Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is the Strategist episode 1811. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Now, I've given both of you an opportunity to change your mind. I need you to know that.
Zain
0:12
Okay? Yeah. You did.
Corey
0:14
Should have taken it. Both
Zain
0:17
With hindsight. Carter doubled down. Corey, I think, was joking with us.
Zain
0:23
you guys were both wrong. I
Carter
0:24
I think he doubled down. I think he expected it. holy shit we were both wrong shit guys it's
Corey
0:29
it's got to be pretty big to make us record 10 hours after our last recording yeah
Corey
0:34
yeah no it's is that that's what's it is that all
Carter
0:36
all it was because i was asleep
Corey
0:37
asleep this is a record this is a strategist record i'm really proud of us we've
Corey
0:40
we've never been wrong so quickly
Corey
0:43
that we need to record
Zain
0:43
record an episode within 10 hours and and you know the wisdom you bring from the sidelines is really going to be helpful and that
Corey
0:49
was last episode's bit that's what we called last episode yeah oh
Zain
0:52
oh no okay we have to leave that behind oh we don't we don't carry three through
Carter
0:59
we need new bits every show in this way i mean granted this is in the same 24 hour period yeah but it's
Zain
1:04
it's a different calendar
Zain
1:06
okay so carter go ahead tell us what it's going to be as
Zain
1:09
as as you are the noted comedic genius of this podcast yeah no
Carter
1:13
no i have no bits i i carter has
Zain
1:15
has no bits that's
Corey
1:16
that's the bit i
Zain
1:16
i like it that's pretty good
Corey
1:17
good it's pretty good yeah no
Corey
1:20
no pretty good pretty good we could make that work could
Corey
1:24
could mean a bunch of things we could make no bets work
Corey
1:30
all right so we went to bed last night all of us together in one bed as is all of us as is normal me in the middle our
Corey
1:36
our douglas mattress uh which they always sent us one you know it was did we ever get that mattress or have you guys just been crashing at my house waiting for that mattress for a very long time well you know how it is um the liberals when we recorded were up about five which was a tightening from about 10 when we started recording right when i went to bed last night it which was like 12 30 i was staying up trying to see the results
Corey
2:02
and um the liberals were only up by one and a half it was starting i didn't i didn't realize it
Zain
2:07
it got that close yeah
Corey
2:08
yeah i was sending you guys texts but you were both asleep yeah yeah i was in bed well yeah with me i know i
Zain
2:13
i could see that you weren't
Zain
2:15
phones but sound asleep but
Zain
2:16
but c'est la vie uh
Zain
2:19
a good time to mention carter's got no bits
Corey
2:28
really woke up this morning
Carter
2:29
really hurts me and
Corey
2:30
and uh drama drama yeah
Corey
2:34
yeah of the highest order and so like give us a top line boy like not a lot has changed since last night like we saw it tightening up we knew that the liberals had shed you know they won that by what 25 points 24 points the election had 24 points
Corey
2:49
and we were seeing them look like they were maybe going to win by when i went to bed one and a half like and so in a way you
Corey
2:54
you know not a lot changed since then but that's a pretty important further four points that they managed to shed right and now everything's different maybe
Corey
3:05
maybe i mean i'm curious to hear your guys thoughts on this but this is certainly hitting
Corey
3:11
know the socials i think carter you and i have actually both talked to people in ottawa since this happened a
Corey
3:19
little bit of pee in pants right now i think yeah
Carter
3:23
are actually i believe the it's actually shitting their pants i don't think it's just a little bit of urine dripping out that's that's normal for people my age this is an absolute it's 8 10 10 in the morning.
Zain
3:34
We don't need your shock jock takes on
Zain
3:37
this stuff. It's scatological humor. We're better than this, okay?
Carter
3:41
No, we're not, really. But they are crapping their pants. The truth is that a three-point victory means one thing. A two-point loss means something completely different. And because there's no way, you
Carter
3:56
you know, we talked yesterday, Zane, you got us talking about how to spin this both ways. Yeah,
Zain
4:00
Yeah, I did. There
Carter
4:00
There was a spin for the Liberals last night.
Carter
4:04
Um, I'd be really hard pressed to come up with a, anything vaguely resembling a spin for the liberals right now. I did a little, little bit of research this morning. Only 45 ridings fared better than Toronto St. Paul's in the last election. So if you're one of the other 115 members of the, of parliament, you are shitting your pants right now because the lies that you may have been telling yourself, we can get over the top. I've got the, I've got the, uh, the special sauce. i've got the ability when it's a 20 point 26 point shift when you lose nine points and the and the conservatives gain 17 points in toronto in
Carter
4:45
in toronto like there is almost no way that that a an mp in in uh the lower mainland is waking up today going oh this is good this is fine it's fine it's
Carter
4:58
it's not fine everybody's going to be shitting their pants
Corey
5:00
pants look i mean by elections Actions are weird, and people can convince themselves of that. But just to, I think, further underline Stephen's point here, inexplicably, David Coletto and Eric Grenier managed to get out a joint piece this morning before I was even awake. I mean, weird.
Corey
5:17
weird. Congratulations. Pretty good, actually. Hey, look at that. And this
Corey
5:24
this is a direct quote from it. 2011, when the Liberals held on to only 11 seats in Ontario after its worst performance in party history, the Liberals still won Toronto St. Paul's by nine points.
Corey
5:36
So here we're facing down kind of something pretty seismic, if
Corey
5:41
if you're the Liberals. If you
Corey
5:43
you want it to be. Like, you can read this and you can freak out, for sure. There's
Zain
5:46
There's a few dates being thrown around here, right, Corey? 2011, one of them, the Ignatius cratering. The low water of the Liberals. Yeah. 1993, also being thrown out this morning, right? As we recall, the historic PC cratering, and could this be similar in scope and size?
