Episode 1807: Social distancing

Zain 0:01

This is the Strategist episode 1807. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, are you coming tomorrow night?

Zain 0:09

Ali Velshi is in town. He's in town.

Corey 0:14

sorry. He's from America.

Corey 0:14

We've got to stop. He's Canadian, but

Zain 0:16

but he's from America.

Corey 0:16

You just said episode. Did I? And I'm not going to let that just sort of pass. No, I liked

Corey 0:23

where is the kind of the fluent, suave, walk-and-talk man who was the voice of the Go Vote for Nye at NETGEE? Did you like that video? That was pretty good. Where's my attack at? It came and went. Is it still around?

Corey 0:35

Oh, it's still around. Can you please? It's just, it's now being passed

Zain 0:37

passed around, you know,

Zain 0:39

people. Yeah, that's good. Like, like, 8-track from the back of a trunk. I like it. Can you, can you insert it here, Corey? I feel like, I feel like it captures the greatest hits of the past week, which is my walk-and-talk alongside um some comments that were taken definitely out of context uh carter i think they were taken on exactly the right here's what i meant to say

Corey 1:00

say how do you feel about the crunch you know what hold on let's just put in the video first hi

Zain 1:06

hi everyone i'm zane velji but

Zain 1:09

but just who is zane

Corey 1:14

hates the things you love and loves the things you hate the

Zain 1:19

supreme let me talk to you about it fucking overrated. No, I think it stayed on the menu way too long Donald Trump is a good man. So let's just leave him be

Corey 1:28

Zane Velji also hates Canada.

Corey 1:31

Why is that flag upside down Zane?

Corey 1:37

not worth the risk This

Corey 1:39

This message is brought to you by Zane Velji for leaving

Corey 1:43

Okay, I want to clarify

Corey 1:43

clarify a few things,

Zain 1:46

things, okay The Crunchwrap Supreme is total bullshit. I was quoted correctly. What I was not quoted correctly on is that I think Donald Trump is a great man.

Carter 1:57

That's what you said. Okay?

Zain 1:58

Okay? I want people to know that. You

Zain 2:00

said that you thought Donald Trump is a great man. And not to misquote me like that video did. Okay?

Zain 2:07

Corey, we call that expanding the pool. A smaller pool of people heard the episode. I've now exposed it to a larger pool, perhaps creating more downside risk for myself. up we'll see holy

Carter 2:17

holy strice and effect right there oh

Zain 2:19

oh wow i said no you want

Corey 2:21

episode on the strice nope

Zain 2:22

nope it's called the velge effect okay there's the velge rule and then there's the velge effect okay those are two things i want two separate wikipedia entries discourse or discord discourse is a podcast discord is where we go after

Corey 2:33

after episodes and now you're saying discourse it's fine you're falling apart getting out of my system uh carter because um

Zain 2:41

tomorrow are you coming uh i am interviewing ellie velchi he's america and politics similar last names so we'll see

Carter 2:47

see i heard that he was he was coming and i'm going to go to ottawa as a result that sounds great are

Zain 2:52

are we going to talk about the

Zain 2:53

that sounds the belgian

Corey 2:54

belgian rule the belgian rule or the belgian effect sorry the

Corey 2:58

the belgian rule yeah yeah

Corey 3:00

the belgian rule whatever we want well

Zain 3:02

well i might introduce it to them see if it's made its way down the states probably rebranded repackaged i

Carter 3:07

saw him tweeting about you though that's pretty good you know you're getting some pretty big uh big you know big name rack doing okay

Carter 3:14

in the u.s of a doing

Zain 3:15

um do we want to talk about stuff or do we want to just watch cory pour his drink uh in his mason

Carter 3:20

mason jar his drink i think

Zain 3:21

think it's gonna be a disaster

Zain 3:22

like a 20 something scottsdale bachelorette party what the fuck is this cory what is this disaster

Corey 3:30

disaster i don't know what it is zane cory you're you're hosting no you take us on the ride what is this what is the drink it's just it's a drink it's a cory

Zain 3:39

that it's a Watched a guy from Mesa, Arizona that teaches mixology classes poolside.

Zain 3:44

listen. Man, I would love that life. Can I have that life? No, no, you wouldn't. You'd just show up poolside.

Carter 3:51

color, but I had to have it checked, so.

Carter 3:53

so. It's good to know.

Carter 3:55

That's when they stuffed a tube up my penis. No one else can see the color.

Zain 4:00

Let's move it on. All right. Let's move it on to our next segment, Stephen Carter, Why the Absolute. Our first segment. Well, next segment. This was, trust me, this had segment-like energy, okay? Okay. It was incomplete, and I dominated. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, Stephen Carter, why the fuck do we still do this? Guys, I bring this to your attention, this segment, every time I find something in the news that I just don't understand, that I want to question our assumptions on. One of them is the broader, what I'm putting on table today, I should say, Carter, is the broader political convention of having Having joint press conferences. You know this press conference? It's the standard press conference where, let's just say, three leaders from three different orders of government are at a mic, and then one speaks, and the other two are flanking that person on the left and right. And, you know, you're probably announcing something that there is a joint vision

Zain 4:51

or a convergence on. But then sometimes someone, one of the three, says some wacky, insane shit, and the other two have to do something about it. Carter? We've seen that happen in Ontario, where one Doug Ford, standing as part of a federal government announcement on rebuilding Canada's biomanufacturing sector, suggested immigrants are to blame for shooting of anti-Jewish schools in Toronto over the weekend, despite what police saying they have little information on the suspects. I don't even want to talk about the details of the story. I want to talk about this political tactic, because Ford is now in hot water. By extension, people are asking Olivia Chow for a statement. Would they have if she was not around? Probably not. And by extension, they're asking Justin Trudeau, being like, what the hell? Do you support that forward comment in your in your press conference? So, Carter, why do we still do this? Why do we still have politicians who do post-announcement pressers with all three knowing that, you know, the questions can go any which way? They're probably not going to be on topic. And you have to then, quote unquote, own it if you're the other two, or at least defend your track record or disown the comments made if you're the other two people. In this case, we're flanking that that politician, who in this example was Doug Ford. Carter, why do we still do this? Do we need to get rid of it?

