachet with the public as a minister who's perhaps a prominent minister. The reality is there are ministers who are notorious and notable, and there are staff that are notorious and notable. And years ago, it

Corey 22:38

it was far more likely it was going to be a minister who was notable. That's changed a little bit as the media has gone deep into process stories, as people like Stephen Carter, frankly, have become personalities in their own right when they've held these roles and been part of the public conversation. But it hasn't 100% flipped. So it is very, very context dependent. It depends on the staff. It depends on the ministers. It depends on, you know, the leader. And, you

Corey 23:07

know, it all plays into kind of a bigger story. But it is very context dependent. Carter, I want to come to you in a second. But Corey.

Corey 23:16

$90,000 personal check to have friends like that. I assume you'll do that for

Carter 23:20

for me someday. That'll be great. Oh,

Carter 23:23

Oh, I mean. I'm looking forward to it.

Zain 23:24

Nigel, if you want to come and give some gifts to my son, please

Zain 23:28

please let me know. I will happily tell you my address. In fact, I should probably just do it in case. Yeah,

Carter 23:33

Yeah, just in case. Yeah,

Zain 23:34

Yeah, probably. I think that probably would be the strategic. This is the strategist. That would be the strategic thing to do, Corey. Corey, back to you on this then. Let me open up a bracket for a second around chiefs of staff and sort of staffers and their notoriety.

Zain 23:49

The old school way of thinking was these people should be silent. They should be in the background. ground. They shouldn't make noise. Based on what we're just talking about, aren't they a helpful – and we talked about this on a previous episode. I think, I don't know whether you were on that one or Carter and I were, but I'm curious to get your take, Corey. Isn't it then helpful, just based on the property that you've described, to have chiefs of staff and political staffers that are notable so they can be a trading chip, they can be someone who falls on their sword, that they all be in the the model of a Stephen Carter so that if a minister isn't enough, a minister plus a Jerry Butts or a minister plus a noteworthy chief of staff actually give you some good book value to the public? You think this is like a trade show? I'm not sure. Kind of. What's what I called it last time?

Corey 24:34

Stephen, you were ballast.

Corey 24:36

No, I mean, honestly, it's a double-edged sword. And I'm sure Stephen would say it's a double-edged sword too. I suspect that you could do different calculations in different contexts and decide it's worth it or not. But sometimes it's valuable. Sometimes it's a liability. Sometimes it's a risk. Sometimes you're creating additional targets for yourself. And one of the things you have to keep in mind is when you've got a staff member who is a

Corey 25:00

a public personality and a persona, you've created another target adjacent to the leader. And that can have some downside too, because we've talked about this in a lot of other contexts, but when you go after the chief of staff,

Corey 25:13

that's a great proxy way to go after the principal whether that be a prime minister a premier a mayor you name it you take down their chief of staff first and that's a way that you weaken them without you know weakening them and that's a lot harder to do if that person's not a public person but it's

Zain 25:28

it's it's not you know what cory you were not but we're talking about rob anderson's profile and this we were getting into this conversation carter i want your take on this of course so

Carter 25:35

so it's it's not just because they're high profile i mean ron glenn was ed stelmack's chief of staff. You wouldn't have been able to pick him out from a lineup. But the very first thing that the quote unquote rebels in the caucus went after was Ron Glenn. Because when you get the staffer, you know, so Corey was talking a moment ago about the perceived power. How much does it hurt your office to have lost a minister? How much does it hurt your office to have lost your key And there are key staffers.

Carter 26:07

Losing some key staffers is far worse than losing a minister.

Carter 26:17

I'm just trying to think of someone that kind of pops into my mind that is absolutely integral to the functioning of an office, besides myself, of course. uh but you know there's the

Carter 26:32

most political off do you think jerry do you think jerry's a good example like in the last half

Carter 26:37

decade do you think jerry

Zain 26:38

provides a good example i think

Carter 26:40

think that katie is so strong it's hard to separate katie's strength so

Carter 26:43

so katie telford chief of staff to uh

Carter 26:47

uh to prime minister trudeau i've you know i think we've sung her praises on on the the this particular show a million times i think that she still doesn't surround herself with the right people on comms but she's super strong in what she does um but

Carter 27:01

but i think that you

Carter 27:04

know like if you were if you were if you weren't to trudeau and right now it's and i think that we've seen this unfold in a couple of different spots when when they were targeting katie telford in in the last inquiry where she was testifying and cory i'm sure you'll remember the details better than i will but they came after katie they put her up in front of the committee and they were going for her because to lose katie telford uh would have um damaged the prime minister tremendously um i i remember how i've had this conversation with with people i've worked with they won't come after you know joe tigandek first they're going to come after me first they're not going to go after alice

Carter 27:41

alice and redford first they're going to come after me first and they're not going to go after danielle smith first they're going to go after marshall smith first you know we'll start seeing negative stuff coming out of that office, I'm betting probably within a few weeks of the session starting, you know, Oh, so-and-so is so controlling. So-and-so doesn't make this work. So yeah, there's always these interpersonal things and going after and getting a staffer who is the right hand or a left-hand person, like the, one of the top two or three people of the, of the office office can debilitate that office there's no question um and there's and

Carter 28:19

and and but losing a minister could

Carter 28:21

could also debilitate the office depending on who the minister is so

Carter 28:25

so i don't i don't think that we can make this straight up you

Carter 28:29

you know uh trade for trade kind of situation i think everything is dependent on who you're targeting and steve amato and steve clark don't

Carter 28:39

don't equal doug ford or Doug Ford's office at this particular moment.

