Episode 1837: ShowDave.ca

Annalise 0:17

Zain, did you know about this talent of Corey's? I

Corey 0:20

I don't know if it's a talent.

Annalise 0:22

He's smart. He can speak many languages, right?

Zain 0:25

Corey, just quickly your Urdu, please.

Zain 0:32

wow okay yeah no no

Zain 0:33

i'm not impressed he can't speak the official northeast language well

Corey 0:39

does strike me that maybe we need a plan b and that's europe because it's certainly not north america at this point with donald trump with the terror you're

Zain 0:46

you're going there why not choose why not choose a

Zain 0:48

place that also has english as the as the first language Why not New Zealand? I've got to tell you what I might say.

Corey 0:58

I've got my list narrowed down to three. It's Ireland, it's Italy, and it's Germany. That's what's made

Annalise 1:03

made your top three?

Corey 1:05

think so. What would your top three be?

Annalise 1:08

I don't know, but not that top three. Zane, what's your top three? Why

Zain 1:12

Why is New Zealand not on the list, Stephen asks.

Zain 1:15

I think we know what.

Zain 1:17

What does Ireland have going for it? New Zealand is no longer on the

Corey 1:19

feel free to list nothing. nothing

Corey 1:21

okay ireland's very rich their capital's been dublin since 1920

Zain 1:30

it's a dad i got it i just i just thought okay i just thought do you want to insert

Annalise 1:34

insert the lap you can

Annalise 1:39

corey's jokes have not been hitting lately okay now

Corey 1:41

now i understand why i don't do the intros i guess it's back over very strange energy yeah you brought to the show just

Corey 1:48

trying to show off

Zain 1:49

off your german that no one cares for and then you can't back it up with some even basic urdu some urdu yeah you can't do much weak

Annalise 1:57

weak cory hogan okay guys i'm sorry are we are we talking tariffs tonight was that our uh that was our intro yes you're gonna do you're gonna do

Zain 2:04

do about 10 to 15 minutes on what a tariff is and then we'll be we'll

Corey 2:07

we'll be talking and we'll

Annalise 2:08

we'll be talking while you're

Corey 2:09

you're while you're doing that zane we'll do some googling uh

Annalise 2:11

uh guys let's move on to our first segment trump's tariffs um on monday monday night i believe president-elect donald trump vowed to impose a 25 tariff on canadian and mexican products as soon as he takes office on january 20th he says he'll keep the tariff in place until canada and mexico stop drugs in particular fentanyl and migrants from entering the u.s illegally in response prime minister justin trudeau has said he will meet with the premiers this week to develop a team canada approach. And side note, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said Trump's move is the biggest threat we've ever seen to Canada's economy and is like, quote, a family member stabbing you right in the heart.

Annalise 2:53

Corey Hogan, is that, in as simple terms as possible, is that what this is like, a family member stabbing you right in the heart?

Corey 3:04

like a crazy in-law who you can't believe your your aunt remarried. I think maybe that's the metaphor.

Corey 3:13

Look, I think that Doug Ford has found some colorful language to describe, I think, a pain that we're all going to be processing over the next bit. And probably we should have remembered existed in the four years between 2017 and 2020. And that's Donald Trump is erratic. Donald Trump doesn't care about the longstanding connections between the United States and Canada. Donald Trump's idea of an ally is somebody who is of value to him today, and he will fucking stab you in the heart to use Doug Ford's language tomorrow, if he thinks that's to his advantage. And as Canadians, I think we're very much not used to that. We take for granted what has been a special relationship with the United States, and people roll their eyes at it, and it becomes a platitude. But there's rarely in the history of civilization been two countries more closely connected. And so when one takes steps like this, it can obviously be surprising, even if it's not surprising at all, right? And I think that's what Canada is grappling with. And our premiers and our prime minister are doing

Corey 4:15

varying degrees of grappling with it well.

Annalise 4:18

Zane Corey mentioned last time around, and I have a list of questions, but that's one of them. Like, Canada in particular, this liberal government dealt with the threat of tariffs in Trump's last administration. One may argue that administration was staffed with more like, quote, unquote, normal staff, is Trump looks to purge the U.S. civil service and install loyalists. What does the backroom negotiating look like this time around? And how is this different than last time?

Zain 4:46

Who knows? I mean, that's the big Donald Trump question in the sense that who knows, like he just announced a trade representative later this evening, who used to be the former chief of staff to the trade representative last time. So you're You're still getting some continuity from the Trump administration as it relates to folks that have been on the file in the past.

Zain 5:07

You know, if you're Justin Trudeau from a pure political standpoint, this is kind of what you've been waiting for, man. If you believed that the Trump presidency, and should it happen, was what was going to lift you in the polls and reverse your fortunes, you were probably not naive enough, but who knows. You probably weren't naive enough to just think just the sheer result of Trump's election would have everyone turn to you and say, oh my God, Justin Trudeau, we can't believe how lucky we are to have you. No, it was things like this. And so it was the opportunity to be able to present the Team Canada, to act in a crisis, to convene the premiers, to speak for Canada on the quote-unquote world stage. age. So in some ways, the negotiations are ones that Justin Trudeau, while not in the material sense, would have planned for, certainly in the political sense, should have been planning for in terms of this theater, right? Because if he wasn't, what the fuck were you doing? If this is what you were waiting for, if this is why you weren't leaving, because Trump might come in, then fucking here you go, man. Like, wear the cape, wear the Canadian flag, convene the premiers. years. And he's done that, right? So the fast acting Justin Trudeau, he has done that. And I'd say that even over the last 24 to 36 hours, he's looked more prime ministerial than the guy who's more than likely still going to take his job. And I think that's exactly it, right? Pierre Palliev is spouting off slogans, still saying that, you know, I would do it differently. And this is Justin Trudeau's, you know, a suite of broader issues that Justin Trudeau's brought to this country. And this is a result of that. And yeah, Donald Trump is wrong. But you know, despite the rhetoric, which Pierre has been able to pretty much, you know, win on on a day-to-day week-to-week basis, which has resulted in his poll numbers, Justin Trudeau looked like the prime minister today and yesterday. And the fact that he convenes the premiers tomorrow, as we record on a Tuesday, speaks to that. So I don't know, Annalise, what these negotiations will look like. But here's the moment that our prime minister has been waiting for. And I'm really really curious to see even outside of what this means for his political fortunes can he perform on the pure politics of of this particular moment and the pure sort of theatrics of this moment

Annalise 7:26

then i like how you brought it back to the question at the end there that's uh that doesn't happen yeah

Zain 7:31

yeah no no i'm built differently than these other two um that you used to deal with right because i'm probably one of the smartest people that someone's met before oh yeah cory do you want to fill people in on what happened yeah you can because

Zain 7:42

because you want you want it you want i don't No, it was such a quick blinding moment. It happens so often that I feel like I should probably get the folks that were acting as my witnesses to do so. I

Corey 7:53

I think Corey should. Yeah, I mean, sure. In a country or let's just say a planet of over 7 billion people, you found one person who thinks you're the smartest person. Smartest person, sorry, that

Annalise 8:05

Zane, when you heard that from that gentleman, did you think he was talking about Corey? Yes. Did you think he was talking about you? Yes, I did.

Zain 8:12

That's key. Yes, I did. That

Annalise 8:13

That is key. they did not know I don't

Zain 8:15

don't know if you know this my my my intellect is limited so I don't I don't get that thrown at me quite often mainly it's because I don't speak German as a destination language

Corey 8:26

language it is the language yes I did think someone was talking about

Zain 8:28

about Corey and they wanted to shake his hand and I said well fucking shake Corey's hand why do I have to facilitate this that he wanted to shake my hand which was very strange yeah

Corey 8:34

yeah it was you and then I

Zain 8:35

I got told not to

Zain 8:35

swear on stage by someone who asked me if I was a free speech

Corey 8:38

speech advocate which I told him I was yeah

Zain 8:40

so do we want to add any context to this or are we done with this I mean,

Corey 8:44

mean, it was a little confusing. Listen, if you're a Patreon member, you'll get dropped in the feed.

Corey 8:51

An episode that we did live on stage at the Alberta Real Estate Association, which was, I

Corey 8:58

brilliant insights from Zane and I and brilliant questions from Annalise and a really very engaged audience. The laughter, the applause, it was almost

Corey 9:07

almost too much to handle, but you'll hear it all. It's almost like they

Zain 9:11

repetitive and robotic in their laughter, I would say.

Zain 9:15

Like, that's how I found them.

Annalise 9:18

somebody only wanted to pay for so many clips.