Carter 6:09

I think we still do it because it has use. I mean, getting media attention is a hard thing to do. And when you put more political leaders in one room, you're bound to get more political coverage. So we still do it because it actually works. We get the coverage that we want. And, you know, every once in a while you have to put up with a Doug Ford. But most of the time he's perfectly house trained and it's relatively straightforward, easy media to get. it and you

Carter 6:37

know sure it fails a couple of times but you don't have to own i reject the premise of your question a little bit saying you don't have to own what some other guy says uh it should be relatively straightforward to say i don't know you uh you know he said it you should ask him um that's a pretty easy response to to most uh doug fart doug fart for doug ford farts parts of the vocal capacity.

Carter 7:06

cleaned it right up. Yeah,

Zain 7:06

Yeah, no, that absolutely cleaned it right up. Yeah. Yeah. Who's going to win the 2016 Republican nomination?

Zain 7:15

2016? Yeah, that's right. 2016.

Carter 7:17

Oh, it was going to be Jeb Bush. Okay,

Zain 7:19

Okay, that's good. We don't even need to replay the track. We've got you on record again, doubling down. I like that. Hey, Corey, do you like this? And do we need to get rid of it? Because I have a proposed alternative. I want to throw to you guys, if you guys are both going to be homers for this three-person press conference, this very Canadian-esque three-person press conference.

Corey 7:40

I don't even know it's Canadian-esque. Lots of countries do this. Whenever two leaders are in the same room, they'll have a joint press conference. We've seen lots of awkward joint press conferences over the years, kind of to your point. But what I

Zain 7:51

I will defend is that the visual of one person speaking and the other two behind them, and then you kind of switch spots, and then the mayor speaks. And then the Premier speaks. That seems, I shouldn't say uniquely Canadian, but it seems to at least have a lot more play here than it does in the United States. Yeah, we

Corey 8:07

we apparently have fewer lecterns than other countries. Yeah, we can't have three. I agree with you there. This is where my proposed alternative comes in.

Corey 8:14

But you don't own the comments. However, lately, I think a lot of people have said, when a bad comment comes out, where were you? Why did you not in the next comment say, I disagree with the person? correct person when the next

Zain 8:26

next question on the presser was about directed

Zain 8:29

to you olivia chow or justin trudeau correct

Corey 8:31

sure but ultimately the media is going to take it where the media is going to go and the general convention of somebody who's at one of those is to just

Corey 8:39

you make it about the event as much as you can you answer the questions directed at you you let them answer the questions directed at them you don't engage in their world they don't piss in your pool and everybody moves on with their life because the reality is very different than what i i think a lot of people assume these media conferences are like the reality is the media will take it wherever they want to go so you can imagine and anybody who's had like an organization who's invited a few politicians to it know exactly what i'm talking about right you do a big event you do this thing there's like five speakers you're talking about the money for your organization yeah okay

Corey 9:13

okay now we open to questions from the media four questions about whatever the fuck is already in the news not about your thing and then they move on to the next thing carter is Is

Zain 9:22

Is the best practice here as a fellow politician of a different order of government to

Zain 9:27

to stay in your own lane, like having your own press conference? Or do you need to live in that room? And I'm not even saying acknowledge, but to Corey's point, if something egregious was said by the politician before or after you, do you need to address it, even if it's not, quote unquote, on topic of the announcement, so to speak? And in this case, it certainly was not on topic, right? This Doug Ford saying, you know, immigrants are to blame was not part of the rebuilding of Canada's biomanufacturing sector announcement that was happening with the federal government. So what do you say? No,

Carter 9:59

No, but it should have been. Okay. I mean, no, I mean, if my politicians- Just pause right there.

Zain 10:08

What did I say? You said, okay, so here's what I'm going to, I'm just going to, once again, this is actually actually very meta because you got steven carter saying a few things cory and i uh on both sides of him uh cory should we be staying in our own lane or should we be engaging with carter said here which is really for canada's

Carter 10:27

great in fairness i didn't actually say that doug ford said that and uh who might argue argue with doug ford you

Carter 10:33

you know so obviously we'll just let him stay in his own

Zain 10:35

own lane and own his own comments cory if there's any feedback to the podcast just said it directly to steven that's

Zain 10:41

that's what i will say i mean we

Zain 10:42

we don't we don't own and or condone anything carter says here yeah yeah very similar

Carter 10:47

similar to the very similar absolutely not listen i

Carter 10:50

i mean you you can pretend that you're going to clean it up but most of the time you're just going to walk right past things and you're not going to not going to say anything why

Zain 10:58

why you're not saying anything because

Carter 11:00

because most politicians aren't quick enough to come up with something to be honest i

Corey 11:05

is actually the honest answer i

Corey 11:07

think yeah they're were given

Carter 11:09

given their talking points and nowhere in their talking points did it say what to say when doug ford says something fucking stupid um that wasn't in the talking points so no one was able to come up with something and they're all so scared shitless of just going off the cuff that no one goes off the cuff anymore they they sit down they sit on their words and they they you you know, like they could never do this podcast. This podcast is well beyond their skills and component, you know, abilities because we make it up on the fly.

Carter 11:42

And I think that too many... You'd

Corey 11:43

You'd never know. You'd never know. Too

Carter 11:44

Too many... I know, no one ever knows. They all think it's scripted. But too many politicians are just, you

Carter 11:51

you know, they're just terrified of doing anything off the cuff, especially when it may have consequences. And it may not seem like taking Taking on Doug Ford in the moment is going to have a consequence, but you literally, you just don't know.

Carter 12:07

You just don't know. Corey,

Zain 12:08

Corey, do you agree with that? You seem to agree with that. Like the number one reason if you were to make a list around why politicians either don't take advantage of their moment or defend their own value systems when they disagree with them at a joint press conference is because they're not sharp enough, they don't have the wit, they don't have the quick on their feet sort of. And I'm adding a bit of my own editorial here. Well,

Corey 12:29

you're kind of editorializing there. I actually think it's very tough to be fast enough in the moment to process and understand exactly what the ups and downs are, the pros and cons, the stakeholders you'll offend, the

Zain 12:41

This is what the question I have, though. Is it about not being quick enough on the message, or about the overall political calculus, so to speak?

