Episode 1851: Cabinet Preaction Episode

Zain 0:01

This is Strategist episode 1851. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan.

Zain 0:09

Guys, we got rid of Justin Trudeau on the podcast, and now Canada no longer has Justin Trudeau as

Zain 0:15

as their prime minister. But did we? Did we, Zain? Did we? Did we? No, we did. We did. As far as I know, we did. We're turning the page. We're actually recording. This is Friday, March 14th. We're recording while the MPs step into Rideau Hall to get sworn in. The MPs turned cabinet ministers when they walk out. Stephen Carter, some

Zain 0:39

some of them already holding positions. Let's start here. We're going to do some live reaction, which is going to age perfectly, I think. I think it's going to age beautifully. And then we're

Zain 0:50

we're also going to talk about some of the bigger topics, kind of like the media right now. We're going to make our content extremely disposable. To an extent. So let's start with this. Let's start with this, Carter.

Zain 1:03

he's going to be sworn in as prime minister today. We're expecting a smaller cabinet than the Justin Trudeau 30 some odd, I think 36 or 37. Someone correct

Zain 1:13

me if they know. We don't know what it's going to be. But by the time everyone hears this, they will know. And so will we. What exactly that cabinet is. But we're hearing smaller. smaller but carter before we get into smaller and who's in who's out which we'll see on the screen shortly should mark carney even be assembling a cabinet we're in an acute crisis but also he's ready to call an election what what's up here why are we why are we doing this whole formality

Zain 1:37

formality rigmarole when we're heading to an election anyways because

Carter 1:41

because it's his government and

Carter 1:44

excuse me his government requires his personal stamp he needs to put his his people in the forefront, if he doesn't put his people in the forefront, that it stays Justin Trudeau's government. And he can't have that heading into an election. It's very clear. They're the same people, though. It's not all the same people. They're all going to be in different roles. There's not all the same people. Well,

Corey 2:06

Well, as long as they're in different roles, I'm sure we'll all think

Carter 2:08

think it's different. They're not all going to be the same people there, Mr. Hogan. I mean, your name was in consideration there.

Carter 2:14

I'm not entirely sure for how long, but at least I brought it up. OK, so

Zain 2:17

so so your core argument is even if it's the same recycled Trudeau era people who've gotten into office on the Trudeau mandate, one can call it. And if they even if they've endorsed Carney in this leadership race, he needs them because this is his stamp, his stamp

Carter 2:34

government. This is the direction. This is him saying, I am going in a different direction. I'm taking a smaller cabinet because I need I need more of my people to be elected in the next election. This is the direction that I'm going. I don't think he has time for mandate letters, but if he did, he'd be able to set up a real tone of this is how we're going to change this government. And that is essential. I'm not sure if you guys are following along, but before Justin Trudeau resigned, this was a deeply unpopular government.

Carter 3:06

And so you need to make change in order to make this actually work.

Zain 3:13

so Carter's points have merit, and I more than likely side with him in this case.

Zain 3:19

But should I? Should I side with Carter? Like, is there, can you give me a compelling reason, perhaps, as to why Carney should not be swearing in a cabinet today? I

Corey 3:30

I look a stiff breeze could knock me over on this particular issue, because I do see some of the merit that Stephen's talked about, like as a political communications exercise, the reset has some value making the cabinet smaller, more focused

Corey 3:42

focused has some value. But there are real and obvious downsides. The first is what

Corey 3:49

what they're not going to do the job like they're going to have the job for like a week, and then we're going to be in an election. And is this something we want to be encouraging? And does that really align with Mark Carney's brand of being like a straight shooting technocrat, right? But the second part is, I think, underlined by Mark Holland's announcement yesterday, where he said he's not going to run again. And now he supported Chrystia Freeland in the leadership race.

Corey 4:12

I don't know that Mark Holland would

Corey 4:15

would ever even with a gun to his head admit it's because he's not in cabinet. But I think part of it is probably because he's not in cabinet. And I think the minute you start making cabinet decisions, people start reacting to cabinet decisions. And that is the challenge here. Some people are going to like the picks, some won't. They'll have conversations like we just had. Aren't these just the same people we didn't like earlier? Some people will feel upset they're not in cabinet. Some people will feel upset that the people they wanted to be in cabinet aren't in cabinet. And so you now have a situation where you've

Corey 4:45

you've got something to react to and it's not all going to be good. Cabinet making is a difficult thing. Disappointment is baked into the game. And there will be disappointed people, both in canada or canada canada more generally and within the uh within the cabinet or

Zain 5:01

canada i prefer canada yeah

Zain 5:03

it's good it's like canada india it's got a good oh yeah it's

Zain 5:08

yeah yeah it's it's like marginally racist it's like it's become canada now like there's just so many of us right uh just like um

Zain 5:20

there's too many of us um okay so carter

Zain 5:26

actually cory like if you if you're if you're a principal here let's just say you were advising carter he was neutral on the issue sure which

Zain 5:34

which way would you go because you said a stiff breeze could blow you over which way would you and how loud would you be advocating for the position that i've maybe almost kind of forced you to take which is the the opposite of carter's here what would you be advised sure

Corey 5:47

sure so i mean first of all i'd say whenever you're at one of of these split issues if you're being smart about it what you want to say is okay we see pros we see cons uh how would we mitigate the cons in one scenario how would we mitigate them in the other and you try to get a full honest picture with yourself i like to use a frame of like mitigations and messaging right don't just tell me we can talk around it if i can tell me what you're going to do to solve the problem first and then we'll find the best words when we've resolved the problem to the most satisfaction possible but if you told me okay i'd really like you to make the case for not doing it i think i'd say this is all part of a look i don't think you can not i

Corey 6:26

think you can here let's put it this way i think if you want to ask how i mitigate against the downsides of mine which is you say well because the challenge of not doing a cabinet as well is pierre polyev's gonna say oh this is just trudeau's old cap same this

Corey 6:38

is trudeau's this is literally trudeau's cabinet right

Zain 6:41

well and and we should we should get to that because he's always one thing we didn't get to last time was the mendocino interim chief of staff and the lametti transition team stuff because that's also very trudeau era also trudeau fired era but keep going with your point yeah

Corey 6:56

yeah i would say we have less time we have less time to call the election because if you aren't going to do the cabinet thing then i think you almost you could create a lot of drama and a lot of i'm very different by getting sworn in this morning just you as prime minister and then the The first thing you do, say, thank you, Your Excellency, or whatever you're supposed to call the governor general. I never remember.