Zain
6:05
Let me ask you this. Let me go with Carter's sort of academic
Zain
6:09
academic sort of thought exercise here, and I'll start with you, Corey. As far as I understand it, we're recording at 8.15 in the morning right now on Tuesday, our time, Mountain Time. I
Zain
6:19
I have not seen a statement by the liberals.
Corey
6:24
No, I haven't either. The last thing that was on the prime minister's social feeds was like, hey, tough luck, Oilers. And so I think that there's probably a bit of a regrouping going on right now. What
Zain
6:36
What advice would you offer in that regrouping this morning?
Corey
6:41
Yeah. Well, obviously, you've got three envelopes, right? You know, you had scenario of a pretty convincing win, scenario of close win, scenario of close loss. And hopefully, the liberals aren't thinking about what this means for the very first time. And hopefully, they can give it a little bit more thought than perhaps what we've provided. But I think you have to go with something along the lines of, you
Corey
7:04
you know, by-elections are, you
Corey
7:07
you know, they're unique beasts. This is not a general election, but we received a message and we take that message seriously from the voters. And we'll be working very hard over the next year to re-earn the trust of the voters of Toronto St. Paul's. And this is the first step in a march towards a general election. Like, I think you have to take that we lost the battle, but not the war approach in your communications. But you have to acknowledge you lost the battle. Like, there's no polishing this turd to the point where you could say, no sweat, right? You will look out of touch. The panic in your caucus will become multiplied because people will say they don't even fucking understand how terrible this is. And that's a very dangerous place to be. One where it doesn't look like you can even properly assess the size of the hole that you're in. So you've got to acknowledge the hole. But you've also got to chart a path out of that hole with your messaging this morning.
Zain
7:59
Carter, talk to me about what
Zain
8:01
what we chatted about last night.
Zain
8:03
Is this going to finally stimulate caucus to send a letter publicly voice out those that are circling the prime minister for his job? Is this going to, is this it? It's a loss. It's a loss of a major Toronto seat that you have held for a generation without exaggeration.
Zain
8:25
What will this cause now? What should it cause? If you were advising folks that called Stephen Carter this morning saying, okay, I feel like I finally got a bit of courage behind me. These numbers are starting to prove that I might be a bigger person than i was 12 hours ago steven what should i do i
Carter
8:44
think that if you are feeling rebellious and you want to be a rebel you've got every every every sign points to being a rebel uh i mean and keeping in mind there's there's there's still only a limited number of cabinet seats and limited number of appointments so there are people uh that are looking from the outside in saying uh Not only did I not get what I wanted in terms of appointments to the big chairs, I'm also stuck here potentially
Carter
9:16
losing my seat, right? And I'm not going to go down with this particular ship for no reward. So, yeah, I'm going to step out and start making telephone calls. I think that the first thing that anybody's going to do is just telephone calls.
Carter
9:31
Is there a momentum? Is there a shift? Is there anything that anybody will do for me? because I don't think that anybody steps out on their own.
Carter
9:39
I'm going to look for 10 or 12 of my colleagues, backbenchers.
Carter
9:46
Are they willing to step out this time with me? I'd be making my calls to the potential leadership candidates. If this was to happen, are you actually in? I've heard rumors that you're out. Well, what if we actually force something? So
Carter
10:01
So I would think that people's cell phone bills, if we still charged by the cell phone call. They'd be up. There'd be a lot of long-distance fees on those cell phone calls right now. But the
Carter
10:12
the first calls are going to be to leadership candidates, are you still interested? And to colleagues, would you sign a letter with me? What if we acted together? But I don't see anybody taking individual
Carter
10:23
individual action. Oh, and the other thing is, expect a bunch of cabinet ministers to say, you know what? I'd like to spend a little more time with my family. uh that probably is going to be happening too within the next three months cory
Corey
10:35
cory what do you think i
Corey
10:37
don't know i i actually think that when you hit a moment like this and all of the conversation shifts so rapidly and so aggressively people
Corey
10:47
do do individual things and maybe they're not even calculated but maybe they come from a place of panic and i wouldn't be remotely shocked shocked. Yeah, I wouldn't be remotely shocked to see an MP or two or three come out in the next little bit saying, well, I really have respect for the guy, but maybe he needs to heed what the voters are saying on this or reflect deeply on his future. Again, you don't need to go all the way to 11 on the dial, right? Like you can kind of just go up a little bit here. But the other thing I do want to mention and make sure I throw on the table here is if
Corey
11:18
if you want to be a rebel at at this moment it's
Corey
11:21
it's not just that you've got more proof points but you think about how weakened justin trudeau is by this i would argue you
Corey
11:29
want to be a rebel at this moment there are likely no consequences you can probably call for the prime minister to resign because
Corey
11:36
because if he throws you out of caucus he could he might just trigger something that he can't control and so that's gonna be part of the calculation for the pmo as well and are you worried about being in a future cabinet there's not going to be another cabinet shuffle before the election short of like replacing individual ministers who might resign yes and um
Corey
11:54
um he's not going to be prime minister after the next election that's fucking clear so if you're a rebel your consequences are looking pretty modest and and that's going to pay into some of the calculations this morning too talk
Zain
12:06
talk talk to me about this carter talk to me about the not just the individual candidates and like what sort of courage they they may find this morning. But talk to me about the liberal strategy in this by-election. I don't want to do a bit of like a hindsight 2020 thing, but the liberals did pour resources into this. Money, cabinet ministers, prime minister,
Zain
12:29
Did they elevate the bar for what this particular by-election would mean? Or did they have no choice? This had to be the right strategic move. And would we have asked this on a win? Maybe, maybe not. But they lost. So we should examine it. The strategy aspect of, you know, often we say these are supposed to be indictments against the government. We shouldn't read into them so often. But the liberals responded with pouring resources into it. Was that the right move, Carter? carter i
Carter
13:00
think it was absolutely the right move it was the only move to be made because you certainly don't want to send the b team in and hope for a win uh and then lose by you
Carter
13:09
you know 10 points i mean if you'd set the beat the
Carter
13:13
the b team in and uh and things went even worse um i mean arguably though maybe the b team would have done better i mean at this stage the the conventional thinking within the liberal party of canada is not delivering the outcomes that are expected and um you know we can pin some of it on the leader but maybe some of it is strategic mistakes that are being made at the uh at the level of the of the of the brain trust but um i think i think a more plausible action a reaction is that this is the the coach's fault right this is uh this isn't the this
Carter
13:50
this isn't the people on the ground trying to execute the plays this is the coach and therefore Therefore, the coach needs to go.