Corey 12:51

calculus as much as anything and look most politicians aren't quick enough but they also don't know for sure so just imagine for example you're up there and the premier of ontario says the things that he said and you start thinking does

Corey 13:03

does he know something i don't know does he have facts i don't have here like what does that look like because imagine then if you're the prime minister and you say oh doug we don't know that and doug ford says well actually just just five minutes ago, we found out that was the case, Prime Minister, right? Like, you in the moment don't necessarily have confidence that you have perfect information about the situation either. Particularly when you're talking about, for example, a provincial premier who has a whole other stream of information you might not have. And you've probably only turned your attention to this event in passing, if at all, right? So that's the other thing. Like, you're sitting in the moment, you're trying to calculate the probabilities that something happened, something something didn't happen, this is going to work, this is not going to work, this is the message you can use in that case, this is the message you're not going to use. So I think for very practical reasons, those being nobody can do it particularly well at the top of the list, every politician sort of agreed, you don't pile on each other answering questions to the media about their particular jurisdiction and asking about things that concern them specifically. That's just sort of a practical thing all of the politicians have done. Carter,

Zain 14:09

is it fair to say you think that this practice should not go away?

Zain 14:13

This one lectern, three politician, you

Zain 14:18

you know, where three could be X, could be multiple politicians. And I'm really trying to hone in on the of different stripes, right? Like elements of it, right? We've often seen press conferences where the premier goes up and the minister goes, like, that's not what I'm talking about here. To be clear, of different stripes or different orders of government, they've got their own lane, their own sort of political agendas, their own, in this case, order of government that they reign over. You're a fan of this.

Carter 14:44

I'm a fan of it because it works. It gets you the coverage that you're after. It gives you the ability to show intergovernmental effectiveness, which virtually every level of government is struggling to show almost at all times. So it works quite well for most of the use cases that you're going to see this particular type of press conference. It works really well. I mean, every once in a while, you have a moment, you know, but those moments are few and far between compared to the net benefit that is achieved

Carter 15:21

achieved by actually just having the overall press conference. Corey,

Zain 15:26

Corey, I'm going to pitch you an alternative, perhaps even better version. And it actually goes to one of your points, which is, or the joke that you made around Canada's lack of lecterns. Why not, when we do something like this, why not have three different podiums for folks to do their Q&A afterwards? You isolate the images of someone kind of giving an answer on a particular, you know, press conference point, right? Because you're probably, Doug Ford's going to have a different line of questioning than Olivia Chow, than Justin Trudeau. The image I'm conjuring up in my head is very much the American image of when a president is done with a foreign leader. They both have their own different lecterns where they're standing side by side. You can ask a question that interlaces both of them, or you can ask direct questions. And, you know, if you were none the wiser, the media image would almost just have Joe Biden on screen or the Swedish prime minister, because you wouldn't actually know the other was in the room in that answer. answer.

Zain 16:18

Would that, I'm not saying solve this, but, you know, and I want to get your answer on do you still, are you still a fan of this? Would you still do this? But can we do it better? And does that idea that I'm just, you know, brainstorming have any merit around how we do these political tactics better here in our country?

Corey 16:35

Well, the reason that they do it in diplomacy tends to be because it's behind the flag of one country or the other. And that actually, I think, speaks to the value from your point right like you are standing there speaking for your particular organization when you're there now the practical realities are a lot of these venues can't really reasonably fit all of these lecterns that requires three different microphones uh this is not always the show in the sense that like a u.s president meeting with a foreign leader is so it would require an awful lot more and there are kind of like small

Corey 17:08

small dumb practical considerations can we about

Zain 17:11

about them i actually find those nerdy details

Corey 17:13

i think people would

Zain 17:13

would look at my idea and i was hoping you'd get into the details and be like you know if they liked my idea be like why the fuck don't we don't do that and i was hoping you'd get into the practical consideration of being like they're probably meeting in a very tight space and yes this is the premier prime minister and mayor but this is not like an unlimited budget fancy ritz like you know situation that that that that is often put together for for these things well

Corey 17:37

well yeah okay so let me throw a few things on on the table here. One is like, you're going to have one media team set this up, right? You're not going to have three separate media teams with three separate feeds. And so they're going to have considerations in terms of their boards and their media lines and all of that. The other thing you're going to have to contend with though, is like moving three lecterns takes a lot of work and you would need to kind of coordinate that in a way that would be fairly complicated because if you are the prime minister, you

Corey 18:05

you may have an advanced team that has a lectern for you to set set up, I

Corey 18:09

I doubt they're going to have the one that's appropriate for the Premier of Ontario. And I know they're not going to have one that's appropriate for like the Mayor of Toronto. So they're all going to need to bring those things. They're going to have their own equipment. Their equipment may or may not work with yours. Yeah, it probably is just a bunch of the same XLR things, but maybe not. You never know what kind of standards other people are going to. And so it just, it would take a lot. You need somebody to take the lead in that case. And that means you're also putting into the hands of, like, let's be clear when you have those like two lecterns, there's

Corey 18:38

there's a lot of work that happens behind the scenes to make sure everybody is comfortable with it, right? You would be adding a lot of complexity to make sure that the sign that you're putting in front of Doug Ford and the fact that his lectern has a riser behind it or not, depending on the height of him versus the prime minister, like, you know, all of a sudden things get complicated in a hurry. And so in

Corey 19:00

in the pursuit of simplicity and just getting the job done, a lot of people aren't going to bother with those details. They're just going to say one lectern, and we're going to figure it out. And even that, even that is a headache to coordinate, let me tell you. Carter,

Zain 19:14

do you like this idea? Do you hate this idea? Can we do it better in any way, even if it's not my idea?