Corey 7:20

Yeah, Zane would. Zane should remember. And then handing her. I don't pledge my allegiance to her. I just. Pledge

Carter 7:27

Pledge your allegiance to

Corey 7:29

Then hand a piece of paper to her saying, and now I'd like to call the election. Right. So

Zain 7:36

Is he prime minister now, Carter? This is

Corey 7:40

is more Jean Chrétien appearances. We're getting a lot of Jean content. Yeah.

Zain 7:44

Yeah, this is a lot of Jean content. And if we if we somehow see Jean Charest, it's too much Jean content overall. But what the fuck is Jean Chrétien doing so active, Carter? I have no idea. Yeah.

Zain 7:54

Okay, excellent. Move on to the question that I asked Corey. How committed would you be to telling your principal, Carney, that he should do what he's doing today, which is having people in cabinet? And then I want to get to some questions that you can even start answering for me, Carter. If you are committed to him appointing cabinet, which is I suspect where you're going, how committed is Stephen Carter to ensuring that there's folks from the outside and or one dark horse crossover pick? And crossover can mean what you want. Crossover we're partisan crossover from corporate sector anything like that like how much would you be advocating for that today and of course all will be known but as we kind of wait for all to be known how would you be advising carney today on on those two matters well

Carter 8:37

well i no surprise to anyone i'm i'm going to advocate the correct position which is that he should have a uh oh yeah that's good right spot yeah no the correct position that he should name a cabinet and i would advocate for very hard. Because I think that this is his last opportunity to put a stamp on this government that is going to be soaked with Trudeau before the election. Of course it's soaked with Trudeau. It's been Trudeau's for a decade. It would be nearly impossible to remove this government from the Trudeau era completely. But you do get to put a stamp on it. You get to say, this is my new cabinet this is the new direction that we're going these people aren't in cabinet these people are in cabinet but they're in new roles and you get to move past the christian freeland as finance finance minister the

Carter 9:27

dark horse that i would put in is i wouldn't name a finance minister you

Carter 9:31

you would not i would name the finance minister is me mr you know prime minister mark carney such

Carter 9:37

such a that's what i would do that's

Zain 9:40

that's i don't know if that's uh cory this is what the The kids say, a big dick or a small dick move? It's a big dick move. Okay. It's a big

Zain 9:49

I don't know if it's big peen or small peen, to name yourself as a private investor.

Carter 9:55

When I'm right, and it happens. By the way, is Jean Chrétien in cabinet? He might

Zain 10:01

would be. Would that be your dark horse pick? That would be

Carter 10:04

be my dark horse pick. I

Corey 10:04

I don't think anybody else is going to get in. Look, you stay a privy counselor to the day you die. It might, you know, be pretty easy. Oh, yeah. Easy for the security clerk, I guess. Yes, is that what

Zain 10:13

Well, he could have been chief of staff then. I

Carter 10:15

I mean, if you're going to name a finance minister, you may as well name a finance minister that's not going to make it through the election.

Carter 10:20

Right? Oh, Jesus Christ, Carter.

Zain 10:22

Carter. Okay, but can I? Okay, hey, pick up on the dark horse pick. No, no, no, I

Corey 10:26

I want to pick the not make it through the election comment, because the question. On Jean Chrétien? Okay, let's go there.

Corey 10:33

No, the question for me, the legitimate question is, this cabinet today being appointed, if they all win, if Mark Carney is prime minister,

Corey 10:42

Are we not shuffling? Like, is this? Of course we are. Of course. Of

Zain 10:45

Of course we are. Okay,

Zain 10:46

Okay, so what are we doing? Although, although.

Carter 10:48

although. What do you mean, what are we doing? If Mark Carney wins is the first question. You must focus everything on making him win.

Zain 10:58

Here's my question for you, though, Carter. Has the Carney operation and Mark Carney himself, does he have enough time to have Carney loyalists run for him on the ballot?

Zain 11:10

does he have enough time to persuade people of his ilk to be like i need you come back from new york come do whatever right like you know hey listen quit that bay street job you know i thanks for it yeah i need you to run for me does he have enough time to do that so that if he is successful on the back end of this election he doesn't just have to rely on trudeau level institutional knowledge and a bunch of folks that just so happen to always run for the liberals regardless of the the season uh and have to choose i think that's a legitimate question right now considering how quickly he's going he

Carter 11:41

he has time for 10 he

Carter 11:42

he doesn't have time for 20 30 it's going to be maybe let's say of

Zain 11:46

of those 10 let's say of those 10 five lose

Carter 11:49

lose which is quite quite possible yeah then then but you you you

Carter 11:53

you will still see new people coming in you

Carter 11:56

you know cory hogan running in calgary confederation could

Carter 11:59

could still make it you're

Corey 12:00

you're trying to manifest this aren't you well

Carter 12:02

well thomas keeper just just got acclaimed and i'm like that's

Carter 12:07

that's a setback i

Carter 12:09

mean you need a competitive race at the very least right yeah

Corey 12:12

yeah no that's fair but

Carter 12:14

but the leader gets to choose right the leader gets to sign your papers and the leader is going to decide which candidates are going to are going to land in in in which area and if they can recruit 10 and elect six or you know i mean whatever the numbers may work out to be um then there's six new cabinet ministers and there's a shuffle after the election because there should be a shuffle after the election because this isn't your governing cabinet this is your election cabinet and

Carter 12:41

and never never before have we seen an election cabinet quite so short what i know i know this is great i know what