Zain 28:45

Corey, jump in. I've got a follow-up for you to end this bracket that I've opened on Chiefs of Staff.

Corey 28:49

Yeah, I want to say Stephen said, hey, you don't need to be a public personality to be a potential target. And I think that is sort of true. If you're not a public personality, you're probably not going to be a valuable external target, like to the opposition, to groups who are trying to destabilize you from the the outside whether they be the media who you know really are out

Corey 29:11

to get you is not the words i'm looking for but you know it's not going to have that kind of cachet the chief of staff to a leader will always be a target internally to caucus dissidents right and it's because it's the safe way to give your grievances about the the leader themselves right sure say oh you know i i'm not getting what i want and to say that about the leader is seen as disloyal to say that and then blame the chief of staff is not and that's a proxy way that you have the same conversation about the leader and of course the reason why it hurts so much when you lose a chief of staff in those contexts and you know and i think this goes to steven's point about hey they're not going to go for danielle smith first you're going to see them go for smith and uh rob anderson right is because once those dominoes have fallen or maybe domino's not the right those are the pieces in front of the king and once those fall you know there's nothing protecting it's a it's a much clearer shot from that point because you can no longer blame that person as well if you're the leader so you know i i just i think yes the chief of staff will always be an internal target my point would be if you've got a media personality you become an external target as well and look the prime minister's chief of staff in 2023 is always going to have a public persona that's just the way it is these days. But there are a lot of premiers with chiefs of staff that are a lot more anonymous, frankly, and they're not likely to be big targets to the opposition, simply because it just doesn't have that kind of value to the public.

Zain 30:42

Corey, I'm going to ask you this from an external facing perspective. We're playing PS5 NBA 2K24. We're on player creation mode, but you're creating a chief of staff for me.

Zain 30:53

Are you picking the lane of more anonymous or are you picking in the Carter lane. I want to just get your thoughts on this. Like in a 2023 world of positionless politics, which is a term that I've invented and coined, and a t-shirt will be available soon on strategist.ca. Corey, what does your chief of staff look like? Are they more in the Carter mold, which Carter's like one of the few in this country who's kind of like taking on that more assertive, I'm going to be president, not giving up my Twitter account, but didn't do that, right? Like I'm going to be there. I'm going to be a target, but I'm also going to be someone that you know? Or would you go more anonymous? What lane would you pick if you're starting to like, that's the first choice you got to make at the top to create

Corey 31:31

create your player? What are you doing? Look, I think either can work. My personal preference, my style is I think chiefs of staff should be anonymous. There are people on the ballot besides the leader. You can find them. You can make them personalities. You can make them voices, whether it be ministers or MLAs or MPPs or MPs. I just don't see a ton of upside because I do worry about that downside risk, right? You're creating a target that you do not control, who, you

Corey 32:00

know, is so deeply associated with you and that you alone have to sort of manage. If there's a problem, you can't go to anyone else. You can't say, oh,

Corey 32:11

oh, well, Stephen Carter's someone else's problem. Stephen Carter's the leader's problem. And that's a challenge. Carter, what

Zain 32:17

what are you doing? You can easily say I'm picking myself, but what do you think? If you were to just construct a chief of staff from the ground up in this political world, that's the big sort of question, the big anchoring statement. In today's political world, do you feel like your model is the way to go? I

Carter 32:34

I think it would be much easier. Or much easier to do what Corey's saying. Corey's like, oh, take one of your electeds. Matt Wolfe was a great kind of proxy for the chief of staff as a very prominent issues manager who would jump out in front of any gunshot and take the hit. Matt Wolfe was essentially a bulletproof vest for the chief of staff and principal secretary to Jason Kenney. The guy just took all the hits for you. It was fantastic and

Carter 33:06

and i think he was reasonably talented at it um you

Carter 33:10

you know i didn't know him i i think we picked on him a ton when he was in in office but i think that one of the reasons we picked on him is because he was always so visible um

Carter 33:19

um i think that that would be great to have someone like that taking the shots for you but

Carter 33:23

but that's not always the call you get to make right you don't always get what you want you're there this role

Carter 33:29

role the role of taking that you

Carter 33:31

you know we had thomas Lukasik taking some of those hits uh for Redford and that was fantastic I mean yeah if you can get that you should totally get that but I think you're living in a dream world and if you think that you know today's elected crop has some of the talent that's actually required um to do

Zain 33:51

shots and deflect them to

Carter 33:53

to play the role and I'm not going to say that I was perfect at it track record would indicate less than. But, you know, there's some skill

Carter 34:03

skill set that's required, and I didn't often see it in my electeds.

