Transcript
Annalise
0:01
Welcome to The Strategist episode 1868. I'm your host Annalise Klingbeil and with you as always Stephen Carter and Zain Velji.
Annalise
0:10
Carter, you're in Edmonton. I'm
Annalise
0:12
Edmonton. You didn't know there was a hockey game.
Carter
0:14
I'm told there's a hockey game. I was just told by you guys seconds ago. Apparently the Oilers
Annalise
0:20
playing at Symedu. How close are
Annalise
0:20
are you to where
Carter
0:24
is being? I am four blocks away
Carter
0:24
away from where the game is. You should know. Do
Annalise
0:26
Do you have windows in your hotel room? I do. I
Carter
0:28
I do. I can see the strip club across the street. So, oh,
Carter
0:32
oh, I can see the arena. Are
Carter
0:34
at the coast? I can actually see
Annalise
0:34
see the arena. And you
Annalise
0:36
You're at the coast or the Delta?
Zain
0:36
Delta? Where are you at? I'm
Carter
0:38
I'm at the coast. How
Carter
0:38
you know this? How do you know? They've
Annalise
0:41
They've spent a lot of time at the hotel across from the strip club.
Zain
0:46
And it's the coast. And if you're staying at the coast, how poor is your client?
Carter
0:52
No, it's great. This is fantastic. It's good.
Zain
0:55
There's a bidet. Have I not talked about
Carter
0:57
about the bidet on the podcast? Don't, Carter.
Zain
1:00
Don't talk about it. The coast is bought by the Japanese company, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
Carter
1:04
there's bidets everywhere. APA.
Carter
1:07
It's good. I actually just got out of the toilet. We got here about an hour and a half ago. That's
Annalise
1:11
That's why he had no idea there was a hockey game occurring this evening, Shane. He's just spent the last hour and a half on the bidet.
Zain
1:18
it's pretty exciting. Don't
Carter
1:20
Don't think that's how you're supposed to use it. I may be using it incorrectly. Pretty exciting.
Annalise
1:25
Um, guys, anything else you want to tell us about Edmonton, Carter, before we jump into it?
Carter
1:32
Well, I can see the arena. Let me give you an update.
Carter
1:35
There is an arena.
Carter
1:36
That's all I can tell you. Zane, has
Annalise
1:37
has the game started?
Zain
1:38
The game has started. Carter, do you think the arena is where they're going to be processing everyone's Alberta passports once we separate? Do
Carter
1:46
Do you feel like the arena will be used? The arena will
Zain
1:48
will be used for that. Like we're using for mass vaccinations? Yeah. The arena will be used where we actually get the 5G chip removed and
Zain
1:56
and then get our new passports. You
Annalise
1:58
You think that's what's going to happen? Well, keeping our Canada passport as well. I'm pretty excited
Carter
2:02
excited about this whole separation thing.
Annalise
2:04
Oh, you've gone from worry to excitement?
Carter
2:07
No, I'm excited about it. Now I've decided that I'm going to ruin Danielle's day. That's
Carter
2:11
That's what I've decided.
Annalise
2:12
How? What are you doing?
Carter
2:14
I don't know yet, but I'm going to figure it out. And with good people, we'll ruin her day. Going
Annalise
2:18
Going to go spend some time on that bidet and figure out your strategy. Well,
Carter
2:22
Well, I was thinking about it for quite some time. I had 90 minutes in there.
Annalise
2:27
jump into it. Enough toilet talk. We are going to talk about Carney's cabinet to start off. Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney's cabinet will be unveiled.
Annalise
2:39
A source within the Prime Minister's office has told more than one media outlet today, Monday, day that the post-election cabinet will include two different layers. So there will be a core group that will have fewer than 30 ministers and then 10 additional junior ministers who will be called secretaries of state.
Annalise
2:58
I don't want to do an hour of speculating who's in, who's out, what role our friend Corey Hogan will get, but I do think it's
Annalise
3:05
it's worth chatting about cabinets, the strategy that goes into them, how
Annalise
3:09
how Mark Carney can differentiate himself himself from Trudeau right now.
Annalise
3:13
So let's jump into it. Carter, Corey Hogan, what role is he going to get?
Carter
3:19
don't know what role anybody's going to get. I've been purposely staying away from the cabinet speculation. It is not something that I've been jumping into. You mean
Zain
3:30
mean you're not good at predictions? Staying
Carter
3:31
Staying away from predictions. Here's why. What's changed, Stephen Carter?