Carter 19:20

No, I mean, I think that the idea, the problem with the idea is that it also gives everybody the exact, you know, like everybody's sitting at the same opportunity to speak. One of the things that is worked over before these things even start is who gets to speak and in what order they get to speak in. There's a relatively complex protocol that dictates who's going to speak at what time. And if I give it over to Doug Ford and I've given him the same opportunity, the same infrastructure for speaking, he may stick to the script. He may not stick to the script. Very easy way to ensure that he sticks to the script, there's only one microphone. Prime Minister walks up first, then comes the Premier of Ontario, Then comes the mayor of Toronto. It is a logistics coordination, logistics control issue. And keep in mind, we still have a very significant history in this country where most of our media availabilities are done through scrums. The media themselves don't like these controlled environments. The less controlled the environment is, the more the media likes it, the more the media wants to be able to challenge and control the situation. situation they don't want three people standing at one lectern it also fucks up their shots like what are you going to do now take an extra wide of three you're going to bring two cameras and do a tight you know like three three

Carter 20:46

three lecterns without a pool it's

Corey 20:48

it's great it's a great point it's really hard

Corey 20:50

hard to shoot oh holy shit it would be annoying because you'd set up your camera and then you'd have to like swivel it you'd have to roll oh no you know it's gonna be a bad angle You

Zain 20:58

You probably need a wide

Zain 20:59

stationer, and then you need to do a weird roving mid shot from like an angle. No, it's

Corey 21:04

it's a great point. It just wouldn't work. It just would not work for the media. Talk

Zain 21:07

Talk to me about

Carter 21:08

about scrums, Corey. Like,

Zain 21:08

Like, what's a scrum? And Carter, you brought it up, so I'll let you have a shot at it, too. But, you know, for folks that may not know, they've probably seen it. But what's a scrum? And why is that the way we kind of do political media, for the most part, in terms of comment from the principal or comment from the leader?

Corey 21:30

Yeah, well, in the simplest terms, it's when the media surround a politician, usually they've set up in like a semicircle, their cameras and their microphones, and a politician comes out and stands in the middle. and every organization gets their own shot and they're all just right there and that is the that is the infrastructure it is now all of the media's infrastructure just to continue this infrastructure point and

Corey 21:50

and often what happens is they will set up and one politician will talk and another one will if that's the kind of setup you're doing or more practically if it's a more free-flowing environment they will literally come with the cameras and they will you know they will all come to where the person is and they'll stand around it and there'll be a couple of minutes of adjusting mics and hey is this good does this work is this a good level and you'll often hop into it there so but but i guess the way it's it probably can be defined as simply when the media are surrounding and asking the questions and you'll often see a scrum like in television in the sense of like all of the microphones that are there and i'm just looking at somebody's time i've got

Zain 22:30

got the i've got the post game for the others game on right now and they're just surrounding one

Zain 22:35

the players right or like around them completely right microphones everywhere uh cameras you can see it's like the aesthetic of the shot is having other media in the shot so for folks that are like

Zain 22:46

seen this before they know yeah yeah every

Corey 22:47

every every outlet asks their questions and you give the answers but everybody gets all of the questions and all of the answers and if you're watching kind of a live feed of a scrum it's kind of interesting because it bounces around from from different organizations well

Carter 23:00

well and it gives it gives the media the opportunity to get everybody else's answers right like um if you give everybody a one-on-one opportunity uh then they only get the questions that they were smart enough to ask but if they if they're in a scrum then they can build not only do they get the shot that makes it look and and you know cory's describing a very controlled scrum cory's describing the scrum that that unfolds describing

Corey 23:24

what i would call like the canadians the one-on-one the traditional we should talk well you say traditional but the thing i want to say is i don't think people realize but we have more of a culture of scrums in canada than almost any other country that i'm aware of yeah

Carter 23:37

yeah tell me why it is because

Carter 23:40

i don't know if i know why

Carter 23:42

i think that it comes from the idea that in the shot it makes it look like it's it's cornering the politician right like i think that there is a a sense of oh we got the politician and i think that that's where the originals like Like we trapped

Zain 23:56

trapped them before they were going into their meeting or before they were leaving the venue sort of thing. In and out of the house

Corey 24:01

is really where it... Yeah.

Corey 24:03

That's where it comes from, right? You scrum them on the way in, you scrum them on the way out, but it's the media that are kind of grabbing you there. And dictating terms. That doesn't really happen. Yeah. That doesn't really happen in the same way in other countries.

Carter 24:15

Right. It's a ridiculous practice, to be honest. I mean, there's a very easy way that we could have much better sound, much better video. you know um there are press gap you know the press gallery exists people go across press conferences there i

Zain 24:29

i wouldn't i wouldn't like skate by the point and not to say you are but there is a a aesthetic

Zain 24:34

aesthetic of accountability that a scrum gives right

Zain 24:38

right there's an aesthetic

Zain 24:39

of like we got you like even if you walked into this little pit and into this little circle the aesthetic is very much like you got cornered by the free press and the free press has a role in asking you the questions it wants, right? Isn't that like part of it as much as anything else? I know you've got ideas for how to make it better. And I don't actually want to interrupt you there because I want to hear them. But I just want you to reflect on that last point.

Carter 25:05

It is the exact same thing as throwing to the reporter that's live across the parking lot, right? Like we're now going to go live to Frank, who's in our own fucking parking lot. We're somewhere else in the newsroom. Weather update,

Carter 25:19

Yeah, we're going to go. Oh, we're going to, yeah. Yep. Yep. Right across over there. And it makes it look like they're going to a separate, a whole different studio. Do

Corey 25:28

Do you guys remember when we did that double ender in Washington, D.C. And we were just in three different rooms in the CBC studio?

Zain 25:37

Press Club. Yeah, like curtains between us. The National Press Club, yeah,

Zain 25:39

studio. And it's three curtains beside us to make it look like three different boxes because- Three different locations. That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that. Not

Carter 25:48

at all. That's what they want. they want but they want they want to make it look like you you know they they're in control they're setting the you know they set the ambiance they're they're they're asking the questions the fact that the the media you know the the principal comes out and says you know have you got my levels do you want me do you not want me and then they walk past you know like like there's there's this there's this kind of cartoonish

Carter 26:13

cartoonish quality to them uh well that's the canadian

Carter 26:17

that's the canadians what are other kinds of

Corey 26:19

scrums are you talking so

Carter 26:20

the american ones so

Corey 26:21

so i would say like the canadian scrum is like that semi-circle i'm talking about where they're going into the house they're coming out of the house they stop by it they're like is this good they do their thing and it's just sort of always there in and out of the house yeah

Corey 26:34

yeah the american scrum is more the it's more like a gaggle right like you chase them in the hall and you throw a microphone like it's like the mona roger in the senate trying

Zain 26:42

trying to chase mitt romney in the hallway sort of thing yeah

Corey 26:44

yeah like it's just like in the states it's a little bit more i would describe it as just like uh

Corey 26:48

uh spontaneous press conference right like we are forcing you to have a press conference here it's a little different than the canadian scrum yeah which is like i said a little

Zain 26:58

carter i finish off on this thought we've deviated from the core question which i think we've already answered so so we're building upon it rather than deviating i should say if anyone at home is keeping track um but carter uh give me your ideas for a better canadian scrum What would make it better? You were talking about a lectern. Were you talking about just getting back to what I questioned in the first place? Would that make a Scrum better?