Corey 12:48

what the fuck is an election cabinet an

Carter 12:50

an election cabinet oh this is your first time hey this is the first time when you've seen a shuffle before election it's

Carter 12:57

it kind of puts a new spin on what the government's going to look like is this your first time first time seeing this it's

Corey 13:03

first time seeing it the week before the election gets called like this 10

Carter 13:07

10 days i mean come on does

Zain 13:10

does does an election cabinet which is a creation out of whole cloth that carter is made up here um does an election cabinet carter give a boost to individual ministers does does being a cabinet really

Zain 13:24

really yeah you think being a cabinet minister okay george shahal today is appointed cabinet minister let's just assume i didn't i haven't seen if george has walked in or not but i'm going to use that we have an intern

Corey 13:33

intern following it yeah

Corey 13:35

have an intern following you

Zain 13:36

i don't know if you're just a trudeau is it is it prime minister former prime minister justin trudeau we don't want to out anybody right now okay

Carter 13:42

okay but there is no half

Zain 13:44

half the people yeah

Zain 13:47

okay let's let's just use george as an example because i think he's a good george

Zain 13:51

george george becomes cabinet minister today carter you are telling me There's a real bump added to George Chahal when he goes to the voters of Calgary. I'm just going to say Skyview, but I'm not sure what the... He's

Carter 14:02

going to be riding, he's running in Calgary, McKnight.

Carter 14:05

And I'm quite certain that, given my wife is running that campaign for him, I'm quite certain that she

Carter 14:12

would appreciate a small bump from being a captain minister.

Carter 14:16

That would be, that would make it easier to get him elected. Okay.

Zain 14:19

Okay. Corey, sorry, this is the part of the show where we're talking about what our family members are as a as a so do you want to mention anything about any successes your family has had recently it's

Carter 14:28

it's legitimately related to the podcast you smart asses

Zain 14:32

asses it is it really smart asses cory anything that laurie's been up to that you want to talk about she's on she's

Corey 14:38

she's on a field trip with ben right now oh

Zain 14:40

oh my god that is also so impressive uh my wife does nothing um she also doesn't yeah yeah clearly

Corey 14:45

clearly based on that

Corey 14:49

look i think that

Corey 14:51

is almost part of the the challenge though yeah sure maybe the five percent from being a cabinet minister i maybe i accept that number whatever doesn't matter you think it's true hey hold on i actually thought both of you would

Zain 15:00

would say no point

Corey 15:01

point though is if you're shrinking the cabinet from 36 or 37 to 20 to hand that bump you're you're taking away the bump from like over a dozen candidates right they're

Carter 15:12

they're leaving that are out the door anyway so

Corey 15:15

i don't think miller's leaving yeah

Zain 15:17

for example no but But he's out. He's gone.

Zain 15:21

That's what I mean. You're kicking him out of cabinet, and I think he's coming back.

Zain 15:27

He's running again. So, like, I'm just giving you an example.

Carter 15:29

example. I'm giving you an example.

Zain 15:33

Is he? You always pretend like you know something, but you're rarely doing

Carter 15:36

doing it. Oh, my lord.

Carter 15:38

I'm almost always right, though.

Corey 15:39

Our reaction shows are my favorite. I just want everyone to know that they

Corey 15:42

truly are. I actually agree

Zain 15:43

agree with this. I get so much feedback that says Corey's analysis is unbelievable, considering how thoughtful he is and how he speaks in paragraphs. But the amount of times he gets to the wrong conclusion is just surprising. Versus Carter, who just feels his way through to an answer that happens to be right for the wrong reason. So the two of you together. Combined. Really.

Corey 16:08

be occupied. Between the two of us, we're halfway as competent. Yeah. Yeah, that

Corey 16:12

was always the magic sauce at Hill & Knowlton, you know? Yeah,

Zain 16:15

Yeah, it really was.

Zain 16:18

so we talked about, we'll talk about the folks that we see coming up who got stubbed, who didn't. We'll talk about it Oscar style in a moment here. How much time do you guys have? I don't know. I

Carter 16:27

I got hard out at 9.30.

Zain 16:29

Oh, there you go. Okay, well, there you go. We're going to limit it to that.

Zain 16:34

Can I actually talk about JT for a second before I go back to cabinet just to give us a palate cleanser? Sure.

Zain 16:40

And Justin Trudeau is a palate cleanser these days.

Zain 16:42

Is he? Is he? Well, that's actually at the heart of my... Do you fucking keep saying that always? That's the heart of my question. Corey, he

Zain 16:51

he seems to have left on a pretty high note. Some are crediting him, maybe too much, for uniting the country on the way out. Others are saying this was actually a pretty lucky final two weeks in terms of how he gets to leave. Others really just like the job he did in the final two weeks. Where are you on this, of the Justin Trudeau departure? harcher. And I can remind you of some of the events, but, you know, let's just start it with that Trump speech where he addresses them as Donald, talks about he wants to weaken our economy to annex us, talks about, you know, the U.S. siding with Russia, gives that convention speech, gives a couple of moving Instagram and social media videos on his way out the door.

Zain 17:29

Where are you at with Trudeau? Did he unite the country? Is this a fortuitous bounce, or did he just perform really much better than he had in the past in these final years?

Corey 17:39

yeah i mean the moment makes the man and he's certainly benefiting from a rally to the flag component but i don't know you talk about moving social media posts i the one that he put yesterday i'm like oh yeah this is the guy who i'm kind of tired of right like this overly performative overly breathless just keep being you canada like i can't handle that shit just

Zain 18:00

just yeah because you can't pull it off see that's not the thing knock it the fuck up yeah

Corey 18:04

yeah okay well i saw your post comment on instagram that i thought it was thanks prime minister you know prayer hands that's real real

Zain 18:12

wasn't prayer hands did you know those are not prayer hands those are two hands clapping together i

Corey 18:16

i think it's prayer hands they're

Zain 18:17

they're commonly commonly misconstrued as christian prayer hands but they're actually ramadan claps okay it's good to know okay no i mean look i think

Corey 18:27

think that the exact same activity at a different moment would come off very different obviously he's he's trying to meet a moment i agree with that but i agree with that look he's he's very the

Corey 18:38

the country has been unlucky and he's been very lucky as a consequence and it's a funny thing to disaggregate but i gotta tell you i'm

Corey 18:45

i'm still a little bit salty that he dragged it all the way through december i i'm still a little bit salty that we don't have a like a permanent prime minister at this particular moment as we're dealing with an incredible crisis and well we're are all as canadians ready to say fuck you donald and then move on to supporting whoever's in the chair right now and that's i mean i've i've said nice things about doug ford lately right like this is just this is what happens in these moments he has not set us up for success here and i'm not sure history is going to be super kind to him in the final summation of this particular moment i actually think his entire premiership is going to look more positively than most people think right right now. But I think these last couple of months are going to look less positively than they do right now.

