Episode 1255: All politics isn't local

Zain 0:03

This is a Strategist episode 1255. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's

Corey 0:10

what's going on? That's the energy we were missing from your non-union replacement last episode, Zain. I gotta tell you. That's a really rude thing to say about Annalise.

Carter 0:20

Well, Annalise, as you know, always brings the energy. Oh,

Corey 0:25

Oh, we didn't tell you about that. Oh, we didn't get your permission for that.

Corey 0:30

but i don't know you didn't

Corey 0:32

didn't know no we didn't okay no i did not know about that it was like well

Corey 0:37

zane zane you might have some common cause with the writers guild of america after if you listen to the last patreon episode people

Zain 0:44

people have been texting me what did you guys do as you know i i don't subscribe to the patreon because i don't see the value in it and and so

Carter 0:54

so you're gonna be sad now yeah

Zain 0:57

yeah what did i miss go go ahead does someone want to explain it

Zain 1:03

should i be hearing it are you gonna play it is that what this

Zain 1:06

gonna be i mean director's cut you know what it

Carter 1:09

doesn't feel like something we're gonna play it

Corey 1:12

steven's idea what was the idea i was you know

Carter 1:14

know how you occasionally aren't available to record the podcast and by occasionally we mean every time we ask you of course and we thought we'd solve that problem by asking annalise to fill in correct

Carter 1:25

correct and then she's also never available and

Corey 1:28

and are you aware yeah how much technology has advanced in the past few years in the space of generative artificial intelligence i feel like these points are going to converge listen

Carter 1:38

listen i don't and i don't mean to pump cory's tires up but he knows quite a bit about this ai communication stuff so he's done a very good job with ai communications i as always i'm just kind of trailing along and i happened to find a place where i could find

Carter 1:56

find a replacement for you without it making it seem like it was really a replacement i mean so placement i'd

Corey 2:02

i'd say improvement this thing doesn't

Carter 2:05

yeah it was an improvement yeah

Carter 2:09

korean was a nice touch that's what made it work that's

Zain 2:12

that's so fucking stupid i should i should unionize carter um which brings me to my first segment of the show uh our first segment uh zane tries to unionize carter helping with my strategy to retroactively uh unionize so that the writers guild and i uh prevent ai from taking over our jobs uh in my case it's already happened it seems like

Carter 2:38

yeah no you're definitely not really required anymore um are you still gonna live in alberta

Zain 2:44

gonna live in alberta yeah are you actually helping me here or is this gonna be another troll

Carter 2:48

troll well no i mean if you live in alberta you're fucked because okay well thank you yeah i

Zain 2:54

you're giving me options

Zain 2:55

options of which union to join and which local excited to have me

Carter 3:00

you're in alberta it's

Carter 3:07

yeah i have no strategy for you if you're remaining here is unionization

Corey 3:10

unionization my only option at this point do you know there's this cliche in artificial intelligence they say you're not going to be replaced by an ai you're going to be replaced by a person using ai so i think you've got to embrace zane which we named him zane because your name has a and i in it uh so it's his name now we'll call you zane too so zane too you could be working with zane yes to be twice as productive on the show think about how long your questions could be if you really embraced generative ai oh

Carter 3:41

oh man that could be really good yeah do we own zane

Zain 3:44

.ai do we own that i feel like we should we better i'm looking it up hold

Zain 3:50

hold on we don't own this oh we better

Corey 3:52

better get that yeah

Zain 3:53

we could purchase it we

Zain 3:56

we we i think we should purchase i think more

Corey 3:58

more than purchase it i am absolutely putting up a zane ai bot there uh

Corey 4:02

before the end of the night

Zain 4:06

there's been some issues in the past where like carter just goes along with it because he doesn't want to upset you uh and you know what we figure out we we see

Carter 4:14

see a bill and i'm like well what is what's this for uh

Corey 4:20

corey you have no unionization insights

Zain 4:22

insights or information for me is that fair to say

Corey 4:24

say i do think you should be getting together with annalise and and probably trying to create a bit of a block here there's power in numbers the reality is um we've

Corey 4:33

we've also got her voice ready to go yeah

Carter 4:35

yeah it's pretty great it's annalise capital a and capital i in the least part it's great yeah yeah

Corey 4:42

have a and i in your name it's really good mine's so good it makes it so much easier yours is much tighter yeah

Zain 4:47

yeah right besides yeah good well thank you for that i'm hoping folks enjoy that episode uh the slim slim group of folks that's been some of your best

Zain 4:55

best um there might be value finally for the patreon i guess that's the plug i'll give uh you know uh to sign up on there okay let's actually move it to our first segment our first segment guys the strategy sprint we've introduced this a long long time ago, around episode 1100. You guys will remember that. Actually, it was an inaugural episode that we introduced the strategy sprint. One question, one issue. You guys, I heard, now I didn't listen to the last episode. I heard you guys talked about the Alberta pension plan, right? You guys talked about scenario planning, strategy, et cetera. I heard it was quite a good episode, not just because I got out of the way and wasn't there. But I want to talk about this. I know you guys talked about strategy as it relates to what the Alberta public should do if they disagree with it you talked about advocacy strategy for them you talked about strategy for

Zain 5:43

the government you guys kind of went through which scenario is it what are they actually trying to do here appease the base uh etc etc um you know and you guys talked about opposition strategy i want to talk about strategy for one person which is none of the three uh scenarios you've described there it is pierre pauliev steven carter pierre

Zain 6:03

pierre pauliev is going to get this question i have not seen now i should have looked into this prior to recording but i have have not seen him comment on this at least not with its like now release details 53 percent etc

Zain 6:14

what should the strategy for Pierre Polyev here be Carter and Corey same to you in a second

Carter 6:19

well I think he should I think he should stand up for Ontario and British Columbia I think he needs to focus on where he needs to win seats uh much the same way that we said the strategy for uh Trudeau should be not to worry about uh about

Carter 6:34

about Alberta because there's no seats to be won here for the if you're the liberals there's also no seats to be lost here if you're the conservatives um so you can go to bat uh for uh british columbia and ontario and the way i would probably do it is to create a talking point that basically says every province has the right to step out of the canadian pension plan um but they don't have the right to take what's not theirs and you

Carter 6:59

you know whatever that number is going to be the number is going to be determined determined together with the federal government and if pierre pauliev was in this government by god he'd make an extra 25 a pair right like he'd take care of everybody everybody would get the money that they need uh which is kind of the same thing that danielle smith's doing and selling the app lots of money for everybody if you're albertan cory

Zain 7:22

what should his strategy be car got a bit into and what his message should be oh that's

Carter 7:25

that's a strategy no no it's helpful it's

Zain 7:28

it's about Okay. We're going to get there. No, you usually do jump the gun. That's fine. We're used to it by now. I know AI Zane didn't call you out on it, but here I am.

Zain 7:38

Here I am to draw the time out, Carter.

Corey 7:45

episode was a little bit on the light side in terms of time, too. Yeah, you guys couldn't

Zain 7:49

couldn't fill the contract. Hey, tell me, Corey, what should your peer strategy be?

Corey 7:53

So that's a fascinating question. I do think that Stephen's idea of saying, hey, what's going to get me votes where I need votes is probably sound. I think in reality, he's going to desperately try not to do that. I suspect when he comes out from underneath the rocks that he's been under hiding from this issue, he's going to say the thing we expect him to say, which is, you know what, it's such a shame what's happening in this country because of Justin Trudeau. You know, they no longer see the federal government as a partner. Like the root cause here is that Justin Trudeau is a terrible partner. The liberals are terrible partners. They've been trying to run roughshod over Albertans. Albertans are rightly hurt. Albertans are rightly fed up and that they don't see the value in a federal government right now. And if I were prime minister, I would show them the value of a federal government that's a partner. These kinds of things wouldn't even come up. And then if pushed any further, say like, well, listen, I don't know the details on any of that. It sounds like an interesting story. Obviously, the core principle to me is that all Albertans or all Canadians are treated fairly. And then you just sort of walk away by saying all Canadians are treated fairly. You're both winking to Albertans and saying, hey, that's the deal. That's the fair deal that we give you your part. And you're also winking to everybody else and saying fair means that Alberta doesn't take more than half the fucking pension. So, you know, I expect a lot of skating from Pierre Polyev over the next bit as he tries not to antagonize his base or the people that he'd really like to have on site.

Zain 9:25

Carter, one second. Corey, you expect skating. Is skating the right strategy? Can he get through the moment by skating? In some cases, skating is the right strategy. Is it in this case?