Annalise 9:21

Yeah, so, so engaged and so, so smart from Zane. Zane, great answer to that question. Corey, Zane brought up some great, interesting points in there. I guess the first one being, like, is this an opportunity for, let's start with Trudeau. Is this an opportunity for Trudeau to have a win? And as part of that, is this a negotiation tactic on the Trump side? You know, you start at 25 percent. Stuff happens in the back rooms, as I was alluding to. And then you settle at 5 percent. And yay, look how great Trudeau is. Like, talk to me about how he can. Zayn's kind of talked about his behavior in the last 24 hours, whatever it's been. But how does he play this into a potential win?

Corey 10:03

Yeah, well, let's start with what Zane ended with, which was this idea of him looking prime ministerial. And I agree, I think it's pretty easy to look like a prime minister when you're convening premiers, because there's not too many people who get to do that, right. And so there are certain trappings of the office available to you. You are the person that Donald Trump is going to call to, to have this conversation, or who's going to call Donald Trump, I suppose to have the conversation. And it does seem consistent with what the liberals have have said for a while would be their quote unquote strategy, right? Like they'll show that they're the ones who can deal with with Donald Trump. So I'm sure they've thought an awful lot about the tone and how they want to convey themselves. Any political strategy is going to be based on how you look relative to your opponent. And I think the liberals have determined, I don't know if I 100% agree, but I think that they've determined that Pierre Polyev is going to come off as snide and petty and small. And so he will meet these big moments with big man energy, and he's going to go and he's going to be the prime minister that we all need.

Corey 11:02

Not a new strategy. Jimmy Carter tried this in 1980, the Rose Garden strategy it was called, right? This idea that you would be the president and people would see you as the president rather than you out there campaigning. I will observe he did not win the 1980 election. And so I do think the Democrats

Corey 11:20

Democrats didn't, right? So I do think we do need to think about that very carefully in all of our analysis here, right? right? It is possible for people to disaggregate the person doing the job and the trappings of the job from who they want to do the job. And there is a general realization that you're always going to look more like you're in the job when you're in the job, not to sound too basic about it. But Annalise, you were asking about, does this all end after a bunch of theater at 5%? Well, I think even that would be challenging for me because what Donald Trump has said is we've You've got this crisis on the northern border, right? All of these drugs, all of these migrants. Well, yes, they are up a little bit. They're not even a fraction of a fraction of what's happening on the southern border of the United States. It's a totally different story. Even that blip has started to decline in the past few months as the Canadian government has already taken action to stem it. And most of the drugs that are caught coming into Canada from or coming into the United States from Canada are being brought in to the United States by Americans. It's American citizens that are doing this. So I guess what I'm trying to say is his entire argument is bullshit. It is utter bullshit, even if you want to accept the argument on the southern border. And I think you have to accept there's a lot of migrants and drugs coming through the southern border. That is not the situation on the northern border. He is just bundling this all together. He's trying to use the word crisis like it's bingo because his power to create tariffs comes from an emergency power that presidents have. And he's just trying to do Donald Trump shit. He's trying to be a bully. He's trying to come in hard. He's trying to get quote unquote concessions. I don't know why we should concede on a thing that's fake, but maybe we'll get there in a minute. And then at the end of the day, he's trying to create a condition where even if he puts a 10% tariff, like we're all patting ourselves on the back. And that's, that's dumb. And that's bullshit. And if we take that approach, it's going to be a long fucking four years and beyond, because we just can't play this game. We just can't play this game. And so I'm not sure I can give the Prime Minister very good marks if that's where this ends up. But maybe it ends up in a different place for it to end up in a different place. I do believe we're going to need a little more discipline from our premiers than I think we saw today. Well,

Annalise 13:29

Well, let's let's talk about that. Like, how do you as prime minister manage the situation and manage all these premiers when today and I don't know if you two read it this way, but Ford and Smith were almost conceding the premise of Trump's argument.

Corey 13:43

For sure. I mean, Smith, for sure. A thousand percent was. Yes. Yes. Smith was saying we got to send people to the border. Ford,

Zain 13:49

in his almost quasi-xenophobic way, was trying to tell people we're not Mexicans, you know, pretty much like, no, but seriously. Yeah,

Corey 13:57

Yeah, I mean, I sort of agree with you, Zane. Like, his language was really folksy. A

Zain 14:01

A bunch of fucking white people up here were not the Mexicans of down south, where you got 9,000 kilograms of fentanyl crossing your border versus, like, 20, for example. He's got a point, like, and he didn't say the latter part, but I got a point through his voice, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. I guess. Is that clear? Yeah, no, no, for sure, I nailed it. You know, here's the thing.

Zain 14:22

These premiers are going to do what premiers do in this situation. You got the

Zain 14:27

the premier of Saskatchewan being like, we'll fucking try to handle this shit alone. You got Daniel Smith accepting the premise. You got Doug Ford as the leader of the premiers. I don't know, one of you two can remind me what sort of leadership roundtable he leads of the premiers. years but in that capacity was to cory's point using this very folksy like oh my god we're your neighbors we're like you we look like you we're like from we love you yeah yeah almost implying that we're not mexican like we're not mexican and your issue exists with mexico don't lump us in with those people now and you can read that how you will and he's basically i'm gonna read it you're absolutely

Corey 14:58

absolutely right zane because he's even talked in the past about maybe

Corey 15:02

maybe there should be free trade just with the united states and not mexico to try to inoculate from exactly totally

Zain 15:07

totally And this is on the heels of the auto parts in China conversation that happened what seemed like months ago, but mere days ago, mere hours ago in that sense, not to say that's even resolved itself in its own right. So, yeah, I mean, premiers are going to premiere and try to win over support and try to stand out. And, you know, someone like Daniel Smith has tall poppy syndrome where she has to stand out in her own way, you know, and they're going to do just that. But the discipline is going to be, to Corey's point, the big sort of X factor here. Do they have any? And while Justin Trudeau tries to get this real nice balance, fascinating balance, I would say, between doing a couple of things, having a tough approach to the United States, but also recognizing that we're the junior partner, also simultaneously recognizing we're a G7 nation, that we actually represent our own, we have our own heft in this situation. recognizing the uniqueness of this while doing some of the simple stuff and what's fascinating about this trump tariffs threat is that you know i jokingly said to you guys before we went on no one knows what the fuck a tariff is but like and i don't think one of those people one of those people's donald trump you know you find this rally clip clip where i believe it was in um in michigan two or three days before the election where he's got no tax banners behind him people carrying these no tax banners. And then they're wearing these helmets that say no and tax, right? As he says, I now I'm going to do my favorite thing, my new favorite word, tariff, and people just start erupting, not recognizing that these tariffs to Canada and Mexico will have massive economic ramifications and cost of good ramifications for US consumers themselves. And so Trudeau also has to do some of that work. And what I find fascinating about this file is how far the The Trudeau strategy goes towards educating Americans and trying to get his counterparts in some of these border states to educate Americans around the costs of Trump's tariffs. And remember, this is a guy who's not even in office yet. So we have this weird sort of 55-day-ish window to try to resolve this and educate on this before he does, quote unquote, his day one strategy on this particular thing. So it's going to be really interesting.

Annalise 17:22

Corey, did you want to jump in there?

Corey 17:24

You talk about premiers, and there's questions as to how close the premiers need to be. I think they need to be coordinated, and I think they need to be playing different parts in theatre, right? Some of the premiers will have good relations with governors that they can then put pressure on the President of the United States and his team. Some of the premiers will just be the heads of provinces with some heft for different reasons. Danielle Smith, of course, big oil producing province, obviously, to state the blindingly obvious. Well, that oil we're hearing is also subject to this tariff, or at least that's the saber rattling that Donald Trump is doing. Not part of the exemption,

Zain 18:00

so to speak, as we hear. Yeah.

Corey 18:02

So, you know, we should be working connections between Alberta and Texas on, you know, on the corporate side, right? There are things to do. And when you read stories about the original free trade agreements in the 80s and early 90s, the US free trade agreement and then NAFTA, one

Corey 18:18

one of the things that the negotiators on the American side always said was the Canadians were tough negotiators. They were a pain in the ass, because the federal negotiators would always say things like, oh, the premiers will never go for that, right? Premiers will never go for that. And the premiers played the role they needed to play in order for Canada to get to the best deal possible. This is clearly an area of federal jurisdiction, but there are clearly ways that the premiers can be helpful in any kind of conversation. But in those original free trade conversations I'm talking about, the premiers were the people outside of the room where the prime minister of the day could say, whether it was Mulroney or Chrétien, like, I can't get that past the premiers. It's almost like they're like the board, right? The board will never buy that

Corey 19:00

Exactly right. And our constitution and these watertight compartments and the lack of ability to move unilaterally on basically anything federally became a strength and it allowed the Canadian negotiators to negotiate really hard lines. But the opposite seems to be setting up right now. Now, now you almost see premiers that are running closer to the US position, rather than being the people in the background that that Canadians can or that the Canadian government can say, premiers will never go for this. So I think that that's a challenge. And I think that it really tells us a little bit about this internationalized political era we're in right now, where I don't think it's a stretch to say somebody like Danielle Smith may feel greater affinity to the government of Donald Trump, because

Corey 19:45

because it's ideologically consistent with her than with the government of Justin Trudeau in her own country. Yeah, because it's ideologically quite opposed to it. And that's, that's different. It is. It is. I'm not saying we got here overnight, but it's different. It's different from some of the bigger companies.