Corey 34:10

You know, I think, though, there's a big difference between Matt Wolfe and a chief of staff, because Matt Wolfe did not report directly to the premier. And so that's the thing that I called out specifically, right? Jamie Huckabee at the time was the chief of staff for most of the time matt wolf was issues manager and that

Corey 34:27

that was who was his boss on the org chart so there is still that kind of buffering and that was a way i think that they tried to have their cake and eat it too in that particular premier's office where you could have people out on twitter mixing it up uh saying the things that defend the government they were a little more aggressive a little more pugnacious but it's not somebody who reports directly to jason kenney that jason kenney is going to have to answer for and katie

Carter 34:51

katie merrifield was like there were multiple people throwing haymakers out of the uh yeah

Corey 34:57

yeah but my point but again none of them reported directly to the premier at least not on the norc chart like you and i know but there was

Carter 35:05

it's a little different

Corey 35:05

different it's my point

Carter 35:06

point was that there was there was some real strength there that they could actually grab these people and have them do it uh i'm not sure that that exists in every office.

Corey 35:18

No, and that's one of the benefits of staff in general. If you don't have it in your electeds, you just hire it, right?

Zain 35:24

You find it elsewhere. I'm going to close the bracket on this. Carter, we've got timing. You either announce your resignation. Yes, we're back to resignation.

Zain 35:31

So we started on it. You

Corey 35:32

You announce your resignations

Zain 35:32

resignations too early or too

Zain 35:34

Yeah, that's right. Too early or too late. This, of course, I should mention. I know it's obvious at this point. I apologize for not mentioning until the 35-minute that Mark is brought to us by Flyer Airlines.

Corey 35:47

always too late. Carter,

Zain 35:49

are other people guilty of the same thing?

Zain 35:52

Are we getting rid of the right guilty party, which is why we went into this deep dive of like, kind of the trading chip analogy that I tried to put out around ministers and the centralized premiers and prime minister's office. And Corey's point is, in the public's eye, external facing, does the punishment fit the crime? Is there anything else you want to add to this list? Well, I think that to help a successful resignation and a crisis story or an issues management, I

Carter 36:16

I think that the way that we're running government right now, and I think we've been critical of this and consistently, I don't think we're just speaking hypocritically. But the way we run government with all of the responsibility lying in the premier's office or the first minister's office, I'll expand it to include the prime minister, has

Carter 36:35

has created real problems for us. And some of those problems we can see and some of those problems we only sense when there's difficulties on the horizon. And, you

Carter 36:46

you know, some of the sins that have been committed by ministers, you

Carter 36:52

you know, I can think I didn't want to name drop Cantare in this episode, but I think that, you know, the

Carter 36:57

the sins that he's committed, purportedly committed or, you know, ostensibly or whatever words we wish to use, were very similar to sins that the prime minister was being accused of. But

Carter 37:09

But the punishments, the consequences were different because he was a minister and the

Carter 37:15

the prime minister was the prime minister. I think that, you know, to Corey's point, like if you're going to be putting a price tag on the certain sins

Carter 37:26

sins of resignation, of losing your job, of moving on, then,

Carter 37:31

then, you know, we have to apply them relatively much more equitably. and the prime minister or the first minister in the case of doug ford has to be really careful on asking for resignations because the next one that might be asked for is their own

Zain 37:49

cory anything else to add to the list i want to loop back to the story in ontario and and see how this fits the criteria you guys have laid out in a second so uh anything to add and then let's get back to the specifics of the greenbelt story and minister clark i

Corey 38:03

that is probably a pretty good list i'll be frank i forgot we were making a list because we went and did some other stuff for a while but all right so

Zain 38:10

so that's why i'm here keep it on track no

Corey 38:11

no i think i think it's a i think it's a solid list and anything else would probably be a variant of one of those four things

Corey 38:19

this is expert hosting by me cory you don't have to worry this is why it's stress-free okay okay you're the seat belt you don't worry about it don't

Zain 38:25

don't worry about it cory hey cory listen tell me based on this you put you put out a phrase earlier that that was really interesting have Have they put out more blood in the water with this resignation than not? Can you answer that question for me if we get to the specifics of the Greenbelt Steve Clark resignation? Or do you not know yet?