Zain 19:31

Carter, are you giving Trudeau any marks on the way out? Or was this just pure luck and he took advantage of it?

Carter 19:37

Pure luck and a tired horse that got to finish strong. I mean, just good for him. It's going to help shape his legacy. But it's not him that's rising the the liberal party's fortunes it's the fact that there's a new there's a new uh uh new person listen guys i i got thomas keeper calling me i oh i get to ignore that never mind

Carter 20:04

here we go do you

Zain 20:04

you though is he resigning and wants you to take over no

Carter 20:07

no he wants uh cory hogan in cal confederation that's what he's calling me about yeah don't

Zain 20:12

don't we don't we all hey listen can i talk about christopher freeland that is one position we do know so we can talk about it and and this could be part of the content that ages fine, I guess.

Zain 20:22

If you look at the Christa Freeland cycle,

Zain 20:25

she leaves because of Trudeau, but also because finance was being stripped away from her. She then gets credited for a solid piece of comms that took down the prime minister, runs in the race, gets 8%, and is now given and, from what we can understand, has accepted transport minister. minister

Zain 20:46

carter if you were advising freeland would you have said yes to accepting transport minister yeah i would have interesting

Carter 20:53

interesting i would have why because you don't want to look like your pet that's it said

Corey 20:57

i mean it's the funniest thing she never would have accepted this if she hadn't run you

Zain 21:02

that's kind of what i'm implying with the question she has

Carter 21:05

has to accept it she is in a position where i mean she has to accept everything everything higher than been minister of sport um

Carter 21:12

um you know like that's just the reality i mean

Corey 21:14

mean minister of sport catching some strays right here but yeah

Carter 21:17

yeah minister of sport is barely a ministry can i tell

Corey 21:20

half of what the federal government does is barely a ministry right if we're well that's why we suspect it might be half the

Corey 21:26

it's probably not a bad idea because a lot of it is just writing checks to the provinces and setting overarching rules this is carney's

Zain 21:32

carney's version of doge

Zain 21:36

yeah exactly uh that's good that's gonna have a cardi's doge okay

Zain 21:40

uh half the cabinet's uh ministers all from what we understand and what we expect so you would have taken this too cory if you were if you were freelance i

Zain 21:50

i guess are you weeding into this does this mean she is going to run again she's

Corey 21:53

she's already said she's running again right and and that she looks forward to representing her constituency so it's really hard to back down from that and not lose a little bit of face and if you're sticking around how are you not accepting a cabinet post and you will just look a little bit petulant if you are sitting in cabinet and turn down a cabinet post right if you're supposed to be here in a service sense what choice do you have now i am really curious what conversations maybe happened around the side because the families know each other very well it's it's been widely reported sure sure that carnie is godfather to one of her kids and And maybe it was, Chris, I think, you know, this moment, I think, you know, the brand, I've got to make it feel and look different. I need you around cabinet. Cabinet is not just the position you hold. It's the power you have with the principal and the prime minister's office. That is not diminished. If anything, that will be strengthened. We will have a much better working relationship than you and Justin did. I'm putting you in transport because I am planning to build from coast to coast, fucking everything. You know, it's all part of my build strategy. Like, I'm sure there was a conversation like that that occurred. Yeah.

Corey 22:58

A bit of a soothing conversation. I'm definitely quite confident that he didn't go in and say, fuck you, you got to take it. What choice do you have? You know, there's a certain theater that happens all across the board. But yeah, I mean, I don't know how you don't accept it as Christian Freeland. And I don't know how you don't offer it as Mark Carney, because that's the other

Zain 23:17

other thing. Well, let me pick up on offer. I don't see Karina Gould on this list. I could be wrong. And this time will correct me. We have an intern watching it. Don't worry. It's fine. Yeah.

Zain 23:28

Okay. But that's interesting, though, on the Carney offer. Yeah.

Zain 23:32

If you're Carney, how do you not offer it? If you're Queen of Gold and you're Carney, how do you not? They were neck and neck. They were like, she was, no? No.

Corey 23:38

No. Different situation. She might end up in a prominent role. She might not. But let's be clear. As far as the media narrative went as well, even though the final result didn't entirely bear this out, it was Carney versus Freeland. And if there's a suggestion that you sideline your main opponent like that, it hits different.

Zain 23:58

Ultimately, it wasn't, though, right? It was ultimately not Carney versus... It was Carney versus no one. It was an

Zain 24:04

This is what I've kind of tried to be like. So, like, you know, it's interesting to me that Gould does not appear on the list, at least as we see thus far. Carter, is that interesting to you?

Carter 24:14

Yeah, I mean, I was surprised, to be honest. I

Carter 24:16

I expected her to be offered a position. I'm

Carter 24:18

I'm not sure. She may have been offered and declined. declined uh she was in a different spot than christopher freeland christopher

Carter 24:23

christopher had to take the spot that's

Corey 24:26

that's a great point yeah

Zain 24:27

yeah yeah that that is that is an interesting freeland

Corey 24:30

freeland look so carney had to offer to freeland freeland had to accept i don't

Corey 24:35

don't actually feel carney had to offer to gold and i don't feel gold had to accept so there's a there's a couple of different potential fail points there yeah

Zain 24:44

yeah that is that is interesting um where

Zain 24:46

where do you guys want to go do you guys want want to talk about how you'd map ministries if you were helping carney or do you want to talk about mendicino lemedi how

Corey 24:54

how would i map ministries i'd pick up the fucking constitution and i'd look at section 91 and say okay that works for me i

Zain 25:03

guess what i'm trying to say is would you do anything because this is an election cabinet carter's terminology would you do anything to make the mapping of the ministries election ready for the question that you want the election to be being fought on. That's the heart of the question in terms of mapping ministries. So, yes, of course, you'd have to cover off your bases, Corey.