Corey 9:36

Yeah, I mean, it's a great way to buy for time and then you can sort of see where the issue is. Let's put it this way. if this thing is a fucking flop, even in Alberta, after a round of polling, then you don't need to worry about it very much. But if it's a situation

Corey 9:52

situation where all of a sudden it looks like conservatives are pretty keen on the idea, maybe other provinces start to think it's an interesting idea. Well, you've got a little bit of different calculus then as Pierre Poliev. So by

Corey 10:03

by all means, take a week or two to figure it out. It's not the most courageous strategy, but it's probably sound politics. Carter,

Zain 10:11

Carter, sound politics and purely opposing it?

Zain 10:14

Or no, no sound politics?

Carter 10:16

Like in terms of just saying this is silly and we should stay in the Canadian pension plan? Well, even the current polling,

Zain 10:24

polling, and I know Corey talked about novel concepts, I'm sure, right, around polling on this particular matter, but it's not in the favor of the UCP. They're going to put a campaign together to try to boost its favorability, but it's not necessarily something even albertans want opposing it sound politics um

Carter 10:46

probably not bad politics i think that you can definitely get away with opposing it and making that part of your overarching strategy straight up um but the wink strategy that like i'm i'm going for a little bit more than the wink strategy that cory's going for i want there to be kind of some opposition uh to it on the print on the principled basis of um you know everybody must get their fair share right

Carter 11:15

right which is kind of what cory's saying uh but it's just i think it's just a question of emphasis i'm trying to emphasize it a little bit more and uh push push

Carter 11:26

liberal you know really focusing on the geographic piece and not wanting not worrying at all about Alberta would probably be the best way to approach this. If you're worrying about Alberta, you are

Carter 11:39

probably on the wrong side of this issue because the rest of Canada is going to be up in arms. So you may as well take a position that is clear,

Carter 11:48

clear, at least to all those in the rest of Canada, that this is not a great idea.

Zain 11:55

Every time I hear the word emphasis, I can only think of the phrase that we've heard in many boardrooms uh about the emphasis on the wrong syllable um which was uh goldie heider i'm

Corey 12:06

i'm just saying it's goldie heider goldie heider said that perpetually yeah yeah

Corey 12:10

did he create that quote let's find it let's oh well i listen he gets credit it's

Carter 12:14

it's where the puck was it's where the puck was gonna go he

Corey 12:16

he didn't create that that quote either but i wish

Corey 12:20

wish my dad worked with me anyways um you

Corey 12:25

you know after the last episode that's gonna be misinterpreted i just want explain it

Zain 12:31

don't want to explain it oh fuck okay no i'm

Zain 12:34

i'm seeing goldie shirt i don't know okay anyways um i'm sure i will but i don't want to explain it what we're doing you're

Carter 12:43

you're losing saying you're explaining you're losing

Zain 12:48

that was good that was for that was a that was a small in between segment for the three of of us uh

Carter 12:54

yeah that's all the matter it's all that's ever

Zain 12:56

ever matter maybe maybe two other former colleagues of ours yeah uh cory explain

Zain 13:02

explain this to me um

Zain 13:04

politics of pure opposition right skating versus opposing it's not popular in alberta presumably not popular elsewhere why

Zain 13:12

why not just oppose it yeah

Corey 13:14

yeah well good question and but i think that the answer is um it's not not just about the votes. Like Stephen talked about, hey, you can lose some votes in Alberta, but you'll pick them up in Ontario. And that's pretty good if you want to be prime minister. There's two things really that I think would drive Pierre Polyev to maybe be a little bit more gentle on this particular issue. The first is, let's face it, there's an awful lot of fundraising enthusiasm and just power in the conservative apparatus that comes from Alberta. And that's something that as the leader of the conservatives, he's going to think about and he's going to contemplate. And he just doesn't want to hear about it, I think. He doesn't want to be at war with Danielle Smith. It just doesn't serve his particular interests at this particular moment. He doesn't want to have a bunch of issues that he then, you know, is going to be called out on. So you're willing to stand up to her there, but not here, not on these other things. He'd rather keep it a matter of provincial politics. But

Corey 14:08

But the other one I think probably as important is

Corey 14:11

is he doesn't want to create an opening for right-wing opposition, right? He doesn't want to have the People's Party of Canada bleeding off five points. That might be the difference between majority government or not. And so he'd rather not give an opening to the freemen on the land who think that there frankly shouldn't be any federal programs of this particular nature. And shame on Pierre Polyev for not standing up for us because C.1 about money and enthusiasm, you

Corey 14:37

you know, the Alberta conservative enthusiasts could also put their money behind the

Corey 14:44

the PPC if they saw fit. And so it's a question about just making sure that you're not accidentally creating opportunities for other groups that might hurt you in other ways. And why, why make this your problem? And that's why I think he will probably do a bit of skating, because his skating is ultimately about keeping it Justin

Corey 15:03

Justin Trudeau's problem, keeping it the Premier's problem. You know, he doesn't need to make it his problem.

Zain 15:08

what will he do?

Zain 15:10

Corey's giving me his take. What will he do?

Zain 15:12

We've talked about what he should do. Yeah, what will he do? I

Carter 15:14

I think he's going to skate on it. I think he's going to skate because I think that he, you

Carter 15:21

you know, I attack him quite frequently. I'm not sure that, you know, Corey

Carter 15:28

Corey attacks him quite as much as I do because, you know, I'm kind of, you

Carter 15:32

you know, bull in a china shop, I think is how I've been defined by some. But he's

Carter 15:37

he's a very good politician. And as a very good politician, he's going to do the math. You know, Corey's made a good point about the fundraising. I think if I were advising him, I would tell him to go hard on this. It's not, you know, I don't think it's going to impact the fundraising as much as other things could do. Because I think that he's still going to have a lot of other quivers in his bow, if you will. Bow, no, arrows in his quiver. One of those things is probably correct. I think

Zain 16:06

think you mean Bo Rivers in his quiver. Bo

Carter 16:08

Bo Rivers in his quivers. Bo Rivers in his quivers. I

Zain 16:11

think, yeah, that's right. That's

Carter 16:12

That's exactly what I meant. But he's got so many other things that he can appeal to Alberta with, right? Like Alberta has got many, many grievances. They don't need to be tied to this one thing. So that's why I wanted to, you know, I would push him to try and stand up for Ontario because then he looks like he gets a bigger get. yet but for

Carter 16:33

for for all the big swings that he makes i i think that pierre is actually relatively cautious as a politician he does not does

Carter 16:42

does not take really big swings unless he knows they're really going to pay off and i i'm not sure that he's thinking oh this one's this one's a slam dunk so i'm really going to go for it i think he'll he'll be a bit more hedge than i'm than the advice that i'm giving him

Zain 16:54

cory this is a strategy sprint i want to go quickly talk to me me about timing you

Zain 16:58

said he doesn't have to rush on this thing talk to me about when's the timing to stop skating when's the timing to shift strategy how do you even assess your overall time frame here talk to me about that in in your world yeah

Corey 17:09

yeah i think it depends on how the issue evolves for sure but you're not going to get away with not saying anything about this over the next couple of years as alberta debates it as the alberta government spends a fortune on it you're going to have to say something of substance and i think ultimately after

Corey 17:24

after a couple of weeks of skating, if this ends up being an issue that looks like, hey, maybe it's even only 60-40 with 40% opposed, but it looks like with all of the power of the Alberta government, maybe the Alberta government could make that push to 50%, maybe they could get it, then I don't think he's going to necessarily feel like he's going to come out strong against it. I think he will ultimately have to come out soft against it, though. I think that's just the reality as a federal leader. And so I imagine it'll be comments similar to my opening skating comments, except it'll be like, well, I'm opposed to this. I don't think it makes sense. But we are only here because of Justin Trudeau and his broken federal government. You know how there's that old adage, nothing before the but counts? Watch carefully, because politicians know that's how people react to words before but, and they will create sentences where the message they're trying to bury is before the but, and the message they're trying to emphasize is after the but, even if it tortures the English language to get there. And I expect you'll see a lot of sentences like that, where he'll use every rhetorical trick there is to de-emphasize the words he said where he said he's opposed and throw everything back on Trudeau.

Zain 18:34

Carter, timing. Talk to me about how you're looking at timing for Polyev on this particular Alberta pension plan file.

