Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is the Strategist episode 1813. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter.
Zain
0:07
Happy Thursday. We are with
Corey
0:08
with you. It is Thursday. You are with me. Please be. Is it happy? It is
Carter
0:13
happy. It's been a week since the debacle of the debate.
Zain
0:21
I wonder if he's recovered.
Corey
0:23
No, he hasn't recovered. It took him 12 days apparently to recover from a flight to Europe, so I don't think he's recovered. you know
Zain
0:29
know what could really help them is a nice flair airlines uh pancake breakfast
Corey
0:35
that does sound good now
Zain
0:36
now is it a pancake breakfast that sounds
Carter
0:38
a great time i
Corey
0:39
i feel like this hashtag
Corey
0:39
hashtag sponsored content like what's going on here just what do you mean what's going on here they literally are only sponsoring this content no are we sponsoring this sorry we are
Zain
0:48
content sorry hashtag ad okay let's talk about it uh flair airlines they're hosting a stampede event okay and it is it is all the rage okay carter a couple questions A couple questions
Corey
0:58
questions right off the bat. Is it
Corey
1:00
it being run by people based in Calgary, or are they going to attempt to fly in to do this event? Oh, they're
Zain
1:06
they're not going to make it. I
Zain
1:08
have opinions. I think the answer is ultimately it's going to be held by the local folks, because the folks will never make it here if there was any travel associated with it. Now, this is a midday event on Thursday, July 11th. Carter, let's talk about the timing of it. Good timing, bad timing.
Zain
1:25
And will it actually happen on time? time
Carter
1:27
it's hard to have well i mean if if you have a breakfast that starts at 11 um it's more likely to happen on time but it's no longer breakfast right well the
Zain
1:36
the the easy the low-hanging fruit the low-hanging fruit for you there would have been to say this thing won't start until four that's
Carter
1:43
that's probably when it will start you know what that's when we're setting up our table to do the live show that's what we're going to do okay
Zain
1:48
should we do a live show here we feel i feel like we could do a live show at the the flare breakfast let me just get the official name the The, the, um, they've got a Flare Artist Center. Uh, this is the pancake breakfast, uh, by, by Flare Airlines. There is an RSVP. I'm not giving out the location. I did give out the date and the time. I don't want to, I don't want people to show up en masse with their strategist mugs and their Zane Velji for leader posters. Okay. I don't want them to do that. That'd be horrible. Okay. I don't want them to do that at an address. It's
Corey
2:19
probably Google-able. It's Google-able. Yeah.
Zain
2:20
Yeah. No, no, no. Like you've got to put in some effort to get there. Absolutely.
Zain
2:24
But I'm sure if people wanted to, they could find out. And if they don't have a ride, we do have a car share service that we're working on today that they could probably get there. But this is July 11th, Carter, 11 to 1 p.m.
Zain
2:38
at the Flair Airlines Pancake Breakfast. Tell me about it. It's going to start at 4? No, no, no, no. Okay. Corey's got thoughts. Sorry. If people are like, how is the sausage made on this show? This is how. This is how we put together our sponsored content. This is the type of discussions we have. i
Corey
2:52
think it's fair to say that the chefs that they hire will time out and so it'll be probably about the next day when they finally get around to their their meal okay that's good that's an airplane joke it was a good one too oh
Carter
3:04
oh man i laughed my ass off it was pretty good yeah pretty good some people
Zain
3:07
people might think this flare bit is getting stale um but it's not i feel like it doesn't no it doesn't evergreen uh cory anything else you want to talk about this breakfast um are you going to be there and are we actually recording at the breakfast because i am available available 11 to 1 on the 11th.
Corey
3:21
I think the odds of me being available are low, but I might still be there.
Carter
3:25
Okay. I'm going to be in Kimberley. Carter, do you want to remote in? Yeah, I'll remote in. I'm actually flying to Kimberley on Flair.
Carter
3:32
So chances of me getting there are pretty slim. Well,
Zain
3:35
Well, chances of you being at the breakfast, very high.
Zain
3:37
So we're going to see you there. This once again is poorly tailored sponsored content. Corey, anything else you want to get off your chest before we jump into our first topic?
Corey
3:47
No, I think that we're all obviously basking in the glow of the positive reviews of the first 20 minutes of of the last episode oh
Carter
3:53
oh my god people loved it how was how was
Zain
3:55
was the reaction lastly as you know i'm not a man of the people despite being the most of the people person here um i like to meet people face to face not on the discord i don't like to read their their chatbot comments uh what were what were these um these fans of ours saying i
Corey
4:12
i think they described the content as um extraordinary okay
Carter
4:20
Yeah. Fantastic in the classic sense of the word.
Corey
4:24
What is a classic? Terrific in the classical sense of the word. Yeah.
Carter
4:31
It was universal feedback, though. There was definitely universal feedback. Everyone
Zain
4:36
Everyone gave feedback. Oh, that's good.
Carter
4:38
Yeah, we got a lot of feedback. And I just
Carter
4:42
just want people to know that we pass it on to our customer service representatives, and you'll be hearing back from them.
Zain
4:47
Yeah, absolutely. Now we know that we got some negative feedback, which is what I assume the coded language of universal feedback was. No, no, no.
Corey
4:54
It was very positive.
Zain
4:56
Was it positive? The fact that we spent $2
Zain
4:58
,000 on a poll that went nowhere? I really don't care about
Corey
5:02
about that. I care
Zain
5:04
zero earned media. you well we
Corey
5:07
we did a whole podcast
Zain
5:08
podcast about it you
Zain
5:09
you say so far
Zain
5:10
you say so the no one covered it i feel like we undercut ourselves zane
Zain
5:16
okay carter it happened okay carter anything else you want to be anything else you want to you want to chat about before we
Carter
5:20
we just want to remind uh cory that he needs to get his afl picks in it's
Zain
5:24
it's true cory you're you're slacking off there uh let's move it on to our first segment our first segment what to do with trudeau guys christopher freeland held a backyard barbecue for the 416 caucus members, and they've come out saying, guess
Zain
5:39
guess what? We need to do better on housing, better on affordability, but we're united behind Justin Trudeau.