Zain 25:25

But as it relates to the politics of it, Carter,

Zain 25:29

would you do something? And we'll know. But would you do something interesting in terms of like the ministry of like a finance and comma comma tariff enactment, the ministry of democratic sovereignty? I'm just making shit up for you. But you understand what I'm trying to say here, right? Well, how would you think about this? Or do you think it's just an exercise in overthinking and not a good idea for Carney to go down that route?

Carter 25:53

I think it's overthinking. I think your best bet is to keep a cabinet that people recognize. These are extraordinary times. You may see an extraordinary title or two. You know, it sounds like Jolie's keeping her position. That position may be expanded to include something around tariffs and relationships with the united states um sounds

Carter 26:14

sounds like leblanc might also wind up with something like that but i would not be making wholesale changes to what the cabinet looks like except for the size drop

Carter 26:22

drop it down combine

Carter 26:23

combine a couple ministries that normally are together that got separated and

Carter 26:27

and uh call it a day yeah

Zain 26:30

yeah cory cory we've had what do you think the

Corey 26:33

the same i look i mean if i was not that enthusiastic about even creating a cabinet i'm not going to be that enthusiastic about doing more things that might antagonize people based on the choices but if you want to make a case for changing it up i

Corey 26:47

i was being a bit flip about the constitution but if you wanted to say hey we're going to really reset on intergovernmental relations what

Corey 26:54

what if you put health in in intergovernmental relations and social services what if you said yeah these are provincial responsibilities we have an interest in them we help fund them but we see it ultimately as a role of collaboration with provinces and And yeah, there's interesting bundlings you can do to frame out what you intend to do as prime minister. But I don't, I don't know, I'm not sure it's worth it at this moment, because I'm not even sure the cabinet shuffle's worth it.

Zain 27:20

Corey, we've had about 20 minutes to let Carter's make Mark Carney finance minister. Oh,

Zain 27:26

Yeah, I forgot about that. Has that aged better or worse for you in the last 20 minutes? God help me. No. Actually, I'm actually liking it a bit more, mainly because I also, I'm watching the TV and i actually don't see the rumor of the finance minister and i'm just like fuck carter might be right well

Carter 27:39

well he's always right if we're

Carter 27:42

we're acting as though

Zain 27:42

though wrong yeah to be clear you're more than likely wrong to be

Corey 27:46

be clear look i think that's a really big job for the prime minister to hold on to as well but

Zain 27:50

but it's also not a real job cory it's a 10-day contract it's like it's like the wizard signing you and i for 10

Zain 27:59

just to fuck around that's great they're

Corey 28:01

bottom of the league they don't need our help for that but yeah we're

Zain 28:04

we're gonna be just oh you know to that point though to that point um you circulated something quite interesting which is the cost of ministers getting a job a serious federal cabinet ministry and

Zain 28:19

and then the delegated authority conversation associated with it can we can we chat about that a bit because i think that is interesting because there'll be a bunch of ministers who don't actually even get to not

Zain 28:28

not not even execute on their files, understand their files before they're back in their home writing, competing for their seat.

Corey 28:34

Yeah, I mean, shout out to Ian Brody, professor at the University of Calgary. And Thursday question, he was chief of staff to the Prime Minister Harper. And he wrote

Corey 28:44

wrote a really interesting piece about the relationship that you try to set up as a minister with your deputy minister. And having been on the other side of that, reading the advice, I'm like, fuck, that is such good advice. if a minister had done that to me i wouldn't even not

Corey 28:58

not not know what to do but i would certainly be quite impressed because it would show a certain assertion that you don't often see from ministers but the point was the

Corey 29:05

the the public service is designed to just go and move and make sure things are happening which sounds like a funny thing if you're if your belief of government is one of just never moving i'd say the problem with government is more one of inertia it continues on a path it doesn't like to get pushed from that path so if you're a minister and you're meeting with your deputy minister just before an election that deputy minister is going to be asking you for all sorts of authorities and

Corey 29:30

you're going to have to make the choice whether you give them to them or not and you might by like knee-jerk especially in these moments say like yeah sure you can have all of them but ian's point was maybe don't right maybe you they haven't had time to know you there they haven't had time to understand your direction and you've got to have a serious conversation about about what you expect from the department before you let the department do whatever they want. Super good advice, in my opinion. And I think too often, deputy ministers just assume the ministers will do what the deputy ministers want. And that's not really how the system is supposed to work. But the complication here, of course, is there's going to be an election right away, and somebody does need to man the shop, and those approvals are required. And what I'm curious about is what What the

Corey 30:16

the hell does that look like and who is actually in charge if there's a minister who doesn't even know where the bathroom is and a deputy minister who has all of the keys and all of the cards and a major, major crisis happening with our largest trading partner and a country that was previously our closest ally?

Zain 30:35

Carter, what do you think of that? This comes, it's the

Zain 30:39

the flippant sort of like powerful nature of being like, I'm not signing this delegated authority to you, Deputy Minister, you might be a great person, but I'm new here and I'm heading to the polls in five days.