Carter 27:19

No, I think that what would make a Scrum better is a tight audio board where you're not speaking into multiple microphones. It's a single microphone. And I think that for the most part, they do the single microphone thing now. So in a perfect world, you would have a complete media setup where the media are able to plug into an audio board. They get their audio from a singular microphone. microphone that microphone has a clean backdrop whatever the backdrop is it could be the house of commons it could be logo to whatever it is carter's

Zain 27:49

carter's talking about nba post game i

Carter 27:51

i was absolutely talking about an nba post game and

Carter 27:54

and i mean if you look at sports for the most part sports have some of the best media relations because they're there it's a symbiotic relationship relationship between the media and the organization to create the best visual to create the most kind of you know intimacy

Carter 28:13

intimacy slash you know unavailability right like no one else gets to walk up and ask these guys these questions they've got real opportunity real access yeah well the media team that you know the media team spends a lot of time making sure that that access is just so. It is controlled, it is choreographed, it is orchestrated, but it is agreed to either explicitly or implicitly with the media outlets. And I think that in

Carter 28:43

in the world of politics, sometimes I think we're afraid to reach those implicit or explicit relationships with the media where we say, this is what we need, this is what you need. And I worked actually on that quite a bit in the mayor's office to develop a a new methodology of doing media because the scrum outside the council chambers just did not work does not work for me i just think it's an absolute uh sham of a visual here's

Zain 29:11

here's what carter wanted cory six by five seats right yeah the mayor walks in uh on on her desk is just a stat sheet of what she's performed that day highs and lows areas where she could have improvement, what the other side is doing, how well other councillors are,

Corey 29:26

are, how they're voting, right? They're

Zain 29:27

They're voting record, right? Yeah, absolutely. She's got like, you know, very strategically positioned Gatorades right in front of her, right? You know, they're a sponsor. And then they just, they fire off questions, right? And she pretends to have personal relationship with each and every one. That's exactly what it needs to be. Yeah.

Zain 29:43

It needs to be more sports.

Carter 29:43

That is exactly what it needs to be. More sports, less politics.

Carter 29:48

I mean, there's actually probably something there. Politics is theater.

Zain 29:50

theater. is actually something there is something there okay i feel like we've we've exhausted it at least for now this this particular segment let's move it on to our next segment our next segment the 80 20 rule guys i also want to talk about another high level strategy thing and this one is a little bit more specific um because in a

Zain 30:09

a by-election in newfoundland guys the liberals the government

Zain 30:15

the governing liberals okay let me tell you about these governing liberals okay They had this seat, and

Zain 30:22

they have now lost this seat to the Progressive Conservatives, in which 80% of the vote went to the PCs in

Zain 30:30

in this by-election. There's a bunch of details, and you know what? I'm sure they're important to somebody, but they're not important to this podcast, Carter.

Zain 30:39

are a bunch of details. All we need to know, the only insight you need, is that the governing provincial liberals, Carter, lost

Zain 30:49

lost a by-election seat with 80% in the PC column. This was a seat that they held.

Zain 30:57

and in conversation the

Zain 30:59

the premier the liberal premier andrew fury said you know i paraphrase the following that there's a lot of confusion between when i knock on doors if i am related politically to justin trudeau or not if we're part of the federal liberals or not there's just so much confusion we just can't explain it away it was just so difficult he was giving a bit of a rationale about of a post game if you want to use the sports analysis carter he was given a bit of of a post-game analysis around why they got their asses handed to them and a lot of it was you know tough by election message to government stuff we've heard but but an interesting part about it was we just can't shake off these fucking federal liberals carter

Zain 31:38

carter well i need your help to help premier fury because he needs to shake off the federal liberals and and i think the conversation i want to have yes is about the the newfoundland liberals and the feds and like how they kind of of distance themselves, but it's a broader conversation. How do you shed something that you're under? How do you kind of get away from a brand that owns you or a brand that is in the moment not necessarily popular? And I know there's hacks to this, and I put hacks in air quotes. You could change your name. You could do constitutional stuff. He doesn't have time for any of that, Carter. I'm talking about messaging. I'm talking about strategy. I'm talking about tactics that are not quick and easy. They don't have to be easy, but they have to not necessarily be be the long-term, let's disassociate with the federal party sort of tactics. What advice to start off with do you have for one Premier Fury on the heels of this? This by-election is behind him, but if you're walking into his office tomorrow and saying, sir, this is a problem that's going to be with you for, you know, a couple of months, but could be with you for a decade. So let me help you figure this problem out and think about it strategically. How are are you thinking about this carter around helping him um push what probably was an asset now and is now in the liability column uh devalue it for him or push it to the side well

Carter 32:58

i mean i think what i'm going to go in is go in and cory cory will help me on this one but i think that uh we're

Carter 33:04

we're probably going to go in and say you should become bc united or newfoundland united wouldn't that be the way to go cory wouldn't you say yeah

Corey 33:10

yeah i think that's actually a pretty good idea i don't know know if we need to continue this segment saying that seems pretty obvious that's pretty much we

Zain 33:17

we got you want to i mean pan it in at 33 minutes and then we want to do carter's answer to patreon we can do that because it's going to be inside here's

Carter 33:23

here's what we're going to do i'm going to come back in okay

Zain 33:26

okay i'm going to say he feels like he's got a lot on the table

Carter 33:28

table here's what i'm going to say there

Carter 33:29

there the the truth of the matter is the brands go up and down and uh to to blame this on justin trudeau's uh liberal party i mean sure i mean that that is one way of looking at it but But the truth of the matter is that if you haven't been able to differentiate yourself from the federal party when you're the one who's handing out health care, education, post-secondary, all the issues that Canadians care about are provincial. And all the issues that are federal in their nature are such that they just really don't have the same impact. So this is a you're not doing health care well enough problem. this is a, you're not doing education well enough problem. And to blame, uh, the federal liberals is just to totally miss what the opportunities are within your government. And I think that that would be my message that I carried to him. You're not doing healthcare well enough because people aren't talking about the fury plan for healthcare. And, you know, I would also, I mean, given that the man's name is fury, I mean, double down on that. Like it doesn't have to be the liberals, Man, like it can just be Fury's party. I mean, it's Ford's party. It's Smith's party. You know, these

Carter 34:46

these premiers have the ability to define themselves as individuals at the head of their party. It doesn't need to be, oh, we're getting dominated by some guy in Ottawa.