Corey 38:41

Well, I think my gut is they did. And that's because the punishment still does not fit the crime. And because the premier's office is arguably as guilty, like we just don't know all the facts on that front. But certainly we have the reporting from the initial investigation here, reporting the report from the initial investigation so you know it remains to be seen i think it's interesting because of course when steve clark said he was not going to resign he's oh

Corey 39:12

yeah it was really bad so i'm going to fix it i mean a great day in spin for sure right like this idea of like i fucked up so therefore i must clean up my mess is is pretty incredible like that's you know not exactly what what we think of when we think of ministerial responsibility um but that was the pitch that they tried didn't work right the heat just kept going up through the week and the reporting continued to be quite aggressive and looking at some of these other angles here and i'm sure part of why the resignation occurred was people were

Corey 39:44

were hoping it will now resolve the story i don't believe it will um but i think it might be a little too early to say for sure carter have Have they put blood

Carter 39:53

blood in the water or have

Zain 39:53

have they resolved this? Is this the beginning of

Carter 39:55

of the end? I think the phrase blood in the water is exactly the right one, Zane. I think that, you know, there's a feeding frenzy going on. They've taken, you know, a staffer and a minister. And

Carter 40:07

this isn't going to end yet. And everything that Ford is trying to do, you know, talking about taking back properties and things like that, nothing's sticking. Nothing's working. working um and i'm told you know we i've told that there's an abacus poll coming up that's going to show real consequence now that's

Carter 40:26

that's an interesting poll middle of you know middle of the term no one knows to your point zane uh about why you were so so

Carter 40:32

so very wrong uh in your earlier prediction that this wasn't going to haunt ford um you

Carter 40:38

you know it's not election time and maybe he's able to skate past this but it's

Carter 40:42

it's going to feel pretty real uh to voters and something that's going to paint ford for a long long time so i'm i'm interested to see if uh you know who else who goes next um this

Carter 40:56

this minor cabinet shuffle certainly doesn't feel like it's going to solve anything either cory

Zain 41:03

mea culpa redo fuck up wipe

Zain 41:06

wipe the slate clean is

Corey 41:08

is that possible for ford

Corey 41:10

it's it's not possible with this alone and and i guess part of why i hedge is we just don't know if there's additional actions that are going to come perhaps tomorrow a new housing minister i can't remember who was shuffled into it but perhaps tomorrow a new housing master taking over

Zain 41:24

over if i'm not mistaken we'll

Corey 41:25

we'll say something along the lines of actually

Corey 41:28

actually we are going to take back this land now

Corey 41:30

holy shit talk about a mess talk about lawsuits flying forever i mean I mean, one of the rocks and hard place challenges that Doug Ford's government has here is reversing these land transfers or

Corey 41:44

or looking what's in there. I mean,

Corey 41:47

good. Jesus Christ. It's going to be worse than any kind of it's way worse than any kind of renewable challenges that they had in terms of the lawsuits and the money uncoupling all of that a couple of years back.

Corey 41:59

So but for the public, that might be enough now.

Corey 42:05

Will it be enough if all of a sudden there's lawsuits and it costs hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to the taxpayers? Still doubt it. But maybe this is part of a bigger suite of actions that we are going to see this week.

Corey 42:17

If then, maybe then the punishment will fit the crime, right? It'll

Zain 42:21

It'll hit the criteria that we've laid out there.

Corey 42:23

Yeah, it'll hit the criteria better, right? So we have now changed that calculation from being $8 billion to something else if an action were taken along those lines. and then perhaps uh all

Corey 42:36

all of the calculations differ carter

Zain 42:38

carter over under on 42 and a half minutes the name phoenix kiss getting mentioned well

Carter 42:44

well to be honest i can't believe that we haven't brought it up till now um you

Zain 42:50

you you you didn't have the over i

Carter 42:51

did not have the over and i don't really understand how

Carter 42:55

how anybody with the names phoenix phoenix kiss gets into a minister's office um Um, but

Carter 43:03

but you know, how

Carter 43:04

you think that happens?

Zain 43:05

happens? No, come on. It's

Zain 43:07

I feel like it's a name. Mr. Kiss. There's, there's, I mean, there's, the story is amazing. I'm just going to let people look at the story how they need to research Phoenix. It's on your own. Do your own research.

Zain 43:17

What I am going to do. Yeah.

Zain 43:19

Your, your own research. Nicely done guys. You guys put four things on the table. The, the criteria for a successful resignation. If it's a good strategy, if it's a good tactic to pull at any given time. Now we've got a guide for folks to follow. We're going to move it on to our next segment. Our next segment very quickly here, guys. Summer school report cards. That is right. It is Labor Day. It is the beginning of the school year soon. I know, Corey, you've got three to nine kids, so they may have already started school at various times. But Carter, the summertime, as we know it, is over. The summer barbecue season, which we celebrated with various episodes regarding the Calgary Stampede and how politicians should get out there, how they should learn to associate with people, do the retail politics, do all that sort of stuff. Well, we now need to do some report carding. And let's do that report carding on the federal stage, Carter. I want to measure three things for our leaders, attendance, effort, and results. And I want you to give them a letter grade for each of our three major political parties for Jagmeet Singh, for Justin Trudeau, and for Pierre Polyev. So Carter, let's start with attendance. Give me your scores for Jagmeet, Justin, and Pierre Polyev on attendance for summer school, which of course we might know as outdoor school or the summer barbecue circuit. How did they do? Did they show up? Were they excited? How do you feel? How did they do?