Zain
5:46
Let's talk about the Justin Trudeau saga, Corey Hogan. One of the questions that's been, you know, dogging at me since the time we got to record last is, why
Zain
5:54
why the refusal to
Zain
5:56
to meet with the National Caucus? This is a fascinating strategic question for me. And there is probably some strategy behind I just can't see it. So what do you think in your mind? Start with your thoughts on this, Corey. It's been well reported that Trudeau has been wishy-washy, outright rejecting, not accepting, right, to add a
Zain
6:18
a third word, of wanting to meet with his national caucus. Why
Zain
6:23
Why would he not want to do that, Corey?
Corey
6:27
yeah well i guess first of all the charitable reason it
Corey
6:31
it would arguably be because this is a moment where everybody is really in their feelings and he just wants a little bit of space and he wants everybody to calm down so they can have a rational not panicked conversation about what has to come and that's probably more manageable in his mind if it's done in small groups where the overall weight of the conversation can be managed where you have a number of supportive voices in there as well as a few of the skies falling people and this sense that if you have 10 skies falling people in a caucus of 150 but they're all talking one after the other that might feed a bit of panic and feed some of the anxieties that exist with the other members and he just doesn't want that right and so he thinks this is a conversation to have but not at this moment that's my charitable okay that's my charity the
Corey
7:16
more realistic read is he thinks it's going to hurt him and he doesn't want to get hurt and it's as simple as that but you know there's there's always of course a bit of a challenge with that because if it starts to look like you're avoiding that kind of accountability that can exacerbate the problem too the least charitable read and i do want to throw it on the table as well is simply people are asking him to do it and he says this is an affront i'm the leader i get to decide these things and it is a weakening of me if other people are calling caucus meetings. And the least charitable read is it's kind of a petulant reaction to a request for a caucus meeting. Because you know who normally requests a caucus meeting? Someone trying to give you a hard time.
Corey
7:59
There are legitimate reasons to call a caucus meeting, but sometimes when you're really deep in it, you have a hard time kind of acknowledging the legitimacy of those requests and assuming ill intent or malicious intent for all of them. And so that's the least least charitable read there's other reads but those would be the big three carter
Zain
8:17
carter you're not a man of big charity you you've never been a man of supporting big charity give me your least to most charitable read of what's happening here and does it align with cory's my
Carter
8:27
my my least charitable read or my most charitable read my most charitable read is this
Zain
8:32
this i i asked for least here's
Carter
8:34
here's my most charitable okay i'm
Carter
8:35
i'm gonna give you the most first then i'll give you the least i don't really care um here's the least here's the least the caucus leaks like a sieve and any caucus meeting would be uh incredibly painful because people will be leaking whatever anybody says out of that caucus meeting so you can't have a meeting a national meeting where the national media is de facto attending so that's my least charitable read my most charitable read is actually the the excuse that was given today and that excuse that was given today is um we we can't do it for travel reasons no one's you know everybody's off everybody's off doing other things i mean there's 30 mps in calgary for crying out loud there's all kinds of people in all kinds of different places doing their their regular stuff so
Corey
9:24
so your excuse is we can't do it because everybody's in calgary that's that's but also i'm
Carter
9:30
i'm not coming to calgary i'm
Zain
9:31
i'm also not coming to calgary by the way
Carter
9:33
that's one well he's got he's got nato okay i mean nato's important okay
Carter
9:38
nato's important they've got it is
Corey
9:40
is but is this meeting important it
Carter
9:42
it is to him i
Carter
9:44
i'm trying to be the charitable one here be less charitable
Zain
9:47
carter what do you think's going on here i
Carter
9:49
i think he's scared i
Carter
9:51
think he's scared to hold the caucus meeting i think that the fear is that that there'll be a bunch of people calling for his head um in a smaller meeting you can manage it But, I mean, anytime you're trying to do a group engagement with people who are going to be pissed, you do it in smaller groups. It's one of the first communication rules. Yeah,
Corey
10:05
Yeah, it is a rule. You
Carter
10:06
You don't put, you know, 300 people in a room. I did this once. I had a 300-person engagement with the Calgary Board of Education go horribly wrong. It went so bad that the parents that were there, we were trying to manage them so that you would speak in small groups to the trustees. The parents that were there pulled out the bleachers in the gymnasium and demanded that the trustees start talking to them. We literally evacuated the trustees into a hallway. This was all over school lunch programs. I mean, like, it was a fucking gong show. Corey, dude. So people aren't reasonable, and especially they're not reasonable in groups. But
Zain
10:42
But here's the thing, Corey. These are not just people. These are his people.
Corey
10:46
Yeah. And so that is part of the problem, though, Zane, right? On one hand, of course, your caucus needs to be managed. Of course, you can't do stupid things that are going to get you abuse at caucus. But it can never feel like you're managing the caucus. And so one of the interesting things that they are now having to contend with is they are clearly doing the things Stephen said, which is trying to get into small groups to diffuse the situation. And the minute somebody feels they're being managed, your ability to manage them drops to zero. It's probably the same reason why Stephen had that bleacher situation at the CBE, right? It's
Carter
11:19
It's exactly the same. because they
Carter
11:22
they're behind the curtain that
Zain
11:23
that they're that they're that they're actively being contoured in a certain way exactly
Corey
11:29
so you start to see people
Corey
11:32
bridle and and in a way it's a bit of an extension of the last thing where it's like someone's asking for a caucus meeting well fuck them they're not doing it for good reasons the prime minister wants to meet with what's individually well fuck him it's because he's trying to manage this situation and so in general people don't like to feel like they're being led around and being manipulated i think that's so that's both like a super obvious thing to say but it's kind of important in a context carter all that being said
Corey
11:57
said charitable reed non-charitable reed
Zain
11:59
reed is this the right move for trudeau let's let's and i think we the only way you can answer this question is we have to accept a base assumption and let that base assumption be that they want to talk shit to him right
Zain
12:12
right that they're not happy that it's not a a you know pop-out cake
Corey
12:17
get i think it's a caucus meeting where they're gonna be like how how you doing? No, I
Corey
12:20
I don't think they
Zain
12:21
they want a poster signing session, right? I
Zain
12:25
don't think that's... Corey could be right here. I mean, he's been a political practitioner for so long. He's seen it all in the Liberal Party, right? These are... Let's just assume, Carter, they are not happy.
Zain
12:37
Okay. With that assumption, is
Zain
12:39
is he making the right call?