Zain 20:01

companies. But there's also a simple political fact that none of these premiers will be wearing this.

Zain 20:06

I don't know. You think so? I don't

Zain 20:07

don't think any – I think Trudeau would want – Trudeau has – if you buy the premise that Trudeau has been preparing for this, he's the captain of Team Canada. He's – anything that is gained from here I think will be decentralized, and I think any blame will certainly go all to Trudeau. I think everyone's ready for that, including Justin Trudeau. He knows that.

Corey 20:29

I think I agree in sort of like the most immediate, like if things go south sense. Even if they

Zain 20:34

they land at your 5%, 2%, 3%. Well, look,

Corey 20:38

of the magnitude of 25% tariffs we're talking about right now, no

Corey 20:41

no premier's hiding from that. That will be economically devastating across the board. And they're all going to go down. Like it's going to be bad for everyone.

Annalise 20:49

everyone. Corey, you're quite a smart man. You're not an economist, but you're quite smart. Not the smartest, but quite smart. Can you just paint a picture of what 25%—to Zane's point about, you know, educating Americans and educating people about tariffs, can you just, like, paint a picture of what 25% tariffs would mean, would be like?

Corey 21:10

Yeah, I mean, I'm relying on other people's analysis at this point, but I do want to say it's way worse for us than it is for them, but it's bad for them, right? Some of the analysis says that these tariffs would add about $1,000 to the average family in the United States. I think that's an analysis of nearly $2

Corey 21:28

Really depends on what you're putting into their baskets, too, and also very uneven. There are some border states that have much more trade with Mexico or Canada that are going to be hit much, much worse. And depending on what you're buying, of course, that's going to have a major, major effect on these things. And again, I'm just talking about the Canada and Mexico tariffs. There are also the China tariffs that are potentially under consideration, all of the global tariffs, which will further increase that. And to Zane's point, tariffs are a tax. Like, it's just a tax collected in a different way. So that's the impact to America. To Canada, I

Corey 22:01

I don't know. I think that there are better people than me to be able to say some of these things, but I can tell you in, like, the simplest terms, if

Corey 22:10

if you wanted the dollar to kind of depreciate to a point where the tariffs no longer have the effect and, like, we become economically on export the same level of competitive, competitive, that would be the dollar dropping from about where it is at 71 cents to about 57, 58 cents, right, just to give you a sense of what it would require for us to be as competitive in the US market after. And so I'm not saying we would get there. Obviously, there would be trade with a lot of other countries that would pick up the slack. Some of that just wouldn't go anywhere. There's there's a lot of considerations here. I'm not trying to simplify it. But I'm just trying to say that's how exposed we are to trade with the United States. And that's what a magnitude would would be so uh you know it's just a much bigger deal to us in mexico than it is to the u.s and it is an asymmetry that donald trump has to his advantage like not even counting just the overall heft of the united states we're more reliant on them than they are on us and we probably should have thought a little bit more about that over the last eight years and beyond and we probably need to be thinking really hard right now even if we get out of this moment of crisis how we find How we find new trading partners, how we find new defense partners, how we just find new dance partners, period, in the world and are not so reliant on a guy like Donald Trump, or

Corey 23:27

or the guy who comes after Donald Trump, who might be the same or worse. So

Annalise 23:30

So if you're Trudeau and you're going into that meeting on Wednesday with the premiers, what

Annalise 23:35

what like what would your strategy be? Are you in talk like even like super basic here? Are you assigning roles? Hey, premier, so and so you're doing this. Are you like sharing key meds? Like what? And I get that it's the first meeting. There will be more. But what what's the strategy? How are you making sure you have that kind of like cohesive,

Corey 23:59

Yeah, for sure. Key messaging has to be a huge part of it. I imagine just based on what some of the premiers have done in the past 24 hours, I might even be sharing some fact base and saying, folks, this is you can't you can't concede that this is a thing. If it's a thing, then we have to do stuff. And there's nothing to do here. And this is a challenge. Like, how do you?

Corey 24:18

I'm sure there'll be differences of opinion as to how to deal with the man, right?

Corey 24:22

Whether they validate his concerns, whether they stroke his ego, he's going to need to talk to all of them. He does have an advantage in that room, and that's that he's been prime minister since 2015. He has negotiated with Donald Trump many times before. I am sure he knows Donald Trump better than any of those premiers. And so he's going to have to establish his credibility with the group on this particular matter. He's going to have to reinforce this is a Team Canada approach, and he's going to need to very quickly isolate players that don't want to play. And if every other premier, including premiers of the same stripe, conservative, can turn into somebody like danielle smith and say danielle we can't do this you know i you know i understand the politics god i i don't like this trudeau guy either but this is this is too fucking serious i think that would be a good foundation from which then to build the approach but the approach is probably as much as anything assigning i think stakeholders and uh identifying opportunities but i'll let zane fill in more of the details there key messages and stakeholders common understanding that would be the foundation i would start yeah

Annalise 25:23

yeah zane jump in what else i think i think

Zain 25:25

think it's there's There's some real leadership basics here, right? You're walking into a room where you're the alpha, but every one of the folks in there in a day-to-day basis, perhaps outside of this meeting, is treated as the number one, right? 360 some odd days a year outside of some rare meetings with the prime minister and some meetings with governors and other more senior people, these premiers are treated as the principal. And so you've got to recognize that, right? You've got to recognize that each one of them thinks that they're the smartest person in the room. And you as a prime minister have obviously a political but also policy imperative heading into that. If you if you look at this through the lens of corporate governance, which I think is not a terrible lens, because we've been talking about that. Point number one, you got to be aligned with your board chair. That means Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, and which is what I really liked today with Justin Trudeau calling Doug Ford saying we're meeting, I'm responding to your letter, we're doing this, you're the board chair of this organization. Let's do it. I'm the CEO, you're the board chair, let's be aligned. So I think the first thing is making sure Ford is align, at

Zain 26:22

at least on the broad strokes. To Corey's point number two, I think there's going to be some hard truths that need to be delivered. He, as in the prime minister, does not need to deliver all of them. I think the best scenario for him is if premiers are talking to one another, and he is very much about strategic alignment. He's not necessarily the person that speaks first. He's the person that speaks last. I'm just basically giving you leadership one-to-one stuff, right?

Corey 26:45

right? No, I think this

Zain 26:46

That Ford leads the meeting. Trudeau is navigating strategic alignment. He's almost there kind of celebrating certain people and their roles and potential roles that they can have. You know, Daniel Smith and him don't get along. But Daniel Smith, to Corey's point, man, you've got better relationships with, you know, with Texas and other oil producing places than I ever would. Can you do us a solid and take this role on, right? Can you do that? And she might, you know, say yes or no, but it's coming from a place of, can you do Team Canada all solid here and make this happen? And so I think those are some of the initial things. After that, I would really get them doing

Zain 27:25

doing the work in the room. I would come in with a, here's what we're thinking, right? We're thinking a campaign. It's called tariffs or taxes. What do you think? You know, we want to simplify the issue. We want to make it, and that's what we're calling it internally. Does that jive with you guys? Does that work? Like, here's, you know, and just almost being like, hey, here's 12 really smart people. Was it 12, 13? 13 really smart people in the room. Can you, you know, what do you think of this? And get them doing the work. Get them, like, co-creating together. I think that's so important when you have a bunch of people who have big egos and perhaps disparate directions and disparate agendas, letting them in on something and getting them to do the work and play a bit of ball, and you facilitate and moderate rather than lead it.

Zain 28:10

That, I think, really can create some forward momentum out of those meetings. I think often when you're in these meetings, you recognize, and not to say I'm in these meetings, but when you're in the meeting with the primary, the principal, you realize a couple of things. They usually are the ones that speak last. They're usually the ones that are, if they're doing their job well, are not driving their agenda from the top, but effectively trying to, you know, strategically align. Here's what I hear being said. Here's, you know, here's a crazy thought from my end. How about this, right? And then like facilitating, moderating, putting the pieces together. And when you put the pieces together that other people put down, that's where you start inserting a bit of your agenda, your mold, your sort of thing, so that you can get, everyone can have buy-in that they had something to do with it. That's what I think a successful meeting could honestly look like. Alignment with your board chair, speak last, moderate rather than, you know, kind of lead and look desperate because you've got a political agenda that you need to, you know, turn your fortunes around into. And you look like the person that's ready to do the work, put some ideas on the table, and get other people in that room to mold them and thank them for their feedback and their directionality on it. And cast the roles to your question, Annalise, as much as you can. Celebrate what people bring uniquely to the table and cast them in those roles and see if they accept them.