Carter 44:39

do? Well, I think that Justin Trudeau has to get a nine out of 10. He seemed to be everywhere wear this summer uh he was visible he uh you know he he put his head into the lion's mouth whether it was in calgary or any you know a number of other locations uh he he's been possibly i think the most visible leader um of

Carter 44:58

of the three so i'm giving him nine out of ten i'm not i mean i'd give him a 10 out of 10 i just i kind of you know reject the idea of a perfect score um normally i just reject the idea of giving a grade at all but uh you know i'm just being nice to you today um And here we are. But,

Carter 45:14

But, you know, I think that that was pretty good, pretty good for the for the prime minister. This the second grade for Jagmeet Singh, I think, has to be an F. I mean, did we even see him out this summer? I mean, I don't recall seeing him at all. I think he was on vacation for the entire time. So I'm giving him an F. he was nowhere and pierre polyev's gonna find a better body double because you know the person i saw out didn't look at all like him so um i give the body double on on seven out of ten i give pierre polyev a fail oh

Zain 45:53

interesting carter going with the body double analogy okay nicely done done. Corey, Jameet gets an F, Justin gets a 9 out of 10, Pierre gets an F, and the body double gets a 7 out of 10. Carter, it may surprise you, it might be the same person. Corey, give me your take on attendance for our three major federal party leaders.

Corey 46:12

Well, let's talk about Singh first. I didn't see a ton of Singh, and normally that would be fine. I live in Calgary, Alberta, right? And my media market is primarily Alberta, Alberta, and then Western Canada. And of course, well, he's a MP from BC doesn't really mean that that's necessary. Like, we're not traveling in the same circles. I'm not reading the newspapers in the places he would be hanging out if he's looking for electoral success is what I would normally say.

Corey 46:39

But recently, he did say that he was thinking Alberta would be a breakout market growth area. Yeah. And he didn't fucking show up here all summer, right? He signed up for a class he didn't show up for so his attendance is up like he he gets a dnc you can't say this is an important area for you and not show up right there is a big disconnect between actions and rhetoric actions and strategy if that's what's going on there now

Corey 47:06

on the trudeau front yeah he was around everywhere getting separated from his wife really bumped him into the headlines to master strategy i suppose so yeah i mean we were talking about trudeau a lot we're reacting to trudeau to to Trudeau, but I

Corey 47:21

think that he's going to have some weakness in some of these later score areas, because despite being around a lot, doing a cabinet shuffle, having his personal issues out there, coming to the stampede, doing those things, doing all of the stuff you expect a prime minister to do, he's less and less popular every week. So I think that's one where we could say, boy, attendance is about all we can say for you right

Corey 47:42

now, Justin. So I'm not going to take away attendance from Justin Trudeau. So, I

Corey 47:47

I don't think that Steven's being particularly fair about Pierre Polyev's attendance, though. He, too, was everywhere in my opinion. The body

Carter 47:53

body double was everywhere. I saw him all over the place.

Zain 47:57

What are you trying to say by that? I'm trying to understand. I saw a picture of Pierre Polyev. Are you trying to say that it wasn't authentic? No,

Carter 48:03

I didn't even know

Carter 48:03

it was him. What are you trying to get at? I literally didn't recognize the guy.

Zain 48:08

is the point. Because it's us. he's trying to introduce himself to people who don't know who he was before he changed those clothes and got those muscles carter just saying i don't recognize

Corey 48:17

recognize but not only was he everywhere

Corey 48:20

not only was he everywhere jesus christ but he also was running ads the whole time so he was making sure that he was really out there and i sent you guys this just before the show but david colletto abacus was teasing that this week there's going to be a poll that shows his net favorability is now positive for the first time now there's a couple of things you can say about that you

Corey 48:40

you know which we can get into but the fact of the matter is he is more popular than he's ever been and in part because he's been absolutely everywhere with this new persona which i agree you know is a bit jarring if you knew his old persona but most canadians didn't so there you go so i'm also giving him a nine on attendance as well i

Zain 49:01

i i at some point i will ask I'm going to ask you if

Zain 49:04

if this experiment of Pierre, even in the short term, without the electoral results coming in, is successful, what it tells you about the rules of a rebrand, because I do want to discuss those. We have discussed them as he did them, but there has been some notable, quote-unquote, I'm going to put it in quotes, success that he is seeing from it. But Carter, not to waste time on that, I'm going to you again on effort. Okay. Jagmeet Singh, Justin Trudeau, Pierre Pauliev, summer report card on effort. We always say A for effort. Are you going to give everyone an A for effort or not so much?

Carter 49:33

I'm certainly not going to give, I mean, you know, I would probably give Jagmeet Singh a two out of 10 on effort. His effort was not there at all. Didn't see him, didn't hear from him. I mean, occasionally he got into the media, I think almost by accident.