Zain
12:41
Is he, by rejecting their calls, calls charitable non-charitable making the right call i
Carter
12:47
think he is i think that any opportunity you get to i was to buy time you should be buying time and because because when things are
Carter
12:57
time invariably you know loosens the anger and lowers the lowers the temperature so the more time you have between the your caucus meeting and i don't think he's going to get away with not having a caucus meeting until september but if you can have a caucus meeting in august instead of having one in the first two weeks of July. Temperatures are going to go down. Things are going to change. People are going to be thinking about other things for a few months. So I think he's doing the right thing. I could be wrong.
Carter
13:29
The wrong side of it would be if everybody just continues to fester. But
Carter
13:34
But I actually think it's the right thing.
Zain
13:36
Corey, one of the regrets I have is when we abandon the video podcast. I
Corey
13:40
literally screen capped this. i will drop it on the discord uh
Corey
13:44
uh steven your uh your current setup just not acceptable what
Carter
13:49
what do you mean it's not we need to intervene
Carter
13:51
yeah i'm just chilling like a villain man that's what we're doing no
Corey
13:53
no it's like the sharon stone scene almost i'm worried it's gonna break out here can
Carter
13:58
can you see my legs yeah
Corey
13:59
yeah i don't i don't like this very much for
Zain
14:02
for the two visual medium for the two people who listen to the podcast that are sexually attracted to steven this is a uh this is a real miss for them
Corey
14:12
that would be steven as one of those two me
Zain
14:17
myself and i it's three of us cory did
Zain
14:21
did he make the right call is he currently continuing to refute and and rebuff this is he continuing to make the right call i
Corey
14:27
i think that you buy time but only at the right price and a mistake people often make is saying this is generally a good strategy but specifically it can become a bad strategy in in a hurry. That
Corey
14:39
That said, I think it probably is going to work for him okay, but only because he's incredibly lucky. If the entire political world hadn't become just absolutely captured by the Joe Biden story, I
Corey
14:51
think that the MPs would be hearing more about these things. The Toronto St. Paul's by-election would be more on the tongue of the public and the political watchers. And then I don't think his buying time scenario would work at all. Now, maybe if we're being fair to him. He would have picked a different strategy if that wasn't the case. But yeah, there would have been a real bigger risk, I think, if the world wasn't so bloody distracted right now by the implosion of Joe Biden's presidency and candidacy. Carter,
Zain
15:20
Let's say the leader tomorrow, in this case, the prime minister, decides he wants to have this meeting.
Zain
15:26
You are there to set the guardrails for what a successful caucus meeting that the prime minister leads needs needs to look like.
Zain
15:35
Give me, maybe not the agenda, but give me some conversation and some thought on format. And your job here is to protect the principle. And you assume that this is going to be negative news. You assume there's going to be folks that want to be heard. How are you setting this up in the most constructive way possible? So leaving that meeting, whether it be two hours, six hours, a weekend, whatever, and I'll let you kind of suggest what the timeframe needs to be as well. But leaving that meeting, your guy is less scathed than more scathed and i'm keeping a low bar here i'm not saying he's going to win over these people
Zain
16:08
but i'm just saying it's a net it's a net sort of neutral or net w for you give me give me some of the thoughts on how you're setting this up you guys have both been in these sort of meetings often set set this one up for me give me the parameters i
Carter
16:21
i would think of this as like a two phase negotiation where i'm going to come in and the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to throw a bunch of changes onto the table i'm going to say these are the things that we are already going to change and there are going to be you know changes in the party there's going to be changes in the prime minister's office there's going to be changes uh to policy and there's going to be changes to act action how quickly can we act on certain things we're going to make things faster we're going to be more responsive we're going to have different leadership in you know the pmo we're going to have different leadership in the campaign office whatever whatever changes the prime minister chooses to put on the table but those aren't the full set of changes that the prime minister is going to put on they're just the first set of changes and then then the discussion ensues and if people want more changes if people are demanding more then the prime minister has another set of changes that he can pull out of his back pocket and say okay you know what you've you've pushed me to these far changes but this is it this is as far as we can go and uh because you asked for them we're going to now make even bigger changes than and we had discussed before, and I now need to go and implement these big changes that you as a caucus have demanded and outlined to me. So that they feel like, because you don't want to go in with all your changes, and then the caucus says, well, that's not enough, and you don't have another change in your back pocket. You want to go in and say, these are our first changes, or these are all of our changes. And then they say, that's not enough. And you say, tell me what would be enough.
Carter
17:49
And you listen to them, and you hear them, and you say,
Carter
17:53
say, okay, okay, well, I can agree to everything except me not being the leader. So that's what I'm going to do.
Carter
17:59
And I think that that's what the best
Carter
18:02
best case scenario is for the prime minister. It's a two hour meeting, you get, you know, 15 minutes of what the changes you're going to make, hour and a half of listening to, you know, the feedback, and then 15 minutes of, I heard what you said, and here's what we're going to do now. You
Carter
18:16
You know, we've changed our actions, we're going to make them a little bit heavier gory
Zain
18:20
gory is that the right format for you and and what i find interesting about this carter just so i can comprehend
Zain
18:27
comprehend this as well is that this is not just a meeting to be heard this is a meeting we are actually proposing solutions and actions am i understanding that correctly like you you have these in your back pocket because you think do you think a be heard feel heard meeting is not enough to be clear not
Carter
18:44
i think it'd be heard you know i mean i I think that you're going to hear some stuff that's going to be pretty unpopular. So you best be having some actions to ensure that you can remove the very unpopular stuff off the table.
Zain
18:56
Corey Carter's got two sets of recommendations, pulls out both of them subsequently as he needs to be. That's his broader sort of framework. There's, of course, people being able to kind of speak and give me more details. How would you structure this? Give me your sense of what this needs to look like in order to be the most successful for your guy.