Carter 18:43

I'd go quick. I'd go really quick. Interesting. Because I think that you can get quick out and then kind of walk away from it. You want it when everybody else is talking, right? You don't want to be the only person who's doing it. That would be really tricky. But if you're the one who is, you're

Carter 19:04

you're one of many people who are talking at the same time, like this early this week, everybody's going to be talking about it. This is our second episode in a row. It is going to be a talked about topic the beginning of this week. And I suspect that if he gets his comment in, he can then just start saying, you know, I've made my comment, seen my earlier comment, and go back onto his regular attacks. Unless he decides that he's going to make something big of it, like my suggestion would have been.

Zain 19:32

Let's leave that there, that segment. Nicely done on the strategy sprint, guys. Let's move on to our next segment. Our next segment, we did not see that coming. Belgium rule edition. That is right.

Zain 19:46

Yeah, I see. It's Nazi. Carter, it's got the word Nazi in it.

Zain 19:52

Carter, we've got this beautiful quote. I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. That sounds like that sounds like borderline Belgium rule, Carter, because

Carter 20:03

because the Speaker of the House,

Zain 20:04

House, Anthony Rada, apologized earlier today for honoring a man who fought in a Nazi unit during the Second World War. He was responding to condemnation from Jewish groups and others stemming from a movement from a moment during President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Parliament on Friday. During that visit, Rhoda said, Yaroslav Hanka was a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for his service. Those gathered in the house stood up and applauded. Well, turns out, Corey, he fought in a Nazi unit during the Second World War. So I'm just going to go out on a limb, not the side that we would usually stand up for and applause.

Zain 20:43

I'm just going to put that out there. there. Corey, this is not the story, but it actually, in some ways, is an interesting part of the story. What I do want to talk about is Zelensky visiting Parliament, what this means for Canada. Will we stick together on our commitments to Ukraine or will we divide like the GOP is starting to or fracture like the GOP is seemingly starting to? But let's start here about this moment. Who's to blame? There's a lot of blame going around today around what happened here. And so I want to talk to you guys about like procedures on this sort of stuff. You guys may have some insights on it in terms of who is actually to blame, right? Because at this point, the speaker, Carter,

Zain 21:20

Carter, has taken full responsibility for his actions. It was on him, his invite, his person. I'm sorry, I called him out. The prime minister didn't meet with them. Government house leader, Karina Gold is offering, you know, saying that the government didn't know about his presence, etc.

Zain 21:36

But when we get beyond the spin, get beyond the crisis management, the opposition saying the Prime Minister should be embarrassed, the Prime Minister has not commented on this, from what I can understand. Carter, who's at fault here? And how do these things work? Any sense? Let's start.

Carter 21:50

Oh, I am sure that in the Speaker's office, there is a 20-something staffer who went

Carter 21:55

went and found this person through whatever means, right? An

Carter 22:00

An uncle of a friend, or a grandfather of a of a of a friend or something along those lines a story that was reported online they went and they googled it they found this guy didn't

Carter 22:11

didn't understand the history because you know they

Carter 22:15

don't know that particular part of history they're they're

Carter 22:17

they're relatively you know like they're good at politics but they're not great at history and

Carter 22:21

and they invited this person no one checked everything out everything went to shit i mean you look you see the entire house stand um so on some level everybody who is in the house is responsible right like this isn't just you know oh well i didn't stand or they didn't stand i mean everybody stood everybody understands that you know we're trying to take on the russians now and people forgot that taking on the russians in 1940 uh 1944 was kind of a different crew um so yeah

Carter 22:58

different crew is probably the wrong phrasing different crew understatement

Carter 23:02

so i mean i just think that you know these

Carter 23:06

these things happen there are people the people who are working in these government offices are young and inexperienced and looking to gain experience and you

Carter 23:16

know someone didn't look over their shoulder and ultimately this is what happens cory

Zain 23:22

cory how do you think this happened This

Zain 23:25

This is pure speculation, but also not like I wanted to see if you have any knowledge on this. Right. Like to kind of put the pieces together. And who's at fault here when we kind of put the spin aside? Well,

Corey 23:34

Well, ultimately, the speaker is responsible for the words that come out of the speaker's mouth. And, you know, there was, if you watch the tape, you can kind of see the wheels turning in his head partway through as he realizes, am I fucking praising a Nazi? Like, he seemed to realize it halfway

Corey 23:53

halfway through, right? Right. So you gave kind of the short version, but the longer version is we've gathered in the chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today. So, you know, like, I actually do think that Stephen's answer of staff are young and people make mistakes is the right one. Like, ultimately, you've got to keep in mind, you might be a staffer nowadays who was born after the year 2000, World War II, distant memory. memory right

Corey 24:25

you know the idea of of those clear lines and those and and uh well unless let's be clear there is nothing

Corey 24:31

nothing clear about some of those lines in ukraine in the second world war because there was uh you know stalin there was hitler and there were people cozying up to both sides and you know neither is is somebody that i think is super admirable but canada at the time was an ally of the russians of the soviet union the soviet union was fighting with nazi germany and i do think that um maybe uh somebody just had less than a perfect command of the basic facts at play here and so and you know listen i'm not giving anyone a pass because that that's kind of pretty foundational to your understanding of world war ii russians nazis different sides of the war right but um but

Corey 25:16

but i think ultimately that's the most likely explanation i think probably it was a piece of work that was tasked out somebody came back with yeah we've got somebody who's going to be in there they fought for ukrainian independence and i'm imagining the speaker said something like sounds great happy to do it and then when it comes through and you realize that fight for ukrainian independence was during world war ii it's like oh fuck me but to steven's point point probably

Corey 25:41

probably a lot of other people in that house should have you know something should have clicked for them too so like everybody blaming the speaker today yeah okay he's responsible for the words coming out of his mouth you're responsible for your hands coming together my friends yeah there was

Corey 25:56

was a lot of people doing that i'll

Zain 25:58

i'll get to the the pure politics question but let's say you were in the house cory and you realized that what

Zain 26:04

what would you have actually sat like what would you have done i would

Corey 26:07

would not have clapped for a nazi no listen i mean i think you guys know i'm

Zain 26:12

i'm gonna ask carter a similar question in terms of what if you were a staffer and you found out two minutes before how would you have told your minister but cory you you you talk about how you

Corey 26:18

you wouldn't you found out two minutes before and you didn't tackle the speaker

Corey 26:24

you're fucking fired okay like i have to assume what if

Zain 26:28

knew there was a nazi in the building but you didn't know the nazi was going to get a standing ovation god

Zain 26:32

god no um and

Zain 26:35

and listen i it is

Corey 26:36

is it is complicated it is complicated right but uh it's not that complicated yeah that

Carter 26:42

that side were nazis

Corey 26:42

nazis i think you can call

Carter 26:43

call him a nazi that side wasn't was the nazi side he

Zain 26:47

he looks he looks very happy to be there i don't know

Carter 26:50

know if anyone's glad for

Zain 26:51

for him but a lot you know

Carter 26:51

know what and i'm sure he's characterized it to those around him he has characterized it to those around him that he he was fighting for ukraine's independence that's probably how he characterized he

Corey 27:02

he said i i'm sure he does i'm sure he was saying i was fighting for ukraine's independence i didn't give a shit about the nazis i wanted ukrainian independence but hey you know what those

Corey 27:11

those are some bad bedfellows right you know you don't get to kind of hand wave that one away here's

Zain 27:15

here's why my lesson to politicians every time i work with them is you clap every single time as if it could be interpreted as a a sarcastic clap so that's good

Zain 27:28

timing needs to be just slow enough oh my god you could be like yeah i was sarcastic clapping for that nazi are you kidding me or i was enthusiastically clapping for that that war hero yeah depending on where the bio lands cory carter what would you have done like this is a deviation of a deviation uh ai can't do that that's what i know So I'm sitting in the house. I'm sitting in the house. You're either a staffer. You're like, you know the staffers that kind of sit around the corner? They

Zain 27:58

They sometimes get lucky. They sometimes get lucky. They get to sit around at the back. They notice something. Sure, Jerry, like a big thing. Like this thing, right? Like a big thing. How would you play

Carter 28:07

play it? This is not what they're paying attention to. They're barely listening. They're barely fucking listening. No, no, they get a text. They get a text. They're hanging off every word. They

Zain 28:16

a text in their WhatsApp group being like, like guys i think there's a nazi in the building and someone

Zain 28:22

else responds with just like i don't know like a meme from the man from the high tower i'm like no guys seriously i think there's a nazi in the building they're like lol and then one other person says oh that guy he's he's gonna get a like a standing ovation what do you do you're in the here in the staffer