Zain 30:51

What do you kind of think of that? Or do you just, is it slightly

Zain 30:56

fantastical thinking and you have to kind of do it? it

Carter 30:59

i think you have to do it i think it's fantastical thinking but you

Carter 31:02

you know i like to disagree with cory and uh there's just something that happens to me when he talks i yeah

Carter 31:09

so no slowly fade away and slowly you know can i ask a question though the

Corey 31:14

the energy leaves you

Carter 31:14

you what the fuck is the point of having an intern if the intern's not giving us up-to-date information there

Zain 31:19

there there's there's very few updates i'm getting i and i'm not seeing george shahal and and i i as you know we we we are part of the shahal cabal yeah

Zain 31:29

are we hearing intern what do we got what hey

SPEAKER_02 31:33

hey hey guys sorry it's it's been quite the morning uh what a lot of emotions and a lot of understood

SPEAKER_02 31:40

we're starting to see the the families and guests filter into rito we've seen we haven't seen his osprey yet but we have seen um

SPEAKER_02 31:50

um a few other joys this morning um we've

SPEAKER_02 31:54

we've just seen no no no still don't know he's us right um looks like we're just starting to get things underway the whole oh

Zain 32:05

oh my god okay

Zain 32:05

okay jt jt jt just tell tell everyone what we actually care about how many how many muslims are going to be in cabinet

SPEAKER_02 32:16

okay um judging from the composition of the families uh that are there right now i'm going to go with something maybe under zero okay

SPEAKER_02 32:30

thank you intern fuck fucking

Corey 32:34

he's new i told you it

Corey 32:35

it to have an

Corey 32:36

well i think part of it is how we hire you know tends to be just the person in front of us it's

Corey 32:42

it's how we got our host it's how we got our intern you know that's

Zain 32:48

thing he may not be wrong about i see i see very few people on the screen that are fasting right now yeah and uh very few muslims i see right now in cabinet which is going to be it's very sad because it's a ramadan cabinet it

Carter 33:01

it is a ramadan

Zain 33:02

this This is also another episode title, The Ramadan Cabinet.

Zain 33:11

Carter, like, I get it. But

Zain 33:14

But actually, good transition material. Totally inadvertent on my part. But Muslim community in Canada, very upset by it with his strident views on Israel, with his views that even depart from a vast majority of the current liberal caucus. caucus the mendocino appointment was some would say like an unnecessary call by carney how do you look at it oh

Carter 33:38

oh i think that you

Carter 33:40

know someone was going to be the chief of staff someone was going to be the chief of staff for 15 minutes right do you really want to put in a permanent chief of staff grabbing someone from the caucus seems to make sense someone he knew and trusted and uh And that call, I think, makes sense. I'm not sure about Mendocino as

Carter 34:00

the choice, right? It is a...

Zain 34:05

So you're saying security clearance in caucus expedited. That makes sense. That makes sense to me. Gotcha. Landing on Mendocino. Who

Carter 34:13

Who you choose is still a little bit up

Carter 34:16

up in the air. So I mean, I get it. It makes for a very quick turnaround. It makes it very easy. But, you

Carter 34:26

know, I'm not sure who the full list of options would have looked like and what the choices could have been. But this is a, I

Carter 34:35

I wouldn't say it's an own goal. I'd say that this is just an unnecessary roughing the passer. Those are the same sports, right?

Zain 34:45

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely the same sport, cricket. Cricket. Corey, what do you think of the Mendocino interim chief of staff appointment? I'm going to

Corey 34:54

to put it in a bucket of choices that the Carney government has made, which I guess we can call it the Carney government now, right? This is on one level understandable, but another shows a little bit of political horse sense lacking, right? Because again, if you're going with this, this interim is almost by definition do no harm. And this has done a little bit of harm. And I'm not well positioned to know exactly the extent of the anger, Zane, I suspect you are more, but it didn't seem to me like it was entirely, you know what, I'll say this.

Corey 35:32

We saw this fucking show in the United States, and everybody is playing the same script right now. Everybody, everybody. Everybody. And I'm not even saying that, you know, you shouldn't support Israel or anything like that. I'm saying that

Corey 35:46

that the action and reaction seems to be the same, and it will likely have the same consequences if people are not very careful. So you're a public servant, if you're Mark Carney. I find it curious that you made your head of transition a public servant, if it's entirely a political exercise to have a cabinet at this date, which I believe it is. but

Corey 36:04

but you do have very smart political operatives around you and I just wonder what the hell's going on right and it's fine if it is all driving towards a point that's not yet entirely clear but I wonder I'm beginning to wonder on a couple of these things and while I do think it's a virtue that he came from the outside at this particular moment with this wealth of experience there is a difference between coming off as political and using politics as a shield to make sure you don't fuck up on some some things that may seem small to you but in aggregate will cause you a lot of headaches carter

Zain 36:38

carter um we wait for these cabinet selections and wait and

Zain 36:46

will mark carney run and

Zain 36:47

and where should he run edmonton and is that material he will not run he should

Corey 36:51

should run at edmonton center he

Zain 36:53

he should run at edmonton center are

Zain 36:55

you actually making that that case that he should run in Edmonton Centre? Yes.

Corey 36:59

I could make the case. Look, let me make the counter case because it's so obvious. He lives in Ottawa, I believe, right? There is an obvious seat that he can take in Ottawa. Why the hell wouldn't you just run in Ottawa?

Corey 37:13

The counter case though, the Edmonton Centre case is you could probably win Edmonton Centre. It is a bit of a marginal seat. You have a candidate there who's got a little bit of baggage, I think it's fair to to say in randy bossano

Corey 37:28

it would show a certain amount of strength that really impresses me not to mention that every time it comes up that he is running an edmonton center you were reminding people of his roots his canadian roots the fact that he grew up in edmonton and it's so much part of the story right i'm mark carney i'm here in ottawa on

Corey 37:46

on behalf of you canada the place that gave me everything this is where i grew up right i just think it's i think it's nice from a story point of view i also think i

Corey 37:55

don't know what he wants to do next but if he goes down in flames maybe he doesn't want to be sitting there as a as an opposition mp i don't know and it feels to me like edmonton center is the kind of seat that the liberals should win if the liberals are going to win and that's

Corey 38:10

that's what he wants yeah

Carter 38:12

yeah it means it means a few more seats in western canada as well right and a few more seats in western canada might be the difference between between a polyev minority government and a carny minority government so getting into edmonton center actually makes sense um as for him i do think that he intends to stay on even if if he loses i think that the initial plan was to uh rebuild the liberal party and knowing it was going to take longer than yeah than one cycle or believing that i guess that's yeah Yeah, they were down 25 points like

Corey 38:46

like a minute ago, right? Yeah,

Carter 38:48

Yeah, so this idea that we're now talking about a Carney government is really a three-week miracle.