Carter 49:50

And when did people start start saying on accident instead of by accident have we covered that anyways um these

Carter 49:56

these are the things that i need to know uh

Carter 49:59

uh in terms of pierre poliev his effort was great i mean i think the steroid regime regime uh is going to hurt him in the long run but uh and then no

Zain 50:11

of course cory thinks it won't okay

Carter 50:13

okay that's what cory's trying to say it won't hurt is that in the long run yeah yeah and um you

Carter 50:18

you know justin trudeau i mean i

Carter 50:21

mean the guy gave away his marriage i mean that's commitment to the country i'm gonna have to give him an a plus jesus

Carter 50:28

did i say when

Zain 50:30

did you become such a trudeau stan i feel like this is this is effort

Carter 50:36

this is effort right like his effort and attendance are the areas that he's going to score well in Efficacy, I sense that he's going to go down.

Zain 50:46

Corey, what are you giving these guys on effort?

Zain 50:51

I don't give grades for effort. It's results that matter. You show up and you get results. Corey, start with results. Here we go. Okay. Do it. Do it. Give it to me. Jagmeet, Justin, Pierre, what are you giving them for results? This is the one that matters, right? Everything builds up to this one, right? What are you giving them?

Zain 51:08

All right. Well, let's just rip the bandaid off. I'll

Corey 51:11

I'll give you all of the scores, and then we can talk about them. Maybe

Zain 51:13

Maybe even go a little back and forth on them. I don't know.

Corey 51:15

know. I don't want to tell you how to do your job, Zane, but I

Corey 51:17

I hosted a podcast recently, and I find that a little back and forth is – You really had to have the panelists save you. I'm glad they were there with electrifying content.

Corey 51:30

his efficacy scores, his results score, he's

Corey 51:33

he's getting an F.

Corey 51:35

This was a bad summer for him. Numbers don't lie. The numbers were bad for Justin Trudeau, but not just the numbers were bad. He gave himself less range of motion going forward because he took on a couple of actions that he now cannot take on in the future, the primary one being his big cabinet shuffle, which

Zain 51:53

which has created internal discord. We talked about this,

Corey 51:55

this, not an alarming or weird amount of internal discord, but the fact of the matter is don't get to do the big cabinet shuffle again once you've got the heat, and he got nothing for it. So not only did he make his big plays, he got nothing for it and actually went down in the polls. Pierre Poliev, got

Corey 52:13

got to give him an A. Love

Corey 52:14

Love the guy, hate the guy, immaterial. His poll numbers went way up. His personal numbers went way up. He's controlled the agenda. And that's just how it's going to be. He had a really great summer. He had the kind of summer opposition leaders dream of. Jagmeet Singh,

Corey 52:30

you know what? He's somewhere in between, but he's a little closer to Trudeau than he is to Poliev. have i'd say i give him a c minus the only reason why he's not getting an f is i've now started to see and of course this is no coincidence they want you to see but the ndp are talking about hey with trudeau down in the polls maybe this is an opportunity where we can get a little bit out of the government we can leverage our support and we can point to our agreement with them and say we want you to be more aggressively uh you know moving forward on these three things or whatever it is in order to maintain our support you

Corey 53:04

can't give him too high of a score for that though because ultimately it's a little tough to believe that he's going to bring down the government in this particular scenario and hand the government to pierre poliev you know so i i think that he doesn't have as strong of a hand as he thinks but uh he's at least showing that he might be willing to assert himself in his deal and the value of this deal always was as the ndp you that frankly like when we first talked about this steven was very negative on the deal i was more positive on the deal

Corey 53:36

deal and i said well because it allows you to get a bunch of stuff and still control the agenda they

Corey 53:41

they haven't really used it that way and and so steven has seemed more right than me no

Carter 53:46

no i'm more right than you but

Corey 53:47

but like the green belt thing where zane will ultimately triumph i

Corey 53:51

i uh i think that i'm going to come through

Zain 53:52

through in the end on

Corey 53:53

on this one too

Zain 53:55

an f for trudeau an A for Pierre, a C- for Jagmeet

Zain 54:00

Where is he wrong?

Carter 54:01

wrong? He's wrong on Singh. I mean, Singh, you know, there's nothing that indicates that Singh is going up.

Carter 54:09

You know, he's failed as well. I mean, I think that the two biggest failures, the two biggest losers in this are Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh.

Carter 54:20

You know, that's just the way it is. I mean, Corey's point about the numbers for, for Pierre is exactly right. I mean, Pierre is the winner. Uh, he did what needed to be done. He's, he's taken a giant step forward. Um, good for him, bad for Canada. Um, but

Carter 54:36

but you know, he did what he needed to do. He came out, he's reestablishing himself. He's rebranding himself. Uh, this was the play all along. I think that, you

Carter 54:45

you know, when we were watching him in the leadership, uh, lurch as far right as humanly possible we were you know everybody expected him to come back to the to the center uh or come back to likeability in some fashion i didn't think it was possible um it appears that it is possible if you take enough steroids um but that's it's

Carter 55:05

it's not you don't think it's going

Corey 55:08

this is the this is the individual position of stephen carter and not the strategist we should probably do

Carter 55:13

do a recording of that at the end for all of the podcasts crushing

Zain 55:17

crushing them into cubby code but you You know, like, honestly,

Zain 55:20

dude, he's like, he's like backhanding a ball to Cubby Cove. I was like, this guy's definitely on PEDs. That helmet's not good.

