Episode 1826: The bro-gressive vote

Zain 0:01

This is a Strategist episode 1826. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. You guys want to go, bro? Hey, bro. Bro. Bro.

Carter 0:11

What did you say?

Carter 0:13

What did you say? Which one of you said it? Which one of you said it? Which one of you said it? Did you say it? You

Zain 0:18

You want to go? Which one of you said it?

Zain 0:21

Good. Thank you. That was Stephen and I. That was wonderful, guys. Congratulations. Carter was playing a balding, aging white man on Parliament Hill. And I was playing

Zain 0:30

the leader of Canada's third party. I was using

Carter 0:33

Jagmeet Singh lines, too. Oh, okay, you were. No,

Zain 0:38

but I was actually

Carter 0:39

actually doing Jagmeet Singh. I didn't say it. I

Carter 0:41

I didn't say it.

Zain 0:44

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty good. It comes so naturally to you guys.

Zain 0:48

To you middle-aged whites. Stupid white guy I got down. The cowardice is just, it's like your lane, man. You guys need to be rewarded with that a little bit more And branded with cowardice Oh man Could Jagmeet Singh take all of us in a fight Or take one of us independently How many of us would we need to throw at Jagmeet Singh In order for us to finally lose All

Carter 1:08

All three of us And

Carter 1:09

we would all lose

Zain 1:12

think I could take him No you fucking could not take him You think you could

Zain 1:15

Because I'm wily Because you watched MMA

Carter 1:19

MMA once what like

Zain 1:22

here's the thing he's actually like the roadrunner here's his advantage he's actually quite low to the ground i don't even know if the guy clears six feet i think he's like five five seven five eight dude that's

Carter 1:30

that's my size yes

Zain 1:31

yes that's taller than steven yeah yeah oh fuck you steven's fucked i mean steven is steven's not even gonna make it the arthritis is gonna kill him prior to to jing meets oh my

Carter 1:40

my hips are so sore oh black

Zain 1:42

black belt moves cory i i think it's totally insane i think it's totally insane that a podcast to thousands of people you want to put out there that you can beat Jagmeet Singh in a fight.

Zain 1:52

I'm just, I'm wily. I think

Zain 1:54

fact that I'm wily. Carter, it's that pure poly of look and energy that he brings to the podcast. I'm

Carter 1:57

I'm feeling like a Trudeau-Brazo kind of moment happening here. This is going to be the fundraiser.

Carter 2:04

We're going to raise some money.

Corey 2:05

That's going to be great for the NDP. They can raise some money for once. That

Carter 2:09

That would be... Tell

Zain 2:10

Tell me this. Okay, listen. So I think we talked about this last time. The Jagmeet Singh on Parliament Hill against those protesters, those total assholes, I think he dealt with them really well. But he's also kind of taken this bro

Zain 2:24

bro-y machismo into the house where he challenges Pierre-Paul Leavitt and says, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but like, you want to come at me, bro? I'm right here. What do you think of this? Is this actually a lane for Jagmeet Singh to lean into, Corey? And is there any more chapters beyond the two that we have seen that one could conceivably strategically lean into with this sort of rhetoric?

Corey 2:51

so unfortunately for all of us whenever a politician gets even a whiff of success like if something works even a little bit yeah yeah bro people start saying things like hey you that kind of was okay they will run it into the ever fucking ground like it's just really rough to watch sometimes so for sure he's gonna he's gonna keep riding this horse for a while we're going to see a little bit more of that bro energy until um until its dividends go negative and clearly negative and unquestionably negative and then he'll get off that particular horse but yeah we're going to see more of this for sure when he listens to this podcast absolutely he's going to challenge me to a fight and um would you fight that'll probably be the end of it when i when i lay him down but you know until that moment he's

Corey 3:37

he's going to bring that

Zain 3:38

that bro energy for sure why do you think middle-aged whites have a false sense of confidence uh

Carter 3:44

uh why because we were bred it was bred into us right

Carter 3:48

of empire i mean over centuries

Zain 3:53

how long has it been that since one of your relatives has even empired i

Corey 4:01

a very long time we're more on the receiving end of empire no No kidding. You guys were, you

Zain 4:06

you guys were, and I'm going to use a term here, wily. And you didn't build shit. You were definitely on like, I'd say generation 20 on the receiving end of empires. I like that you're taking credit though, Carter. I like that you're taking credit.

Carter 4:23

Yeah, well, you know, it's what I do.

Zain 4:25

Okay. I liked what I saw from Jagmeet Singh. I thought, I think it was interesting. I do have, because you're going to see it forever

Carter 4:32

Yeah, for the rest of your life.

Zain 4:34

I liked it. Okay, so I hated it, and then I liked it, and I hate it again. Here's the thing. Is there actually a real consideration? Here's one of the reasons why I didn't love it. Is there a real consideration, and I'm being totally serious with this question, of the progressive politician, the most progressive mainstream politician, leaning into elements of what you would call toxic masculinity, of challenging someone to a fistfight, of leaning into that machismo? Moe. That's one of the reasons I didn't love it. But when I look at Jagmeet Singh, I know his background. I see it's kind of authentic to the guy that I know. But talk to me about what you think of the leader of the most progressive mainstream party in the country, kind

Zain 5:15

kind of like pretty much challenging someone to a fight, like come at me.

Carter 5:20

Can we take an issue with your characterization as the most progressive? Of course you can. I'm not sure that the NDP are the most progressive party in the house right now. I would argue that the liberals who are seen as the most progressive and the NDP still want to fight for, you know, want to present a fighting chance to union workers and those types. I think that this is right on brand. And I don't agree with the characterization as the most progressive party in the House. else. Do

Zain 5:53

Do you have problems around how this in a modern day context would be described by many as toxic masculinity, Carter, of a proverbial dick measuring contest? I

Carter 6:05

I think a lot of people would describe it as such, but I think there's an awful lot of people who respond to it as well. There's a market

Zain 6:12

Carter, Corey, I get the rational justification of Stephen. Do you agree? Are you where he is?

Corey 6:19

I think that he's got a couple of problems with it the first is exactly as you said is this really the vibe that you want to go for does this not reinforce some of the you know the bro energy vibes that you already had that people were maybe not thrilled about and and the notion that I'll fight for you being such a literal thing where he looks like he's actually going to square up with somebody is I don't I don't think that's a great look and I do think ultimately one of the other other problems he has is he, this

Corey 6:48

this guy backed down, but somebody is going to say, I'm going to go get in Jagmeet Singh's fucking face. He's going to try that shit on me and I'm not going to back down. I'm going to swing at him. And you know, it could lead to some weird situations down the road because some people are just going to look for that. And it's not too hard for me to imagine a situation where some loser comes, does the same thing to Jagmeet Singh. Jagmeet Singh takes the the exact same approach, the guy swings at him. And all of a sudden, we're having a discussion about whether he brought this on by taunting him or saying he wanted to fight him, right? And ultimately, this is just not how we're supposed to settle differences in this country. This is not how we're supposed to settle differences in politics. And I think it's unfortunate that the leader of the third party would lean into it. Although I think that he He has gotten a very positive response. People have been responding to it in the sense of this was his second good day. He won that by-election seat the day before he did that.

Corey 7:46

I don't know. It feels like he's going to do more of it.

Zain 7:49

Here's the thing, Carter.