Carter 35:00

Ottawa. I just think that that's a fucking cop out. I would be willing to bet a nickel that Corey agrees with me. Right, Corey? Corey,

Zain 35:07

Corey, do you agree with him? And further, do you agree that this should be a campaign that Andrew Furey runs under the banner of Furiosa? And has George Miller signed to direct every single one of his advertising spots like Mad Max? Do you believe that as well?

Corey 35:26

With that, Furiosa is not doing so great at the box office,

Zain 35:29

office, I think. Financially,

Zain 35:29

but critically, it's all that matters. That's all that matters.

Corey 35:32

Critically, people do really like it, though. It does seem. I do generally agree with Stephen. I would say this. If he had won, I doubt he would have said, well, we were really riding the coattails of that fucking Justin Trudeau, right? No, listen, victory

Corey 35:46

has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. And defeat in a liberal party is actually just the child of a Trudeau. Doesn't even matter which one, right? Like, you're going to pick a Trudeau and you're going to blame it. But the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador is associated, like it is part of the Federation, that is the Liberal Party of Canada. Most of the provincial parties have disassociated, but in Newfoundland, it is still part of the organization. So, I don't know, maybe, but that's the same with the NDP everywhere. Like, if Rachel Notley lost

Corey 36:22

lost a by-election, she would have blamed Singh, sure, right? Because it's easy. Actually, I'm not sure she would have, but she could have, right? It would have been fairly easy. And I

Corey 36:31

I guess what I'm trying to say is most people understand the difference between the parties, even if they're federated. What's most shocking about it, though, is I think this sort of came out of nowhere. I don't think people had the impression that Fury was on the ropes in any way, shape, or form. And I don't know enough about the local situation. situation but like

Corey 36:49

like the last poll i saw in newfoundland i'm sure had him up like 10 points over the pcs yeah

Corey 36:56

and and like that's quite a i mean i don't know when that could have been a year ago for all i know but that's quite a come down so

Zain 37:03

so so cory you know i appreciate both your points that party brands go up and down like and and then you know uh defeat is an orphan in that sense but give him concrete advice what should he do i like i want to explore carter's run on your own name, like a run on your own name sort of element. But what ideas would you have for him as it relates to the fact that, you know, sir, you are tied to the federal liberals, you are tied to the current leader, as long as that remains Justin Trudeau. And frankly, even if it gets replaced in the meantime, before you head to the polls, you're still going to have the residue, if you can call it that, of Justin Trudeau on this party. What advice would you have from, Corey?

Corey 37:44

Well, the point that you end with, the residue one, is important. You are fooling yourself if you think that by having a big conversation about whether or not you should be associated with the federal liberals will help you distance yourself in the minds of Newfoundlanders from the federal liberals, right? You're going to have half your party say you can't fucking do that and you're going to have this big drawn-out debate about whether or not you should, uh you know defederate disassociate it's not something that a party in government should do that's stupid you know how to win you have one you have one with justin trudeau as prime minister even though he wasn't particularly popular even then i mean a little different in the in atlantic canada but still you

Corey 38:25

you got to have your own brand you got to carry it forward you just got to do the smart things and one of the smart things in this case is probably at least a variant of what steven said which is think about you how you control the brand locally and being team fury uh you know uh you know a newfoundland option for newfoundlanders whatever dumb tag you want to come up with there are ways that you can make that distinction separate without starting a big fucking fight and destabilizing your party one year before a planned election i think that would be it's

Corey 38:56

it's possible maybe you pull it off especially

Corey 38:58

especially i guess with the liberals and the history of it it being you know disassociated in so many other provinces but fuck why

Corey 39:05

why would you want to that's not what you want to waste your energy on with one year to an election carter

Zain 39:08

carter i've got i want to explore the name stuff but i want to almost ask you the opposite question is that in these moments where brands can go up and down um a lot of times this can happen in relatively short order too like some people are dooming the liberals for the next decade even my preamble said you know this could be a decade-long problem sir um i mean that tongue-in-cheek but i could be right but i I also could be very wrong. This may not be a multi-year issue, quote unquote, and I mean that political popularity and viability for the federal liberals, so to speak. So can you overcorrect? Like, can you overcorrect in a way where, like, you are trying to solve for today's problem, Justin Trudeau is a drag, and you overcorrect in a certain direction?

Carter 39:51

Yeah, I mean, I think the best example of an overcorrection is BC United. I mean, oh, we have to get out from under the liberal brand. Well, the liberal brand that governed the province of British Columbia for how many straight years? Even during conservative

Zain 40:04

conservative rule, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah.

Carter 40:07

Yeah. Like federal conservative

Carter 40:09

And it had basically been taken over by, you

Carter 40:12

you know, red Tories at the very least. And in some cases, maybe even full-on, you know, full-on conservatives that were in charge. And, you know, Christy Clark wasn't exactly a quote-unquote liberal. liberal um but they they were able to define and brand the party uh with the the liberal brand and then they walked away from it and created the united brand and uh everybody

Carter 40:36

everybody assumed that it was a soccer team and no one's no one's buying it right like i think that yes you can overcorrect i i think that uh there's a reason why you want to jump onto these well-known brands and there's a reason why you want to stay with the brand that you've been given i think that in this particular case the problem is not

Carter 40:58

not what he is saying the problem is it is not a um a

Carter 41:04

a trudeau issue it is it is a fury issue and if he actually wants to solve it then he best look in the mirror uh or he's going to find himself fixing the wrong actual issue. Do you actually believe that? It's so easy to do.

Zain 41:21

do. I mean, not to say we've got all the data, but instinctively, do you believe that? Or are you devil's advocating for me in saying

Carter 41:27

saying that? No, I instinctively believe there is no way that this is a Trudeau issue.