Zain
13:57
Corey, did they have any strategic options other than to pour resources in and win at any cost sort of thing? And is this even more damning, I guess, now that you acknowledge that they did put all of these resources in? It wasn't just, you know, they left Leslie Church on her own. They put a lot of stuff into trying to win this thing.
Corey
14:16
They both had no choice and it was very damaging. And the
Corey
14:20
scenario in which they didn't put the resources in and still lost is almost like, you
Corey
14:27
you know, malfeasance. You know, you lost a seat and you didn't even fucking show up to fight for it. People would be rightly
Corey
14:34
rightly very, very mad at all sorts of people within the Liberal Party. You've got to fight for these things when it becomes clear. and and it would again it would look like you wouldn't even you didn't even know what was going on right like you didn't even realize this seat was at play you were off you know fucking about in quebec or bc or having vacations you know grill parties whatever that
Corey
14:53
that would look really bad so you had to show up you had to fight for you had to do what you could to get the seat but now
Corey
15:00
now you did right and one of the lines that the trudeau government has been using for a while is well you know the voters aren't paying attention yet the voters aren't paying attention we're not in an election these aren't things that people care about at this particular moment well
Corey
15:13
well i get the sense the voters of toronto st paul's were pretty keyed in and yeah
Corey
15:18
as keyed in as they were and acknowledging entirely that by elections are often used to send governments messages
Corey
15:26
this is this is fucking terrible for the liberals um because it it undercuts the suggestion that if you just give liberals liberal
Corey
15:34
liberal voters um you know the opportunity to vote for liberals they'll take it. There's not as much evidence of that today as there was hope of that yesterday.
Zain
15:44
Carter, was this, do you buy into this being, at
Zain
15:47
at least from some of the narrative leading into this election result, that this was going to be a referendum on the prime minister? Is this anything else? Does this have anything to do with the local candidates? Leslie Church today, you know, we talked about her in the past, because she's a former political staffer very close to Krista Freeland. Is there an element there around her not being from the riding? Or do you just kind of like Occam's razor, this was about the prime minister, very clearly, very cleanly in that regard. How do you kind of read those results, at least a few hours in retrospect right now?
Carter
16:20
I think that the candidate was a star candidate, at least as close to a star candidate as you're going to get in these circumstances. Leslie Church, on her own, is a very accomplished person. the connection to uh freeland makes her i think even even more of a star and uh the fact that she lost is a uh direct slap in the face to the party i mean this is the leaders and it doesn't take an awful lot of strategic advice or strategic reflection uh to see that what everybody is talking about is the leader right they're not talking about uh even the carbon tax uh they're talking about the leader and the leader's performance. So I think that this would be impossible to lay at the feet of Leslie Church. It's impossible to lay at the feet of those who are designing and executing the campaign. And instead, I would say that this is the natural outcome of the leader not being popular. That is Occam's razor. And I think that we need to uh to
Carter
17:25
to follow that particular line of thought because that's not it's
Carter
17:29
it's really just not that much more complicated than that all
Zain
17:32
all right what do you think about the candidate about the question of referendum against uh the leader yeah
Corey
17:38
yeah it's true that leslie church is is an incredibly competent and capable individual but it's also true that she's directly tied to this particular liberal government in in kind of some very meaningful ways and so if you were looking to to quote-unquote send a message to the Liberal Prime Minister of the day.
Corey
17:57
It's pretty easy to send a message through rejecting Leslie Church. And so that, in the benefit of hindsight, maybe they shouldn't have picked somebody so closely associated with the Liberal Party regime, right? Maybe it would have made a difference of two points. You swing two points, you swing the election. And so that's an unfortunate consequence, and that's part of, that's not on Leslie Church, but that is maybe on the Liberal Party as a whole for not thinking about this thing in terms of what's most likely to win locally. They thought about it in terms of, can we get some really high-quality talent into the caucus? But, you
Corey
18:31
know, there's a risk with such approaches, right? It's been tried many, many times, and that is always the risk.
Zain
18:37
This doesn't make you, like, think differently about your stance on political staffers running for office, does it, to either of you? Well, we had this conversation a few months ago,
Corey
18:48
it's interesting to me this feels like a shift for the liberals that we've now got political staffers being considered star candidates that wasn't you know it happened but it wasn't really the model before and i think you see why it's not the model right
Corey
19:00
right uh the the liberal party historically being this quote-unquote natural governing party was always looking for community leaders it was the ndp who you kind of went up through the party ranks and then decided to ultimately become a candidate the liberals yeah
Corey
19:13
the liberals constructed themselves a little bit bit differently. And I'm not going to pretend it never happened. I'm not going to pretend that political organizers didn't get elected. But often it was like, yeah, you're a great political organizer. Now go show me you're a great lawyer, go show me you're a great community builder, and then you get to run, right? So it does feel like the liberals have turned into this permanent political machine, where you just work your way up the ranks in a way that, again, you can kind of, it's so easy at a moment like this to say, that model's broken. I'm not sure it is. But you can can see some of the risks with that model at a moment like this carter
Zain
19:46
carter talk to me about your favorite subject maximizing
Zain
19:53
how does pierre pauliev maximize the pain felt by the liberals here there's obviously it's going to happen naturally considering all the attention resources that were put into this but there's also things you can do and there's also things you can over overcorrect on to perhaps harm your own position. So talk to me about how Pierre Polyev needs to think about this. It's an easier strategy than perhaps what Justin Trudeau has to do this morning. But how does he maximize pain and minimize downside risk or any sort of negative residue on himself and his team?