Carter 28:38

you hand in your resignation because it's gonna get worse right like it's never gonna get better but that's that's not the hard one the hard one is you're the mp who put it together right you're the mp you're sitting there you're cory fucking hogan or put it together faster than everybody else right oh way to go cory you're smarter than me yeah okay whatever and so cory puts it together and now he's got to decide as he's watching all of his colleagues stand and give a standing ovation to this guy he's got to decide do i embarrass my colleagues by not standing or do i stand with them and potentially ruin my fucking political career that's

Carter 29:19

the interesting and challenging question because you

Carter 29:22

you know most of the most of those people who stood weren't listening right like they were barely paying attention there's so much going on they don't give a fuck right but

Corey 29:31

but you're not wrong you're not no

Carter 29:33

no you're not wrong you're not wrong

Corey 29:35

but if you slow slow clap right

Carter 29:38

hey you gotta stop saying that people

Carter 29:40

are gonna think that that's

Carter 29:44

this is why we moved you back to host ai zane you

Carter 29:47

you know holy shit can

Corey 29:48

can i tell you

Corey 29:50

so there is something to this there there is the mom mentality no no okay sorry in

Corey 29:56

in general when uh i mean listen people do this all of the time they're barely paying attention people stand up you stand up next to them but there is also the reality that the group has this effect on you and if everybody in your group's doing something even if you think it's wrong but you look around and everybody in the group's doing it you think oh

Corey 30:15

oh i guess we're clapping for waffen ss members today like i just you know have

Carter 30:19

you seen the studies that they do on this where they um they said they put smoke in a room of people waiting for the doctor and so they put smoke in the room and the fire alarm is going off and if no one else moves like if everybody else is uh is is in on the is in on it the person most people will not move until it's almost too late to move because you will do as the group does if someone stands up in the group then you're out of there but until someone stands up you are absolutely not going to be the first person to stand that's

Corey 30:51

that's right well except somebody is the first person to stand and

Corey 30:54

and for the record i'm that fucking guy every time i've got what you call a low agreeability threshold i don't give a shit but it's

Corey 31:04

it's um it's a it's a thing like right when everybody else in that group is is standing up everybody else is standing up and i i think it's the speaker throwing himself on that grenade is a is a is a funny thing to me because there was a whole building of people who didn't manage to put one-on-one together there but

Carter 31:23

but it's so much easier for him to throw himself on that grenade though right it immediately removes some of the political problems of it does

Carter 31:29

does this overshadow let's

Zain 31:31

let's just move it on from here though does this overshadow the zielinski speech um

Carter 31:36

um overshadows a strong word but it's certainly going to impact it um i think that i'm not sure that it overshadows it necessarily but it's going to be a a uh a

Carter 31:46

a niggling little footnote it colors it in

Zain 31:49

in some way cory

Carter 31:50

cory does it it overshadow yeah

Corey 31:52

i i would phrase it similar to steven there i don't know if overshadow is the right word it's something that we're talking about here's

Corey 32:00

here's the thing if there's a case that it's been overshadowed it's that there wasn't a ton new from the zelensky visit right we we got a lot of what we were expecting not big dramatic moments um this

Corey 32:12

this was kind of interesting right this This was different. This is going to have people talking. That's why I led with it. So now you're leading with it, right? But I do think at the end of the day, six

Corey 32:26

six months from now, we're not going to necessarily remember this. We are going to remember Zelensky came to Ottawa. It's just it's not very newsworthy because nothing new came out of it.

Carter 32:34

I mean, and you're not going after the 90-year-old guy and putting him into like a war crime tribunal or anything like that. i mean the guy no one wants to go after no one wants to go after the individual guy

Corey 32:46

resigns like there's some talk of that like you know which i think seems like a lot because i don't know that this was kind of like a willful act by him but uh yeah there's some then i guess we'll be talking about it then it overshadows it zane then it overshadows it okay well tell me this

Zain 33:04

okay what's the political win for justin trudeau this

Carter 33:09

Nazis are never a political win. Zelensky,

Zain 33:12

Zelensky, the commitment that they made on the back end, which was expected, right? The fact that unlike the United States, that the conservatives and the NDP seem to be on side. I'm not saying the United States is purely fractured, but there's a fracture and erosion happening with

Corey 33:25

with Ukrainian support there,

Zain 33:26

there, especially with some folks in the Senate. But the alignment, the you can trust us, the relationship, pure political win. win and and when i say that i mean pure political win that can pay dividends for the government

Carter 33:41

don't know the dividends are on are available i think that the minimum

Carter 33:46

minimum price that canadians expect and this is where i think we're different than the americans uh i think the minimum price that canadians expect is that we're going to be involved in this you know canada has a long history of being a peacekeeping nation um this isn't peacekeeping per se but this is an aggression that I think that most Canadians find troubling,

Carter 34:07

troubling, at the very least. And having us involved, us being Canada, whether it's providing support or intelligence or whatever we may be providing, I think that to the average Canadian, that feels like it's the minimum price that we should be paying. So I'm not sure that it gets a bump, but it's certainly not going to hurt them.

Zain 34:29

Corey, does it give them a bump? does it give him some momentum is it a pure political win as you as i phrased it and feel free to disagree with my phraseology but i'm curious from well

Carter 34:39

he says a low low agreeability

Zain 34:43

disagreement tolerance i i think um

Corey 34:48

think that generally speaking when prime ministers look like prime ministers it's good for them it's good for how people perceive them so i i wouldn't go so far as to say it won't do anything for him but ultimately steven's

Corey 34:59

steven's right there's a consensus here right you're not separating yourselves from the packs in any way because um the

Corey 35:06

the ndp are right there with you the conservatives are right there with you here probably have basically committed his fealty to this uh project as well it is interesting when you take a little bit of a step outside of our own country though and you talked a bit about this zane the way the issue has evolved in the united states now there's this serious partisan bend to it a huge chunk of republicans are not supportive of sending more money to ukraine and a frighteningly large chunk are openly basically on russia's side on this fucking thing which is crazy um but it's not just america where there's a bit of i think fatigue and this has always been part of russia's strategy is he thinks he can outlast the will of the west putin thinks he can outlast the will of the west uh and you're seeing it you're seeing it in different places you're seeing it in poland poland is no longer sending arms to ukraine in part because of a trade dispute and in part because there is this populist party that's coming at them saying hey why are you still supporting ukraine right now so you know these pressures are starting to manifest in different nations and i do think it is somewhat noteworthy that canada has managed to maintain this consensus maybe it's not unusual we've talked about how many ukrainian immigrants there are in canada how much of the ancestry of canadians is from ukraine but especially us here in alberta like just a huge percent of ukrainians right but um yeah

Corey 36:32

yeah you know it is still noteworthy that canada is hanging strong here like we're not the only nation hanging strong but you're starting to see people fall away and it certainly doesn't look like there's any danger of canada falling away from this strong commitment carter

Zain 36:47

carter let me talk about the u.s in a second we talk about our the united states's influence here do you see the the scenario cory has painted in more detail the one that what is alluding to earlier with the gop fracturing on this issue do you see that scenario coming here in terms of the polyev conservatives that they They find a wedge on Ukraine in some way in terms of cost of living, right? Which is largely part of the narrative in the United States. You know, Vivek Ramaswamy, great example, right? I'm running to be president of the U.S. and we've got some big fucking problems in the U.S. right now. I'm not running to be president of, you know, whatever the fuck in Europe, right? And I'm not saying we come that starkly with our rhetoric here, but you've got cost of living candidate from the conservative side who could make a very domestic-first, Canada-first case. Do you see that rhetoric and even the light touch of that policy finding itself on the conservative side of the benches here in Canada?

Carter 37:45

Well, I'm going to ask for Corey's help a little bit on this one because I'm going through my little brain package, and I can't think of a time when Canada has not kind of taken

Carter 37:57

the world positioning of the country relatively seriously.

Carter 38:03

For a very small country with an abnormally large kind of GDP to population ratio, we're very interested in maintaining our position on the world stage. And I can't think of a, I mean, I guess Stephen Harper maybe pushed us away a little bit, but realistically, I don't think that we pulled back very much from our collective desire to maintain

Carter 38:30

maintain a strong position on the world stage. In other words, I'm saying I don't think that it's a conservative value to

Carter 38:39

from being engaged in this particular fight. I don't think that that's a conservative value in our country.