Corey
19:14
well i think one of the trade-offs that he made maybe intentionally probably not uh really does affect the format so if he had agreed to a caucus meeting right off the bat he would have a lot more latitude with how it was going to be played out but just as we were talking about the fact that now you're going to have a situation where people feel like they've been manipulated over the summer you're trying to do the small group thing to try to lower the temperatures here we are you're not going to be able to for example open with like a 20-minute presentation on polling and you know all that's going to be ringing in people's ears is fuck you let's get to what we actually need to talk about here so i do
Zain
19:49
options set the agenda that way in that sense you'd kind of no
Corey
19:52
no that's not really on the table anymore at least i mean you're going to have to set the table a little bit maybe you do it with materials ahead of time or whatnot but people will be waiting they'll be champing at the bit waiting to have the conversation that they want to have here so you
Corey
20:07
know my advice to any prime minister's office any premier's office is facing a similar thing is like, you know, anything you do before it, they're not going to hear. So just, you gotta, you just gotta get it out of the way. You find it an opportunity to sort of like reset the agenda being like, okay, we're going to lunch. We're all going for drinks. It's the end of the day and try to reset back to all of that table setting activity you do the very next day. But in that first part where you have to directly address these things, I think Stephen's advice is, is pretty good. I mean, I would, I would make small tweaks, but I don't even think it fundamentally changes what he said it's probably more style stuff that would come out like you don't go in and say here's what i'm going to do i've been thinking about this alone you say hey in those smaller meetings i heard this so here's what here's what i'm thinking we can do based on the conversations i had i'm now validating that with you right i heard these things in all of my calls with you all and all of the meetings i had my team had with you over the summer george i heard you about the carbon tax ken i heard you about my hair you know whatever it is right and you just you go through and then inevitably steven's right your opening bid can't be your your walk away position you've got to have something in kind of the reserve that you can then go and say whoa okay okay i hear that's not enough ken what if i shaved my hair entirely off like you don't have to look at it at all i'm not even saying a short haircut ken no hair that's what i can offer you ken so you know there's got to be that ability but i do think it would be a real fucking mistake to schedule it in such a way that you're doing a bunch of shit nobody cares about or is just like all they can hear is that ringing before this conversation and then you leave with that conversation being the last thing you want the last thing to be your reassertion of the agenda so find a way to insert a hard break and then come back and reassert yourself as prime minister with a plan and do the stuff you normally do at a caucus retreat after carter
Zain
21:58
carter perhaps the most important question in how you structure this thing katie telford or no katie telford
Carter
22:05
um i would probably do this with no staff it
Corey
22:08
has to be no staff you got they got to be out of the room this has actually been a point of contention with the liberal caucus too so that
Zain
22:14
staff are there yes
Zain
22:17
and so you're both you're both aligned on that while
Zain
22:20
while this has to be while this happens there's a lot going on justin trudeau is getting multiple letters sent his way the party's getting letters katherine mckenna's coming out a sitting liberal mp uh george shahal and others have penned a letter to the party, if I'm not mistaken. There's a lot of other action, so to speak. Actually, they penned a letter to the Liberal caucus chair around the party's sort of disappointing result in Toronto St. Paul's.
Zain
22:49
And Justin Trudeau, Stephen Carter, has decided not to attend the Calgary Stampede. He's going to NATO now.
Zain
22:57
Is there a there there as it relates to the prime minister being external, out there, active, prime ministerial, winning votes. Attending NATO is a huge deal, a big job he needs to do. In a sense, only he can do it. But Carter, does he lose anything by not showing up to the kickoff of festival season? And maybe we put too much importance on this because we are Calgarians, but this is a national event. It is a political petting zoo, as folks have called it in the past, and he's not going to be there only the second time that he's refusing to show up.
Carter
23:38
Listen, I think that if I was doing his schedule, I would say, let's put him in a leadership position with the military side. I think that that would be better.
Carter
23:49
better. What do you mean? What does that mean?
Carter
23:51
Go to the NATO event.
Carter
23:53
He's already gotten criticism for going Going to the Toronto event, the Markham event, and dancing around and looking like he was happy after the Toronto by-election loss, do you really want a photo op in a cowboy costume? One more time, when you know that your seat prospects in Calgary are maybe hold one seat, you're not looking at seat pickups, you're not looking at any other opportunities. You say
Zain
24:22
say that rhetorically, but it's a really interesting question. Do you? Do you want the prime minister looking happy and engaged and having a selfie line and people still approaching him?
Carter
24:31
I like him in a suit.
Carter
24:33
I like him in a suit. I like him in a suit. I like him in the place, you know, talking about important matters, talking about NATO deals, NATO issues. I'm not, I mean, I understand. We all were at a stampede event not an hour and a half ago, right? We were all at the same stampede event, and we did the stampede event. We'll all be at George Chahal's breakfast. We'll all be at the Ismaili breakfast. These stampede events are important, but at the end of the day, you see the same people at every event. They're not that, you know, like they're fine. They're absolutely fine events, but they're not like,
Carter
25:12
don't think that the Prime Minister of Canada is going to be determined by whether or not you're at the event you're at the stampede in july uh when the next election is 18 months away cory
Corey
25:24
cory here's here's the thing about that though first of all this nato thing is july 8th to 11th and to your point we were at a stampede event today on
Corey
25:32
july 4th the stampede doesn't even begin until tomorrow but you could be here for literally days and you could still go to nato no sweat no problem absolutely understand you need to prep for these things you have your your own fucking airplane my dude read your briefs and i i just don't think it's realistic to say that nato was the reason that he didn't come to stampede cowardice is the reason he didn't come to stampede now maybe it was tactical and strategic cowardice but it was cowardice it was cowardice of calgary and what kind of reputation he might have here it was cowardice of his mps who have been asking him for a caucus meeting including his only calgary mp and he didn't want to go to calgary And instead they're saying, hey, we're not really available right now. Everybody's very busy. Pretty tough to say when everybody's in the same city. So
Carter
26:17
So when we had, let's just. You weren't talking this way when we had Trudeau on the show.