Carter
20:29
Well, I'm already fascinated by it, Zane, because I'm watching him go out and say this is a carbon tax referendum. I would suggest that this was a lot of things, but not a carbon tax referendum. And instead of putting the pressure on the prime minister, instead of saying that this is the result
Carter
20:42
result of weak leadership, he's saying this is a result of a bad policy. And that fits his narrative. But changing leaders may not fit Pierre Polyev's strategy. He's calling for an election right now. Now, any
Carter
20:59
any distance between him, the
Carter
21:01
the way I'm reading what Pierre Polyev has responded is that he wants Justin Trudeau to lead the Liberals into the next party or into the next election. Yes, that
Carter
21:09
is the primary piece. And he wants Justin Trudeau to keep his unpopular positions on carbon tax, keep his unpopularity front and center. And so the attack that Pierre Palliev has put on the liberals has nothing to do with what we are suggesting is the reason that the liberals lost this by-election. And I think that that's very telling because it's showing exactly what Pierre Palliev does not want. He doesn't want to see a leadership—he doesn't want to oppose someone else. He wants to oppose Justin Trudeau, his unpopular carbon tax, and take this 27-point shift or 26-point shift all across the country. Corey,
Zain
21:57
Corey, this is kind of exactly where I wanted to go, because in some ways, this is great news for Pierre. In other ways, this is like, oh, no, he could leave, and I don't want to risk him leaving. Talk to me about that. Where's
Corey
22:08
Where's your head at? Yeah. I mean, there's so many places we could go with it. I'll say like with just a couple of exchanges I've had with conservatives I know this morning across the country, there is kind of this giddiness mixed with, fuck,
Corey
22:20
fuck, is this too good? Is this asshole going to leave? Like that's sort of them and their sentiment, right? And we've seen this. We've seen where in Alberta, the NDP poured everything into Jason Kenney as the villain, and then Jason Kenney actually loses. And then there's a new leader of the UCP. And like the baggage just goes with the leader a lot of the time. That's just a reality people have. And so I'm sure they're sitting there saying, okay,
Corey
22:47
okay, we got to be real careful that the way we're stepping on them, you know, like they're on the ground, the way we step on them, can't snap the neck, like it can't disconnect the head here. We've got to do what we can to keep Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party, because that's where our plans are based on. And that's what we're going to be working towards. And hey, as a bit of an aside, like, Pierre,
Corey
23:08
Pierre, how long are your slogans going to get? Like your tweet this morning, they wanted to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime. Is this going to be like 30 long by the time we get to the fucking election? Just an aside. but you know you're sitting there and you're probably thinking we've tooled towards this guy we can beat this guy we don't know what the future holds yeah i think that the liberals would have trouble finding anybody at this particular moment but you
Corey
23:36
you know we got a bird in the hand right now that's worth two in the bush so let's not let's not change things so so fundamentally well
Carter
23:44
daniel Smith, when she became leader of the UCP, she didn't have years
Carter
23:49
years to redefine herself. She, you know, these things can move very quickly.
Carter
23:54
And, you know, you're right. The leadership baggage tends to disappear with the new leader. Like this idea that
Zain
24:01
that there's no time left. Is that just a conservative thing? Or do you feel like that applies to all parties in some way? I think
Carter
24:06
think that it's, I think it's a branding thing. I think that the brand is defined so dramatically by the leader at this particular moment in in our in our uh political lives that that it is impossible to imagine the stink of of trudeau surviving well i'll
Corey
24:23
i'll say this like i think the conservatives are better at flipping over when the leader changes certainly in alberta we have so much experience with that and that that's somewhat colors and also taints our view of this but the liberal party the current liberal party is the justin trudeau party it it doesn't look a ton like the liberal parties of yore in many ways And so, it maybe is a bit of a different question at this particular moment for them.
Zain
24:47
That is fundamentally my question, which is, let's say, you know, I want to actually discuss this in two ways. Number one, what does a path look like for someone to take over? Let's speculate recklessly about that. But number two, maybe let's discuss this part first. Carter, I'll start with you.
Zain
25:01
June 25th, question is simple. Is there still time to do this?
Zain
25:06
Well, walk me through the timeline. We've done a timeline thing, I think, a month or two ago, but we've now projected forward a month or two give me your like love rough sense of when
Zain
25:15
when the leadership race would happen would someone have to run on a budget how would these things kind of fall into place give me a sense well
Carter
25:22
well justin trudeau uh steps down to the calgary stampede because that's uh one of his favorite events of the year um doing it in calgary makes all the sense in the world and uh that's in july right so july
Zain
25:34
july you should be serious about that part i don't know if you are you're you're
Carter
25:38
Yeah, I'm always certain.
Zain
25:39
Okay, excellent. The thing is, you have no bits, so I have no idea what you're doing.
Carter
25:44
No. You know what? I have a sincerity problem. Yeah.
Carter
25:46
People misunderstand my sincere. I ran into this on the weekend. Yeah. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Here we are.
Carter
25:55
This is a, you know, Justin Trudeau steps down in July. The party takes two months to determine the leadership rules. and opens it up on August the 31st and the leadership candidates run until what, November the 28th, something
Carter
26:14
something like that. And you run a relatively short leadership process, September, October, November, and you have yourself a brand new leader heading into the Christmas season. That to me would make a tremendous amount of sense. The leader has enough time to put their own spin on the budget and come out the other end with something vaguely defining the Liberal Party. You don't need to run immediately on the budget, but I would. I'd run right on the budget. You've got lots of time. You've got enough time to do it. If you don't think you have enough time, then you slide the leadership into January and present a late budget.