Annalise 29:28

Corey, good strategy. You like what Zane's saying?

Corey 29:32

I don't mind the mental model of thinking of them as a board, but I do think you have to be careful not to go too far down that road. I don't think Ford leads. I think Trudeau leads. I believe that there is probably an expectation that he does, and if he doesn't do it, he'll fail to meet that expectation. So some of it is also, you've got to go in there knowing what they're anticipating you to do. And in

Corey 29:53

general, it's always good when you go to a meeting, not just to think about what you want to get out of it, but what all of the other people in the room want get out of it too and be really mindful of that and help them get out of the meeting what they want to get out of the meeting and in this case i do believe they're they're wanting as much as anything to to know that the federal government has this in hand and the federal government's not going to do something that screws them so you've got to make sure that you've got their agendas their industries everything top of mind don't be surprised for example if some premiers come at it from what you might perceive as a more selfish point of view which is well what if we we look at sectoral exemptions, right? Like maybe oil and gas should be exempted, right? What's that conversation going to look like when you're there? And on those ones, to some of Zane's strategic points there, let the other premiers rein in those premiers and pull them back rather than it feel like it's somebody coming from up top. But don't confuse it. You're the prime minister. You are in charge. You are the head of this country. In charge does not have to mean you drive every single moment of that agenda.

Corey 30:54

He needs to drive the start. I don't care if he drives every minute from minute four on to minute four minutes to go, but he needs to drive this time. We can agree with that.

Annalise 31:04

Zane, to your earlier point, and perhaps maybe it's not, though, I was going to say maybe it's a conversation like in a few days, weeks, but maybe it's not. Maybe you start on it right away. How do you educate Americans?

Zain 31:15

Oh, man, it's it. I mean, it's not like you're going to actually

Zain 31:18

actually be able to do it, like,

Zain 31:19

like, like, to be clear. Right. But you have to you have to start thinking about what you need to do with your allies at the very least. So here's a few things you're not going to do. You're not going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. And let's all be clear about this. You've asked this in the form of your question on potentially an empty threat and an anchor position for negotiation on Donald Trump to educate Americans on what tariffs are, right? Right. I think a lot of that's going to happen right now, naturally, in the United States, where the conversation is already coming into and snapping into focus. Because let's be clear, for us right now, it's a Canada-U.S. conversation. For the U.S. right now, it's a U.S.-Canada-Mexico conversation. So they're talking about goods right now that are coming from Mexico, that are coming from Canada. uh we're you know to cory's point uh what i've heard in some of the analysis is that it's a thousand bucks from each side of the border that could be added to to the cost of an average american family so a thousand bucks from canada roughly a thousand bucks from mexico roughly so two thousand dollars you know 200 billion dollars on the nearly 700 billion dollars of um trade that we do with the with the u.s each year could be the tax bill the tariff bill to to Americans alone. That's not even counting the Canadian side of things. So I think a lot of this work is going to be happening in the United States right now. I suspect Trump knows that the half life on the word tariff is limited, that it's going to get precipitously less popular as more education on tariffs happens. I think there's going to be some hardcore folks within the Trump quote unquote base that are going to support tariffs regardless. But the fact is, business Business associations on both sides of the border, governors, consumer groups, all these associations, others are going to come out and start talking about this in the United States. And I think as Team Canada, you need to be prepared to jump on their key messages, not necessarily fuel this fight with an expensive ad spend in the United States. Yours is about stakeholder engagement with governors, officials, other folks, making sure more and more people are on the same page as you. Understanding, be like, your understanding is this as well, right? Check. Good. good. Your understanding is this as well. Yes, check, good. That's the work that you're doing right now. And what you need is something simple and easy for folks to understand in terms of a gut check, right? Being like, this is a tax. It's a tax. It's this expensive. It's that expensive. Cool. We're on the same page. Just making sure you understand that. And just running through the Rolodex of contacts that you have that are strategic stakeholders for you in the United So it's indirect diplomacy that way. It's not direct ad spend campaign, Government of Canada funding a multi-billion dollar, because that's honestly what it would take, campaign to educate Americans. That's not it at all. But that work is going to be done. And you can already see it happening right now in real time in the United States.

Corey 34:11

You know, there is the step one, convince everybody it's a bad idea, get the pressure to come from inside America. The call is coming from inside the House. There is probably also a place where you at least need the threat of a step two, which is some sort of retaliation. And I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me that we would retaliate with our own tariffs. I don't know why we would do such a self-own. And I do think that there's very few things that are available to us that will hurt America more than what America is doing to itself, right? Because it will raise prices for all of these things. But we do need to canvas the options available for us and how we can say, okay, well, America, you did this. We're not happy about this. Here's how we're going to, I don't know, here's now how we're going to withhold something that you need, right? And I sort of struggle to think about what those might be. I was looking for resources, perhaps, that we provide in an outsized way to America. Uranium, potash, for sure. But I'm not really sure. But the federal government needs to be sure. They need to figure out what they're going to do as a step two. And maybe step two isn't even about goods. Maybe it's about treaties. Maybe it's about strategic partnerships. Maybe this pushes us more into China's orbit. I don't know. I'm

Corey 35:26

I'm not saying that's a great idea. But I'm saying you've got to have a step two, or else it's going to come off pretty hollow. And yeah, I think a lot of us think this is Donald Trump bluster. But you also, you've

Corey 35:38

you've got to be pretty real with yourself as to what you're willing to accept at the end of the day. And if it is Donald Trump bluster, and you're willing to absorb like a 5% tariff or whatnot, you need to know that as well. And you need to know what you're wanting. To

Zain 35:51

To me, Corey's right. The step two position is the most interesting around what the message is and what the action is, right? Because this comes down to the point of like, we will not negotiate with ourselves automatic. We won't fall on our own sword and be like, oh, 25, how about five? You know, like, you know, we won't do shit like that, especially with hollow threats, right? So how does Canada show it isn't passive, right? How does Canada show that, you know, how does Trudeau deflect the domestic critics, right? How do we celebrate trade wins? How do we talk about the 2018 playbook, right, where we can remind the public that we successfully resisted similar tariffs from the same guy, right, by staying united, by staying firm? I did that. We did that, right? And so in a sense, the message is more domestic around the sense of like, how do you not capitulate? How do you protect workers, right? You know, emphasize reciprocity, but not this weakness that people are expecting you to kind of radiate out in some ways. Let

Corey 36:48

Let me jump off that reciprocity point. I think that in terms of finding space for a deal, they need to find something that makes both sides look like they completely won, right? And because Donald Trump has, let's

Corey 37:00

let's just call it like a fictional view of reality, it's a little bit tough to do, but I think in a funny way, it might also provide some interesting options here. Like, what if you said, okay, as Prime Minister Donald Trump, we understand America is very concerned about migrants and very concerned about drugs at the border. We Canadians too are concerned about things coming across the border, drugs, guns, all of that. So how about this as a deal? When a certain level of busts at the border occurs on either side, each country is committing to reinforcing their border security on the other side, right? So if you're finding fentanyl come across, yes, that will trigger us having to put more border agents at crossings. If we're finding guns come across, if we're finding cocaine come across, that will trigger you putting more things on it. So that creates that sense of reciprocity. It creates a sense that something actually happened. It allows you to save face. And I'm not saying this is the deal, but I'm saying a deal where it looks like it applies evenly to both sides. And actually, because of a mechanism like that doesn't need us to do anything if there's not not a real problem, those are the kind of solutions you need to be on the lookout for if you're the prime minister.

Annalise 38:03

Zane, do you think, not that one per se, but as Corey says, the general idea, do you think that's even possible when you're dealing with Trump and the people that he's putting around? Yes, a thousand percent.

Zain 38:12

percent. I actually do not think this is about trade at all.

Zain 38:15

I think this is about trade a bit. I think it's about Trump to get a bit of a win, saying something happened. I think his main tariff combatant is China. China I think he's excited to go after China and cripple their economy and you know to and he's gonna do that shit uh we might just be a trial balloon in some ways but I think Corey's absolutely right this may start with tariffs which we need to which Canada needs to make clear and I think domestic uh groups in America will make clear that it's a tax on both sides and consumers and it needs to land somewhere far away from tariffs it needs to land something to do with border border security, something to do with migrants. And you're already seeing that strategy or that sort of B-side, if I can call it that, play out with Dominic LeBlanc today, talking about border security, all those sort of things, right? Or drones.