Zain
26:23
Neither were you. I'm just saying. Neither were you. Neither
Carter
26:24
Neither were you. No, listen, I'm being consistent. I'm being consistent. I folded and I'm still. Now you're
Corey
26:30
you're on team. Yeah,
Carter
26:31
Yeah, I'm on team Trudeau. I
Corey
26:32
I just think we have to be, let's be honest with ourselves. Trudeau can lie to his friends. We can lie to our friends, but let's not lie to each other here. he he's avoiding the calgary stampede he has arguably reasons but he's avoiding the stampede he's not not going to the stampede because of nato that just doesn't jive where's nato
Carter
26:53
nato again where the stampede is
Carter
26:54
is 10 fucking days it's 10 days listen he's got a joe biden problem if he if he tries to travel that far that quickly i mean it's he's going to be exhausted cory
Zain
27:04
cory tell me this tell me this tell me this i i actually find the discussion that's more interesting is Do you want to have your prime minister, given his current political positioning, seen in
Zain
27:14
in festival season? That could be the stampede. That could be Markham. Absolutely, I do. Do you want to see him engaged,
Zain
27:19
engaged, energized, out there, sleeves rolled up, pride, Markham, stampede, whatever, you know, folks, he'll do a bunch of these. Do
Zain
27:28
Do you want to see him that way? Carter doesn't. I do. Carter wants to see him in a suit doing big deals. I
Corey
27:32
I do for two reasons. One is optics. I believe that he will look like he's got a bunker mentality if he just starts to avoid all of these events and all of these MPs. And, you know, point taken, he's the prime minister, he's not going to be sitting around talking to people there, but he should be mindful that people are talking about him at these events. And you've also got a good chunk of your caucus, I think 30 MPs is some suggestion here, right? That's
Corey
27:59
That's a fifth of your caucus who are going to be wandering through a city where you're not necessarily beloved talking to each other. And I've got to tell you, like I was talking to liberal organizers today, people, you know, who were like, oh, Trudeau, you know, even people who were with him earlier. So I
Corey
28:16
don't know if you want that all just to go on without you being there, because it's pretty easy to point and say, yeah, he didn't even come. Like, what the hell is that about? Right. And then the other thing is, it's not just about the optics of bunker mentality, it's the reality of bunker mentality. My
Corey
28:30
My firm belief in politics is the minute you are avoiding events because you're afraid of your own caucus, and I do believe that's at least part what's going on,
Corey
28:40
you're at the end of the line, right? right? Like it's really hard to come back from that. The tent gets smaller with time, not bigger, unless you really aggressively try to make it bigger. So you got to go out to these things. You got to be trying to make friends where you don't have friends. And you've got to do what you can to not lose the friends you've got for
Corey
28:58
for these small, lazy reasons. Like it's the easiest thing in the world just to talk to the people who love you, just to talk to your team, just to say those other people are out to lunch, or can you believe these fucking guys, or man, they're so annoying but open your horizons get out there talk to them build those bridges keep those connections that's so important in politics and um yeah i can hear half of the country who's listening to us here you know half our listeners saying it's just the stampede guys calm the hell down it's just the calgary stampede but the reality is there's not really many events like this in canadian politics where everybody comes to it you
Corey
29:34
you know everybody comes to it all the party Party leaders are here.
Corey
29:37
Everybody comes to it. Corey
Zain
29:40
makes a good point, a persuasive point. Is it persuading you, Carter?
Carter
29:46
No, I mean, mine was infinitely better.
Zain
29:50
he not persuading you about the bunker mentality, seeing your prime minister out, engagement? Why do you simply want him in a suit doing NATO things?
Corey
29:57
This is a guy. For three days.
Corey
29:59
days. This is a guy who says I'm going to take the party.
Zain
30:02
party. No, Kendall, you projected across the summer. I'm asking you that question. Because you were saying, even in Markham, it's not a good look when this guy's celebrating after a loss.
Zain
30:13
question is, do you want
Zain
30:14
want him to do the summer season? I
Carter
30:16
him to do some of the summer season. You're paring it down?
Carter
30:20
I would pare it down.
Zain
30:21
Corey, are you actually expanding it rather than paring it down?
Corey
30:25
Yeah, I absolutely am. I think that one of the big problems the Liberals have is they've lost a bit of touch with some of these groups and even their supporters. supporters people I believe who if they spent a little bit of time with the Trudeau that they remember they'd be like actually this guy's okay you know hey he's done a lot of good things hey I don't mind the guy very much but you know absence makes the heart go yonder and uh there is a there is a problem he has where people are just sort of forgetting the reasons they like him and they're surrounded by people talking about the reasons they don't he's got to get out there his team's got to get out there they've got to do a bit of an offensive and by the way you're
Corey
30:59
you're down 20 points in the polls do
Corey
31:02
do you where how are you going to get those 20 points back if you're going to just start avoiding the places where it's tough your world gets smaller and smaller and smaller you can't do that so
Carter
31:11
so what saying don't go to the stampede i'm saying i can understand why he doesn't go to the stampede i'm not saying he shouldn't be going to some events for the rest of the summer just jeez he made this all big man jeez carter
Zain
31:22
carter carter there's there's something in in basketball called hero ball we've probably talked about it right cory yeah no
Zain
31:28
no cory ball yeah
Corey
31:32
Oh, me? Yeah, explain it. You're just like a ball, like you're like, give me the rock. I got this. I got this. I got this. Every single possession, you got this. Your job, your job is to kick it to me, and I got this. Carter,
Zain
31:45
Trudeau need to start playing some hero ball, starting with his caucus, to be like, you know what? Bring him on. Oh, I know how to win these people over. I have. They own their political life to me. Like, if he's afraid, even if it's strategic, if you agree with Corey that it's cowardice, if he's afraid to meet with his caucus, like,
Zain
32:05
like, dude, you got to win over a majority of a massive amount of the public. And if the caucus is giving you this sort of heebie-jeebies, you know, get your head straight. Like, so is this the time where we just need to start thinking about, no, like, give me the rock. I will prove it to you in terms of why I'm still the best leader for this party.