Corey 38:47

It's a super interesting point, but you're right. There's not really a strain of isolationism in Canadian conservatism. I think part of that is the composition of our country, connections even to places like the United Kingdom and the United States. The reality that going it alone is, you know, I guess we could do some North Korean style Jewish shit, but like, it's not really what we do. We're so deeply integrated with other economies. It was the British before it was the Americans, right? And

Corey 39:16

And yeah, I mean, it's a fascinating point, but you don't really see that here. I, you know, you could probably go back to sort of pre-World War II era. I'd have to kind of contemplate it. but um yeah

Corey 39:30

yeah i mean it's just i'm

Carter 39:32

i'm not sure we weren't as isolationist as the as the u.s because we still had those international relationships that we relied on right like well yeah or two you

Carter 39:42

you know our argument

Corey 39:43

argument was more like should we turn our eyes to the british or the americans right that's

Corey 39:47

the canadian argument it's not should we be looking outward or inward yeah

Carter 39:51

yeah should we it's never been should we fall into bed with someone it's just who should we fall all into bed with is

Zain 39:58

is that your way carter's saying that that's

Zain 40:01

that's good card i'm glad i interrupted you at that part thank you um i

Zain 40:06

i was just going to where the puck was going right oh yeah you're always going there

Zain 40:11

is that your way of saying you don't think the the poly of conservatives will flirt with this uh in that way will they will they question the arrangement will they question the dollar amount do you see like any of that sort of light touch stuff showing up, right? The level of support, maybe not the directionality of the support, but the level of the support and the, you know, can we trust Justin Trudeau with this and his poor international? How could they find something here that gives them some daylight? Or is it not worth it? And by extension, you don't see it coming from them.

Carter 40:43

Well, I just think that it's going to be really difficult to kind of split down, Split it open and make it valuable to them. I think that the values, I mean, conservatives have certain values and those values are relatively set.

Carter 40:59

set. I mean, we've seen those conservative values change in the United States, but I'm not sure that we're seeing those conservative values shift in the same fashion here in Canada. Canada. So I, I

Carter 41:10

I would be very reluctant if I were, you know, Pierre Pauliev, um, to play on that particular, you know, to, to start going down that direction because I mean, Corey's mentioned to me, one

Carter 41:22

one of the interesting things is we have this melting pot kind of idea or I'm not melting pot, most cultural mosaic. So

Carter 41:29

So when you come to Canada, you're, you

Carter 41:32

you know, you still kind of retain your cultural identity in our country. And it's in part because we have so many immigrants from so many different places. But, you know, we have so many Ukrainians. We have so many people who are under threat from Russia or under threat from other countries. I think it'd be really difficult to imagine a scenario where the conservatives would see a net bounce on this without losing significant first-generation immigration votes

Carter 42:04

votes that they desperately require.

Corey 42:08

Yeah, you know, it's funny because when the Canadian government went after a UN Security Council seat, didn't get it, the

Corey 42:18

the knock against the government was they didn't get it. They're not being taken seriously in the world. They're not out there in the world enough. The reputation of Canada has suffered. You could imagine an entirely different universe where Canada has this more isolationist conservative bend where the knock is like, why do you care about the fucking United Nations? What a useless body that is. Why are you putting so much money into trying to get to the UN Security Council in the first place? But it's so much part of our identity that we are embedded in these international bodies, right? You know, we were one of the founding nations of the United Nations, of course, the Suez Crisis and the creation of peacekeepers and so on and so forth. We do tend to be joiners as a country. And I just don't know that there'd be an awful lot of upside for a conservative government, certainly not, or a conservative government, conservative party, certainly not a party that aspires to be government and a majority government of taking like a, we're going to back away from the world approach. Just, it's

Corey 43:14

it's just not who we are. It's just not who the people are, demographically, even, as Stephen was saying.

Corey 43:20

Hey, maybe we're wrong, because it tends to be, if something's in vogue in the United States, six years later, it's in vogue here. But it doesn't really feel like something that is a natural fit to Canadian conservatism.

Zain 43:33

We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our next segment. Our next segment, Mr. Lonely.

Zain 43:38

I want to talk about Justin Trudeau.

Zain 43:40

He is... That's a bit of a cut. Oh,

Carter 43:49

You can't just pick on him because he's getting divorced.

Zain 43:51

Come on. He's getting divorced. He's also not going to get a big Indian wedding, Carter, if he ever gets remarried. Let's just say that. that all the banquet halls domestically and internationally are probably closed for justin trudeau um carter indian canada the tensions they're rising uh there's a lot going on here right with the with the a murder of a canadian citizen who was a calistani activist uh canada i'm just kind of going through the bullet points here right canada

Zain 44:22

um with the five eyes found out some intel that confirmed that india was part of it and with with with

Zain 44:29

with this with this murder canada then went to india most recent reporting says with cell phone data additional data saying hey there are indian agents that were involved in this murder uh and then we led to the story of justin trudeau standing up uh in in parliament first day of that particular session and making This announcement that blew the lid off this particular relationship in a real way. Escalations all week. Visas, advisories, back and forth rhetoric. America, UK and the other five eyes, despite being aligned with Canada, not really speaking up. Opposition kind of in a wait and see mode. Justin Trudeau kind of lonely on the international stage. Is my assessment wrong, Corey? Or do you feel like there's another shoe to drop here and that support from our sort of partners on the world stage might be coming soon enough?

Corey 45:26

Well, look, I think that behind the scenes, I'd be surprised if the other Five Eyes nations aren't more supportive. Frankly, the evidence came from them. We do have the ambassador from the United States making supportive comments, talking about, you know, the need for India to work

Corey 45:44

work with the Canadian government. That seems to be the Biden administration line. You know, we're concerned. We want India to work with Canada. Certainly doesn't seem to be trying to leave us totally out to dry. But let's be really realistic here. What Canada is accusing India of is something that you could accuse the United States of in many contexts, right? You know, extrajudicial killings. And

Corey 46:05

And you might think like, whoa, that never happens. Well, I don't know. How about a guy named Osama bin Laden, where they just flew in, killed him, flew out, right? Like, it happens. You made a movie about it. I made a movie about it. Fuck yeah. But, you know, because one person's just citizen is another person's terrorist. And obviously, Bin Laden's a very extreme example. But the reality is, you know, Calistani nationalists are viewed very differently by the Modi government and in India more generally. And, you know, one of the challenges that Trudeau has here is that Modi

Corey 46:38

Modi is crazy popular, right? Right. And Trudeau

Corey 46:41

Trudeau is not like with their domestic populations. And so the domestic politics can be challenging on these particular matters. But I don't know if I would call Canada isolated.

Corey 46:52

isolated. I definitely don't think Canada expected everybody to come out supporting Canada. There was some initial reporting from

Corey 46:59

from The Washington Post that that was the case. But that's been walked back pretty heavily here. and um yeah

Corey 47:05

yeah the reality is these

Corey 47:08

these countries are going to move carefully because of a the potential hypocrisy is involved here and b india is the largest country in the world by population and there are lots of other chess pieces on the board oh sure and if you're the united states you're thinking i could use some friends in that part of the world because i'm in some really tense shit with china right and losing

Corey 47:30

you know it's just like there's a lot of of challenges and real politic is rearing its head a little bit here carter

Zain 47:35

carter same question to you and then i want to get into the strategy for the liberals and trudeau and a more domestic frontier uh with with the politics but answer the lonely question do you agree with it or not

Carter 47:47

well i mean i don't really agree with it and um we're

Carter 47:52

we're we're seeing movement back to it but i think that the most important thing to remember is that this is a this

Carter 47:59

this is a very small thing in a very large pile of shit right now around india and china and the world stage um you

Carter 48:09

you know china is

Carter 48:12

it has been acting a little less rationally than everybody would expect uh and therefore everybody's busy trying to shore up relationships with the rest of the countries around the globe so i mean you you can see the brick um you know so brazil you know the kind of basically the the southern countries establishing themselves as a force, taking a different position on the Ukraine. We're seeing all of these kind of nation

Carter 48:40

nation states flexing their muscles a little bit because the world order is shifting a little bit. I don't

Carter 48:47

don't mean to be all new world order or anything like that, but there was a hierarchy, and that hierarchy had China kind of as the number two heavy, heavy, you know, number two ranked heavyweight. And now maybe India wants to be the number two ranked heavyweight. And these things all play together and create havoc.

Carter 49:07

I think it's an interesting thing indeed that India

Carter 49:11

India even chose to flex this particular muscle at this particular time.