Zain 39:04

Absolutely. Drones, other things, like here's what we're going to proactively do. Team Canada, quote unquote, is trying to get this thing resolved even before Trump takes office, right? Get us to a deal before he even has a chance to make this a day one priority. And so you're already seeing that play out. I think this was just starting at tariffs. So to answer your question, I think the possibility of this landing quite far away from tariffs and a percentage number,

Zain 39:27

high probability if we do it right. Yeah.

Corey 39:30

So I agree. But my anxiety is, see my previous points, there's not actually a problem. So I would like our government to try to find something that is triggered by reality, if that makes any sense. Like, yeah, we'll do these things based on this data. And if the data goes down, we won't do these things or something to that effect. Like, yeah, sure, we'll add a

Zain 39:49

a billion or $2 billion of border

Corey 39:50

border security. Because where does that end? Yeah,

Corey 39:53

Yeah, like, because if every imaginary problem Donald Trump has, we're now going to have to solve, we're going to come up against one that we can't even solve in his imagination. I'm

Zain 40:01

I'm going to throw this out. A couple billion dollars to put whatever, an additional layer of border guards for a non-existent problem seems like a nice price to pay for what could be billions of dollars in trade tariffs. So I think even landing there, solving his imaginary problem so he can have a TV win, which honestly I think this really could be about, might be the W at the end of the day. I actually would not be surprised if it lands there. I know you want to tether it to reality, but if we go out and solve his imaginary problems with the massive investment in tech, drones, and border agents, fuck it. Sure, Canada's happy to pay the price.

Corey 40:39

No, but here's the problem. So listen, I would agree with you if it was an event in isolation. You think he's going to ask for more? But as you yourself, you fucking pointed this out yourself. He's not even pressing it yet. No, no, no, he's going to ask for more. And we're already dealing with this bullshit. He's going to keep asking for more. And so if we establish this thing where he says jump and we say, you said this high, can we just jump half as high? I don't think that's going to serve us particularly well over the next four years. Or when he says jump, can we just punch ourselves in

Zain 41:03

in the gut instead?

Corey 41:06

Listen, I'm willing to close my dick in the car door instead. Does that work for me? And he's like, yeah.

Corey 41:11

that's good for now.

Corey 41:13

that's good for now, but I'm going to come back and ask more about that jump. I

Zain 41:16

I mean, he's already gotten that in some ways, right? The fact is that he's literally dominated the media cycle and will continue to do so in all three countries with this particular item for the next week or so, minimum.

Annalise 41:33

And he's not president yet. And he's

Corey 41:35

he's not president yet. Just

Annalise 41:36

Just last one on this, guys. Polyev, what should Polyev be doing? What should he not be doing? How should he be playing this right now?

Corey 41:44

I think Pierre Poliev needs to be playing a, hey, I'm part of Team Canada thing. I would be keeping my mouth shut about this, except to say Donald Trump's wrong and being part of the team. Because let's just assume that

Corey 41:57

that the Liberals are not wrong, that their best opportunity, they've done the polling, they've got the focus groups, they've decided their best opportunity is Justin

Corey 42:04

Justin Trudeau is the guy who can stand up to Donald Trump. Why would you play into that? Why would you be the foil they need you to be? Show yourself to be the person that the liberals are accusing you of being. Instead, you show yourself to be the state's person who can put partisanship aside and say, my country matters a lot to me. And obviously, I don't always get along with Justin Trudeau, but we agree, Canada comes first. and if canada comes first donald trump you need to understand that canadians are canadians are a sensible but proud people and we're not gonna we're not gonna have you push us around in this particular fashion or whatever you know what whatever justin trudeau needs you to be in that particular conversation and uh if you start saying things like oh he's got a point on the border justin trudeau's let us down i

Corey 42:47

i don't know my

Corey 42:49

my fear is it might work for you but

Corey 42:51

but then you'll be prime minister and you're going to have bigger problems.

Zain 42:53

problems. Yeah. There's a big, juicy ball on the tee right now for Pierre. And he wants to hit it. You could tell. He wants to.

Corey 43:00

to. Oh my God. He wants

Zain 43:00

wants to talk about how Justin Trudeau has made the migrant crisis worse, right? He wants to tie this into immigration. He wants to talk about the Canada-US border, asylum seekers, all that sort of stuff. It feeds nicely into what he's been talking about, right? He feels like he got a win on immigration, Canada throttling our numbers down, so to speak. Pierre wants... There's a simple message frame for Pierre. This is about the border, and this is about broader issues of Justin Trudeau. Broader narrative of Trudeau, broader and border. And he wants to hit that ball so hard right now. He

Corey 43:31

He so desperately wants to hit it. And I think he's going to. I think he's

Zain 43:34

he's going to. I

Corey 43:34

I sent you guys a text last night, which said, let's count the minutes until we hear the words, the Trudeau tariffs are the result of nine years of failure to secure our borders. Didn't need to read it. Already internalized. It's Mark's guy, right?

Zain 43:46

Yeah, but he's going there. I like we

Corey 43:49

we are he wants to well he wants to I don't think I don't think he can I don't think he can stop himself I

Annalise 43:54

I don't think the last part on that do you do you think he can follow the advice that you two were laying out for him no

Zain 44:01

no because I think he's gonna get advice that says what we're saying is wrong I

Zain 44:04

I think he's gonna he's in the point right now he's gonna get advice that says be yourself and

Zain 44:09

and he's gonna do that he's just gonna do that and it may not he may not pay a price because he might just be a sideshow on this trying to get in but it also depends on how how long this goes, right? How long this, quote unquote, negotiation goes. From all the reporting that we're hearing is that Team Canada is ready to go into the trenches and make this a very long sort of process.

Zain 44:30

So at the end of the day, Pierre has to kind of make his mind up in return when he kind of switches tone, when he talks about this, what political benefit it has, and frankly, how often he beats on this Trump, because you can tell he wants to.

Corey 44:42

He desperately wants to, but I think it would be a mistake to do so. It

Corey 44:46

It would be a sugar Sugar high. You would feel good for a while, but ultimately, especially considering the prize that you want is to be prime minister, you've got to be thinking about the world that you want to inherit as well. And you've got to do better. Sugar

Annalise 44:59

Sugar high. Wise dad words there, Corey.

Annalise 45:02

Let's move on to our next segment, our next segment, a GST holiday. Guys, in a move that will cost over $6 billion, the feds are dropping the GST and HST on a range of products for two months beginning December 14th. They're also sending $250 in the spring to about 18 million working Canadians. The list of what gets a GST holiday is interesting. Christmas trees, physical print newspapers, but not physical print magazines or online news subscriptions. Kids clothing and toys. Definitions, though, of like what is a kid. I think it's under 14 on the toys. Shoes, diapers, car seats, restaurant meals, books, alcoholic beverages, but only up to 7%. Candy, pudding, granola, puzzles. puzzles, a long list of things. Will this matter? Does this help the Liberals? Is mailing checks a good political strategy? And why is everyone doing it? Talk to me about your thoughts on the GST holiday.

Corey 46:06

I hate the GST holiday. We talked a bit about this at the area show that we did here. But if you feel

Corey 46:13

feel like there is an affordability crisis, and somebody does this to you, it's going to like gives you this holiday you might appreciate it in the sense that okay that's a little bit of relief but you have absolutely validated that there's an affordability crisis and if you needed it at this time of year why don't you need it all of the time because it's not even like just at christmas it's for like two months starting at christmas right it's like the it's like the 60 days of christmas and to me i think it just it puts the liberals squarely squarely in the conservative message frame things have gotten too unaffordable so unaffordable we need temporary relief from these taxes but if you need temporary relief from these taxes maybe you need permanent relief from these taxes i just like the logic thread doesn't work for me at all i do think that they're being roundly uh panned for a

Corey 46:59

a lot of things about the construction of this particular and rightly so and of course the other part of it was like sending checks i can't remember the the name they gave these checks but 250 checks canada

Zain 47:10

canada workers benefit or some shit it like that yeah

Corey 47:12

yeah yeah you know people families make it under 150 000 a year and like

Corey 47:18

like what is that again like all same criticisms apply people

Corey 47:22

people will appreciate the money i'm sure but they're gonna hold it against the liberals they're not gonna credit the liberals for it they're gonna say things got so bad i

Corey 47:29

i had to you know that you had to create this fucking emergency benefit like i i don't see this can i tell you because some people have mentioned well you know ralph klein Lion did those checks, right? We got those $400. Ralph Bucks. $400,

Zain 47:42

Or Legault did them, or Ford did them recently. But yeah, you're going with the Ralph example, sure.

Corey 47:47

The Ralph Bucks were $400 20 years ago. Out of a surplus, yeah.