Carter 41:31

I absolutely believe that.

Corey 41:33

I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it's not. I agree with that instinctively, too. I don't know enough about what's going on on the ground, but I will tell you this. i have never seen a politician succeed by attacking their

Corey 41:46

their brand right so if you're going to go out there and say oh there's a problem with this brand yeah yeah yeah

Corey 41:51

there's a problem with this brand nobody's

Corey 41:54

nobody's going to make that distinction that you're making in your head that it's somehow you know the other guy's problem and not your problem so tread very very carefully if if you're fury right it is so easy on the inside to start to believe your own press and and your own frustrations, and your own excuses for losing, and say, the problem's this fucking Justin Trudeau guy. The problem's the fucking Liberal Party of Canada. But I'm imagining to most of Newfoundland and Labrador, if you just say the Liberals are bad, but we're the good type of Liberals, you are just opening a world of hurt for yourself.

Corey 42:28

Carter, talk to me about the running

Zain 42:30

running for a party banner, having a bit of name recognition, in this case being an incumbent, and then running on your own name. Like, get practical for me for a second. How could that look for someone like Fury? I'm curious to get your sense of like, is it just, simple questions I have. Is it as de-emphasizing Red? Is it making your, you know, Team Fury the whole campaign? Is it acknowledging, like, talk to me like practically about what this could look like, because of course on the ballot, he's going to be liberal.

Corey 42:59

Yeah, let me jump in and just say, we saw the model of this in Alberta, a deeply deeply unpopular federal pc government and

Corey 43:07

and then ralph klein came in and how did he run steven ralph's

Carter 43:13

it was ralph's team the whole way through ralph ralph ralph and you know ralph was the politician he he used his first name he you know he made himself the brand he i mean basically everything but the colors was gone were gone yeah

Carter 43:29

um you know every every every mention of the pc the pc logo was replaced by ralph's team it

Corey 43:37

was i think it might have still been on the signs but ralph's team had a place of big prominence sure

Carter 43:42

sure somewhere on the signs you might be able to find the words pc uh

Carter 43:47

uh or the letters pc but realistically you were dealing with a um you

Carter 43:52

you know an opportunity to just to just say yeah you

Carter 43:55

you know you may you may hate mel rooney but i'm ralph and ralph is a totally different guy with a totally different set of standards and expectations of what government's going to do for you and he totally owned it and one could argue daniel smith walks away from um uh

Carter 44:11

uh from kenny in the exact same fashion and arguably nenshi will walk away from uh from notley and the ndp in the same fashion it's not going to be team team NDP,

Carter 44:22

NDP, it's not going to be team Singh, it's going to be team Nahid. And if it's not team Nahid, then the whole opportunity will be wasted.

Zain 44:33

Corey, any additional insights or lessons for him before we leave this topic? We talked about overcorrecting, we talked about diagnosing the problem, we talked about correctly, we talked about how to run on your own name. You know, know, if he's insistent that, you know, okay, I agree, I'll go back to the drawing board, make sure I'm honest with myself around making sure that, you know, it's not just all blame is placed on Justin Trudeau. But on that category, any other hot takes for me around what I should consider, what I should do as I gear up and lick my wounds from this by-election result?

Corey 45:11

Yeah, you've got an election coming up. You don't need this distraction. interaction it's any energy expended internally is energy not expended externally it is a waste of time if you feel like you need to do that down the road do it after the next election do it after you lose is when you might want to consider those things and i don't even know that you should then but i'm saying that's

Corey 45:31

that's the time if there is a time for such moments talk

Zain 45:33

talk to me about that advice because i i tend to agree with it uh and and i'm glad you've gone there but there's probably politicians who would look at you deer in headlights being like i don't know what the fuck you're talking about this is my issue i lost the other side got 80 points because i'm affiliated with justin trudeau so you're you're that you know but so in some ways like you know help folks understand both of you are like actively actively against even me describing this

Carter 46:03

yeah because it's totally wrong yeah

Corey 46:05

i think that again politicians can convince themselves of all sorts of things and this is where i think parties and party organizers need need to be very careful it is in maybe if you are a premier who looks like they're going to go down it might be in your interest like you might increase your odds right like your odds in the very limited term by trying to do a throw like this and i'm doubtful of that like i'm seriously doubtful but you might believe it and you might make that calculation but

Corey 46:32

but it's not in the party's interest that you try to blow it up in such a fashion at that moment it's just not and

Carter 46:38

and beware Beware the lies that we tell ourselves that we wish to believe, right?

Carter 46:42

right? If the lie that we tell ourselves is it's all Justin Trudeau's fault because we wish to believe that, beware

Carter 46:48

beware of that. Beware of how that will actually unfold because chances are the population is making a choice for different reasons than you think it is. You know, Justin Trudeau may not even be the thing that people are thinking about. Maybe it is, but realistically, you can't control whether Justin Trudeau lives or stays stays or goes from his political life.

Carter 47:13

life. So you best be figuring out some way to actually make this successful.

Corey 47:18

Look, do I believe that there are voters who are confused?

Corey 47:21

Yeah, yeah, for fucking sure I do. I'm sure you can find all sorts of anecdotes like that. Do I believe that's why they lost that by-election so badly?

Zain 47:32

We're going to leave that segment there, move it on to our final segment. Stephen Carter, it's our over, under, and it's our lightning I don't know if you know this. I'm just going to read some breaking news. We do it for you.

Carter 47:41

I thought there was going to be breaking news about Trump. I was all excited. Do you want to talk Trump?

Zain 47:46

By the way, we should mention to people, we had a banger of an episode in which I clearly state and make the record clear that Donald Trump is a great

Zain 47:57

I say that in the episode and any context that is missing from this will be found in that. Please don't misquote me. I don't want anyone to misquote me. Yeah. Okay. No,

Zain 48:07

one would. Stephen Carter, tell me this. On the Donald Trump issue, are you in or are you out on July 11th actually being a sentencing date? I'm giving you some time to reconsider. It's three days away from the beginning of the Republican conference this summer where you suspect Trump is going to give a speech. But perhaps more interestingly or importantly, he's going to be naming his vice president as well. Well, Carter, three days before, you're in or you're out that this date's going to stay the same?