Zain 7:51

I get this could be potentially authentic to him, but the fact is I think most people receive this positively. If we kind of take this back a decade and look at the last decade and examine how universally the Brasov fight has become part of the Trudeau mythology as like what made him. Yeah,

Zain 8:14

that's a good point. Like in a sense that when you look back, people are like, fuck man, like that guy wasn't supposed to win. He won sort of thing. And we don't even question it. We don't even really question the same question I introduced right now around like toxic masculinity, those sort of things. The guy just won a fight. What does that actually prove? What does it actually mean in our culture, Carter? Or have times actually changed in some way? Or was it a different time 10 years ago? Or is it the exact same, that if a politician tomorrow were able to kind of outdo expectations physically, that we would kind of celebrate them? them? And I speak with that male sort of element to it, but I think it's an unexplored question, at least for me, which is why I'm maybe trying to explore it live and in real time with you guys.

Carter 9:01

Well, maybe it is just as simple as trying to appeal to male voters. I mean, I know that in my professional life, I've spent 90% of my time trying to win over female voters. I'm very uninterested in winning over male voters. They tend

Carter 9:16

tend to be very stuck in their ways. They're They're very predictable in their voting patterns. They're less likely to change their minds. There's all kinds of reasons not to target male voters. But at the same time, there's almost as many men as there are women. And if you can win a share of male voters that was unpredictable or not necessarily predicted at the start, you're doing a great job. Maybe this is part of his strategy to win over male voters. We'll never know. know.

Carter 9:43

It'll never be admitted, but as

Carter 9:45

as much as you're saying this is authentic and part of who he is, how long has he been the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada?

Carter 9:54

It's been a while. And this is the first time that we've seen it.

Carter 9:58

It makes me feel like this

Carter 10:00

this is a choice. This is a choice that has been executed for a reason.

Carter 10:04

And I think that sometimes we read too deeply into of these things you know is this is this just him reaching the end of his rope on a on a tough day or is this him saying this is my opportunity to show you know i was me and my team we walked through this and uh next time there was an opportunity um especially with the uh you know parliamentary protection

Carter 10:25

protection officer right there um this is a perfect opportunity to do it

Corey 10:31

so it just feels like it could have gone yeah so badly right yeah i agree with the dice there and um and

Corey 10:39

and i i just don't think that's a particularly good model for for problem solving the brazil the brazil thing is a really interesting point i hadn't thought about it in that context and yeah trudeau who was seen as a bit of a wimp right a bit of a pretty boy yeah

Corey 10:55

goes and he wins this fight against this you know this bruiser of a man brazil right like big guy solid guy didn't have the reach of trudeau you know didn't have the height and you know that counts but uh and that changed the way people thought about him changed the way that he presented himself to to canadians and yeah

Corey 11:14

yeah i mean that wasn't ideal when you look back on it and think about it that part of the story of justin trudeau is he won a fight and then we all took him seriously, but there

Corey 11:24

there is something to it. As much as I might not want it to be the case, the reality is people still respond to strong people. Strength can be presented in a lot of ways. Jagmeet Singh picked one way on that day.

Zain 11:38

We'll see him challenging many people to fights, including Corey Hogan, which of course will be an audio-only Patreon special. But you know what? He's going to lose. We should air that. We should air that, actually, Carter. Ow,

Carter 11:48

Ow, stop hitting me. Ow, stop hitting me. Ow,

Zain 11:50

stop hitting me. bro bro bro bro bro stop hitting me bro bro i'm fucking right here bro i'm right here cory just yeah and just yeah it's good that's good that's good i'm

Zain 12:01

i'm glad i'm glad we're able to okay can we keep it which i've been saying for a second i wanted to actually move on to our to our first segment which was i'll tell you it's a toss-up between bc uh and it's a toss-up between that and talking about some media that both the prime minister and our premier here in alberta will do but let me keep it on this non uh this this conservative motion which is happening tomorrow, the vote that they're trying to vote on the non-confidence motion to take down the government. Can we give a quick sort of strategy ranking in analysis, Carter and Corey, on each of the players involved? Let's remove the liberals for a second. Conservatives, Carter, did they overcorrect or do they have to do this? And now have they set a precedent? And then the block and the NDP coming in very, very quickly, taking out all of the pretense, the drama, not waiting until tomorrow. We know what's going to happen. They've both committed to it. Give me their sort of strategic markings on how they've dealt with things, what they've done by kind of deflating this motion. So you're ranking on the Conservatives, Block, and the NDP. Carter, give me your take on all three. Corey, I'll come to you in a second.

Carter 13:07

I think that the Conservatives, this is a solid eight out of 10 movement. It's the one that says that they're the ones who are protecting Canadians from this terrible liberal government They know they're going to fail, but it's part of the theater that builds a minority parliament. In terms of the Bloc Québécois, I give them an 8 out of 10 as well. I think that they were told that this was going to happen, and it doesn't serve their advantage at all. And they're happy to support Trudeau at this moment in time. The NDP is the one that strikes me as weird. They didn't need to shift over to protecting the liberals. liberals. They certainly didn't need to announce it in advance. There was a whole number of ways they could have managed it. And instead, they just thrown themselves into protecting the liberal government for

Carter 14:01

for what? From the conservatives? I'm not sure I understand. I'd have much rather seen them abstain, like leave the house or not participate in some other fashion or even just

Zain 14:14

just Once they had the backing of the block, just to be clear on the math, once they had the backing of the block, you feel like they should have made their move subsequently and trusted the block. The

Carter 14:23

The block came out and said, this is what we're going to do. The NDP could have very easily supported it without

Carter 14:28

without having said it three days in advance. There was no advantage to saying it, was it Friday that they're going to support? I don't think so. What's the advantage of saying, oh, we're going to capitulate completely even though we don't have the supply and confidence agreement? agreement.

Zain 14:44

And I asked that just out of inquiry, not because I take the other side on it, right? There's multiple schools of thought here. Corey, I'm curious to get your school of thought here. Did the conservatives overcorrect? Did the NDP, who the conservatives were ensuring wore this by doing it quickly early on a Friday, get rid of it, take out the drama from tomorrow? And then what do you think of the block as well? Give me your strategic analysis of the situation, how each of the players performed.

Corey 15:10

Right. So first, let me give you my tactical analysis. My tactical analysis is the Conservatives gave too much lead time. So they get like a six out of 10. They gave their opponents an awful lot of time to think about what they were going to do. They've been talking about this vote since the summer. Well, we always knew the Conservatives were going to continue to bang this drum. I think the specificity with which they approached it, the way that they put out these challenges too, in particular Jagmeet Singh, but

Corey 15:35

the block, I think that was not particularly artful and it allowed the the opponents to know exactly what they were going against they telegraphed all of their punches is maybe the way to put it right uh tactics for the block and ndp i give a nine out of ten now now what steven sees as like a bit of a mistake i

Corey 15:52

i think is clear evidence of them colluding at least on some level to say we're going to make this as uninteresting as possible it doesn't serve either of our interests if everybody is talking for a week about will they or won't they bring down the government if even one of us says that we're not going to vote for it then everybody points to to the other party and says they're the one who's propping up this government but

Corey 16:11

but if we both do it we just rob it of all drama right yeah

Corey 16:14

and you don't get any of the could they change their mind stories you don't get anything it's just not a story once we've done it this way so i give them high marks on tactics but i

Corey 16:23

i give them low marks on strategy and i give the conservatives high marks on strategy because ultimately the conservatives have a situation where they get they have moral clarity they have clarity of action we all know what they're going to do and because what they want to do and what they're threatened to do and what's in their interest are all the same thing, they can continue to take the exact same approach and they can run it all the way through the fall. And it doesn't even get to feel tiresome to Canadians because they've always said the best thing we can do for Canadians is an election right now to stop the pain of this liberal government. That's pretty great. You're

Zain 16:58

You're answering my question, but can I just clarify for you, there is no diminishing marginal return strategically for the Conservatives to to keep calling the confidence question. Is there? I

Corey 17:06

I don't think so. I mean, because ultimately, I just don't think Canadians watch parliament that closely, right? And this is part of why I give low strategy marks, in particular to the NDP, the bloc I'm having trouble figuring out at this moment. Because in my opinion, the

Corey 17:22

the bloc should want an election. They're well positioned on this, but they seem to have decided they don't want one right now. And there's obvious reasons reasons why that might be the case. I just don't buy any of them. I think they'd be better off right now. But the NDP, they

Corey 17:37

they get to do this once, but we've talked about this before. Every time the NDP props up the liberals, they are making Pierre Polyev's case for them and they're making themselves look like fools. So the more that these votes happen and the more they can occur, occur, the worse it is. So that is why I think, okay,

Corey 18:00

okay, in the moment, but long term, this is not a strategy. This is not a strategy for the NDP that's going to pay them any dividends. Carter,

Zain 18:05

Carter, same question I asked Corey earlier, midway through his answer, which is diminishing returns on confidence motions for the conservatives or no?