Zain
26:55
Corey, do they have enough time?
Corey
26:58
Yeah, Yeah, I know. I think that they do. Certainly everything Stephen said is possible. I'm not sure you can dig yourself out of a hole that big in that much time. Maybe I'm wrong. But I do think that there's one option that's going to be put on the table pretty quick. If you're a leadership candidate, if you're seriously considering this, if you're a liberal, you know what I would be saying as a candidate? I would say, we
Corey
27:20
we got some work to do. So I'm running. I intend to use the entirety of the mandate that the canadian public gave us which allows them to put the election in 2026 obviously it's a minority government obviously we'd need to work with partners throughout the house of commons but by the way ndp
Corey
27:37
ndp did pretty fucking bad in this by-election they've got some reasons maybe to play a bit of ball here 10
Corey
27:43
but yeah you you start signaling very quickly i'm going to use the entirety of the mandate we're going to rebuild trust with canadians and um and that way when you inevitably win and you have your budget it and you start to retool things, you don't need to go to the polls right away. Now you can easily orchestrate your fall and go to the polls if you decide it's advantageous. But I think you want to start thinking now about how you create that future space. And let me tell you, I've worked with a lot of governments and a lot of parties who have sat there in the fourth year and said, oh, we just can't do the fifth. We would look so weak. I hear that all the time. I see no evidence that the public gives a fuck about this. And by the way, you are weak. You are weak right now. So maybe try to find the time to get out of that hole.
Zain
28:29
Carter, do you like this idea? I buy that. You like it? Oh, yeah. Do you like it simply for Trudeau? Or do you like the purchase of the full mandate? And maybe we'll have to explain this to listeners that are not
Corey
28:40
not familiar with the fact. I don't think Trudeau can get away with extending the mandate. Yeah,
Corey
28:43
you think this is only
Zain
28:44
only for a new leader. Okay. So in that sense, Carter, A, do you agree? And B, actually maybe do this first. First, explain to people what this quote-unquote bonus year is, right? Because a lot of people will be like, wait, what? This exists? And secondly, why does it not apply to Trudeau and why does it only apply to someone that comes in to replace Trudeau from a political strategy lens?
Carter
29:06
Well, number one, the bonus year isn't actually a bonus year. We elect on a five-year cycle. We choose out of convention more than anything else to hold the elections on a four-year cycle. Now, this far, you know, we did actually have created these mandatory election dates or election periods, right? Fixed election date legislation has come in in the last decade that is, you know, kind of a universal four years for the provincial and federal governments. But in the Canadian system, it's a five-year mandate. It is not a four-year mandate.
Carter
29:40
People get a little excited because we get confused with the United States, which has, you know, their four-year mandate is in stone. own our
Carter
29:47
our five-year mandate is up to the discretion of the prime minister to call the actual election date until such time as we put in these these fake laws and even these fake laws are so easy to get around right so it is not a uh it's not a difficult lift to put yourself in the position of doing a a five-year run why is it not available to justin trudeau because he
Carter
30:12
he will look so unbelievably unbelievably weak um yes he is weak but if he goes for another year it will be seen to be stealing it because he's been given the first four the other person the new person coming in wasn't given the first three and a half years so it'd be it would be a much easier lift for them to say i'm going to go into the fifth year and then you know orchestrate a fall in the uh spring Spring of 2020, uh, 2026. Corey,
Zain
30:39
Corey, let's talk about the conservatives one more time, which is they
Zain
30:44
have this balancing act right now. How do they weather themselves against something like we just chatted about? Can they? And, and how do they stay disciplined here? Because I'm not sure if you're suggesting this, but the sloganeering was simple and now it's becoming very long in some ways. And I'm not sure if that's a tell, if they've just got micro-targeted slogans for different audiences, but it is now starting to sound like a bunch of word salad. It used to just be axe to tax. Now it's starting to be every issue under the sun that the liberals are weak on. And guys, conservatives, I'm speaking of, they're going to be weak on a lot of issues. So are we going to develop a three-word slogan for a lot of these issues? Like, do you feel like there's a lack of conservative discipline here? And what lessons would you have for them as we go down speculation lane around what we just chatted about, if the liberals try to manufacture what Carter just suggested here?
Corey
31:36
Well, so I totally— Both of you
Corey
31:38
Yeah, I totally agree. Like, I think that right now I'm saying, hey, conservatives, what you're doing is—we've
Corey
31:46
is—we've said this many times, I'll say it again, politics is a feedback loop, right? And politics also often rewards novelty. novelty and so you try something it really resonates so you do a variant of it and you do a variant of it you do a variant of it and at a certain point not only does it not work but you break the original thing and i do think the conservatives are somewhat at risk of that if they continue to create a three-word slogan with the in the middle for fucking everything that the liberals do and and so i would just suggest to pierre polliev your
Corey
32:16
message discipline proved very fruitful don't abandon that it wasn't about the slogan it was about your discipline on this and so don't overlearn or don't learn the wrong lesson from this and and try to keep yourself honed in and like even you
Corey
32:31
know four is just so many acts the tax is is rhymes it's good you know but like as soon as you're in like build the home stop the crime like calm down okay there are other phrasings that you can use for this and um it
Corey
32:45
does sort of speak to the big risk that the conservatives have right now which is they basically
Corey
32:51
basically won the next election last year
Corey
32:55
and so how do you sustain that and how do you sustain it in a coherent way especially if the ground changes fundamentally over the next bit they've got to remember it was the processes that were well run that got them where they were and not the specific words and not the specific approach. And it's so annoying in politics when you do something and it works and it works. And then it forces you to have to do something different, but you have to have like kind of the flexibility
Corey
33:23
and the confidence to be able to throw away a working strategy. That's true in the business world. That's true in politics.