Carter
32:24
yeah i mean i no you can't just heap the pressure on yourself when you keep failing isn't that where we're
Carter
32:31
though isn't isn't no where we are at every every leader suffers from the same disease and that same disease is a contraction instead of an expansion and they contract the number of people that they're listening to they contract the number of people that they trust they contract the number of people that they talk to in a given day they start off trying to make 400 phone calls and they wind up making two that that is that is the nature of leadership and and to to say oh i'm going to go start playing hero ball i'm going to just pile this all on my shoulders one more time is the opposite of what you need to do you need to rebuild your team one person at a time and add more power to the team you have to you have to actually make it so that you can distribute the ball and it's through the distribution that you get the real opportunities that's where you can can shoot the threes and really drive to the net zane and that's where when you've got a full team that's that's able to function on all different levels uh then you've got a more complete basketball team and a more complete government okay
Zain
33:29
carter carter failing on some of the fundamentals of basketball but i i don't mind that cory is it time for trudeau hero ball right now
Corey
33:37
think it's always time for leader hero ball right i i
Corey
33:41
i totally agree with everything steven even said except for the conclusion he is right the world gets smaller he is right he needs to start building his team and expanding it out but i gotta tell you it's kind of like sales you don't just say i've got one prospect you know you cast a really big net you have a ton of conversations and it winnows down to a couple that become more significant as you go along here but if you cast your net so narrow if you put all of your eggs in one basket there's
Corey
34:09
there's a good chance you're gonna gonna fucking fail and so as a politician it is ultimately a bit of a sales job in a lot of different ways you've always got to be doing as much as you can to cast as wide of a net as possible in these interpersonal relationships i'm not saying you go for every voter i'm not but i think you should be able to say i'm going for every caucus member yes there'll be a few that you put aside at the end of the day but you should be able to reasonably say i
Corey
34:35
i want i'm going to work with every caucus member you
Carter
34:38
should be able to make a call to every caucus member and before you have your next caucus meeting you
Corey
34:43
you should absolutely is he doing that i
Carter
34:47
don't know i mean you're gonna be shocked to find out i'm not a caucus member not
Zain
34:52
yet not yet oh yeah
Zain
34:53
yeah and one day one day our poll will find an earned media channel and
Zain
34:57
and who will carry it from there it's all oh it's it's gonna explode are you kidding me i'm
Carter
35:03
i'm still angry about that poll It was such a good poll. We
Zain
35:06
We could have had two cars. We could have had two cars for the price of that poll. And
Zain
35:10
500 bucks cash for insurance and gas.
Zain
35:13
The strategist's ride sure could have become real. Carter, letters, letters, letters.
Zain
35:17
There is a letter to the Liberal caucus signed by 20 or so folks in terms of what we believe. There is a letter that was sent by Liberal MP Wayne Long. There's Catherine McKenna.
Zain
35:33
There's senators. These are disparate letters. Let's talk about the strategy of what these folks are up to. Is it effective that these all come out as single, shingle, two signatures, five signatures, one person, former MP, former minister, current MP, current senator, 20 random caucus members, five this? Or is it a consolidated show of force that's most effective? Right now, the Liberal Party does not have the choice of not airing their laundry publicly. So what is the most effective way to if you're on team get rid of Trudeau to get rid of Trudeau, as we talk about it through the lens of letters and public, frankly,
Carter
36:19
I'll tell you a story. When Alison
Carter
36:22
Alison Redford was running against Gary Marr for the leadership, they had a chance to do a series of releases. They had three people that were going to endorse Gary Marr. The people who came in fourth, fifth, and sixth. Doug Griffiths. I can't remember who the other two were. Was it Morton? Ted Morton. Yeah, it was a while ago. Yeah, someone else. Anyways, there's three people. They chose to do them all on the same day, right? So on the Tuesday, they did all of them all at once. And, you
Carter
36:54
you know, instead of dripping them out one after the other, after the other, they got one day of news stories, right? right, we
Carter
37:00
we were able to come in on the Thursday and promise,
Carter
37:04
promise, I think it was $120 million for schools, and we took away their media.
Carter
37:11
if they had dripped us, if they had done a drip campaign, similar to the one that we're doing with the Prime Minister or that's happening with the Prime Minister right now, this type of a drip campaign actually starts to see impact because the story Story continues day after day after day after day, and it becomes cumulative versus individual. So if everybody had come out on the same day and made the exact same statement, it
Carter
37:35
it may only have lasted for a day or two. But when you do a drip, drip, drip, drip campaign, it lasts day after day after day. And because
Carter
37:43
because the media aren't completely satisfied, they're continuing to look for more and more stories. Corey,
Zain
37:49
Corey, what do you think? Do you agree with that? Or are we in a different media environment than Carter's referencing in 2012, where people maybe have paid attention to the cumulative or the aggregate? Versus here? Do we remember if there was a letter by a sitting caucus member? If you're not paying attention, you may not.
Corey
38:05
well and you know that's something that in media relations we always struggle with when there's like a bundle of things you think is this one on its own newsworthy the bundle of five is for sure newsworthy can we get away with announcing two and then three to try to do exactly what steven's saying and continue to propel the story and move it along and it's it's somewhat difficult to know exactly what the right answer is but if you've got a story that's really seized the public's attention or more accurately like the pundits attention you you keep them spinning i think that's just a very good strategy and one of the benefits to it beyond what steven's already put on the table here is if
Corey
38:42
if there is one story if there is one letter i guess i mean and there's a story about that letter that that story is going to include this was the letter this was the prime minister's response and these were two third party people who thought about it and this this is what they have to say.
Corey
38:57
that's kind of it.
Corey
38:59
And yes, you can go and you can say, but, but, but, and you can rebut the next day. But the rebuttal doesn't mean very much. And the rebuttal is not news the way that the original story was. However, if you got multiple letters, and it's this was the letter, and this was the prime minister's reaction, and this is the pundits, then the next day, you can come up and be like, here's another letter. And by the way, they take exception with what the prime minister said in the rebuttal. Like it allows you to sort get the last word or at least attempt it and kind of do your last line change if you want to think about it in a hockey metaphor sense right they get their word you get your word and at a certain point people kind of run out of words and allows you to sort of optimize towards a goal there and if you've got a lot of players and he's only got his one that's a bit of an advantage you can play with along the way there cory
Zain
39:43
cory talk to me about the fact that we've
Zain
39:46
we've talked about this like Like, as a media
Zain
39:52
you're the prime minister.
Zain
39:54
You're getting the letter.
Zain
39:57
What's more damning to you, your psyche, your team, your operation, your future? A
Zain
40:04
A lot of letters that come slowly. A lot of, like, chirping from the sideline news articles. Or one damning 50-person caucus signatory, fuck you. with colleagues that you have put into positions, put into place, managed throughout the years. And you might say, well, actually, at the end of the day, it's still a media relations war, and the prime minister can take that in, swallow his pride, and go win out the media relations battle. Or is it? Is there an added dynamic in terms of impact to the person from a pure mechanistic level, if we kind of remove the media relations aspect for a second? What do you think? Yeah.