Carter 18:13

Well, I think that there's no diminishing concerns as long as you're up in the polls, and it looks like you can win the election. So I think that they're in

Carter 18:20

in a really good spot. They They should just keep banging on the conservative

Carter 18:24

conservative or banging on the liberals.

Zain 18:26

Carter, the confidence and supply agreement is kind of like, you know, flash frozen a lot of strategic questions we would have asked earlier, one

Zain 18:34

one of which I think we have not asked because we haven't really necessarily needed to ask. But now that the bloc and NDP are independent players outside of an agreement, talk to me about this. From a

Zain 18:45

a strategic perspective, if you were helping them,

Zain 18:49

would you want them to run against Trudeau as their ideal option and run against Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party? Or would you want to roll the dice and gamble with someone new in the spring or whenever sort of thing if you're the NDP and the bloc? If you're selfishly those parties, and

Zain 19:09

and there's a case to be made. Trudeau's a good campaigner. He might overperform, right, in certain cases. Simultaneously, you also know his moves and you know that he's weak.

Zain 19:18

So if you're strategizing for them, are you factoring in any Trudeau-ness to the conversation? Are you factoring that in or are you not thinking about that at all when you try to ultimately take down the government, either accidentally together or colluding?

Carter 19:36

Well, I think that we're down to a period of months. Well, frankly, I think we're well past the time when Trudeau can actually leave. So his opportunity to leave is gone. They're going to be campaigning against Justin Trudeau regardless of what happens. So I think that the Trudeau piece is already factored in and Justin Trudeau is going to be the leader that they're facing off against. So you think they made a calculation? You think

Zain 20:00

think they made a calculation that Trudeau is here. so any of this fuckery that we have does not jeopardize that particular dynamic of the race whenever it happens.

Carter 20:12

Yeah. I think the only question we have left, we're not going to see any new leaders. The only question that we have- If

Zain 20:20

If you were advising the NDP, they asked you tomorrow, Carter, let's just say they had a bias. Carter, we want Jimmy to run against Justin. Like, we feel like he can, would

Zain 20:30

would you give them the advice you just told us on this podcast, in the sense that he's staying regardless, his time is too late, you do whatever you need to, we'll choose to put a maximal benefit, but he's staying.

Corey 20:42

Corey, are you aligned with that?

Corey 20:44

I think so. It's hard for me to imagine, especially with the end of the confidence and supply agreement, that the liberals are going to have the appetite for going into a leadership contest. contest i mean unless we're just literally running the same playbook that occurred when uh you know pierre trudeau retired the first time and uh it then had to be pulled out of retirement to run in the 1980 election yeah yeah

Corey 21:09

yeah i which which would have a certain poetry to it but i don't think it's practical i mean i think people just realize we're on we're on high alert people are at battle stations there's there's no way they're going to swap out the leader at this point even though they want to even if they want to i guess i should say because yeah

Carter 21:25

yeah what are the odds cory that they make it past the budget the

Carter 21:29

the liberals make it past the budget so

Corey 21:31

so i'm i'm hearing they very much want to i'm hearing that the thing circled on the calendar is is the g7 in canada right yeah which is which is when next year okay i believe next

Carter 21:42

how do they score how do they get past i

Carter 21:44

i don't think it's

Carter 21:46

how do they not joe clark this 1979 79 right like the budget gets presented the the it doesn't matter who brings it down um

Carter 21:54

um but i think that no one's going to be in a position where they're able to support the who's

Corey 21:58

who's going to want to support the budget going into the election you know that just to me seems like a crazy thing

Corey 22:04

i personally will be surprised if they make it to the budget i'm not saying it's impossible but i i have come to the conclusion it's

Zain 22:10

it's give folks a rough sense riddling that that's like q1 2025 right like that's what we're thinking of yeah yeah that's right

Zain 22:16

yeah the election would

Carter 22:16

would probably and be in in april or may should

Zain 22:20

the block and the ndp want trudeau if

Zain 22:23

if you let's ask you that question cory yeah do

Corey 22:26

do you do you want trudeau yeah

Corey 22:28

yeah you know it's really interesting because on one hand you could say the

Corey 22:33

the very reason the liberals think it's too late is is why them swapping a leader right now would be advantageous to the block and ndp right because it's chaotic but i actually don't think that's the case i think it would be advantageous to the conservatives Because it's chaotic and it would not necessarily help the bloc or the NDP. I think in particular, the threat of a new liberal leader to the NDP is somebody comes in and pretends to be a progressive and says, we need a strong opposition and we're the government right now. And so we're the obvious choice to support against Pierre Polyev and whatever may come with the conservative party here. um

Corey 23:08

but i i think that that's part of why they are better off with justin trudeau there is a progressive fatigue with justin trudeau whether

Corey 23:16

whether you're a progressive in quebec who also happens to have you know sovereignist bend or you have a tolerance for sovereignism right or if you are a new democrat supporter like you're just you're tired of the guy and i think that that fatigue of justin trudeau is one of the things that you go into the next election with that

Corey 23:34

that is to your advantage. And if the liberals did a quick switch, there's a chance you could lose that depending on what they decided to do.

Zain 23:41

Carter, finally, give me strategic risks for each of them, each of the parties, the biggest one. And these can be totally blindly or painfully obvious, I should say, for the conservatives, for the bloc and the NDP. What's the biggest risks for them as they now have to, frankly, rinse and repeat this stance that we're going to see tomorrow a few more times one would expect? Yeah,

Carter 24:03

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest threat to the conservatives is that people start to see Pierre Polyev in a different light. I would say the real light. Others might say, you know, my biases. I think the biggest threat to Jagmeet Singh and the NDP is that, well, I think that they're literally living their biggest threat. I think that they are, because they have proved themselves relatively impotent through the course of this entire session or government, I think that they've really reduced their value. you. And the Bloc Québécois, I think the greatest threat is that they overplay their hand.

Carter 24:37

Like, I think that this is, for them, they should be circling a date on the calendar in the spring saying, we are going to take this fucking government down. And we're

Carter 24:47

we're not going to do it on a conservative motion. We're going to do it on a big, big piece like the budget, and we're going to do it for a principle.

Carter 24:53

And when they do that, I think that the Bloc Québécois is the party

Carter 24:56

party that has probably the most to win, except for, of

Carter 25:02

of course, Pierre Polyev's conservatives.

Zain 25:04

Corey, strategic risks for all three of them going into the future.