Carter 55:27

Here's my point. This is a very, it's the summer of Pierre Polyev.

Zain 55:34

Carter, were you a Sammy Sosa or Mark McGuire guy back in the day? Who was your, who was your guy?

Carter 55:38

Well, the one who had the smallest testicles, obviously.

Zain 55:44

hey, Corey, this is a different type of school. These principals and these staff administrators actually have one final column on the backside of the page, which is about a different grade of how fucked you are. This is a very crass school. You know, Carter's made an interesting, if you follow Carter's logical consistency, which is hard sometimes, but I think I'm going to. He gives Trudeau a 9 out of 10 for attendance. He gives Trudeau high marks for effort, but he agrees with you that he's failed, right? He shows up a lot. He works really hard, but he's terrible at what he's doing. He's not hitting the mark. How fucked is Justin Trudeau if you were to give him a letter grade on that? And then let's go through the other leaders for me. Carter, I'm coming back to you on the same question.

Corey 56:26

yeah i mean he's got some pretty significant challenges here he and his party pull

Corey 56:32

pull very poorly on the issues that are most important to canadians so he's gonna have to start resolving some of these things to people's satisfaction this of course like all things in canada brings us back to things like housing that we need to talk about but um it's

Corey 56:46

it's not totally hopeless here he's just up against a lot of hard walls here we talked about the issues thing the other thing is you're just prime minister for too long and people start to get fatigued with you and start thinking they want to go to the next guy the

Corey 57:00

reason why he's not totally screwed is the next guy is pierre polliev and while he is selling himself to canadians in this particular fashion you know these these videos of of him and you know family guy pierre polliev and his rebrand where he's killed the glasses and he's trying on this whole new personality it

Corey 57:19

it remains to be seen whether he can actually maintain

Corey 57:22

maintain it, right? Whether he won't just slip into the Pierre Pauliev who we all saw before,

Corey 57:28

right? Like, you know, a rebrand is a funny thing. I've said this before in a lot of different contexts. You can sell anything once. Yeah, I can put on an ad making Stephen Carter look like a thoughtful, polite young man. He's none of those things. And the reality is when you meet the real Stephen Carter, it's going to, you know, the one that I marketed on advertising is not going to hold. And so the same is true probably with Pierre Polyev. He's got to maintain this persona that he is now selling to Canadians forever.

Corey 57:57

forever. And it is not clear to me yet whether he can do that, because it's pretty easy for me to imagine, for example, a

Corey 58:04

a debate during a future election where the Pierre Polyev who is talking over you and hectoring and has that nasally voice is just being a pain in the ass, becomes the guy that everybody sees. And they're like, well, this is nothing like those ads that I thought I was getting with this fellow.

Zain 58:20

With the guy with the steroid arms, right? Just to be clear, same guy?

Corey 58:24

Yeah, with his political enhancing drugs, those PEDs. Those

Zain 58:26

Those PEDs, positionless politics. Hey, Carter, this is only a service that the principal and the staff administrators provide to the incumbents. So I want that same answer from you. It's a Trudeau question. What grade is Trudeau getting on the backside of this report card around how fucked he is? Do you agree with Corey's assessment that it's... And the reason I bring this up is because on our episode where he was... When we finally saw daylight in the polls, 6.7 points, then we saw on nine points then we didn't really discuss it at now we're seeing like double digits still low double digits but we're consistently seeing a potentially double digit wide gap and we're you guys were saying listen october november december if this holds there's conversations i want a preview carter what does it say in the report card at the beginning of september now that we're seeing these numbers for justin trudeau do you agree with yeah i

Carter 59:12

i mean i think that the the report now is you must perform you must succeed you've you know you've wasted

Carter 59:19

wasted the first you know two

Carter 59:22

two years of high school and now you've got the last year and you got to put your you know nose to the grindstone and and see if you can't actually pull yourself out of this uh situation and i'm not sure that he can i think that he you know we've talked on the pod before about is he taking a walk in in the snow of some sort. Um, and, and having to make the tough decision that maybe he's not the guy who's going to lead, uh, the liberals back again. Uh, he was the person who could do it in

Carter 59:50

2015. He brought them from third place. You know, we listened to our strategy episode in 2015 and turned it all around. Um, but the strategy episode forum in 2023 is, you know, there's a lot of corporate boards looking for your kind of expertise. Um, it's a very different, different different strategy episode uh

Carter 1:00:10

uh so i think that he's he's really in trouble carter's

Zain 1:00:15

carter's strategy episode 2023 is just going to be some webinars from the icd which

Carter 1:00:21

which is nice you know there's

Zain 1:00:21

there's a deep cut for the icd.d fans in the audience uh

Zain 1:00:26

uh cory you wanted to jump in finish it off with your comment then we'll move it to the over under lightning yeah

Corey 1:00:30

yeah i i mean you always have to be careful when it's It's just a couple of months that you don't react to numbers too strongly, right? The question that we need to

Corey 1:00:40

to get an answer to, and this is why we said, hey, we'll have to see in the fall whether he's still in this situation. I think I actually said like January. There's some time still here.