Corey
40:40
Yeah. So there is
Corey
40:42
is no question in my mind that getting a number of these letters, you don't even know when, and they're coming kind of sporadically. Like they just pop up
Corey
40:51
out of nowhere. It's worse. It's way worse because you think maybe you have the thing managed and then something else comes up. And that's just way more stressful. You're sort of always on. You're always in meetings talking about how to respond to these things. You have to be alert to it all. and there's an asymmetry here that let's just think about it in content let's just assume ill will by the mps who are sending it which i don't necessarily believe is the case but let's just assume that there's this adversarial thing that's coming up one mp sending one letter can get the entire pmo spinning taking meetings making calls getting together doing all of these things and that's fucking exhausting if you have to do that five times in a week right because you've You've got five different letters that have come in and it's varied your situation so significantly requires people to come together. I think what people really sort of underappreciate in these situations is a small action can sometimes generate big conversation, even if it doesn't generate a big response. And there is only so many hours in the day and people only have so much rope. And
Corey
41:53
And so there's no question in my mind, the more random things you throw at an office. office i'm sure steven can say the same i've seen this so many times like people just sort of hit almost their breaking point they're like i can't be fucking bothered anymore and they stop thinking straight they stop responding clearly and all of a sudden advantage other side yeah
Corey
42:13
because they just can't anymore because they're humans and you know there's 168 hours in a week and they've just spent the last 120 of them dealing with all the other bullshit that's
Zain
42:22
carter do you agree great that that the the drip campaign even to uh internally on the mechanistic side into a pmo or to a prime minister or to the chief of staff is more aggravating infuriating effective i really want to go after effective than like one big dossier with 50 of your colleagues signatures or 50 of the caucus's signatures on it for example i
Carter
42:47
i think that this is the same when when when you're doing like advocacy and and you know you're getting letters every day uh that are handwritten or you know not those computer generated ones that are just kind of uh all the same but the ones that are you know uh individualized and they just keep coming um you know it really starts to be demoralizing on the government and this is this is they
Carter
43:12
they all need to be managed you can't just let them fester so if you can't let them fester they all need to be managed then man getting another letter another email another something every day every other day just give me give me one thing that i can manage that comes on a tuesday and it can be managed by a thursday and i'm pretty happy yeah
Carter
43:34
me give me something that i have to manage every
Carter
43:37
every single fucking day and it just it it's it's so repetitive it's so hard to keep the focus um cory spoke kind of how people feel and how they start to kind of phone in the reactions that's absolutely true and that's when mistakes start getting made and uh i think that that's why this type of uh a caucus you know i'm not going to say revolt because again i i side with cory i'm not sure that that's what this is i'm not going to give motivation where i'm not seeing necessarily motivation but um this kind of caucus feedback that is emphasizing
Carter
44:15
emphasizing what we already know that this is a very negative situation it's not it becomes really tough because there is no single answer that you can just pull out of the uh pull
Carter
44:26
pull out of the file and say well this is how we answered it last time cory
Zain
44:31
cory let's round out this topic by by saying if
Zain
44:34
if you're the prime minister right now what advice would you want to give him like what would you suggest he do right now he's got all these different things happening um you're on the side of trying to help and support him what's
Zain
44:47
what's the the advice you
Corey
44:50
know i think a lot of people would benefit from this approach for a lot of things but he needs to kind of sit down and almost i
Corey
44:59
don't know if he needs to literally write it out but he needs to sit and say okay a
Corey
45:03
a character who's not me is facing an identical situation let me write out the characters involved these are things happening how would i expect them to act in this like what's the right way extract
Zain
45:13
yourself for a second yeah
Corey
45:15
yeah extract yourself from the situation Because, like, I do think that you can sit at any
Corey
45:20
any kind of table and look at this and say, well, look, we know that a prime minister that starts avoiding people is in a lot of trouble. And we know a prime minister that's playing games with their caucus like this and sees their caucus as an adversary is in a lot of trouble. And Jesus, you know, there's no path to government that doesn't go through exposing yourself to areas that have real problems with you right now when you're sitting at 20%. And I don't know. I think he actually needs to kind of step back. And that seems like tread advice, but I would literally write out, the
Corey
45:51
the prime minister, like you could just associate, put it third person, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was having a bad day. He got yet another letter, almost like a business case where you go through, and this is what had happened. And his advisors said this, other advisors said that. What should he do? And he should sit back and he should look at that and say that. Like, how does this character, how would I expect this character to act? Like, this is not actually that hard at the end of the day. But the emotions I'm feeling and the way I'm tied up in it and the frustrations that are around all of us make it very difficult. Like, Justin Trudeau right now risks getting to a place where he's acting like the character in the movie. We're all screaming at the TV and saying, what the fuck are you doing? No sane person would do this. He's got to be very careful. And I don't actually think he
Corey
46:35
he needs to overthink this. He's got to get back to this fundamental game. And a fundamental game for any caucus leader is maintaining good relationships with the caucus and not seeing the caucus as something that he's got to outmaneuver chess style.
Corey
46:50
He does need to outmaneuver them chess style, but that's like on an individual thing. They're not their opponent. Like you've got to set the board well by having good relationships with them. Carter,
Zain
47:01
what advice are you giving to Trudeau right now? Corey's advice is pretty good. I'm curious if it's persuaded you to greenlight a national caucus meeting. But more importantly, I'm curious to hear your advice.
Carter
47:16
I think that more important than a national caucus meeting is a national outreach strategy. I really like Corey's idea of what advice would you be giving to another prime minister in the exact same situation? like doing a little bit of self-introspection, I like that. But I think that that's not going to solve anything. I think that what needs to be solved is the relationships between the over 150 individuals that make up his caucus and the prime minister. And I wouldn't be staffing any of these calls out. I'd be saying, okay, I've got 30 days. I'm going to make five calls
Carter
47:53
calls a day, and
Carter
47:55
and away we go. That's how we're going to get through this. Because if I don't make these five calls per day to these MPs, then I could be really facing a significant uprising. And that's how you win them over. Because I don't think there's many MPs that have the strength to say, you know what, I appreciate the phone call, but still, fuck you. Right? Like, I just don't think that that's how members of Parliament think. At least not outside of Britain.
Zain
48:21
Corey, have you convinced yourself to have this meeting?