Carter 48:38

I am in. It is happening for sure. It is a double down of extraordinary proportions. It is absolutely going to happen. And Corey totally agrees with me, right, Corey? Corey,

Zain 48:47

Corey, do you agree with Stephen Carter? Are you in or are you out on July 11th, the date that has been suggested and has been confirmed as when he gets sentencing to actually hold?

Corey 48:57

I guess I'm in, even though that's not the right bet. But Stephen's running a – he's got a streak going here. I'm riding this hot hand.

Zain 49:06

right, baby. We'll start it with Trump at the lightning round. We'll end with Trump in the lightning round, Carter. But for now, in celebration of the Edmonton Oilers, Alberta's team, as Carter, you've long called them. No. Carter, you've called them that for a long time. Who are they? What

Carter 49:22

sport do they play?

Zain 49:22

play? They play ice hockey.

Carter 49:24

Oh, ice hockey. Yeah,

Zain 49:25

Yeah, yeah, ice hockey. Carter, let's play some games. Let's play some analogies. who is the conor mcdavid of canadian politics right now as i watch him and dry side i'll give a press conference together this inspiration has come to me carter in your mind as we measure it for june which we do often who is the conor mcdavid of canadian politics right now uh

Carter 49:48

uh christia freeland you know really talented but under underutilized okay

Zain 49:54

okay your one fact has come

Zain 49:57

limitations this time on Conor McDavid. Yes, Corey Hogan, the Conor McDavid of Canadian politics is?

Corey 50:03

It's not Hed Nenshi.

Corey 50:05

Really talented individual performer. He's never going to win this team game and take it all the way.

Zain 50:13

like something I can condone

Corey 50:14

condone you saying, Corey.

Zain 50:16

Who's the Leon Dreisaitl, Corey, of Canadian politics right now? Do you know anything about Leon Dreisaitl? The less you know, the better.

Corey 50:21

Zane, I'm going to level with you. I don't know know anything about hockey from like the last four years okay yeah

Corey 50:29

yeah okay go for it leon

Carter 50:30

leon dry sidle though sounds uh well then i would say it's definitely

Zain 50:35

sounds about right hey carter speaking of mark carney are you in or are you out on the most recent wave are we in the sixth wave the sixth carny wave

Zain 50:45

believe that they've they've biblically this is called the sixth carny wave and is we are in the sixth carny will he won't he yeah it's the omicron

Corey 50:53

omicron variant of the carny it

Zain 50:54

it really is it is the omicron variant of mark carney it is back this time it seems a little bit more organized and frankly it seems a little bit more penetrative than it was uh from a media perspective than the previous one which we've forgotten about already carter the omicron variant that was the goat variant as we talked about uh in retrospect it was called the goat variant okay uh it was probably not the greatest of all time in terms of of infections, but man, was it good at doing its end-use job. And I can say that for reasons I do not want to describe about this podcast. Well, that's really good.

Carter 51:30

That's really good. You're really digging yourself a hole. No,

Zain 51:33

No, it's fine. I'm good with this. That's good.

Zain 51:35

I like you digging a hole. I'm feeling this analogy, okay? I'm feeling this analogy, okay? Carter, what

Zain 51:40

what do we think of the Omicron variant of Mark Carney?

Carter 51:44

Listen, he just gets stronger and stronger with With each new variant that comes out, he just gets so much stronger and it impacts and infects more people. So I'm very pro Omicron, Omicron Carney.

Zain 52:00

Corey, will this finally get the political, this is an analogy in its own right, the political anti-vaxxers finally on board to take it seriously?

Corey 52:09

Okay, the Omicron variant sort of looked like it was going to be a big deal. didn't turn out to be like as as deadly but it spread far and wide much like the conversation about mark carney at this point but i ultimately think uh we're kind of at the end of this overall thing known as uh the liberal party of canada so like this variant is just not particularly

Corey 52:32

it's just not as significant well there there you go carter

Zain 52:34

carter i told you i'd start with trump on the lightning round i'm going to end with trump at the lightning round excellent steven carter uh cory get the recorder ready i hope this whole thing's been recording but but get get a secondary recorder ready because we're getting

Corey 52:45

getting i mean it is a podcast trust me

Zain 52:48

okay because carter here we go yeah

Zain 52:52

will donald trump be facing any jail time

Carter 52:59

he will be facing just under one year okay

Corey 53:01

okay so this okay you think from this church from this

Carter 53:05

this from this from 10 months how wow

Zain 53:07

wow oh that is

Zain 53:09

bold prediction that is 10 months and And Corey's question is my second question, because I thought you were going to say no, but of course you wouldn't. We should know you better. When

Carter 53:17

When is he going to serve this time?

Carter 53:20

Oh, well, I mean, in my perfect world, he stands

Carter 53:24

stands up, they put him in cuffs, and they take him to the orange jumpsuits at

Corey 53:29

You think he campaigns behind his self? He'll be, like, pending an appeal or something, I bet.

Carter 53:33

I would imagine that he will be released on appeal. and it will be i

Carter 53:37

mean it's it's gonna be something it'll be something for sure i think it'll be something even if it's like uh house arrest can i count house arrest he's

Zain 53:47

he's downgraded let's just get rid of the second part for posterity we're gonna go with yes and 10 months or no what did you say one year 10

Zain 53:55

months something less we've got two recorders on i don't care we've got a backup recorder on it just to make sure i knew this would be i mean this would be great uh cory um is donald trump going to be facing prison time uh

Corey 54:08

uh i am going to say no yeah that's i'm going to say no because i think that well shit but carter's been right about this i'll just say off the top but i'll tell you he's like a guy in his 70s

Corey 54:20

70s who's a first-time offender for a non-violent offense 34

Zain 54:24

yeah but he's also such

Zain 54:26

fucking prick to the judge that and they could also take that

Corey 54:29

that That's why it's

Zain 54:30

it's 10 months. But I actually

Corey 54:31

actually think that's almost, that's why I think it's going to go the other way. I think that with the lights on it right now, and everybody's saying, should the justice system be used this way, they were going to be super mindful of how they would treat other defendants in this particular matter.

Carter 54:43

No, I don't know. That's what I think. It's pretty good. And that's why he's going to go to jail.

Zain 54:49

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1807. My name is Zane Belcher. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we will see you next

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