Carter 49:18

It's not like he was, you know, wasn't a known, let's put it this way. It wasn't hard to find him right it wasn't like they were looking for me for years they knew where he was they had his address now they picked up the time you know picked up the phone and made the call and that to me feels a little bit weird why now well it's because now there's less consequence you're not going to get the same pushback from the united states you might get a a severe scolding from the ambassador oh you

Carter 49:46

you know that's like that's like me hearing from cory and hearing he's upset said about the digging on my computer i don't give a fuck right i was

Corey 49:53

was very upset earlier this episode yeah yeah

Carter 49:55

yeah but i don't care oh sorry cory i'll do better next time well that's india's reaction right now right because everybody

Carter 50:04

everybody india india is not stupid india knows what's going on in the world and everybody needs india right now so yeah if there if there's gonna be if there's ever gonna be a uh get out of jail free card um it's probably right this moment and and justin trudeau doesn't look weak he doesn't look strong he just looks like a world leader pointing out that hey maybe you shouldn't kill people on our soil i mean in other eras this is a this is something you could see uh escalating but not in this era so what

Carter 50:37

what are you going to do this

Carter 50:38

this is this is the end of the story we

Zain 50:40

we got more than one muscle here you know that like these these foreign policy hot takes these international relations hot takes we can do that well oh fuck you free Fareed Zakaria. You know, you don't bring this sort of heat with Fareed's take.

Zain 50:52

Multiple podcasts to do this either. He literally starts the show and reads a Washington Post article he wrote. We get it. You wrote an article and now you're going to read it to us? Yeah. That seems like not a thing. Corey, I want to get into the domestic politics here. We haven't seen something like what the prime minister did in the House of Commons that day.

Zain 51:09

Why do you think he chose that forum? Why do you think he did it then? Talk to me about the politics of it in your mind. Did the China situation on foreign interference have something to do with it and then leave a bad taste in his mouth? Why that forum? I think it's just such an interesting question that I know we've moved on from as a news cycle question, but from a politics and political strategy question, it still lingers with me.

Corey 51:35

Yeah, I do think that underneath the actions that he took and the fact that he used Parliament and the day Parliament opened and brought a very serious matter to the House, in some ways, it's impossible for me to imagine that's not somewhat shaped by everything we've gone through and everything the Liberal government has gone through on Chinese interference and the accusations that have been thrown about it and not taking these things seriously enough, not taking Canadian sovereignty seriously enough. Now, that's probably why it took the form it took. I think it would be pretty easy to imagine, even if the Prime Minister wanted to get that message out in a different era, making

Corey 52:14

making a statement outside of the House, calling a press conference, you know, with the flashbulbs and, you know, standing in front

Carter 52:20

front of the Canadian backdrop.

Corey 52:21

backdrop. I think that actually probably would have been fine

Corey 52:25

fine and appropriate. appropriate um the

Corey 52:27

the reason he did it that day was pretty clearly because this story was going to break like we we have some pretty good indication that the globe and mail and others were on it yeah

Corey 52:37

so it was gonna happen and um and so it was time for him to get it out there and i think he was trying to avoid the situation he had in china when you speak about isolation where he you know know was kind of seen as isolated from the other political parties versus a foreign power um and it looked like that was going to work for about 30 seconds with pierre poliev making his statement in the house even that had a bit of hedge like if you know we've proven very serious allegations or something to that effect and

Corey 53:07

then he became a little bit more wishy-washy and people around him became a little bit more skeptical as time went on and even so you're talking

Zain 53:15

talking about peers people here yeah

Corey 53:17

yeah pierre's people yeah yeah and and so but like you know it was a it was an attempt it was an attempt to avoid going down that path carter

Zain 53:25

carter the forum the strategy did it work

Carter 53:29

did it work i mean you

Carter 53:31

you know i don't much care for the way he speaks when it especially when he puts on the gravitas voice right like the oh this is really serious i didn't like that i thought that it was kind of, as always, a little bit over the top and insincere. But I do think that it was entirely correct that he spoke to the House.

Carter 53:57

are now in a political era of this. It's no longer just going to be done in the back rooms. And that political era is in part because they screwed up the Chinese interference file so badly. So now he

Carter 54:12

he didn't really have a choice. He had to bring it forward into the public realm. And the best way to do it, I think, was in

Carter 54:21

the House of Commons. So I don't have any quibbles with it. I do think that in

Carter 54:26

in general, foreign affairs shouldn't be done in the House of Commons and in public. like um you

Carter 54:32

you know this this probably would have been better being some sort of uh backroom communication or something uh and when the global mail found out about it um standing

Carter 54:44

standing behind national security or something along those lines wouldn't have been bad but that's off the table right now because chinese interference so you can't you can't use those those

Carter 54:54

those tools and techniques because you fucked up last time carter

Zain 54:58

carter what's interesting to me from a public communications perspective uh is that the burden of proof seems higher than the back channeling right where you can be iterative you can be back and forth you can kind of piece it together talk to that person talk to this person those conversations can be long they can be drawn out and and you know they can be done to your point, without the gaze of the public. But when you tell the public this in a short statement, and then don't necessarily have any of the evidence to back it up,

Zain 55:31

that vacuum exists. And arguably, with the journalistic leaks that we're getting, they're helping to fill that vacuum. But one may argue, maybe not in a timely sense, Corey, like, do you feel that risk that the Prime Minister, whether we say he had to do this, Do you feel that risk is growing or shrinking for him with that vacuum of evidence and what that allows India and the other sort of players, the multiple players in this story? And I'm being very simplistic to the point of reductive, but does that let the other players in this story start defining the situation while Canada's evidence trickles out there through third-party sourcing and journalists?

Corey 56:12

That's certainly one way to look at it. And I think it's a legitimate point of view. And from a domestic point of view, that is 100% accurate. I think when you look at it through the lens of foreign affairs and strategy in that context, the

Corey 56:25

the way he did it kind

Corey 56:27

kind of makes sense. Like, I wouldn't have done it in the house. I've said that. But, you

Corey 56:31

you know, going out there, first comments were, we're really looking for the Indian government to work with us. We have some concerning intel that some people from within the government might have been involved in that.

Corey 56:43

Perhaps there was ways that could have been phrased even more delicately. But, you know, that wasn't exactly saying Modi did this or something like that, right? Like, it almost sounded like it was rogue elements at the time and, like, very concerned, want to work with India.

Corey 56:57

when India then decided to dial it up to 11 on kind of the you know outrage that they would be accused of such a thing as a government right which again Trudeau didn't really do right Trudeau said there were you know people within the government who did this but he didn't say it was a government act I think that's when you start to escalate on your side too and it's part of a global conversation it's about the allies as much as everybody else and so that's when you start getting out there and feeding more facts into it and that's how we know for example well india didn't really deny this right and that's how we know for example well this is based on intelligence from five eyes and this is based on signal intelligence that canadians have gotten that was like texts and you know correspondence with the you know with uh diplomats from india in canada and and in some ways i think that that is not so much a reaction to the domestic situation as it is the international one it's india went out there went really hard canada said you know no kind of fuck you a little bit here we're going to start putting more facts on the table because this is what it is and we offered you a bit of an off-ramp and you're not taking it so now we're going to lay more facts on the table and we're going to draw these lines a little bit more clearly and we're going to drag people into this and nobody wants to take a side but if we put enough out here you're going to be a little isolated in india and so i think in some ways This is Canada trying to, in

Corey 58:23

in a funny way, lower the temperature, right, by escalating kind of incrementally here and offering opportunities to back out.

Zain 58:30

Carter, do you see it the same way or do you see it as a vacuum that could become larger rather than shrink in that sense in terms of the information the public, the media now all has to kind of connect the dots and get

Zain 58:43

get on side sort of thing? I'm

Carter 58:45

I'm not sure I'm going to characterize it with the same words, Zane. And I think that this has a potential to spin further out of control. And that's not good for anybody. I think that everybody, you know, doesn't, you

Carter 59:02

you know, I mean, at the risk of sounding kind of heartless, the guy's dead, right? Like, you do not want this to escalate into anything with more conflict. Already, we're seeing visas not getting processed. We're seeing families being impacted. We don't want any of that. That's not what the purpose of this was. The purpose of this was Justin Trudeau knew something. He couldn't get out of it by just staying quiet. So he felt he needed to say something in the House of Commons. That problem was created by China. And then it kind of escalates and spins from there. So I'm sure that Canada

Carter 59:48

Canada just basically wants India to do the nation state equivalent of I'm sorry and it won't happen again and everything will go back to something vaguely resembling normalcy. No one wants this to be an enormous fight, best of all the Trudeau government. Yeah,

Corey 1:00:10

Yeah, well, I think obviously the Trudeau government had to know, just based on the fact there was a bilateral with Modi beforehand, that they were

Corey 1:00:19

were probably not going to play ball the way that the Canadian government hoped that India was going to play ball. But it's fucking fascinating to me because, I mean, really came out hot on these things. It would have not been all that hard to say, oh,

Corey 1:00:33

oh, my God, we'll investigate. Obviously, we are deeply opposed to extrajudicial killings. And while we had indicted this individual and while we would certainly have wanted the opportunity to bring him to justice, this is not the kind of justice India is interested in. And perhaps people have been acting roguely. And look, that's easier said than done. If you kind of flip things and you try to imagine somebody accuses Canada's agents of doing this and Canada saying, oh, my God, what the hell happened here?