Corey
48:26
think so. So, um, I'm generally a pretty rip the bandaid off kind of guy. Like it's just, you know, things are not going to get better in, there's
Corey
48:35
there's this advice, which I think maybe
Corey
48:38
maybe Justin Trudeau should take, which is that which must happen eventually must happen immediately. Like don't fuck about on these things and just get the caucus meeting together. There is an advantage in that people will not have the opportunity to quote unquote organize against you. You sort of maintain advantage. You don't look like you're afraid of people. Well, that ship may have sailed, but imagine that he just said, okay, well, caucus meeting it is then. Gang, let's get together. I know it won't be convenient for everybody, but let's do it. Obviously, this is an important thing. And you just, you kind of look like a leader, right? You look like a leader. You weren't dragged into it. You moved in a way that said, I can handle this. And that's so much of what the concern about him is right now. Like, he's lost the touch. He doesn't know how to do these things. He's become too insular. And you somewhat reinforce it if you don't call the caucus meeting and you start playing these games. That's my feeling. I think he should have called the caucus meeting. He probably still could.
Corey
49:37
It's just a little tougher now. Like, in some ways, he's a little too invested in the strategy of it's not feasible between the stampede thing and the, like, just calendars don't work thing. Carter,
Zain
49:46
Carter, we're going to move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. We do this for you before you go to bed every time. Overrated or underrated, the letters, the articles, former MPs, former ministers, current MPs, senators, etc., overrated or underrated in their political effectiveness to encourage Trudeau to resign or to step aside? What do you think? I
Carter
50:07
I think they're overrated. I don't think that they have much in the way of actual impact. I think that each one of them is worded, you know, relatively easily. And the drip, drip, drip of them, you know, if it's sustained for maybe two more weeks, maybe, but I just don't see the momentum necessarily holding in. Corey,
Zain
50:29
overrated or underrated in your mind?
Corey
50:31
I agree it's overrated, but probably for a different reason.
Corey
50:35
I think we'd be thinking about this a lot differently if we didn't have this comp south of the border of a much more aggressive walking away from the leader, right? Where you have actual, you know, elected officials saying, I don't think he should run. I'm not sure he should be president. And that just provides us an interesting counterpoint, right? Right. And it makes the the quote unquote revolt that's happening here in Canada look incredibly tame. You know, it's is that is that like deeply
Zain
51:01
advantageous to Drew or not? I think
Corey
51:04
You know, I really do believe that he got incredibly lucky when a everybody's attention went to Joe Biden. But then B, everybody now has this other example of a much more aggressive revolt, which makes his revolt look
Corey
51:16
look more tame in comparison. And so there's
Corey
51:19
there's some benefit to that if you're Justin Trudeau. Corey,
Zain
51:21
Corey, overrated or underrated will move continents.
Zain
51:26
The Labour victory that is still being solidified right now, it's seeming like it is 160 plus seats and growing over the Conservatives. It was predictable, it was predicted, it was predicted months before the election was even called. So I ask you, overrated or underrated, the victory for Keir Starmer and Labour in the UK?
Corey
51:49
i think it might actually be underrated because the conversation has been for literal years now the tories are going down and i really don't know if people have a hundred percent wrapped their head around what starmer is going to do his platform what it's going to mean for britain it's so much about the other guys are going out and so much not about the new guys are coming in and and when you've got a majority of this particular size and when you consider this This is the worst showing by the Tories ever.
Corey
52:17
ever. And when you consider that Reform UK now has representation and SNP has collapsed and like, there's a lot of storylines now that now that the storyline of the Tories are down is kind of out, we're going to have to sit and be like, oh,
Corey
52:31
oh, fuck. I mean, this has consequences. This is interesting, right? What does this mean? I mean, Starmer's been so cagey about European relationships. Farage is obviously going to go just absolutely mental in the House of Commons. It's like there's a lot of things we need to watch here. This election is probably, I
Corey
52:51
think it's underrated, the Labour victory, but more broadly, the change that's occurred in UK politics, because it's not just about the
Corey
52:58
the Conservatives finally getting their comeuppance. There's a lot of things that happened tonight. Carter, overrated, underrated in your mind, what happened in
Carter
53:06
think it's uh underrated i think this is an absolute uh landslide of a shift of a shift too like it's a huge shift and it it's the beginning of potentially new parties new structures new ideas uh you know we could see a far right you know really start to take hold uh some could argue that the far right had already taken hold of the conservatives but regardless this is a uh this
Carter
53:36
this is not this is their 1993 and 1993 was a significant period of time for canadian in canadian politics when the progressive conservatives were wiped out across the country this isn't a wipeout but this is pretty damn close to a wipeout carter
Corey
53:50
carter yeah well and and to see kind of norse fire get their first couple of seats there that's
Zain
53:58
talk to me about this Talk to me about this, Carter.
Zain
54:01
We've got Starmer winning in the UK. We got Trudeau on the ropes. We got Biden on the ropes. We got Le Pen in France. I don't want to ham fist a through line, but
Zain
54:11
but is there one?
Carter
54:14
Yeah, don't be an incumbent.
Zain
54:16
Is it just incumbency? Is that overly simplistic in your mind? I know you're going where many people have, but I'm curious to hear, Corey, from you too. is is there a razor man
Carter
54:27
occam's razor the simplest answer is probably the most accurate answer and to me it's incumbency because it's not right wing it's not left wing it's it's i mean sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't but it's it's if you're the incumbent you're blamed for everything that went wrong post-pandemic uh regardless of how good you know that that response was uh objectively
Zain
54:50
we trying too hard cory or is there a there there i
Corey
54:54
think steven's right it's obvious there is a huge there there like let's not discount it like part of the reason why it's so hard to be an incumbent is we're in this world of like we
Corey
55:04
we call it often negative partisanship but i think it's just negativity it's like the the fuck all of you attitude is just taking down parties left right and center you're quite literally and uh you're ending up with these new splinter groups that come up you're having even parties that continue to exist be taken over by other parts of the parties here and it just seems to be all driven by how much they hate things like we seem to have really optimized the
Corey
55:30
the counterfactual right being critical is something that all political parties have gotten and all political actors have gotten super good at but we're just in absolute teardown mode right now and we don't have a lot of examples out there of people successfully building like we We end up with like, I tore those guys down. Maybe I gave it a bit of a Hopi changing message. I get to be the leader for a bit. And then you have everybody turn on them and you have a further fracturing and you have more left and more right. And this is not a new observation.
Corey
55:59
So to your point, is there a there there?
Corey
56:02
It's not a new there, but I think we kind of are sleepwalking on just how significant this is more generally. On
Zain
56:08
On that true note, we're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1813 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.