Corey 47:52

It's a lot more money, and it was out of a surplus, right? That was times are so good, we're returning money. And

Annalise 47:58

And everyone got it. It wasn't just working people. But

Corey 48:02

But Annalise, times were so good,

Corey 48:04

we got more money. This is times are so bad, we're giving you money. i was

Annalise 48:07

was in high school

Corey 48:09

when we got it's the exact yeah it's the exact opposite reason

Corey 48:13

reason and as far as the premier is getting away with it where the prime minister can't it's because everybody blames the prime minister for the affordability challenge this is them protecting you from the prime minister okay

Annalise 48:22

okay two quick things one i was in high school when we got four hundred dollar wealth bucks that was like a lot of money when you were in high school in the 2000s you bought apple stock

Zain 48:33

bought an ipod instead i bought my first i don't know what apple stock would be worth when you go the day today if you bought 400 of ralph buck good idea apple stock what would have been zane

Annalise 48:43

zane well well cory's doing that important research is there and like to cory's point about the affordability crisis uh finance minister christia freeland has said since the announcement that the gst holiday will address the vibe session she's talking all about the vibe session which if i'm understanding it correctly is basically the fact there's a disconnect between between the economy and how Canadians feel about it. Do you like this branding? No.

Annalise 49:07

Do you think it hits? I don't even know what the fuck it means. Do you think it resonates? No.

Annalise 49:10

It's not an affordability issue. Who the fuck is buying

Zain 49:13

Christmas tree on December 14th?

Zain 49:16

Okay, unless you're a Muslim like me. I want to. If you're buying it on the 14th, might as well buy it on the 26th, okay? Here's good advice coming from someone. Buy it on the 26th. It's just, you're going to get it for like 80% off off and an additional 5% off. Because if you're buying on the 14th, you're not celebrating Christmas at all anyways, at least not properly. So what the fuck? Listen, three things. Number one, look at the list of all the folks that have got this GST exemption. That is the lobbyist Olympics right there. Newspapers, diapers, whatever, those are the best lobbyists. It is is a strangely constructed list between lobbyists and weird you know micro targeting by the liberals around folks that they want to retain and or want to vote for them number two i largely agree with cory um

Zain 50:09

um in fact for me the logic train where it breaks down in addition to if a two-month holiday if an acknowledgement of a two-month holiday uh indicates that times are shit well then isn't that ultimately mean that times are shit and doesn't that ultimately mean we need a new government I agree with Corey. But in fact, the

Zain 50:29

the big reveal for me in

Zain 50:32

in the liberals here is actually way more damning, which is that you can earn 150K in this country and you're considered a working person and you need relief. relief

Zain 50:45

to me just that basic logic train you can earn buck 50 in this country you're considered a working person in their own definition and you need relief to

Zain 50:57

to me literally acknowledges inflation literally acknowledges lack of wage growth literally acknowledges all the shit the other side has been saying it is the most damning aspect of this if they would have called this 150k the you know, the Justin Trudeau, you know, fucking bucks or whatever, I would have been actually better off with it than the stupid name. Because this now actually fundamentally buys into 150 is not enough to sustain a family in any part of this country anymore. And you need temporary emergency relief that puts us more into a deficit. That's how bad shit is for you. The acknowledgement there, I think, is so much more damning than the acknowledgement of a two month, you know, constitutes a 12 month, which should just mean new government, right? Like, you can earn that much money in this country, and it's not enough for you. And we need to give you emergency, you know, relief, so to speak. What I like, part three, what I like about it, and this is purely theoretical, because it's not strategic, is that it finally acknowledges, and the liberals like everything recently, lethargic, late, out of step, not right timing. But it acknowledges one thing that the liberals feel like they're not above populist politics. So for me, I'm hoping I I see a bit more of this. I hope it's more strategically aligned, better timed, et cetera, down the road. But that's the very thin silver lining in all of this, because I think the rest of it is actually quite revelatory in all the wrong ways.

Annalise 52:21

I don't know if you guys picked up on this, but Aaron O'Toole promised like this. I think his was for a month, the month of December. But in 2021, when he was running, like literally the same thing in terms of the GST holiday. day um side note on that but you guys know the back rooms start to finish walk me through like how they decide on this list and how they decide on the 150 000 and and the name of it to like to zane's point who is it just in a room brainstorming and throwing ideas at a wall um zane you mentioned the the lobbyist but we'll

Zain 52:58

we'll actually believe that that's the case i'm not saying that's the entire story but i believe that's the case but how

Annalise 53:03

how like you guys have been in those back rooms how are these conversations is it like okay let's let's you know we we want to put 20 things on our list everyone what are your ideas and then pare it down and factor in the lobbying like how how do they come up with this like pretty um specific and kind of comical in some senses list yeah

Corey 53:22

yeah i so i'm not sure how much of a effect lobbying had on it i think there's kind of more of a subtle what are the liberals trying to advance and what are the things they're trying to support which is how you get things like physical newspapers on there just baffling to me but but how this works in my experience and i have i've never done anything directly like nobody's done this this is a ridiculous yeah you haven't given billions

Corey 53:46

away if a gs in a gst hall oh i've done that i just

Corey 53:50

just haven't direct deposit

Zain 53:51

by the way i hope it's not direct deposit for the liberals populace

Corey 53:55

i've done that too but like you've named If you named your direct deposit correctly, these people will probably not... No, it took years. No. It took years. It took so many years. What was your EFT called? Don't open up a wound.

Corey 54:05

It was different at every bank. It was different for every bank. It was different at every bank, and it said Canada Revenue Agents.

Zain 54:10

Agents. That's probably what this shit's going to be, and it's going to lose any effect that they were hoping to have. Anyways, go ahead. Okay, little detour. No, actually, I think that's hugely important, what

Zain 54:20

what the EFT name is.

Annalise 54:22

It is. No, it is. We'll get to that. Yeah.

Corey 54:24

Yeah. Corey, go ahead. In terms of building this list, though, I think that you can reasonably imagine somebody said, here's the kinds of things we have in mind. And then that list got a little bit more expansive as it went along. And then somebody said, great, go

Corey 54:39

go to Treasury Board or

Corey 54:41

or Finance and figure out exactly what that's going to cost us. And then that list almost came back with the cost for each item. And I guarantee you, the original list was two times as large and probably 10 times as large by dollars. And everyone's like, holy fuck, that would be expensive. That would be expensive. Wow, that's a lot cheaper than we thought. Let's throw that in there too. And then you got to a point where the list felt a little light and you thought, oh, what else can we get that sounds good, but wouldn't be too expensive? And somebody said, well, it's Christmas time. What about Christmas trees? And someone said, fucking brilliant. Bob, you're a genius, Bob. Christmas trees for Christmas. smartest person in the room how about

Corey 55:16

about turkeys and uh we

Zain 55:17

we trust me bob we've got a plan for you yeah

Corey 55:20

yeah bob bob we got you covered i don't know about turkeys bob we're gonna have to look into that supply chain people might get mad but and then of course this was probably designed originally to take effect on let's call it november 15th or december 1st and then finance said can't do it can't do it by that time best we can get you is december 14th and even that we're going to be breaking everything along the way to do it and so they begrudgingly go forward but christmas trees is still on the list you know and this is how things happen in government parallel tracks somebody's working on the messaging somebody's working on the branding somebody's working on the cute video of justin trudeau announcing how sorry i've made time so bad but let me give you just like a modicum of relief right and uh and that's how these things happen but that's that's what i believe happened i actually think there was a pretty big interplay between the politicians and the public service and you just have to know that there's a model there that is determining some of this because there's a cost that they don't want to go over for it and if they include too many items it's going to be insane but

Corey 56:21

they want to include enough that it feels like they're actually doing something zane

Annalise 56:24

zane how do you think the um 150 000 limit and the title and all that like to your point of it being an own goal how

Annalise 56:33

how do you think they come up with it and who is not poking holes in it saying hey look how this is going to play out probably

Zain 56:40

probably by committee because they're government and they're huge and everyone's got an idea and and it's more of an additive rather than a you know one person's vision here's the thing i actually think the genesis of this is similar to what cory said but perhaps slightly even more simple remember the time we gave two thousand dollar checks to people and they fucking loved us? What if we could relive that glory? And I think it starts there, where someone kind of being like, Serb was awesome. Yeah, it was. Let's think about that, right? How do we, fuck, how do we have it and not impact the deficit? Let's make it temporary. That won't impact the deficit so much. But what if they call it a gimmick? Ah, no, but actually, it's not a gimmick because we're a government and they're nothing and they're not doing jack shit. Okay, well, what do we include on it? See Corey's notes, right? List of things. Who do we care about? Okay, well, what do we want to do? We want to show empathy. we want to show we're action oriented okay who are the people we care about what are the things they care about let's make a list who else has asked for shit recently add that to the board and then how do we make this a contrast and show where fiscal responsibility we reassure like you know the programs are sustainable everything's good right and then to cory's point someone's building like a the narrative framework someone's like writing the key messages on criticism someone's doing the ops plan on it right um someone's finding historical examples of when this has worked and you know how they get political brownie points so that someone like like me, on a podcast says, oh, but the premiers did it and they were successful, right? Or someone mentions Ralph Bucks, right? So they're hearkening back. Someone makes sure that that's part of the key message, right? And then they just refine it and get it out the door. But at the end of the day, when you talk about the name, I think that was not poll-tested, focus-grouped. I think this was the best,

Zain 58:19

best, worst idea, in a sense, right? They come up with a list and this is amongst So amongst anything that's palatable, that isn't one person's clear, unique vision of this program, this is the best sort of name that we could come up with as a group. And I think to that point, I see a massive hole in it in terms of what it acknowledges and how it so deeply admits what the conservatives have been saying for the last two and a half years.