Carter
3:36
i'll do a great job on predictions um but
Carter
3:39
but uh i i am intrigued to see how this all unfolds because i think that the uh the cabinet needs to have uh it needs to look different i think when you were doing your setup annalise you were talking about how does the the prime minister differentiate himself from prime minister trudeau and the answer is new blood uh
Carter
3:58
uh there has to be new blood in the cabinet. And that new blood can come from so many different places. There were a lot of new people who were running, whether it's Quebec. Quebec and Ontario will have some new faces for sure. Atlantic Canada will have some new faces. And then there's great new faces to choose from in Western Canada as well. So I don't think that it's necessarily about
Carter
4:24
who gets which role. I think it's about how many new faces there are. And that's Those same sources were saying that about 50% of the cabinet is going to be new blood. Is that enough? And I think that that's exactly the rate.
Carter
4:36
Well, I don't know that you can do it with more
Carter
4:39
than that. You know, if there's 30 people in the cabinet, I'm not even sure where the line is drawn. Fewer than 30 people in the cabinet, but 10 more people in cabinet is very confusing to me. 40, 30 plus 10 is 40.
Carter
4:54
Yeah, it's starting to sound a lot like Justin Trudeau's 40-person cabinet. it. But the cabinet itself needs to have a lot of fresh blood. And I think if we're just looking at the 30, then that means that 15 people are new blood. And that would mean probably at least 10 or 12 bodies lying in the ditch that Mark Carney has thrown
Carter
5:18
thrown away. Some big names, I would expect.
Annalise
5:21
Zane, what does Carter's math mean for Corey Hogan?
Zain
5:25
We'll see what it means for Corey. We'll see what it means for a lot of people who've been, you know, touted
Zain
5:31
touted as individuals with the right skill set, with the right pedigree, with the right resume to be able to put themselves in cabinet.
Zain
5:38
I, for one, if I was choosing between one of the strategists, Annalise, obviously I would choose you. But if we didn't care about gender parity, then, of course, I'd be choosing Stephen Carter. He brings the type of white man energy that I don't think any of the white men that Mark Carney is going to be choosing would bring. That's the level of new blood that Stephen Carter would bring to the fold.
Zain
6:03
So who the hell knows what it means for Hogan?
Annalise
6:05
What's a good number? There's been a lot of focus on the number. Six
Zain
6:09
Six is a great number.
Annalise
6:10
People saying that Trudeau had this huge cabinet. I think it's worth remembering when Trudeau's first cabinet, 2015, 31, which I believe included himself, so 30 and himself. When he left, he had 40. Carney's quick pre-election cabinet had 24, which there was some criticism there. What is the right number? And what do you make, Zane, of this, like, some people are senior ministers, some are junior. I don't know what terminology we want to use, but of this new structure. I'm
Zain
6:43
convinced that the raw number of new faces matters. I think what matters is a subset of that, which is the new faces in senior roles.
Zain
6:52
A new finance minister, a new natural resources minister, a new foreign affairs minister, a new minister of revenue, a minister that is leading potentially a new file for intergovernmental and trade, for example. people.
Zain
7:10
Change like that, I think, matters more than just the breadth of change. And so what I'm looking for tomorrow is new faces that are taking on senior roles, because I think then it's the confidence that Carney is attributing to those people, and by extension, signaling to the rest of the country that I haven't just brought in a thin generational change, like a thin line of generational change. Junior ministers are ultimately going to be able to take top job jobs six
Zain
7:37
six years from now, I'm actually bringing in a brand new or like a relatively reset French bench. And I think that's the message that many people are looking for. I don't think he gets away with just 50% off the top. I think that's a nice teaser metric, a nice leak metric for the PMO. What he should be held to account for, in my opinion, is
Zain
8:00
is the amount of senior people that are new in the senior ministries. So not even within the 30, but the subset of the 30, the top 10, the top five of those people are new. OK, he's playing a different type of ballgame. That's my take. Carter,
Carter
8:13
Carter, I do. I do like this idea of having a junior set of ministers and a senior set of ministers was something that I toyed with in in Alberta. We never got around to it because I was there for 15 or 20 minutes. but what we were looking at is putting in place a uh like i would have loved to have had uh one minister who is responsible for health care with two or three different junior ministers working with them one minister responsible for education two or three junior junior ministers working with them one person responsible for finance etc etc and you'd only really have about six or eight senior ministers and those senior ministers would then form kind of an operations committee that would be able to break down some of the silos that exist in government. One of the reasons we created a human services super ministry with Hancock was that we wanted to break down the privacy rules. People who are in human services are often in different realms of human services all at the same time. But you couldn't necessarily get communication to go across those silos of government departments because of privacy concerns. But if you made it all one department, then all the information could flow theoretically much smoother. And I think that the problem was you create the super ministry and then it's too big and too wieldy for one person to be the primary minister of. So if Mark Carney is doing that, where he's creating super ministries with junior ministers who are then supportive of that or regionally specifically supportive of that, then I can wrap my head around it because I think that that'll be a really good thing.