Corey 25:11

Yeah, I think that for the NDP, the risk is that the liberals are successful in saying, we are the only people who can stop, not even stop in the sense of stop them from forming government, but stop Pierre Polyev from doing the worst things he's going to do. You desperately need us in opposition. And that's just a historical threat that the NDP have had to deal with forever. One of the interesting things about polling is the NDP have not gained at the liberal decline, right? Yes. And under the surface, we don't know if there's votes shifting around like liberal to NDP, other NDP just disappearing or going to PPC or whatever, right? I don't have that level of sophistication to the polling I've got. although i suspect it's just the ndp are holding on to their people and the liberals are losing theirs to the conservatives right but

Corey 25:58

but in elections the liberals have often been quite successful at saying lend me your vote we need it at this moment so that's the threat and that's part of what's driven the end of the confidence and supply agreement they need to have a distance between themselves and the liberals to say no no no don't give your vote to the liberals they're different they're not the same as us we we are the people who can hold people to account for

Corey 26:19

for the block i I think the biggest threat is the moment passes. The Quebec electorate is notoriously fickle. This is part of my calculation of

Corey 26:26

where if I were the block, I would, a

Corey 26:29

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I would just say, hey, we're riding high in the polls. Some of these seat projections, not most of them, but some of them even show us becoming official opposition. Don't think that's likely to happen, but it's possible. Let's go, right? Let's find a way we can bring them down on an issue that matters to Quebec and let's go. And for the conservatives, I think that the risk becomes that the liberals actually do manage to find their footing over this next bit with the block and the NDP tying themselves in knots to not bring them down, right? Like all of the drama moves from what the fuck's going on with Trudeau's liberals to holy cow, the opposition continues to say they don't support him, but they're supporting him. And while I don't think it'll be enough to cost the conservatives the election, I think that that would just be an irritation to them that they don't necessarily want. We're

Zain 27:19

We're going to leave it there. Stephen Carter, we're going to get started with the show. Our first segment, our first segment, the Rustad rebate, Stephen Carter. 30 minutes in. That was the preamble for today. We'll see if we can hit a couple of topics. I'm going to go to BC. The BC election is on. We're on day three already, Stephen Carter. And the conservatives are leaning policy heavy. heavy there's two interesting things happening right now in in the bc election and and uh and this is i don't mean to kind of give a story of the day update but i find both of these to be potentially impactful and they have strategic questions associated with them thing number one stephen carter the bc conservatives and john rustad their leader are proposing a three thousand dollar a month rustad rebate named after himself that's what the the sign says at the podium On rent and mortgages, this is a $1,500 a month tax rebate on your provincial taxes starting in January of 26, I should say, and then increasing by $500 a month, so $2,000, $2,500, $3,000, up to a maximum of $3,000 a month. the BC rent and mortgage rebate would apply to both renters and homeowners and would be administered as a tax credit worth 5.06% of eligible housing costs equivalent to the rate of BC's base tax bracket in the conservative set in a press release.

Zain 28:39

I'm not even going to go deep on strategy mode per se, Corey, but there is a too good to be true element here. This sounds like a a lot of money, $3,000 a month I can get as a tax credit slash rebate on my provincial taxes. What's that? That sounds great. This seems like a game changer. I'm not sure if it is. I don't know where to start other than saying interesting branding, compelling framework, game

Zain 29:06

game changer in your mind?

Corey 29:09

Well, Zane, to your point, I don't really know what they're promising. I read the announcement. I read some of the coverage of it, but to me, I'm not at all clear how much money the average person is actually going to see. I guess if I interpret it one way, it's 5.06% or whatever you were saying of your mortgage. Let's say your mortgage was $5,000 a month. So it's 5% of $5,000 a month. Well, that's nowhere near $3,000, right? I'm confused. Exactly.

Corey 29:38

So I'm a little confused on that front. If I'm reading it wrong and it's actually a different for an amount of money that's more readily available to you and more eligible well

Corey 29:46

well that starts to sound prohibitively expensive for the government to do as a

Zain 29:50

a program yeah yeah as

Corey 29:51

as a program going on throughout it now it's not to say that it wouldn't be meaningful to to homeowners or renters maybe it would be hundreds of dollars maybe it even pass a thousand dollars in some cases but this this higher limit of like three thousand dollars a month feels like what do you you have to own to hit that, right? And I honestly don't know. I might just be entirely misinterpreting the policy, but it's curious to me that we have this policy and it's designed in such a way to leave such a strong impression. Because if that strong impression doesn't

Corey 30:23

doesn't end up being reality when people start crunching the numbers, there's

Corey 30:27

there's going to be a real rug pull sense too. So like big splashy number, but is it sustainable even in the course of an election campaign?

Zain 30:35

Carter, Corey's leading exactly where I wanted to take you, but I'll get your reaction to this as well, but let me bake in another part of the question if that's okay. Because the big splashy number here that we've repeated a few times is 3,000. And what the conservatives are doing is putting it up against the smaller, less flashy number that the NDP are promising, which is 400, a $400 rent rebate for all renters. Now, this is a previous 2017 policy. The NDP haven't come up with their housing number. I don't know if they're going down the same path, if they're proposing something different. But it's a tough $3,000 to ultimately read, but a clear number and a $400. And of course, these are not apples to apples. These are apples to oranges. But Carter, from a branding perspective, from a voter sort of absorption perspective, does that even matter? Your take on that question as well as what the conservatives are putting in the window with this policy? Well,

Carter 31:25

Well, Zane, as you know, I'm a simple man. I have simple rules in life and $3,000 is in fact greater than $400. So in general, rule, if I have to pay an extra $3,000, I'm unhappy. If I'm getting $3,000 back, then I'm happy. What I don't understand with this, is it like the Stephen Harper $3,000, you know, where you could write off $3,000 of your kid's sports and you save $412? Or is it like a

Carter 31:52

a real $3,000 rebate? I don't understand because if you gave $3,000 a month to Corey Hogan and he gets $36,000 back. I mean, good

Carter 32:02

good on you, Corey. Well done. But that doesn't make sense to me. That doesn't make sense. And it doesn't, I mean, first of all, can we just talk for a second about how this doesn't make sense at all? I mean, they're continuing to fund the demand side instead of the supply side. You can't fix this problem by subsidizing demand. It's just going to create an inflationary pressure on the on overall housing costs now as a as a landlord i get to go holy shit i get to charge x number of dollars more per month perfect

Carter 32:35

perfect that's what i'm going to do because

Carter 32:38

because the landlord is as long as supply is constrained this does nothing except make landlords richer which in cory's case is a lot of money cory would get very rich if he was oh my

Zain 32:50

my my goodness yes oh yes cory cory

Zain 32:52

is the it's true the the the most significant i

Carter 32:54

i just don't understand it on

Zain 32:55

on the podcast i

Carter 32:56

i mean some cory you're smart explain

Carter 32:58

explain to me why a

Carter 32:59

a demand side solution is

Carter 33:02

is actually going to work i

Corey 33:04

mean the actual argument is it would incentivize building right but if you're making it impossible to build with the other changes where you're saying this zoning cannot occur this development uh decision

Corey 33:15

decision that the ndp has made that would make make it easier to build is going away you're

Corey 33:19

you're probably cutting it off as its knees as well because you're not going to incentivize building something new if you're not allowed to build it i guess is the ultimate thing but to answer your question in an honest way steve and the idea would be if you make more money being a landlord there's

Corey 33:34

there's going to be more landlords if there are landlords looking for more buildings people are going to go out and build more buildings you think it's not going to work if you don't let people build buildings yeah because does that

Carter 33:43

that seem to be be the fundamental problem?