Annalise 58:47

Corey, do you have any insight into the naming specifically? specifically?

Corey 58:51

Well, there's a couple of things I can say about the name. First is it's

Corey 58:55

it's tough federally because you've got to have something that works bilingually, right? That is always what drives us to the most mundane names in that federal space and in that federal politics space. It's funny how so much of life just comes down to those basics, right? But I think the other thing with the name is it was probably designed to get to the pith of it, right? And when you you talk about the working benefit they've clearly decided that this

Corey 59:20

this is a language that progress this is a language argument progressive parties have across the board is it everyday albertans is it ordinary albertans is it working albertans and the election by election you can sort of see the shift of that the thrust and parry and the same hasn't historically happened federally with the liberals but clearly the liberals are now seized with the exact same debate as they move to uh to kind of creating a working benefit along those lines right so it's it's talking about the type of thing that they support and it's signaling the type of people that they support and that's what they're trying to ram into it in a way where it's still halfway coherent and that's not easy to do and that does end up with some very generic names a lot of the time especially when you consider the bilingual considerations that get layered on top of that there they

Corey 1:00:06

they also had a problem in that they they were trying to bring this out without people knowing they were doing this. Whenever the government attempts something with the element of surprise, they have a couple of fundamental problems. We've talked about some of them in the past, but I just want to hit the treetops of them. One is, they have no idea if people are going to like this or not. They're looking at other polling, they're doing conjecture, they're identifying trends maybe on social media. But it's what we always say, beware of novel concepts, because people have thought about them for a second, second and they will get turned against them in a second, even if they've told you that they like them when somebody comes in with a compelling argument going the other way. If it's an idea that's been durably tested back and forth, people have smashed it, people have thrown it off a cliff and people still end up liking it in certain numbers, that's a lot more valuable to a government than an idea that is 70% approval from a bunch of people who couldn't possibly have heard the counter argument yet. And so they're looking at this, they're saying, hey, free money. And hey, hey, we did a secret focus group of 200 Canadians and they all seem to like the free money.

Corey 1:01:06

They didn't get the benefit of the opposition coming against it, economists coming up against it, friends saying what a fucking stupid idea this is, the branding that they probably wouldn't have had fully completed by then. There's no sense of that. So that's problem one. But problem two of doing something in secret is

Corey 1:01:21

is you don't get to message test anything

Corey 1:01:24

the way that you would normally want to do it. Do you like this framing? Do you like that framing? You're relying on past experience. experience, you're relying on gut, and you end up with a lot of dog shit as a result.

Annalise 1:01:36

Zane, what should it be called?

Corey 1:01:38

Oh, I don't know.

Zain 1:01:39

I would never give out these checks.

Annalise 1:01:44

terms of the history of it, when

Annalise 1:01:46

when the Ralph Bucks happened, was that,

Annalise 1:01:49

like, it seems like people are, Saskatchewan did it, Ontario's doing it, I think PEI did it, people are premiers are mailing checks um trudeau's doing now when ralph klein did that circa i don't know what that was like 2002 maybe was was that like quite a novel new thing that hey we're getting money from our government for nothing i mean

Corey 1:02:12

mean it wasn't it was pretty novel in the in the alberta context i think i mean i was older than you i the money actually came in 2006 2006, by the way, if you bought Apple stock, you would have ended up with $40,000. If you had bought it in 2004, the same amount, you'd end up with $400,000. Go Apple. But it was definitely something that was based on what we saw in other oil producing jurisdictions, notably Alaska. People talked a lot about the Alaska dividend at the time. And so I think that was something that really appealed to Ralph Klein. It was also, it

Corey 1:02:45

it was on the heels of we had just vanquished the debt a few years earlier. And we were then in a position where we brought in the flat tax and it was, you know, money was rolling in, natural gas surpluses were huge.

Corey 1:02:58

It sounds crazy, but we had more money than we knew what to do as a province, because we had already cut taxes kind of to the bone, and we still had way more money than the government could reasonably spend. And so rather than creating big endowments or investments in various things, we did that O2 Alberta thing of just saying, well, let's just give it to people like Corey Hogan so he can buy his first iPod, right? And that was a bit of a challenge.

Corey 1:03:23

On naming though, I

Corey 1:03:26

think that the liberals should have gone with something that suggested instead of defeat,

Corey 1:03:29

defeat, victory. So I like the word dividend, but I'm thinking almost like a post-inflation dividend, like we're done with inflation now. So here's your post-inflation dividend. This will help us catch up after a couple of rough years brought on by COVID. But this is the post-inflation dividend, because here we are now having resolved this challenge. That

Zain 1:03:46

That actually is smart, because it also talks about, it justifies the time box period of it, and

Zain 1:03:53

and the one-off nature of it.

Corey 1:03:55

Yeah. And I think I was triggered a bit or twigged to it by something you said about CERB. Because CERB was the government, again, protecting us from an external force, just as those provincial governments are protecting us from that pesky federal government and its inflation, right? But it allows you, once again, to turn the villain into that global inflation that was brought on by COVID, and then declare victory in your own way over it. And

Corey 1:04:20

it is also somewhat tied to the fact that inflation has now hit the bounds again. At least I've changed my

Zain 1:04:24

my mind. I want to give out these checks. I want to call it the post-inflation dividend.

Annalise 1:04:28

Smartest man in the room, St. Valje, folks. I

Annalise 1:04:31

last. That's what leaders

Zain 1:04:33

That's what leaders do.

Zain 1:04:35

But the first four minutes, they dominate.

Annalise 1:04:39

I wanted to say vibe session in

Annalise 1:04:42

Let's move on to our lightning round. We're just going to do some rapid fire questions here. here um

Annalise 1:04:49

um very first one what name one thing that should be included in the gst holiday that is not included zane turkeys

Zain 1:04:55

turkeys are turkeys included no

Annalise 1:04:59

unclear because the food stuff

Zain 1:05:00

stuff is confusing food food

Corey 1:05:01

food doesn't normally have

Zain 1:05:02

have gst well i want gst on turkeys leading up to the 14th and then after the 14th no gst i

Zain 1:05:09

i don't i don't buy turkeys what the fuck do i know

Annalise 1:05:11

know neither do i i'm vegetarian vegetarian all right i'm

Zain 1:05:14

i'm also a vegetarian

Annalise 1:05:15

look at us look at the three non-turkey eaters what do you guys do instead of carter here just

Annalise 1:05:21

just all the other

Corey 1:05:24

tofurkey i like a good tofurkey i don't

Corey 1:05:30

should well i've lost a lot of credibility what

Annalise 1:05:32

what should be included in the gst holiday that is not i

Corey 1:05:35

i they shouldn't do this like i refuse to say another thing should be in this i think that another thing put in it just exacerbates their pain okay

Annalise 1:05:43

okay um sovereignty act guys daniel smith said today um she will use the sovereignty act and the ongoing emissions cap fight there's some uh some new stuff i i don't i don't know cory do you have i don't know what my question here great question it's so good i mean it's the sovereignty act we could talk about it all night we're not even real who

Annalise 1:06:06

uh yeah who Is it performative? Is it legally constitutionally questionable? It's a talker. We're talking about it right now. Corey, thoughts on the Sovereignty Act in a few sentences. Okay, well,

Corey 1:06:17

why don't I tee this up a little bit here? The government of Alberta announced today that they were going to enact their Sovereignty Act, you know, their whatever it's called, Alberta Within a United Canada Act, whatever their actual legal name is. And they had this brilliant idea where to avoid the emissions cap that the federal government doesn't, you know, it's

Corey 1:06:38

it's like they have an emissions cap, but they don't have the production cap that the government of Alberta is implying, right? To avoid this emissions cap, what they're going to say is that all emissions data is the property of the government of Alberta and we own it and you can't give it to the feds. Only we can give it to the feds. And the feds are not allowed because we're now declaring this critical infrastructure. Every oil and gas thing, they're not allowed to come in and get this data from you. And we're not playing ball. And I mean, all of this is dumb. like i just have to say this is not how government works it's not how the constitution works this is not how law and order works you don't just get to say as a provincial government we've decided federal laws don't apply to us gotcha now what are you going to do move on feds that that's not how this works so i would say this is uh this