Zain
33:29
Carter, any thoughts on that? And then I've got two final sort of areas I want to cover before we close off.
Carter
33:34
Yeah, I mean, I think that sometimes we just learn the wrong lesson, right?
Carter
33:37
right? Right. We learn the lesson. Instead of learning the lesson about discipline, you learn the lesson that a certain slogan works. Oh, the slogan is what's working. No, it was the discipline. It was the message discipline that was working.
Carter
33:50
know, if you if you learn the wrong lesson in politics, you're you're pretty much dead. You know, I think Danielle Smith has learned the wrong lesson by being so pliable to the right wing. She's losing certain subsets of the other population. So, I'm thinking
Carter
34:07
thinking that Pierre Polyev and his conservative team have learned the wrong lesson about the axe-to-tax structure, and that could come back to haunt them. It won't if Justin Trudeau is the leader, but it may if there's a shift. Corey, one
Zain
34:22
one silver lining for Justin Trudeau, he's probably going to have to squint extremely hard, try to find it and tease it out in the data, but I think it's available in the top lines. Tell me if you agree.
Zain
34:32
The NDP are only at 10 points. Hmm.
Corey
34:37
Yes. Carter, you still win because I think technically they're at like 10.6 points or something like that.
Zain
34:43
that. Yeah. 10 to
Zain
34:43
to 11. They're not at where they were last election. They haven't cratered to single digits, but they're not killing it. It's not like they're picking up the scraps sort of thing. that is
Corey
34:54
is the silver lining
Corey
34:55
lining you've got you've got a well for two reasons first of all it will give you hope as a liberal that maybe during a general election you can really scare the voters into coming i mean it's the standard liberal approach right lend me your vote we've got to stop the conservatives pierre poliev scary right the
Corey
35:11
the other is a little bit more day-to-day a little bit more practical a little bit more immediate which is your
Corey
35:17
your junior partner in the house of commons right Right. Well, they're probably not going to drag me to the polls anytime soon.
Corey
35:25
That would be pretty self-destructive for the NDP as well.
Zain
35:30
is this a silver lining for
Zain
35:32
for Justin Trudeau? No.
Carter
35:34
Well, sure. The NDP suck. The NDP suck as much as I suck. On the other hand, there's virtually no vote for you to go and get. You
Carter
35:42
You know, Corey mentioned that this is the base. This is the base of the NDP vote. Everybody who switched, switched to blue, kids. Everybody who switched, moved to the other team. you didn't get any uplift that you need so there is no um we talked a lot about the blue orange switchers how the hell does someone switch from orange to blue well they do they switch all the time from orange to blue they
Zain
36:04
they skip red entirely you're just be clear of course they
Carter
36:06
they the the group they hate the most is the red right the the group they hate the most is the red team so they they skip over the team uh that's in the middle and they go right to the other ideological pole and And this time, they want change so bad, they're willing to change over to the conservatives. And
Carter
36:25
man, if I'm the prime minister, I'm looking at that and saying, that 10 points isn't moving anywhere, and the five that did move, or the six that did move, moved to the other guys. That's not a good sign. Corey,
Zain
36:36
Corey, does that persuade you? Is that a good argument by Carter? Yeah,
Corey
36:40
Yeah, it very much is. And you
Corey
36:42
asked me to squint and find a silver lining, and I attempted to, but he's right. Right. We don't know, for example, maybe the Liberals became conservatives and the New Democrats backfilled on the Liberal side. That's possible, too.
Corey
36:53
But I think it's more likely that people said, hey, now it's finally a chance that we can take down the Liberals. I will say, and we haven't talked a lot about this, but it's also probably going to be said a lot in the next couple of days. Well, yes, the Liberals underperformed, but are they really going to do that bad? Or were Liberals trying to use this opportunity to get rid of the Prime Minister, too? and you're in a general would those liberals really vote conservative again what
Zain
37:18
what do you think of that argument it's a it's a it's a twisted pretzel to even understand for some folks but do you feel like there's merit there um
Carter
37:27
children children playing in their play castle would think that was far look i
Corey
37:33
i think there's something to be said for i'm a liberal i don't like trudeau i can pretty guilt-free do this vote to get rid of trudeau yeah i just like play
Corey
37:43
play that one all the way through so you've got a bunch of people who don't want trudeau to be a liberal and you're like that's gonna work out well for me in a general election like you know maybe it's not highlighting the same problem but it's highlighting a big fucking problem so so your choices are either
Corey
37:58
this is the natural state of play in which case the liberals are in a lot of trouble you know this is one of 11 seats they held onto in Ontario, or this isn't, but liberal supporters are so mad at the leader, so desperate to get rid of the leader, they're going to vote for the Conservatives at a moment like this. And that tells you a lot about your organization and your organizational health. So, you know, pick your poison, but it's poison either way, right? Arsenic or cyanide, go.
Zain
38:23
Carter, okay, voter turnout here, just shy of 50%, which is higher than what we've seen in by-elections in the past at the federal level. I do want to focus on something
Zain
38:35
something particular because leading up to this election, the Jewish community in Toronto St. Paul's said that they wanted to make their voice heard. Now, in the data, I don't personally, you guys may have a better sense of it. I don't know just yet if that community has it. It makes up a sizable 15% chunk of Toronto St. Paul's. They said they were frustrated with, I'm paraphrasing here, frustrated with Trudeau, wanted to send him a message, right? He, you know, fair weather friend to Israel. We heard those sort of terms being thrown out prior to this by-election.
Zain
39:04
Carter, what is your thought, less so about this by-election, but about by-elections that have relatively modest voter turnout and one maybe not so sizable group in the general, but definitely sizable in a riding to riding level, being able to fundamentally influence this election? And to be clear, I'm not sure if that exactly happened here. We know there was ambitions for that to happen. But I want to maybe examine like a more zoomed out question around political influence and advocacy of certain community groups or certain coalitions that exist in perhaps modest numbers, but they are not so modest when it comes to something like this, are they?