Zain 33:46

To me, yeah, I would agree. Here's the thing. Is a confusing mirage of 3,000 better than a straightforward 400? And the reason I ask this question is because if you're the NDP right now, you must have a strategic question to ask in terms of how much time and attention you spend breaking

Zain 34:06

breaking down what the promise is. Because in a modern campaign context, you know No, you can't necessarily rely on mainstream media, not necessarily the criticism of their aptitude, but more so their capacity and their ability to kind of detangle some of these things. So you must be asking yourself, fuck, like, do we spend any time on their proposal in trying to like fact check it or myth bust it? And what does that do to the opportunity we have in a very narrow window about what we're doing? And in some ways, it's

Zain 34:40

it's a very interesting modern question

Zain 34:43

question of campaigns, which is how do you spend

Zain 34:47

spend the limited runway that you have talking about what you want to talk about? And which pitches do you just let go by and make a strategic sort of question on? What do you think, Corey?

Corey 34:59

mean it's really tough to say it and i think that the apples to oranges is the point the big number is the point if you're the conservatives but what's what is fascinating to me is that still probably more than the 400 rent rebate all said and done right so let's use that same five thousand dollar example if if five percent is what's coming back to you in provincial tax that's still 250 a month that's still going to be you know a couple thousand dollars a year three thousand dollars a year so why didn't they just go with that right i mean like in some ways did their eyes get bigger than their stomach because it does feel like they're almost pulling you

Corey 35:34

pulling something out from underneath you anyhow i mean to

Corey 35:37

to your to your actual question here though

Corey 35:40

how much time do you actually want to spend fighting these things do you just sort of deal with the morass like how much do you want to bundle it i really don't know the answer and And this is going to be an interesting case study because it's

Corey 35:53

it's – well, actually, will it? Because it's just so – it's so hard to decouple what people are actually reacting to. Carter,

Zain 36:00

Carter, how would you think of that as a campaign strategist, campaign manager in your own right? Your opposition puts out something that's hard for most people to understand, but the number is larger, bigger. bigger. Uh, how do you kind of think about demystifying that for people or how much attention you put on to that? If, if you're running a campaign against someone like Rustad and the conservatives here, I

Carter 36:21

I think it's really hard. I think it's really hard to, to come up with something that, that actually, uh, uh,

Carter 36:27

uh, defeats the big number problem. People fall in love with big numbers. And, you know, I think that that's one of the reasons that the anti-vax quote showed up today. Um, you know, I think that it's easier to fight John Rustad on anti-vax and it is to fight him on $3,000 tax rebates per month. There's no magic to some of this stuff. It is what it is.

Zain 36:55

Carter's talking about a channel changer that I'll get to in a second, but Corey, jump in here.

Corey 36:58

I honestly don't know if I'm just misinterpreting this policy because if it is that 5% is what you you get back up to $3,000 for that. That'd be like a $50,000 a month mortgage you're talking about where you're actually capitalizing on the full benefit or beyond. Then it does leave you open to, well, this really benefits the super rich and you're not getting the benefit, you as an average homeowner. I might

Corey 37:30

might just be misinterpreting it. It is perhaps a more legitimate point at this moment just to say it's a complicated policy, but it's got big numbers, and those big numbers are alluring. But big numbers are a little bit like a siren's call. They can be very dangerous as people start to unpack them.

Zain 37:48

Corey, I want to talk about the channel changer that Carter mentioned here that the NDP owned, and they said, yep, we've put this out. This was a video that is resurfaced of Rustead, I believe in June of this calendar year of 24, speaking to a group of individuals on a Zoom call saying he regrets taking the so-called vaccine against COVID-19. He had many comments around, you know, herd immunity and what they're actually trying to do, etc. The NDP packaging on this is that this is a guy that doesn't believe in healthcare and this guy doesn't believe in health policy. It's conspiracy theories from the internet. I'm paraphrasing EB, but he said something like that today.

Zain 38:25

Conspiracy theories, COVID, potent,

Zain 38:28

potent, Corey? That was like my first thought here, which is like there almost seemed to be a we forgave everyone about everything that happened during COVID at some point, but maybe I'm wrong. And I'm curious to get your just sense of potency on this particular issue and if it still exists, because it's an interesting channel changer in some ways.

Corey 38:49

Well, I'm sure whatever you said was great, Zane, but I wasn't paying attention because I was texting a friend in BC to try to get answers on the last segment. And it seems like it is up to three thousand dollars a month is what's covered which works out to 150 a month back to you because that's

Carter 39:06

that's what i was thinking three

Corey 39:09

it's eighteen hundred dollars a year which is still way more than the four hundred dollars than the

Zain 39:13

the 2017 400 that the that the ndp had proposed right right it's

Corey 39:17

it's mercifully a lot less insane i guess it's like if there was no limit up to the three thousand but i think fundamentally um that

Corey 39:26

that makes me more confused why they didn't just bundle a little bit different like this actually to me feels uh you know different

Corey 39:33

different what do you guys think carter

Zain 39:35

carter my who cares it's

Carter 39:37

it's the same it's the same thing as the stephen harper stuff you know you you throw 1500 in the window and you save 46 46 bucks you know like this is the is

Carter 39:46

is that smart though do you like did you like this carter oh dude i've been all over this i have tried i've pitched this to so many clients that we do these types of things i love this shit because it becomes nearly impossible to defeat because

Carter 39:59

because as soon as you hear three thousand dollars a month you're like holy shit

Zain 40:03

shit that's amazing three

Carter 40:04

three thousand dollars know that it's five percent of that you know uh

Carter 40:08

uh fifteen hundred or three percent of it or whatever the hell the number is like

Carter 40:13

it's ridiculous that this is the i

Carter 40:16

i i the way that we do politics i

Zain 40:17

i asked i asked the whole question about the covid vaccine i'll get to that because i do i do we're asking about the The COVID vaccine?

Zain 40:24

Yeah, yeah. That would have been a really interesting question. Yeah, we should have gone there. It would have been awful. Yeah, I wish

Carter 40:27

wish we'd gone there. What do you think

Zain 40:28

think of policies named after the politician?

Zain 40:37

There's the Plecturn says, Rustad Rebay. Do you like this from a pure memorability perspective? It's like the two R's together. Do you feel like anyone would use it that way? I'm just kind of curious from just a simple political branding perspective. Carter, do you like this? It's a double

Carter 40:54

double-edged sword. Sometimes it works really well. I mean, Ralph Bucks, everybody was talking about Ralph Bucks. They wanted Ralph Bucks. Ralph Bucks was great. Sometimes it turns into Danny Dollars, and everybody makes fun of Danny Dollars, and suddenly their proposal's a gong show. I suspect when people find out that it's far less that they get to save every month than three thousand dollars this is going to turn into you know uh rust ads ruckus or something along those lines it's

Carter 41:21

much to do about nothing cory

Zain 41:23

cory you can take five percent of rust ads rebate and whatever letters those are that's what it'll be called yeah

Corey 41:27

yeah well i mean actually i think when you brand it like that you always have to worry about the counter branding and for something like this it's

Corey 41:34

it's pretty easy to say something like you know read the fine print on the rust ad rebate right with so many offers that seem too good to be true they usually are and you've got to look into them a little bit more and here's what you'll find when you look at that fine print right the person who's trying to stretch a thousand dollars into a home is going to get 50 bucks a month the

Corey 41:52

the person who's got a mortgage that's costing them three thousand dollars a month or more they're going to get the full benefit and that's going to cap out at 150 a month so not only is this regressive and not well targeted towards the people who most need the assistance but it's nowhere near what was committed to it's like showing up and thinking that you're You're going to get a brand new Maserati and you get a Toyota Celica with a body kit and an extra cup holder, right? Like this is just not-

Zain 42:20

- Why do you have to come after the Asian community that way, the broader Asian community? What's the deal? You coming at me, bro? Bro, you coming at me? Bro, you coming at me with that car reference, bro? What you doing? I'm right here,

Corey 42:31

here, bro. Was this

Corey 42:32

more targeted than I meant it to be? Fucking

Zain 42:34

Fucking right here. It was actually not only targeting. It was, I feel targeted. Targeted. I feel targeted. Corey, talk to me about this. This is a question I asked you. The same day this proposal comes out, the one that we're just talking about, video resurfaces of Rustad earlier this year, 2024 in June, where he says he regrets getting the so-called vaccine. My question is very simple. And the NDP framed this as this is a guy who believes conspiracy theories on the internet, not health data. Didn't we forgive everything related to COVID? Is this still a potent line of attack? What's going on here? I got

Corey 43:10

got another text from my friend in British Columbia about the $3,000. Yeah, for sure. Turns out the discussion was really quite focused around how they could make this seem as significant as possible, just as Stephen said. He said they actually got the idea from Stephen Carter himself. So Stephen Carter

Carter 43:26

Carter was probably right there. Oh,

Corey 43:27

fantastic. Yes. Answer my question now, Corey.