Carter 38:57

this is, you know, the goal originally was to hold Pierre Polyev to a minority.

Carter 39:04

that expectation that he's going to stay on. And

Carter 39:07

And Edmonton Centre is definitely winnable.

Carter 39:10

It's not winnable for Randy Bossineau,

Carter 39:12

but it is definitely winnable for Mark Carney. And it also would move Edmonton Southeast into a winnable category. It would move a couple of seats in Calgary potentially into a winnable category, including Calgary Confederation with Corey Hogan.

Carter 39:30

Yeah, that's what I'm pitching.

Zain 39:32

People are still rolling in. I'm going to get you guys to do a little bit of work in a second. Actually, I might get you to do it right now.

Carter 39:39

Why is this taking so long? Why aren't they telling us who the cabinet is?

Zain 39:43

Trudeau was notoriously late. Now Carney is. Well, Trudeau was

Corey 39:46

busy a minute ago. He, you

Zain 39:49

Do you have any updates

Zain 39:50

updates for us, young

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Yeah. Yeah. There's people coming into the hole still. Oh,

Zain 39:58

Oh, my God. You know nothing. You

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Look, I just wanted to say, though, like going back to before when Carney was entering Rito, he stopped to talk to reporters, and he made the comment that it was going to be a focused government, an action-oriented government that was going to get to work. And I just wanted to remark how similar that is to the whole concept of deliverology, and

SPEAKER_02 40:29

and maybe where he might have pulled that from. I just sort of... Thank

Zain 40:34

Thank you. Thank you, JT. uh

Zain 40:37

uh jt's jt's uh jt's actually brought up an interesting point inadvertently which is usually the case um cory

Zain 40:45

cory does this need to be a gender balanced cabinet because it's 2025 i

Corey 40:51

it should be pretty easy to create a gender balanced cabinet because by my assessment most of your competent cabinet ministers are women so if you're making a smaller better answer than because it's 2015 because

Zain 41:02

most of my why is your cabinet gender balanced because women are competent yeah

Corey 41:06

yeah well and and if like if it does go down to 20 yeah it's not it's easier for me to find 10 competent women than 10 competent men in the in the current liberal cabinet it's

Zain 41:16

it's really upsetting good

Zain 41:18

actually this is actually where exactly the work i wanted you guys to do give me your top let's

Zain 41:23

let's go with five oh

Carter 41:24

oh my god your

Zain 41:25

your top five they gotta be in cabinet picks i and you could go i can

Zain 41:31

we do this i hate you so much yeah

Corey 41:32

yeah let's do this together yeah

Zain 41:35

mean no no not not don't even give me position you just because you respect their abilities yeah they got to be in cabinet like and of course they're all gonna be gonna be trudeau era and and such or so we expect like they're who knows someone could have come in through the back and you might be seeing stephen harper in this cabinet who the fuck knows that would

Corey 41:53

would i think we we should expect that in fact zane it's the most likely i'm

Zain 41:57

i'm now i'm now promoting if i was stephen carter i would triple down on it yeah and say that i have it on but is it is

Zain 42:04

it is it carter carter give me give me one pick start give me a pick that you're like this person it would be it

Zain 42:11

it would be a

Zain 42:12

a terrible idea for cardi to not have this person uh

Zain 42:16

uh on the bench who's someone that has to be in cabinet for you steve

Corey 42:23

steve mckinnon is your first pick like my number one overall in the draft is

Corey 42:29

mckinnon we do know steve mckinnon We know

Carter 42:30

know Steve McKinnon, and having a cabinet minister that we know is actually really valid. That's

Zain 42:35

That's true. Between the three of us, we know Mark Carney and Steve McKinnon, end of list. Yeah.

Zain 42:41

Corey, who would be your pick? Who would you say is a must-have on the Carney cabinet? Well... The election cabinet. Sorry, the Carney election cabinet, which is going to be different than the Carney post-election

Corey 42:52

-election cabinet. You know, this is not the most... Fuck,

Corey 42:55

I mean, we could list through all of the obvious ones, right? right? Like Melanie Jolie, Chrystia Freeland, and all of that. But if we're talking about some of the changes that we might expect, I think George Chahal is a pretty obvious pick for me. I'll tell you. I mean, he fucking busted

Zain 43:08

busted his ass. They got more votes in Alberta than they did Quebec. I mean, that shit's impressive to me. So I'll be blown away if Chahal's not in cabinet. Well,

Corey 43:18

Well, I think that the reason, as well as the Alberta representation, and your options are somewhat lacking at this particular moment there are of course some downsides there there's been there was the old like did he take out the literature scandal when he was first elected that's feeling pretty stale at this point and i think that he's probably uh been a good soldier on this one and pushed forward so i think he gets into cabinet or should get into cabinet because to me and maybe this is my alberta lens looking it's important to have that regional representation representation and if you don't have somebody from alberta i i don't know what you do well

Zain 43:55

well carver give me your honest take would you be blown away if shahal's not in cabinet if

Carter 43:59

if he wasn't in cabinet i'd be shocked yeah

Carter 44:01

really would be and and i'd be angry actually you'd

Carter 44:05

you'd be angry i

Carter 44:06

saw the amount of effort that was put in and

Carter 44:08

and he was i'm a big

Zain 44:10

big george fan so i'll say the same he

Carter 44:11

he was the He was the first guy in supporting Carney.

Zain 44:16

He was. That's true. He was number one. Intro to him at the launch, right? The one with the human wall. I don't know if either of you will remember. I don't like human walls. Did I

Zain 44:27

it's the one that had

Corey 44:28

wall. I noticed they just went with the big flag and not the human wall at the announcement event, though. Yeah,

Carter 44:33

Yeah, I think I'm getting through to people.