Carter
39:41
Well, I mean, I think you can see that there are groups
Carter
39:44
groups across the country that are dissatisfied. You've got, you know, and it doesn't just happen in our political system either. There's groups that were organizing against Biden from, you know, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian and youth groups that were organizing votes against Biden. There have been, there are tremendous upsets within the Hindu community about Trudeau's treatment of Moti. There are concerns by, you know, the sick population. Every group has its grievance against the current government
Carter
40:18
government because that's what grievance
Carter
40:21
grievance politics is never against the opposition. Oh, the opposition's not done a good enough job for us. Grievance politics takes its form traditionally against the government of the day. And right now, whether you spin the wheel of minorities, you're going to find groups a lot more groups that have the grievance than groups that are comfortable with the government at this particular point in time. And that may just be a symptom of going for the fourth term. There's a reason why people don't get their fourth term. There's
Carter
40:52
There's a reason for it. And the grievances add up. It's not our position. It's not our place to evaluate the strength of the grievance. Let's just recognize that the grievances add up, they're real to those folks, to those people. And whether it's the Jewish population, the Hindu population, the Sikh population, there are so many people with so many grievances that, you know, how if you're Trudeau and you're running his campaign, do you start ticking off all of those boxes that you need to have in order to have the fully functioning coalition that you brought to the table in 2021? 21? Corey,
Corey
41:28
Corey, what do you think? Well, it's an interesting point. It's certainly true that governments tend to accrue baggage over time. And Stephen's exactly right. This is why governments, they just have a shelf life, right? At a certain point, they just got to go. Because in this democracy, they have to make decisions and people hold on to the decisions they disagree with more than the decisions they agree with. That's just life. That's reality. I wonder, as Stephen was was talking this out if there isn't um let's i don't know if i'd call it an opportunity or a risk or both with the liberals given the demographic considerations in toronto st paul's right 15 percent uh vote of the jewish faith well if you're the trudeau liberals in a way does this help you hand wave it away say look we we obviously know this is a very charged matter israel hamas war we know that the liberal party has been hearing about it from from all
Corey
42:21
all sides, right? And our position has been difficult, but we think it's the right one and it's balanced. Like, I'm imagining you're the PMO here, right? You're sitting there. And this is not necessarily going to be a kind of a consideration in the general election down the road. There are some very specific considerations in this matter that make the by-election a little bit different than advertised.
Corey
42:44
Does that maybe give you sort of a way that you can squint and say this wasn't all our fault or that's not all so bad. But that's also why I say it's a risk, right? Because if you are, A, if you're willing to hand wave that away, what roads are you going down? B, that's
Corey
43:01
that's a real problem for you. You're the Liberal Party of Canada. You've got very strong base in Toronto and in Montreal. And there's a pretty sizable Jewish population, there's a pretty sizable Muslim population in both of those centers. And so if you're really being torn to pieces is on this particular matter on the Middle East, that's
Corey
43:20
that's a real problem. That's not like a region, like that's a big problem, I guess, in the sense of geography. That's not a problem that's isolated to one writing. It's obviously a real problem in all contexts, but it's not a geographically isolated problem.
Zain
43:33
This is going to sound crass, but let me talk about it. Do you feel like the Trudeau government and Trudeau as a liberal party, more so than the government here, can kind of look look at that, accept the results, you know, lick their wounds over the course of the next little bit, but say, yeah,
Zain
43:49
Israel-Palestine is going to not be the ballot box it was right now. It won't be then. This community will have a chance to kind of, like, you know, it's one of those squint exercises that often political parties and campaigns like to do, being like, oh, we just got screwed by the ballot box question. Or, you know, oh, damn it, like that group was just too well well-organized, but that's not going to be an issue. Temperatures will simmer, you know, like sort of thing.
Zain
44:15
Talk to me about a political, because we've been in conversations like that. Oh, yeah, for sure. But
Zain
44:19
all been in conversations like that. 100%.
Zain
44:23
Talk to me about that line of thinking and its extrapolation going forward to whether that be in one year, two years, whenever the next election is. Is there some logic and some history to prove what I've just thrown out there, maybe clumsily, as being accurate, or even a productive line of thinking, or no?
Carter
44:42
It's the lies we tell ourselves. Those
Carter
44:44
Those are the lies we tell ourselves. This one, you know, the election question that we had control of in this by-election
Carter
44:51
turned out to be, you know, not the one that was right. I mean, you have agency
Carter
44:56
agency in this thing. You know, this idea that everything just happens to you. Oh, no, how bad was that? You have agency to define the election question. if this was defined as the election question for you and you still lost like that tells you that you the the agency that you thought you had was incorrect don't project forward that suddenly your agency is going to become uh stronger in the future right right it doesn't get stronger in the future the agency is the agency and if you can't control the election question uh in a by-election what makes you think you can control the election question in a general i
Corey
45:32
i mean I couldn't agree more with that. It's 100% true.
Corey
45:36
You look at these things and again, it's kind of almost confusing like the symptoms or understanding what the root cause is here. But yeah, you lost on a ballot question. It was disadvantageous to you. How the fuck did you get there?