Zain 43:29

Corey. I'm not going to repeat it a third time. Okay.

Corey 43:32

Well, it's interesting, right? Because in some ways, I feel many of us have started to think about COVID the way we think of, I don't know, dating in high school. We're a little embarrassed by it, right? We know it was part of growing up. We know it was the things we had to do, but we don't want to relive those moments. And we feel a little bit of not joy when we think about those particular times in our lives, right? Right. And, um, and

Corey 43:56

and so I just don't know that any of us are that excited to go back and think about and talk about COVID-19. And,

Corey 44:02

And, uh, well, certainly Rustad's comments seem a little bit disqualifying from a public health perspective. I actually don't know they're going to be that fatal. They're certainly not worse than anything Danielle Smith has said. And, um, I acknowledging that British Columbia and Alberta are not the same place. Sure. It just feels like when those attacks came in the provincial election people

Corey 44:23

people people may have acknowledged that that she could not particularly be trusted on those issues you remember she said oh i didn't like it made me ashamed to wear a poppy right yes because um because of the vaccination stuff fuck

Corey 44:37

fuck we all knew that was not a great thing to say but none of us wanted to think about it or talk about it or focus our elections on it and so i think you're going to have a similar situation here in british Columbia, where give us an excuse and we'll move on from this particular topic. And as long as Rustad doesn't dig himself a deeper hole, I

Corey 44:55

I don't think British Columbians are going to obsess about this. I don't. I mean, they might find other things disqualifying about him, but I think the COVID stuff, people just

Corey 45:03

just want to put in the rear view mirror. And I'm not saying that's a great thing, but I'm saying it's

Carter 45:11

you aligned with Corey?

Carter 45:12

No, Corey's totally wrong.

Carter 45:14

People still want to hear about this. They still want to know you know how people will run the health care system and i think in british columbia british columbia is not alberta and uh at some on one of the podcasts recently cory talked about how you can't take a a wholesale policy from one jurisdiction and drop it into another jurisdiction and the same thing i think goes when you're when you're responding to a problem to to something just because one province responded one way doesn't mean another province is going to respond in the same way cory needs to listen to the podcast i I need to listen

Corey 45:43

listen to my own advice.

Carter 45:44

And listen to your own advice, because when you do, you'll find that you're going to get a whole bunch of new stuff. But

Corey 45:49

But listen, I don't think that's actually unique to Alberta. I used it because it was an easy example. But generally speaking, I

Corey 45:55

I don't get the sense that people want to talk about these issues. And when they're brought up and people's judgment during COVID is brought up, I'm not aware of an election. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of an election in the last, let's say, two years where somebody's judgment in COVID pushed

Corey 46:14

pushed the vote against them, like that they showed bad judgment in COVID. The

Zain 46:17

The most surprising one to me was just how universally panned Ford was for so many things he did during COVID and paid very little of that price at the ballot box. That one was the most interesting to me. um and yes you can always argue about the the split progressive vote between the liberals and the ndp in ontario being a dynamic uh that that doesn't exist here uh or existed in alberta if we want to talk about the two jurisdictions we've been talking about um but carter like wholesale like a covid sin that was egregious would you tell your um political clients or would you tell your campaign to say, consider this seriously as being ammunition? Don't disregard it. If I could ask you that question in that way,

Carter 47:04

would you answer? Absolutely. I think especially when, you know, I'll tell you something, if a person just said, you know what, I didn't get the vaccine and I don't

Carter 47:12

don't want, you know, but when you make it sound like it's part of some sort of mind control experiment, that

Carter 47:17

that they're trying to do population control through the vaccinations. I mean, this

Carter 47:22

this is too much. he kind

Zain 47:24

kind of said something like that like in in yeah in the end this is about control basically

Zain 47:28

yeah yeah like exactly it was very much about control uh any other thoughts on bc before we move it on i want to move it on to to trudeau and and and daniel smith well

Corey 47:36

well i'll just say i think this is going to be a fun election and we might actually want to um follow

Corey 47:42

i don't know what you guys think well maybe we'll see see

Corey 47:45

see we'll just see what the dairy

Zain 47:47

dairy queen uses don't don't fucking push it. We'll see what's happening. Okay, let's move on to our next segment. Stephen Carter, our next segment. Bro, does your base even live here? I'm going with the bro theme. Okay, I'm going with the bro theme. Carter, two things going on. Politicians in media and public events. I find this really interesting how they make strategic calculations. Thing number one, tonight we record on Monday. Justin Trudeau is going to be on Stephen Colbert. Thing number two, Daniel Smith is attending the Rebel News Live conference in Calgary alongside some of the hosts from Rebel News, Tamara Lisch from The Convoy. Really interesting. And for two of them, they're not equivalent in some ways. They are in others. others. Carter, I want to get your initial reactions, strategic reactions to good strategy, bad strategy on both of those questions for each of those politicians. What do you think for each of them? And then I want to have a broader discussion on has the strategic sort of decision-making shifted in our modern politics around what politicians do and how they do it from a media and events perspective? Yeah.

Carter 48:57

Yeah. I mean, media events have shifted a tremendous amount because- Thanks for answering the second question

Zain 49:01

question first that I said I deliberately wanted to wait I don't, but that's okay. That's fine. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. That's fine. That's fine, Carter. Yeah, no, that's okay.

Carter 49:07

Just be thankful I'm actually answering one of your questions at least. It's

Carter 49:11

It's true. It is past

Zain 49:11

past your bedtime. It is 9.30.

Carter 49:13

Here's the thing. It is, people have to use different techniques in order to reach their audiences. You can't necessarily reach your entire audience using social media anymore. You can't use your, you

Carter 49:24

you can't reach your entire audience using television or radio.

Carter 49:27

It's very hard to find your audience in today's diffuse

Carter 49:30

diffuse media marketplace. So you go to different places, right? This is very similar to me, to the Justin Trudeau podcast tour that he did. On the American

Carter 49:43

You know, he went to a number of podcasts. Those podcasts have significant Canadian audiences. And I think the same thing happens here. This is a pretty

Carter 49:53

pretty big opportunity for Justin Trudeau to reach a number of Canadians as as well as establish a relationship or a reputation on the national stage.

Carter 50:04

And for Danielle Smith, this is something to talk to her base just before her leadership review. The people who are going to be attending the leadership review for Danielle Smith look an awful lot more like Tamara Litch than they look like Stephen Colbert.

Zain 50:21

I thought you were going to say Stephen Carter.

Carter 50:24

they look very much like Stephen Carter. Yeah, it's

Zain 50:28

It is upsetting. Corey, a strategic take on it for each of them on their move. Trudeau, Colbert,

Corey 50:39

lazy writing from the people working on this season of society, right? Well, where are we going to put the Alberta Premier? Oh, in a Rebel news event. Where are we going to put Justin Trudeau? Not even in the fucking country. We're going to send him out to a different country. While he's in New York, yes.