Annalise
9:55
This sounds different, though, because what you're saying is like a small core group and then several junior ministers. This sounds more like fewer than 30 in a core group and then 10 junior ministers. Yeah, I'll
Zain
10:10
I'll just... Can I jump in, Carter, with my
Annalise
10:12
my thought? I mean, I
Zain
10:13
I think Annalisa's observation here is a very good one, right? Right. Usually you'd expect it to go the other way around. If this is the model you are following, 10 at the senior level and then a shit ton at the more junior level. And I think we should read it that way. Even if they want to present it to us as 30 and then 10, let's find the top 10. Like, yeah, like we already know what the top 10 are going to be. They might be mapped slightly differently and they might use different words for what they mean. But there's
Zain
10:41
there's going to be 10.
Zain
10:43
So, like, who are the 10? Like, let's find the 10. Let's not get confused with their mapping. Figure out what those are.
Zain
10:49
And really, the way I look at it, Carter, is like, this is a way to catch talent. It's just like, you don't have to assign them a department. You don't have to assign them, frankly, an ADM or ADM or any real resources, these ministers of state. But you can maximize on their talent. You can kind of, you know, maximize on the fact that you want them around, but you don't really know where you want to put them. that kind of have this utility player element to them, even if they may be given a portfolio, and
Zain
11:18
and you kind of let them test the ground for whether they advance themselves into the ministerial portfolio. Let's also not forget, there's another thing that we don't know but are assuming, which is that this 30 is paired with this 10 that might have an additional 30 or 40 parliamentary secretaries behind it. So this could be of a 170, hundred and seventy give it 168 171 we'll find it in a couple of days anywhere between there that many seats of a caucus might have 80 people 70 to 80 people holding positions of which 40 of them will be called honorable is
Zain
11:54
that too many carter
Zain
11:58
um is it too many is
Carter
12:00
is it too many no it's not too many uh and and this is my friend robert hawks who talked me into this uh i started off very much being a believer in small cabinets. And he turned me around on it. The way he turned me around on it is that idle hands make the devil's work, however the saying goes. And these idle hands in government are particularly nasty. So you want to be able to share out as many titles as you possibly can and make as many people work for you as you possibly can. There is no way in a 170, 168 person caucus, that you can give everybody a job. But if you can give a solid, almost majority of people a job, and don't forget, you're talking about parliamentary secretaries, but there's still whips, there's still positions in the party, there's still caucus chairs, there are so many jobs that are going to be handed out that by the end of it, you're going to be looking at 120 out of 160 people with a special job. Oh, don't forget committee chairs.
Carter
13:07
what about the 20 people who don't get a job? They all wind up on committees. So they wind up with multiple committee positions. So everybody gets something in the government and that is enabling to keep people from bitching and moaning behind your back because you give them all something and you have expectations of them. You think this, Carter? I didn't, but my friend Robert Hawks is smarter than me and he turned me around.
Zain
13:32
Thankfully, Stephen Carter has Zane Belger, who's smarter than him. Yeah,
Carter
13:35
Yeah, Zane Jumpin'. And he's
Zain
13:35
he's able to also provide Carter some advice. You know, Carter, what's worse than people with titles? People with titles that have no purposeful engagement with their role. And then they have roles and assumed power and no directionality, no real power. And they're even more frustrated than sitting on the sidelines bitching and moaning. And I feel like unless this is a PMO and a group that's ready to purposefully engage, define roles, responsibilities, hold people account, put them on an advancement track, because you know what the people that are not as part of the core 10 want to be? They want to be part of the core 10. They're going to want a track for someone in the PMO to say, how do I become the next whatever minister? They're going to have to deal with their bitching. They're going to have to deal with their moaning. They're going to have to deal with their career projection questions. this is a lot of work so you might be right on the surface but there's also a ton of opportunity for this to go wrong in which you have a lot of people who have titles but no meaningful power no
Zain
14:35
no meaningful engagement and still can't even be themselves because they have to fit into this narrow box of towing the line and we've seen what happens with a bunch of people that feel like they're a players and have a plus style egos and feel like they should be part of the top 10 but but are instead a part of the top 79 to 85 feel about their political careers. You're also cooking with fire in that way.