Corey
45:50
Right? How the fuck did you get there? And what do you think is fundamentally going to be different that's going to allow you to control the narrative next time? It's not a roulette wheel where it comes up red or black and you've just got to wait for your spin and you get the ballot question
Corey
46:03
that is what we do that's the whole point of political strategy we say this all the time like it's to control the ballot question and you just didn't do it you just failed on controlling the ballot question right
Zain
46:13
right right it wasn't like a 50 50 odd coin flip and you have a greater chance to win the next one yeah i mean
Corey
46:18
mean if there's randomness in here it's that
Corey
46:21
it's a way to die and you should have won this riding this was a riding that the liberals won
Zain
46:28
carter anything else to talk about i'm going to the over under next so it is for you the rest of the show but maybe i'll ask you no
Carter
46:33
no let's move on to me let's move let's move it on
Zain
46:36
on to stephen carter's over under and lightning round this is going to be very exciting this is going to be very very exciting um stephen carter let
Zain
46:44
let me talk to you about this secondary
Zain
46:50
from this i'm giving you three options okay
Zain
46:56
freeland or sing you can also choose other and
Zain
47:00
give me your own answer who's the secondary loser for
Zain
47:05
for this toronto state bulls by election lost by the trudeau liberals i
Carter
47:11
mean i'm inclined to go with sing but i actually want to go with the green party of canada which dropped uh two-thirds of their vote in this by-election uh normally they're a place where you can see protest votes kind of pop up but the the green party of canada lost two-thirds of their votes and uh you
Carter
47:31
you know to just i i think that the green party of canada would be as concerned about a liberal government as anybody you're
Zain
47:37
you're going with the green party of canada well
Carter
47:40
the other choice was the the people's party of canada and which dropped to uh 0.6 percent i
Zain
47:46
i think that one's more interesting i actually do think that one is more interesting than yeah me too actually okay yeah cory i'm gonna give you the three choices but Richard, of course, just like Carter, you can go off-menu. We have
Corey
47:56
have agency. Church Freeland.
Zain
47:57
Freeland. We have agency. Church Freeland, sing or do you want to go on your own? Who's the secondary loser of this Toronto St. Paul's bylaw? Well,
Corey
48:03
Well, look, the real answer is,
Corey
48:07
it's probably church, right? But let's go a little bit off-menu here and say the secondary loser is Francois-Philippe Champagne because
Corey
48:18
it's that much more likely you were going to be asked to be the leader of this party before the next election and then go lose the next election rather than get to come in afterwards. And like,
Corey
48:28
like, it doesn't even need to be him. It could be anybody who thinks that they want to be leader.
Carter
48:32
Yeah, it's Mark Carney. It's
Corey
48:33
Carney. It's whoever wants to be leader, because now you're going to be forced into this decision sooner, potentially.
Zain
48:39
Let's let that play out. And then we'll talk about the candidates and who these folks could be and what happens in the go forward. There's a lot of story to be written, even in the next 24 to 36 six hours uh cory i'm gonna start with you secondary
Zain
48:54
for this race i've
Zain
48:56
i've got only two options for you so you you may want to go off menu okay is it is it the jewish uh community in toronto st paul's who said we were going to be mobilized and active and vote conservative and there was a conservative outcome or
Zain
49:08
or is it the media i've
Zain
49:09
i've got those two options that i'm giving and you choose off menu if you want anyone else uh carter probably will choose the um the centrist party which i believe got seven votes uh well
Corey
49:21
well i think uh
Zain
49:22
laid on me secondary winner secondary
Corey
49:24
secondary winner is definitely pundits because for like a month and a half we've been like what are we going to talk about and now we've done two fucking episodes in 12 hours and we could do three more like we've got a bunch of stuff now on deck so okay
Zain
49:37
i'll take that as media adjacent as pundits carter pundits media the the jewish community in their mobilization for the conservatives here who Who was the secondary winner, Stephen
Zain
49:47
Stephen Carter of Toronto St. Paul's?
Carter
49:50
Oh, no, you were dead on saying the media.
Carter
49:53
We've got a summer's worth of things to talk about. So does the media. This is going to be fantastic.
Carter
50:02
The media is going to, you know, like Justin Trudeau is going to come to the stampede this year and stand around and the scrum is going to be, you
Carter
50:11
know, how are you leading forward, right? This is the whole summer. Every local event that Justin
Carter
50:18
Justin Trudeau goes to is going to be questions around what's going to happen in your future, sir.
Zain
50:23
Carter, I'm going to have to end with this question.
Zain
50:28
Let's fast forward. It's December 31st, 2024. We're rigging in the new year together in our bed. You still got very few, if no bits. Yeah, no bits. Yeah, and we're reminiscing on who the Liberal leader is right now. And we're saying, wow, I can't believe X is
Zain
50:49
is the Liberal leader.
Carter
50:57
It's going to be Mark Carney. Mark Carney is going to be the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada by December 31st, 2024. Fantastic.
Zain
51:09
Fantastic. I was going to ask for you to do it in a full sentence, but you made it so clippable for me on your own. It's almost like you knew. No, I did it. I
Zain
51:14
I did it because,
Carter
51:15
because, you know what? I've never been wrong on these. Corey, who
Carter
51:20
And no soft shit. I want to hear an actual answer.
Corey
51:24
Fuck, I think it's going to, maybe
Corey
51:26
maybe someone out of nowhere, maybe a provincial leader. No, don't hedge. Don't say maybe. No, I don't know.
Zain
51:32
know. We need clean clips.
Zain
51:33
We need clean clips for the prediction.
Corey
51:37
Fuck, it's so tough because the Liberal Party is in such a moribund state and so much of the country.
Zain
51:42
I don't need analysis. We know all this. You've spent 45 minutes talking about this. I just need a name. Just a name. And in a full sentence like Carter.
Carter
51:50
Don't be a pussy.
Corey
51:58
I'm going to give you a little more analysis here, Zane.
Zain
52:00
No, you're not. You're not. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're not. i
Corey
52:10
gilbo is prime minister and leader of the liberal party on
Corey
52:15
december 34 wait what do you need me to say do i need to say this again december
Carter
52:19
december 31st 2024 on
Corey
52:21
on december here we are in our bed our
Corey
52:23
our shared bed our douglas mattress yeah december 31st 2024 wow
Corey
52:27
wow i don't think any of us saw gilbo becoming leader of the liberal party but
Zain
52:33
but here he is We're going to leave
Zain
52:34
leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1811 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belcher. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.