Zain 44:36

Who else, Carter? Who else? You got McKinnon and Shahal. Who else do you want to add? What cabinet we're building. knowing that joe i mean yeah yeah joe

Carter 44:44

joe lee leblanc uh

Carter 44:46

sure keep going these are

Zain 44:46

are not these these are already

Carter 44:48

already like these are already known sure

Zain 44:49

sure sure okay champagne no and champagne

Carter 44:52

champagne should be in his he'll be in um

Carter 44:56

you know i think that the i i don't know who else is going to be in no

Zain 44:59

no like these these questions are not who else is going to be in like who are your building blocks steven carter from this pool that's what i'm asking you here like who would you want to build your cabinet and who should he like would it be a total dumb move to not have these people that's the heart of the question steven carter well i

Carter 45:15

i think that nate erskine smith is probably someone that you could build around um i don't think you can build around uh steven gilbeau but i think that you know he's probably going to be in but i don't think you build around him i think you build around melanie joe lee i

Carter 45:30

i think you build around uh ironically

Carter 45:34

ironically steve mckinnon i think you can build around Steve McKinnon but then it starts to get really thin

Carter 45:43

when you start taking the people out that are leaving when you take out a Pascal Saint-Ange who I

Carter 45:50

think had has real talent but is dropping out that

Carter 45:54

that those are it's

Carter 45:56

it's not a to

Carter 45:59

to your point earlier he

Carter 46:01

does need some new talent that they can come in and become part of the cabinet.

Corey 46:05

Corey, who are you building around?

Corey 46:07

Well, I don't know. I would like to see, geez,

Corey 46:10

geez, I don't know. The problem with this is we've never really defined exactly what the hell he's trying to do here. So it feels like feeling around in the dark because if you're talking about just picking the best parts. Well, he's

Zain 46:24

it's deliverology with an economic focus. But

Corey 46:27

But if you're just limiting yourself to the existing caucus, caucus um or

Corey 46:33

or cabinet i i guess the the options are not that dramatic or special or amazing and carter's named most of them already if you are pushing a little bit further you almost want to present something that says holy that well that makes my head snap up that makes me think a little bit different so i'm not sure she's the person but like arlene dickinson right somebody who's seen as like kind of conservative but not too conservative and could uh could bring a business perspective Because you want to shore up those economic credentials. Maybe somebody who works in oil and gas or was like an oil and gas CEO or something to say, you know, we're not, we've still got environmental goals, but we're not militantly against development. You know, the thing about cabinet making always is that you've got to balance a bunch of things, including the story you want to tell. But in this world of election cabinets, as we've defined it, how is story not the primary component? And so if you look at it through that lens, you

Corey 47:28

you broaden that list. You don't just look at the caucus. You don't just look at the cabinet.

Zain 47:33

this is this a rare time maybe not rare time but is this a time in particular cory following up on your point that the penalty for bringing folks from the outside is minimal because they don't actually have to govern they don't actually have to run their ministry i

Corey 47:47

i mean the risk

Corey 47:47

i will argue the counterpoint which is the risk of bringing them from the outside really underlines how ridiculous it is to have a cabinet just before an election at least if they're already here you can like if you're bringing in arlene and other

Zain 47:58

other people just to kind of like tell a story you're

Zain 48:01

giving them a job

Corey 48:01

job five days like what the fuck is

Zain 48:05

have they have to run for you right

Corey 48:06

right after that like they get unless

Corey 48:07

unless you're doing a version

Corey 48:08

of we're also bringing into the cabinet these business leaders and these experts who can who can keep the lights on for us right it's kind of like an advisory

Zain 48:16

well yeah these people have never been in government so to keep them well yeah

Corey 48:19

yeah i mean but you know we know that's kind of ridiculous but i actually think canadians as a whole would say oh talented smart people let's uh let's give them a shot yeah

Zain 48:28

yeah yeah mark carney knows some people like uh claude

Zain 48:32

claude schwab from the wef yeah like that's a guy

Corey 48:35

guy that would be good yeah i mean that would be really really something he should consider that is it too late as it has already been announced oh

Zain 48:44

oh steven carter um what

Zain 48:47

what else you want to talk about why

Carter 48:49

don't we take a break why

Carter 48:52

why should we take a break because we're killing time

Zain 48:55

just random white people are walking in just justin has no idea who he

Carter 48:58

he doesn't know who anybody is justin

Zain 49:01

justin name five people who've walked in not even like just name any five people

SPEAKER_02 49:09

any of these people

Zain 49:10

people yeah i know because you sheltered yourself the whole time man this is what happens in the final two years do you not recognize jerry you and jerry go such a a long way back he's sitting right there jt what's going on remember mendocino you fired him after you told him to fuck off with the emergencies act situation how do you not know some of these oh right marco yeah yeah little

Zain 49:35

okay okay thank you yeah

Corey 49:37

yeah let's let's take a break carter is

Corey 49:39

is this just the end of the episode then because like it's it's like 9 15 i guess we're fucking out yeah

Zain 49:43

yeah nothing's happened nothing's happened i don't see any of the people so i I can't speculate.

Carter 49:46

speculate. Yeah, let's end the episode, because this is Patreon.

Zain 49:50

Sure. I'm okay with that. Cool.

Zain 49:55

right. Unless, I don't think I'm on a delay or something, right? Like, this shit's, actually, nothing's going on.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

No, this is, like, they just seeded the front row, which I'm assuming is, like. Yeah, but what's the reporting? Like, is the reporting out yet? No, there's nothing.

Corey 50:10

Really? Like, you guys have been, like, following, like, yeah, they haven't, like, the list isn't. Zane, we got our top man on this. It is what it is. So this is where you say, that's a wrap on episode, you pick a number. Yeah, that's

Zain 50:22

wrap on episode 1851 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velge. You're with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and our intern, the former prime minister of this great country, Justin Trudeau. And we shall see you next time.

Transcript