Corey 50:58

Where he can just, you know, get his global audience that he so desperately desires. I don't know. I do think that when you are a prime minister and you're coming up on a re-election campaign, maybe a year away, maybe less, right?

Corey 51:14

I don't know this is a great use of your time and efforts, if I'm going to be totally frank, because it does feed into a sense that perhaps you are not focused at home on the issues that matter and affordability and all of that. And I

Corey 51:27

I think that that's actually a fair criticism to an extent, right? Why are you on Stephen Colbert? What is the audience that you're trying to reach here? Acknowledging many Canadians watch the Colbert show, whatever its name is right now, they don't make

Corey 51:42

make up like a percent of the audience that seems to make it make sense, right? Right. Like it's going to be what, five, 10 percent of the viewers of that particular show are you're going to be in play for. In some ways, the

Corey 51:56

Alberta premier's one makes way more sense. Daniel Smith is talking to people who are in her orbit directly, you know, people

Corey 52:03

people who are advocating for her, going to fight for her, going to donate for her, going to knock doors for her. And most importantly of all, are going to have the option to pass judgment on her leadership. And so to me, there is a bit of a clearer connection between need and ability for the audience to meet that need in the Alberta sense as kind of unenthusiastic

Corey 52:27

unenthusiastic as I think all three of us would be about a rebel news event, right? It seems to serve a purpose more than the Colbert one, which seems to serve only

Corey 52:37

only Justin Trudeau's ego. go

Zain 52:42

there used to be a time in our canadian politics where um there used to be an almost an accountability for for politicians who went on to rebel news that that there was you know right like yeah i remember a time where i'm like those days are fucking over it seems like yeah so i'm what's changed is it just is it just a simple explanation saying our politics have gotten further to the right and especially in alberta she's got a a leadership review, and those folks are further right than not. And if no one's going to hold them accountable, then okay, they're just going to do this. Or is there a greater, grander, more insightful, perhaps, Carter, explanation that you may have around the rebel news story in particular? And then we'll talk about the Trudeau one in a second.

Carter 53:23

Yeah, I'm not sure that it's insightful, but I think that everything has become forgivable with donald trump in the game right donald trump has has pushed

Carter 53:32

pushed the worldwide politics uh for and and he

Carter 53:37

he has shown if you do not show shame then it is very very difficult to to shame you you know if it's hey i don't know rebel news is just another media outlet says danielle smith i do media all the time okay

Carter 53:51

well it's not okay

Carter 53:56

i say it is right

Carter 53:57

right i don't i don't feel shame there's

Carter 53:59

there's an pause it's impossible to shame you so

Carter 54:01

so that is is uh it

Carter 54:04

it to me it's just it

Carter 54:09

what we think is acceptable in politics has shifted so dramatically in the last 15 years yes and and trump has has certainly popular i mean remember sun media when sun media was around it was like man that's yeah

Carter 54:22

that's that's right wing whoo whoo

Carter 54:25

and and now it It was, you know, like looking back, it was practically mainstream.

Carter 54:30

And now the rebel news continues, you know, to grow and have its impact.

Carter 54:35

You know, good on Ezra.

Zain 54:39

what do you think? What's, you know, those times are gone, you said. Why?

Corey 54:45

think Stephen's got the right of it here. If you're not ashamed about it, it doesn't seem shameful. And that seems to have been the observation, the perhaps fatal democracy observation that politicians have made, which is, if I don't think there's anything wrong with it, there's nothing wrong with it. And everything is forgivable. It reminds me a lot of, do you remember when Donald Trump Jr.

Corey 55:10

released just randomly on Twitter, like, oh yeah, I know we were in conversation with the Russian government about trying to get dirt

Corey 55:18

dirt on the Clinton campaign or something. And the reporter's like, I was working on this for a year, and they just tweeted it out. Well, this is the brilliance of Donald Trump. And I can't believe I'm saying these words. But he realized, even

Corey 55:34

even if it is outright illegal, if you just own it, if you just say it, nobody

Corey 55:40

nobody knows what to do with it at that point. Because you're going to have somebody say, well, that's wrong. And they're going to say, well, I disagree.

Corey 55:46

And the, well, I disagree is enough for just way too many people. Like there's no accountability on that stuff. And I'm not saying that the rebel is the equivalency of foreign

Corey 55:57

foreign interference in an election, right? Although, depending on some of the conversations you see and hear,

Corey 56:03

there are people who have gotten money who have been in the rebel orbit, as we've seen with some of the events in the United States recently.

Corey 56:14

But that's not even in the same category. Just to say, well, you don't like that outlet, but I do, is

Corey 56:19

is more than sufficient for most people.

Corey 56:23

Is there a turning back the clock on this, Carter? Carter? Is

Zain 56:25

Is there applying a 2019 or 2020 framework on rebel news possible? If you're the opposition NDP or activists or others who are kind of looking at this and saying, what is our premier doing?

Zain 56:37

Is there any meat on the bone there strategically to try to turn back the clock and the standards we were once holding certain politicians to Carter first and then yourself, Corey?

Carter 56:46

Well, I think that there's a chance. I think there's a chance and we're watching it unfold fold actually in north carolina with trump and uh named the guy who's running for cat for governor

Carter 56:55

governor who's escaping me right now um

Corey 57:00

nazi you want to say black nazi because black

Carter 57:01

black nazi guy himself black nazi if

Carter 57:05

if it works tying black nazi to trump then i think that we that it could work in the future. So that to me is an opportunity

Carter 57:16

opportunity to see how tying together a negative person with a far more negative person actually works. And if that's the case, then taking some of Ezra Levant and some of his correspondence, more ridiculous

Carter 57:30

ridiculous claims and putting them side by side with Danielle Smith may work for an opposition party in the future.

Corey 57:37

Corey, what do you think? I

Corey 57:38

I mean, is that what it takes? So Mark Robinson, for those not following the US story, he actually did describe himself as a black Nazi. That's why we were using the phrase there. He was on porn websites saying, yeah, I'm a black Nazi. He's talking about all of these things that he's doing, cheating on his wife. It's just like way over the top. Google it yourself. I don't need to be your Google on this. But that's what it takes now for somebody to say, maybe that's not enough. Maybe we need more from our politicians than that. Is that where the bar currently is on this particular thing? I don't know that that's the pendulum shifting back. I think that that's pretty alarming that he is still in the race after all of this fucking shit. That

Corey 58:22

That would be more my observation on this particular matter here. year. Do I think that the pendulum could swing back? Do I think we could end up in an environment like you've talked about 2019 as though it was this golden age? I'm just

Corey 58:34

throwing in that number.

Corey 58:34

Last time I remember something

Zain 58:36

something like this. Yes.

Corey 58:37

2000, 2005, whatever it is earlier. I think that the answer is that depends on the voters, right? And as long as the voters are willing to turn a blind eye to this,

Corey 58:49

then it's going to keep happening they've they've optimized this for winning rather

Corey 58:54

rather than optimize this for societal

Corey 58:57

societal betterment shall we say and like if we're fine with that we're fine with that but you

Corey 59:02

you know we're going to reap what we sow carter

Zain 59:04

carter let's go to the trudeau example not not the same in many ways but it's it's a question of exposure and where and i find that interesting um american

Zain 59:14

american American media, even though we consume so much of it, even though the Canadian government might be in a fight with it indirectly with some of our legislation. What do you think of that as it kind of relates to a media relations strategy of politicians? If you're big enough, might as well use the airwaves where the majority of Canadians might be tuning in in some real way. I know Corey's argument is smart, makes sense around maybe not the best use of time, but where are you at with this? Is there any new set of rules or new paradigm we've entered that Trudeau might be representing?