Corey 1:01:02

Like, how much do you really buy that? But I

Corey 1:01:05

I just think it's funny. There's this game that happens in diplomacy where people pretend

Corey 1:01:10

pretend a lot and that pretending saves face and saves lives. And I'm just really shocked that

Corey 1:01:16

that we're not at the point where anyone's pretending yet. That's fascinating to me.

Zain 1:01:20

Carter, I want to end this. This will go on. We'll have many things to talk about. I want to end with a strategy question for both of you. And

Zain 1:01:26

And it's not an easy one. I'll tell you that.

Zain 1:01:28

Oh, good. But it's one that requires some consideration. You know, this conversation that is happening with the Sikh community, the broader Punjabi community, the Indian community in Canada is a complicated one. It spans many decades, right? This conversation of Khalistani independence, which is about wanting a Sikh state. As Corey, you alluded to, Modi and his government view that as extremism. There are many folks here who come from that broader community who also view it as extremism, others who view it as activism. It's led to a very tough to navigate soup of opinions, diverse opinions. But to Carter, your earlier point on a different segment, this concept of the cultural mosaic, what we're about in some ways, you're allowed to let those conversations flourish. But

Zain 1:02:16

there's also a counter narrative right now that's starting to say, to be simplistic about it, why are all these people bringing all their politics over here? Right.

Zain 1:02:26

Right. And we've heard that for decades and it's getting louder. Right. It's getting louder in certain circles. And so the strategy question I have for you is to go back to the prime minister's office. What role does the prime minister have here? What role does the leader in chief have here? I don't even care what hat he wears, what color that jersey is. Around that sort of counter narrative that emerges in a delicate situation of which you are not one of those people, but you are the leader of this country. You've just called out the Indian government on this. You know, this is not a question that you can answer probably immediately, but help me think through that. You work in the PMO. You see this happening. It probably doesn't align with your view of Canada that you've had. And you know that it's perhaps a powder keg for something else domestically, let alone whatever happens internationally. Give

Zain 1:03:15

Give me just some of your thoughts or even fragments of your thoughts around how you think of that strategy question and the responsibility that the prime minister has on something like this. The

Carter 1:03:25

The responsibility is primarily safety and order, you

Carter 1:03:29

you know, at home.

Carter 1:03:30

World safety, world order is a secondary concern. But this isn't just the this isn't the first or the only or the last time that we will see international politics come back and express itself negatively in Canada. um the irish uh you know they the irish civil war created all kinds of trouble around the world where terrorists were terrorists quote-unquote terrorists are harbored by certain nations uh islamic fundamentalism has touched canada um there has been uh no shortage of i mean we saw a i'm going to call it a riot an armed battle of some sort in northeast calgary just a couple weeks ago between uh various groups uh that they were fighting a battle that was occurring uh thousands and thousands of miles away air

Zain 1:04:24

air train uh politics yeah yeah you know

Carter 1:04:28

politics from around the world touches touches areas that have immigration right we have immigration we're going to have politics from around the world touch us but we have to focus on law and order here and that's what makes this particular thing

Carter 1:04:44

thing like if if if nizar had gotten on a tele on a plane and landed in india and been quote-unquote dealt with with the indian by the indian authorities we still would have been concerned but

Carter 1:04:55

but it wouldn't have been an extra judicial killing on

Carter 1:04:59

on canadian soil of a canadian citizen um

Carter 1:05:02

um and that's i think that's

Carter 1:05:05

that's where we we have to focus most of our energy, focus the energy on how

Carter 1:05:11

how do we maintain a lawful society in Canada. And, you

Carter 1:05:17

know, that's the same thing with the Chinese election interference. I mean, if we're going to have a lawful society, we have to have a functioning democracy. All of this stems from the same issue, and that issue is Canada first, not necessarily the groups that are fighting

Carter 1:05:33

fighting these fights or having these wars.

Zain 1:05:37

Corey, this seems to be littered with traps here too, right? Like you could make a move that you think is right morally, but you don't want to necessarily tip your hand on what you think is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. You're also clearly after the electoral outcome and want to make sure you don't screw that up, right? If you're being totally honest, your strategist and advisor would be like, enough with the sentimentality. There's also the electoral politics here to worry about. And then there's just the right thing to do. As Carter's mentioned, he's put a couple things on the table. Your take on this, if you were advising the PMO on their responsibility, their scope of responsibilities, and how to think about the strategies here.

Corey 1:06:12

Well, I agree with so much of what Stephen said.

Corey 1:06:17

Rule of law, everything has to happen in that context. That is the fundamental bargain that is Canada. This is how we're going to settle our differences. We're going to do it through courts. We're going to do it through elections. That's how we're going to determine things. things like and when you talk about problems from elsewhere zane um like

Corey 1:06:34

like and i put that in air quotes just

Corey 1:06:36

just because that was literally

Zain 1:06:38

literally said to me on a panel just before i went on on cbc where the guest was like that he literally said paraphrase but like these do they just need to stop bringing their problems from elsewhere yeah

Corey 1:06:48

yeah well look problems

Corey 1:06:49

problems from elsewhere has i mean we're a nation arguably because of problems from elsewhere you talk about problems from elsewhere the finnian raids war of 1812 you know fights between the french and the english here i politics from elsewhere

Carter 1:07:02

elsewhere revolution yeah i mean politics from

Corey 1:07:04

from elsewhere have always been the politics of here that's the reality that is canada and that's just how it is and so like to sit there and kind of compartmentalize and say well we can't deal with that because that's from elsewhere i mean see our earlier comments about canada's place in the world and the way we've tried to engage with the world And the way we connect with the world and the way we think of ourselves as, in

Corey 1:07:25

many ways, hyphenated Canadians. You know, we are Canadians, but we might be Canadians who have been born in another country or have ancestry and close ties to another country. And that's Canadian politics. The idea that politics from elsewhere is anything else is absurd to me. It frankly, fundamentally is. So if you're sitting there in the prime minister's office and you're saying, oh, how might these affairs affect us? Great.

Corey 1:07:51

That's true of a thousand different issues. We've talked about a lot of them just tonight, right? Like how might the Ukrainian situation affect the politics in this country? How might the situation in India affect the politics in this country? country. God, you know, the list never ends if you start building it. And so if you start to compartmentalize in that way, I think you're going to end up in an awful lot of trouble. You just have to think about these as issues facing the country that are going to be more acute with different communities. And you got to power your way through it. You just got to, you got to manage it. And you, you're going to get yourself in a world of shit. If you start thinking, these are not Canada's problems, or these are problems that have been brought to canada from somewhere else and there's something intrinsically wrong with that i think that would be a big mistake carter

Zain 1:08:35

carter i don't know if you understood what i was trying to say but that guy was uh pretty much saying why are brown people bringing their politics yeah and

Carter 1:08:41

it was just it was kind of it's it's mired in racism right like of course it

Zain 1:08:45

it is of course

Carter 1:08:46

course it is yes yes of course it was okay when the irish did it you know the irish were fine we were fine with those guys so that's fine but now

Carter 1:08:54

now that we're getting it from you know other continents oh my god you know the south south asians whoo that

Carter 1:09:01

gets this fucking bullshit who said that do we have to go after him i mean no i

Zain 1:09:05

i don't know i don't know who said it i don't know if we have to go after him i think it's pretty standard issue was it hurley anyways was it fucking early it was not it was not

Zain 1:09:13

it's not hurry carter stop it carter no carter i was

Carter 1:09:16

was just asking a question it was not let's

Zain 1:09:19

let's move it on to our final segment over under our lightning rod i don't even want to say we do it for you now after that just left to taste my mouth uh carter carter

Zain 1:09:27

carter on your side with

Carter 1:09:28

with the whole race how

Zain 1:09:29

how bad is this india situation for justin trudeau on a scale of one to ten ten being this is terrible um but he's got to deal with it of course one being this is this is this is not that bad give it to me on that scale as it stands right now well