Corey 1:07:24

this is not nearly as clever as the government thinks these are well hashed issues there is one way that the government of alberta can get out of this, besides taking the political route of convincing the federal government to remove an emissions cap. And that is to convince a court that this infringes on their jurisdiction,

Corey 1:07:42

which they don't need a Sovereignty Act to do. They need a lawyer to do. They need to go to court and they need to make a case. And that's how these things work. Because there are two doors here. One door says you are not allowed to do this, in which case the federal government just has to stop because the interpretation of the Constitution is thus. Or there is a door that that says the federal government is allowed to do this. And if you've walked through that door,

Corey 1:08:04

anything the federal government wants to do or needs to do in order to get that data is

Corey 1:08:10

right? There is a concept called paramountcy, which says if there is a conflict between federal laws and provincial laws, federal laws take precedence. The concept also means that if the federal government needs to override a provincial law in order to do something that is is legitimately federal jurisdiction they can and

Corey 1:08:28

and you know what that's all handled by the courts not by performative acts of the legislature that are designed to make you look like you're tougher than you are the whole thing is really dumb and it also is very risky because it puts all of our companies in this very bad position where

Corey 1:08:43

where they're being asked to either comply with a federal order which may be legal or

Corey 1:08:48

or not which would then be illegal by them and that would open up them to all sorts of penalties and uh and risk so i think that's um why

Corey 1:08:58

why are we doing this like why are we we were just talking about trump at the top here like we've got bigger things to do here why are we doing this okay

Annalise 1:09:04

okay cory has said what he thinks about the summer tx they in canada post strike what do you think uh

Zain 1:09:09

uh it's dumb why are we not sorry that's not my last thing uh i listen i think people's patience gonna wear thin very quickly if if i'm canada

Zain 1:09:18

canada post right now i i need need to think about my solidarity plan here, in terms of trying to get this resolved very, very quickly. And fact is, I think the public messaging on this has been tough for the postal workers to get across, that this is not something that they want to do, not something that they're trying to ruin holiday season for. But you're hearing now the piping up of, it started with small businesses, right, saying this is terrible, worst time of year, Black Friday, all these sort And now you're going to start feeling it when consumers start putting in Black Friday, Cyber Monday orders, etc., and realize that a lot of those, some of which are delivered through Canada Post, many are not, are not going to show up in time. But this crunch is getting very, very difficult right now. And I'm thinking about what the escalation tactic here is. I'm also curious to see what the federal mediator does here. I have no solutions other than to think that the solidarity plan for the postal workers needs to take its next step here.

Corey 1:10:19

feel different uh but i think i come to some of the same conclusions i do believe one of the biggest challenges canada post has is how little this is affecting many canadians and you could look at that in a very short term sense and say haha we're gonna win this strike we can wait them out you know like we can get better terms here but the longer this goes on the less relevant canada post becomes to our lives i suspect you both like me got a pile of emails at the part started the strike saying switch to e-statements you know do these things so you can still get information about your account turn these checks into direct deposits whatever it

Corey 1:10:55

right like everybody in the world was then taking every step possible to make themselves less reliant

Corey 1:11:01

even those who had been resistant to it you know people like my parents people like your parents i assume right and

Corey 1:11:06

and um that's gonna hurt canada post long term the minute there was a strike and those steps were being taken that's gonna hurt those small businesses you're talking about they're going to talk to ups they're going to talk to fedex they're going to talk to dhl this is already now pretty established i think in most of these businesses if they're still looking to do something amazon already doesn't use these we are becoming less and less reliant on those canada post services and once again it's

Corey 1:11:31

it's going to be tough to bring people back after that point so yeah you might be able to get a couple of points off of the union there you might be able to get what you you think is a quote unquote win if you're the Canada Post Corporation here, but

Corey 1:11:43

but you might do it at the expense of mail. You might do it at the expense of anybody caring about Canada Post. So don't feel too good about it, right? You've got to find a way to resolve this thing before we go through a holiday season without

Corey 1:11:56

without even needing Canada Post, because that's what we're walking towards right now. At

Zain 1:11:59

At least I've got an idea for you. Okay, here's what the Trudeau government needs to do. Anything

Zain 1:12:03

Anything ending in 99 or 97 at any store in the country, no GSC.

Zain 1:12:09

Anything ending in 49 or double zeros double

Zain 1:12:12

double the gst zane

Annalise 1:12:13

zane has spent all night thinking that guys canada's

Annalise 1:12:16

canada's chief electoral officer wants to change nomination rules to prevent longest ballot protests this comes after 91 and 84 candidates ran in two recent by-elections and elections canada had to print some really long ballots so all the names would fit lightning round question what is the appropriate number of names that should be on a ballot the maximum number cory hogan there's

Corey 1:12:38

there's i don't think think this should be a maximum but i do think you need to be an actual candidate so either a small amount of money which you know maybe that's not really doable if if we want to make these things open a larger amount than is there or a bigger number of signatures right i i don't have a problem with 80 people being on a threshold

Corey 1:13:00

80 people can be on the ballot but

Corey 1:13:03

think that they actually need to have

Corey 1:13:05

have some effort to get on the ballot because otherwise Otherwise, you're going to continue to see a

Zain 1:13:09

a large number of signatures, a picture of them with the newspaper of the day photographed and a police record check. That's what that's what they need. Perfect.

Annalise 1:13:19

Perfect. Same three things. Yeah.

Zain 1:13:21

Yeah. That last one is a relevant,

Zain 1:13:23

relevant sort of tie

Zain 1:13:27

in. The police record check. I don't know.

Zain 1:13:29

It's referring to City Hall, Corey. I hate the idea.

Zain 1:13:32

get it. I understand.

Annalise 1:13:34

Last one, guys. Dave Berta. Do you want to, Corey, do you want to talk about, I

Annalise 1:13:39

I mean, the question is, what was the best political

Zain 1:13:41

political play? We don't want to talk.

Annalise 1:13:41

talk. We want to tell.

Annalise 1:13:42

We want to tell. But, Corey, do you have some instructions for our dear listeners? We're

Corey 1:13:46

We're in show, not tell mode here. Yeah, that's true. Look, we all know Dave Kornway. No, it's tell Dave. Man, it's tell Dave. Don't confuse me. We just said we're in show

Corey 1:13:57

We're not telling, we're showing. Show Dave Johnson. I hope that domain's available, but maybe check tell Dave.

Corey 1:14:03

We all know Dave Kornway. Dave Cournoyer, the, uh, the, the wizened old man of Alberta politics. He was a young man. He

Corey 1:14:11

was a young man when I met him, but he's an old man now. It's kind of like the movie Inception. You know, we've both lived whole lifetimes stuck, uh, you know, deep within dreams, within dreams, within dreams here. he every year holds a contest which i believe is called the davies to provide a davy to um you know uh a worthy winner of a category he asks questions about politics and uh we're i don't know how i guess it's just because of the love of you the listeners we did it we got to the final round it's uh well

Corey 1:14:40

well it not technically us so last year we won uh best political play um again you the listeners news made it happen dreams come true and this year it's

Corey 1:14:52

it's so heartwarming it's actually hard for me to find the words to say it but this year us winning best political play last year became

Corey 1:15:00

became one of the finalists for best political play of this year and it's up against nahed nenshi winning the alberta ndp leadership race for best political so in some ways i win 2024 no

Corey 1:15:10

you win either way you win either way which is exactly why i think you need to stick with us no

Zain 1:15:15

no absolutely we have

Corey 1:15:17

to crush Nahed Nenshi. In

Zain 1:15:18

In fact, I want 87

Corey 1:15:20

% of the vote.

Corey 1:15:22

that's right. So, you know, you go to telldave.ca.

Corey 1:15:27

You got to subscribe to his newsletter, which I recommend anyways. I

Corey 1:15:31

I don't. Because he's wizened. Remember I

Corey 1:15:33

I said the wizened thing? I don't recommend reading.

Corey 1:15:36

And then you can vote. You can vote for us. You can vote for the best MLA. You can vote for the the best Alberta cabinet minister, which apparently means Alberta provincial cabinet minister, because I understand Randy Boissoneau was nominated a number of times, but somehow failed to make the final ballot. Very upsetting for me.

Corey 1:15:56

you can vote for all the other categories too. I don't remember. So

Annalise 1:15:59

So how can people vote

Corey 1:15:59

vote for me? But I do remember.

Corey 1:16:07

hope so, but probably check telldave.ca. Okay,

Annalise 1:16:09

Okay, guys, we're going to leave it there. That is a wrap on episode 1837 of The Strategist. My name is Annalise Klingbill. And with you, as always, Corey Hogan in St. Belgium.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

to vote you have to subscribe or like your life depends on it because it probably does but to vote you have to subscribe so go subscribe and

Transcript