Corey 1:00:50

We don't know yet whether this is climate or weather. We don't know whether this is part of a long-term trend and the temperature that the Liberal Party has and whether people will support it. Or this is just because of ill winds that are blowing through town. um around housing that may be ephemeral and go away and and all of a sudden things will change so you don't want to react too strongly to these numbers but you also certainly can't ignore them if you're the pmo and you've got to be thinking about what in the world are you doing now to seize the advantage here and in a way that doesn't just look even more scrambling and it's so funny because you think about when

Corey 1:01:27

you know michael ignatyev became

Corey 1:01:29

became leader of the liberal party when when Stéphane Dion became liberal leader, how the conservatives of the day just pounced on him and defined him ruthlessly, mercilessly. And you think about the relatively free ride that Pierre Polyev has gotten so far. And we've had this conversation, and I don't think that the liberals should have jumped in and started attacking Pierre Polyev on policy. But I think we said at the time, you've got to define who he is as a person. You've got to talk about the characteristics of him.

Corey 1:01:56

And they sort of gave up that chance. Like he's been leader for a while, And there doesn't seem to be anything from the LPC here.

Corey 1:02:01

So what are you doing? What are you doing to recapture that initiative before he really locks in for Canadians who he is, you know, in a way that could cause you some real challenges? I

Zain 1:02:13

can't think of any reason why they wouldn't do it other than money, right?

Zain 1:02:16

money, right? Like money seems to be the main one. Carter, we're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Of course, Carter, Corey said last episode, which you weren't on, that we do this for me. That is indeed only a half-truth because we do do it for you, Carter.

Zain 1:02:31

We're back to our talking points. Hey, Stephen Carter, will the Greenbelt deal in Ontario remain intact as is or are we going to see a reversal of some sort?

Carter 1:02:40

I take Corey's point. A reversal is super difficult to walk through. um but it's happened before and uh previous ontario governments have paid out a small fortune to private corporations uh for things like gas plant deals so one imagines that this very well could fall through whether or not it should um i'll

Carter 1:03:04

i'll let cory answer that question but i i think that it probably could cory

Zain 1:03:09

cory are we going to see one a reversal of some sort a walk back of of of of some kind on this green belt deal i

Corey 1:03:18

don't know i definitely don't know i think we need to see what happens over the next couple of days but my gut says yes we will because i don't know how else doug poor gets out of this for all of the reasons we listed earlier in this episode right punishment still does not fit the crime the timing is wonky if um if we don't address this particular matter there there are a lot of challenges that uh doug ford has got in front of him here not least of which is his office's involvement in this particular matter um that i just don't think go away and so at that point you've got to change the calculus and i think a reversal is part of that will it be full will it be part i think it's more likely to be part than full but who

Zain 1:04:01

well of course sticking with you on this then you mentioned doug ford overrated or underrated, Doug Ford's persona, his brand, his personality, whatever you want to call it, his persona as it relates to being able to successfully do a reversal versus other politicians. Overrated? Are we giving him too much credit for this sort of like persona that he has, that Klein-like, oh, fucked up, sort of like straight talk persona? Or underrated in your mind? What do you think? If this reversal is on the table, right, even as a potential option, Doug Ford's brand, overrated or underrated as it relates to

Corey 1:04:37

i think he's easier to reverse than some politicians who are a little bit more likely to dig in but i i don't know if it's material in this particular case like it's just such a big thing any reversal is going to hurt like hell and maybe a reversal will take the form not of you've got to give the land back but all of a sudden there's these massive conditions around affordable housing i don't know but like it they definitely need to do more to get out of this issue in my opinion and

Corey 1:05:03

reversal seems to be the only obvious step carter the ford persona overrated underrated in this i

Carter 1:05:09

i think overrated i think that you know if if he was really going to pull off a stunning reversal on this um the time you know again timing matters uh we

Zain 1:05:20

we mean stunning and politically successful

Zain 1:05:22

like get it off the plate

Carter 1:05:23

plate unbelievable you know what i heard the people so this is a mistake these two are gone and this i mean maybe we get that reversal this week if we get that reversal this week um maybe he does get to apologize and live to see another day

Zain 1:05:38

carter final question for you um name a better political name than phoenix kiss and it could be made up i'll give you an opportunity to make a better

Carter 1:05:46

better name stephen carter yeah

Zain 1:05:52

uh cory uh phoenix kiss of course has entered the group chat on this episode. A better political name than Phoenix Kiss.

Corey 1:06:03

Zane, I'm going to go with Manticore Handjob.

Zain 1:06:09

A legend. A legend. Look him up. Huge in Quebec politics. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1096 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

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