Carter 59:50

One interview is Justin Trudeau going to get in Canada.

Carter 59:54

interview is not going to get him. What do you mean to

Carter 59:56

He sits down with whoever

Carter 59:59

whoever the hell is hosting the National today. Adrian. Right? Yeah,

Carter 1:00:02

Because it changes every 15 or 20 minutes. She's great. Whoever's hosting The National is

Carter 1:00:07

is going to interview Justin Trudeau.

Carter 1:00:10

Isn't that exciting? Except he's going to face a very different interview than the one he's going to get from Stephen Colbert tonight.

Carter 1:00:16

Stephen Colbert's interview is going to be, oh,

Carter 1:00:18

oh, this is going to be fawning. This is going to be, you know, it's going to be sunshine up his tushy. And keep in mind, this is a person who has reportedly wanted nothing but sunshine and unicorns presented to him for quite some time now, right?

Carter 1:00:32

right? This is the rumor that came out about Katie Telford and Jeremy Broadhurst. Jeremy told the truth to the boss. The boss doesn't want to hear the truth. The boss only wants to hear sunshine. So the boss goes and does Stephen Colbert. Fantastic. Sunshine up his ass. That's exactly what he needs. He needs more of a positive interview cycle. Give him a couple of these. This is exactly what he needs for his mental state. That is perfect. I could totally see putting one of my clients in a position like this where it's like, Like, we are going to softball the hell out of this. It's going to be fantastic. You know what we're going to do?

Carter 1:01:05

Book you on The Strategist. Book you on The Strategist because that's a fucking easy show. No, have you host The Strategist.

Carter 1:01:11

Have you host The Strategist.

Zain 1:01:14

I thought it was great. Of

Corey 1:01:15

You know, of course, there is something to the puffball interview, right? And if it was in a vacuum, I might agree with you, but I actually think it's likely to cut back the other way. It just reinforces things that we think negative things about Justin Trudeau, And that's the risk to me. It's not that he's doing media and it's somehow suboptimal. I agree with you. It's going to be good audience numbers relative to a lot of Canadian options. It's so easy to say it's not about Canada. It's about Justin Trudeau. And that is a criticism that he wears already and it reinforces it. We're

Zain 1:01:50

We're going to leave that segment there, Corey. We're going to move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, this is a segment we do for you just before you hit the hay. Thank you. We want your final thoughts of your day to be with us. And I'm so glad we have that. You're not going to speak to another human after this podcast. You're going to go straight into your bed. And these are the final thoughts that you just said. So make sure these are important. Heather

Carter 1:02:13

Heather will be thrilled that I'm not speaking to her before I go to bed. You actually can.

Zain 1:02:16

can. It's in your contract. track. Hey, Carter, are you in or out on this theory? This is a Zane Velji theory, okay?

Zain 1:02:24

The Trudeau-Colbert interview is

Zain 1:02:27

is part of a goodbye tour.

Zain 1:02:31

Wow. This is actually not... This is to have the international audience remember him the way he wants them to.

Zain 1:02:40

Pure speculation, by the way, but I want you to give me an in or out on this. This is part of the Justin Trudeau legacy goodbye tour, not the Justin Trudeau let me boost my poll numbers domestically tour. Stephen Carter, I'm

Zain 1:02:53

I'm not going to give you more sort of persuasion on it. I'm just going to give it to you straight. Are you in or out on that?

Carter 1:02:58

I really like that. I really like that. I mean, that's fantastic. A lot

Carter 1:03:04

think it's totally wrong, but

Carter 1:03:06

but I love it. You're out on

Zain 1:03:07

on it. You're out on it.

Carter 1:03:09

What do you love

Zain 1:03:10

love about it? If that was the strategy you were devising for your guy, you'd do something like this? Is that why you love it? Absolutely.

Carter 1:03:16

Absolutely. But I'd also book him on the

Carter 1:03:19

big CBS show or whatever. It would be bigger than just this.

Zain 1:03:28

liberals remember him the way you want him to be remembered sort of thing. Corey, in

Zain 1:03:33

in or out on the Zayn Velji pure speculation that this is part of the Justin Trudeau goodbye tour? were uh

Corey 1:03:38

uh i i'm out but

Corey 1:03:40

but i love it i i love it for you zayn i think it's a good i think it's a good story i think it's a good

Carter 1:03:45

good theory but ultimately hanging

Zain 1:03:47

hanging that drum i

Corey 1:03:48

i just i just don't think he's going because we haven't seen anything that suggests that he's true true willing to go

Zain 1:03:56

part of me wonders that if this kind of like trial ballooned in this in some way but that seems insane too that seems even more insane cory i'm going to go with you in our next are you in In or out? Strategically. Put your emotions and your thoughts aside. Strategically, are you in or out on Danielle attending the Rebel News Conference in Calgary? I mean, strategically,

Corey 1:04:14

I'm in. For sure. I think that the Venn diagram of people who would attend a Rebel Conference and people who would attend a UCP leadership vote is a fucking circle. And so,

Corey 1:04:26

why the hell wouldn't you do that, knowing that that's your major hurdle coming up in the next couple of months? Carter,

Zain 1:04:30

Carter, in or out on Danielle attending the conference? if i'm

Carter 1:04:33

i'm danielle i'm in 100 totally makes sense yeah

Carter 1:04:37

yeah the strategy is perfect can

Corey 1:04:38

can i just say even if something totally batshit crazy comes out of it that offends the mainstream that's

Corey 1:04:44

that's not her concern right now right like like she'll just shrug and wear it and in november she'll win her leadership review and then she's got years to pivot back towards the center and again should

Corey 1:04:55

should she you know it

Corey 1:04:56

it apparently takes like a week so like she doesn't have a lot of concern well

Zain 1:05:00

well she She can be what she's been believing for the last number of years and not really have to force to be doing that. Carter, if the Trudeau thing is not a legacy goodbye, are you in or are you out on – let's just say this is business as usual. He's staying. Are you in or are you out on what you're seeing with the Colbert spot?

Carter 1:05:18

I'm in. I just think it's a great, nice little softball thing that he can do. Very similar to the podcast

Carter 1:05:27

podcast that he did.

Carter 1:05:31

I don't know where the impact will be, but I like him. Corey, in

Zain 1:05:34

in or out on the American Colbert Show, Colbert Report?

Corey 1:05:37

I'm out. I don't – yeah.

Corey 1:05:40

yeah. I mean, maybe I shouldn't be so out. People are more persuaded by these things than I think they should be, but I think that you're the leader of a G7 nation. I think it's a year or two in election. I think the audience is not Canadian by and large, and I think that people already think that you're not interested enough in the job and you're in your own world. And this is reinforcing of all of that.

Zain 1:06:03

Corey, final question. Let's end the show on this, which is advice to Stephen Carter as he goes to bed tonight. We're the last people he talks to right now. He will be not speaking to another human being. So as he recharges and refreshes for anywhere between 8 to 16 hours, what advice do you want to give this young man? So,

Corey 1:06:25

So, if you're going to bed and you feel like you can't quite tell if you need to go to the bathroom or not, you need to go to the bathroom, right? Because that's just a feeling that's going to grow throughout the night. It's not going to be like when you sit down, you're going to want to go to the bathroom less. So, just go. That's my advice to you. That's so good.

Carter 1:06:42

You know what? When you get to this certain age, you have to go to the bathroom all the time. So, welcome aboard, my friend.

Zain 1:06:49

Well, we can't wait to get you a bed. Well, then my new advice

Corey 1:06:52

advice has to be catheters, yeah.

Zain 1:06:56

leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1826 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belcher. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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