Carter 1:09:42

well i mean it's just not that bad is it i mean he he does look strong to some audiences um you

Carter 1:09:49

you know it does create all kinds of problems on the international stage but my god that's been fucked up for so long and it wasn't your fault so i don't think it's a big issue i think that uh this is a d plus

Zain 1:10:03

cory how bad is this for trudeau in that one to ten i

Corey 1:10:07

i think it's pretty bad i i mean i don't think it's unique to trudeau i think it's a really messy situation for canada here i'm going to say a seven or an eight because i have i

Corey 1:10:17

listen i don't have trouble imagining what climb downs could be but i have trouble imagining what are climb downs that modi will accept at this point just based on the rhetoric

Corey 1:10:25

to date and by the way when i say modi it's never modi like one of the fascinating things about the modi government is he like you know he'll have his radio show he'll say all these nice things he keeps in a positive space he he talks about you know all of these positive things and how he'll be there to support people and then he rewards and promotes lieutenants who you know deliver

Corey 1:10:45

deliver the knife you know metaphorically and in some cases literally it it seems like. So that's a real challenge, right? Because unless there's a willingness for somebody else to engage with you, a counterparty on the other side, what the hell are you going to do? So Canada has put out all of these cards now. So this is clearly the Indian government. Does anybody think the Indian government is going to say, oh, okay, we

Corey 1:11:08

we get it now. I mean, the problem is we have visas being

Carter 1:11:11

You're imagining the wrong end game. Yeah. That's the wrong end game.

Corey 1:11:14

Well, what's the end game, Stephen? Because like at this point, there are actual concrete actions that india's taken not just rhetoric that need to be undone and so what's the trigger for them to be undone because it's not going to be canada groveling

Carter 1:11:26

groveling i think that's

Carter 1:11:28

great hit the great leveler of all things and that's time you

Carter 1:11:33

you know if you have to go to india for a wedding you're not going to be getting india for a while

Carter 1:11:38

oops a daisy well

Corey 1:11:41

maybe it's modi coming in and magnanimously saying we've decided we just need to cool things down it seems

Corey 1:11:47

seems unlikely based on what's happened to date but it's yeah

Carter 1:11:50

way time yeah time will make him make that decision it

Carter 1:11:53

it will not be anything he'll be like why are we still fighting with canada no that's

Zain 1:11:57

that's not how it works you don't understand the indian mindset have you seen a ztv indian drama carter they can stick on the same plot point for years years i've gone in the rest list did you know victor is from montana i know it's very last time very but that guy it is i thought it was like classic like german imports but he's from he's from montana his name's

Carter 1:12:24

it's not right what

Zain 1:12:25

what what is happening right now were you not here when we talked about this no oh we talked about victor from young of the restless for a very long time Yeah, it

Zain 1:12:33

was pretty good. Hey, hey, Carter, I'm going to start with you on this one. Overrated or underrated, Doug Ford losing a third cabinet minister in as many weeks. This time it is a minister touted as a top performer, Monty McNaughton, labor minister, one who's been quite useful to the Ford government. He's gone, leaving for the private sector. Overrated or underrated, Ford losing a third cabinet minister in as many weeks. Listen,

Carter 1:12:56

Listen, it can't be a big deal because all the power is held in the center anyways. These cabinet ministers don't get the opportunity to flex their muscle. I mean, they barely get to operate within their mandate letters. I mean, you can't even sell the green belt to your friends and get away with it anymore. So I don't see how ministers matter in Doug Ford's world.

Zain 1:13:20

Overrated, underrated? Corey, what do you think?

Corey 1:13:23

think overrated because most of the time minister's leaving is overrated and and frankly

Corey 1:13:30

dude's probably not going to change the outcome of the next leadership or anything like that if he was

Carter 1:13:33

was finance minister who left does anybody remember his name bill

Corey 1:13:37

bill moreno talk about okay

Carter 1:13:38

okay well just be smart enough to remember his name you bastard like that oh you were trying to oh

Zain 1:13:43

oh i see what you're saying i said okay oh i didn't know it was a joke this

Zain 1:13:45

joke nicely done carter you're losing steam at the end here hey cory hey cory i want to ask you about this sure um overrated underrated the current position of the labor movement as seen through auto workers the workers in ford here have have gotten a deal 25 percent wage uh increase on their base rate they still have negotiations with gm and stalantis this is uniform representing the workers and of course in the states big deal story of uaw striking against the the same three ford uh gm and stalantis down there what do you think of the tactics what do you think of the the demands? What do you think of the rhetoric as you've been seeing it? Overrated, underrated? Are you high marks to labor as you've seen organized labor perform here? Give me your take. I want to spend more time on this a bit later, but I would set a baseline for me.

Corey 1:14:32

You know, it has

Corey 1:14:33

has the potential to be really significant. It's not certain that it will be, but I'll tell you something. One of the things that the labor movement does very well is get benefit for I mean, it's why we have the weekend, folks, you know, and

Corey 1:14:49

one of the things that owners and, you know, more organized capital has done very well for a long time is kind of vilify the labor movement because, of course, it gets things for workers that come at the expense of owners in many cases. That's a simple reality. I'm not even trying to be political. If you can't see that, God help you, right? That's just how it is.

Carter 1:15:11

Controversial of you. We

Corey 1:15:12

We have for a very long time been in kind of a low inflation environment where wages have been kind of steady and even clawed back in many cases. And so I think it's pretty easy for people to forget in the private non-unionized sector what kind of benefits you can get from working together and being in the private unionized sector. And when you get agreements

Corey 1:15:35

agreements with 25% wage increases, that's pretty fucking tough to ignore. And so I do think that when you think about unionization and the decline of it overall in Canada and in the United States, that

Corey 1:15:48

that story might be reversing itself if you start to see some big wins here, because then you'll start to see people saying, holy

Corey 1:15:54

holy shit, how did they get 25%? Well, I'll tell you how. They stood together and they stood against the owners. More

Corey 1:16:00

More people are going to think that sounds pretty fucking appealing if they're looking at, say, a 2% cost of living relative to that.

Zain 1:16:07

Carter, here's what they got in Canada. 25% on the base rate, a reactivating cost of living allowance, 10K bonus, two new paid holidays and pension improvements. In the US, I just know the top line, they're asking for 36%. They seem to be making a pretty strident case as it relates to CEO compensation being their main metric. I guess the question I have is your thoughts on what you're seeing from the labor movement here, especially through this most recent struggle of autoworkers, overrated or underrated in terms of what you're seeing on the table in both Canada and the U.S.? Well,

Carter 1:16:39

Well, I mean, we used to call 25% raises Corey Hogan money. I mean, he was the only one getting that kind of raise at H&K, I can tell you that.

Corey 1:16:49

He knew where the

Carter 1:16:49

the puck was going.

Carter 1:16:50

He knew where the puck was going. on he knew where my mom and dad

Corey 1:16:53

dad didn't work there but uh i knew people there yeah

Carter 1:16:56

yeah you did pretty well um

Carter 1:16:58

um definitely knew where

Corey 1:16:59

where to put the emphasis that's so

Zain 1:17:02

definitely put it on the right syllable oh

Carter 1:17:06

god it just brings back flashbacks uh

Zain 1:17:08

great memories to be honest but yes yeah

Carter 1:17:10

yeah well we memories of big raises

Carter 1:17:16

tell us again about how you never had so much disposable income cory that was my favorite And tell

Zain 1:17:20

tell us about how you sold other people of that false promise.

Corey 1:17:26

Zane, I didn't lie to you when I said that

Corey 1:17:29

you could make that kind of money at Agent K. I just maybe

Corey 1:17:32

maybe misled you that you would make that kind of money. Yeah.

Carter 1:17:37

Listen, this is good for the labor movement. The labor movement has been...

Corey 1:17:41

been... Should have unionized, yeah. The

Carter 1:17:43

The labor movement has been stagnant for a long time. It has been rebuffed by places like Amazon and other places. This could kickstart a significant amount of labor relations, and I don't think that that's necessarily bad.

Carter 1:18:02

But at the same time, we're watching one of the longest strikes occur at the same time with the Screenwriters Guild and the Actors Guild. So, you know, I don't think it's just going to be as simple as everybody's going to kind of get what they need and move on. But I do think that it's heartening to see that raises can be received by other people not named Corey Hogan.

Zain 1:18:29

We're going to leave that episode there. That's a wrap on Episode 1255 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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