Carter
14:57
Everybody gets a job. I'm Oprah fucking Winfrey in this situation. Job, job, job. Everybody gets a job. I'm for everyone.
Annalise
15:03
everyone. No, Zane, I'm glad you brought that up because that's what I was going to ask you, Carter, is under the system that you seem to think is a good idea, how do promotions work and people starting in this junior role and then working towards something bigger
Carter
15:16
bigger and better? Everybody sees the next rung on the ladder, If you've ever met anybody in caucus, everybody in caucus thinks that they deserve a role in cabinet. That is why they ran. They ran because they are the best to serve not only their constituency, but the good people of Canada. There is 170 people that were expecting telephone calls yesterday. 170 people all booked their flights on Air Canada. They were all going to be in cabinet, damn it. And they're not all going to be in cabinet. Some of them are going to be disappointed. But you can ease that disappointment by giving them a chair position. George Chahal was chair of the National Natural Resources Committee. That made him feel better. It made him feel better because he wasn't a cabinet minister. But you know what? He was the next rung below or two rungs below.
Annalise
16:03
Carter, your strategy is just give everyone a job. Is this what I'm hearing?
Carter
16:08
a title. You get a job.
Carter
16:09
I mean, look at what we did with Zane. We gave Zane jobs. We're like, you can host the podcast. And then we're like, you can become a strategist. It's no problem. we gave him jobs and he saw the next rung on the ladder and he moved up those rungs on the fucking tv he's on all the tv channels he's on all the radio stations that
Zain
16:28
that part is true he's
Carter
16:30
he's on all the podcasts all because what because one day we took petty on him and we gave him we said you know what you can host this and he did and he's hosted his way into and those other gigs pay real money too they pay real money none of this strategy
Zain
16:44
strategy i like this podcast i have no real real power and i'm deeply frustrated carter
Annalise
16:50
he keeps showing up steven carter okay he does keep showing
Zain
16:53
showing the paycheck i guess i guess that's true he'd give everyone a top up am i
Annalise
16:57
i actually called the honorable
Zain
16:58
honorable am i do i get
Zain
16:59
an honorable title now
Annalise
17:01
now you got a
Zain
17:02
we call you something for the show the honorable zane belcher that's good that's gonna surprise a lot of people in terms
Annalise
17:09
terms of the titles what about the actual like ministries the portfolios and and and carney using it as a way to differentiate himself from Trudeau. I think there was criticism of Trudeau of maybe having like some flowery language or grouping some things together. Like, how are you looking, Carter, for Carney to play the actual portfolios? I
Carter
17:28
I mean, I'd really kind of like to almost step back to Brian Mulrooney style of titles, right? Like, tell us exactly what it is that they do and don't flower it up. Don't make it into something particularly special.
Carter
17:44
I'd love to to see that you know minister of external affair or external relations or i'm just trying to think of some different one i mean the minister of finance is classic right you you're going to have certain classic ones justice finance um yeah
Annalise
17:57
yeah but what about transportation infrastructure
Carter
18:00
um i would like to see them cleaned up make them really make you know this is what your job is if you're the minister for western canada uh economic diversification then you're the minister of of economic diversification that's it you know it doesn't require um yeah
Carter
18:17
yeah you know special long titles that are doubly
Carter
18:20
doubly long in in french and
Annalise
18:21
and do people need long titles i
Zain
18:23
don't think they need long titles i think shorter titles actually encompass a lot more than long titles sure longer titles almost seem like you're trying to carve out things that are not explicitly said right when you say heritage and then you include languages and then culture and television you're You're like, wait, what's not? You know, I'm just making television up. You see what I'm trying to say, though, right? It makes the person ask, what's not part of it? I thought everything was part of the one word. And it used to be that way, that the one word would be all encompassing. Yeah, minister of sport was
Zain
18:51
was enough. You'd meet the minister and you'd be like, oh, shit, I didn't realize you were my minister. But I guess that makes sense. This is a roundabout to heritage. And you kind of want those one word, two word, all encompassing portfolios, especially with the top 10 that you want to assign some power to right and and and some of those positions have retained uh not
Zain
19:12
not just the nomenclature but the history of those expansive um and this the expansive oversight justice uh
Zain
19:22
uh transport right transport like i don't think between the three of us we could actually create an all-encompassing list of everything that the minister of transport is responsible it's a big one we'll
Zain
19:33
we'll forget a a big thing. At some point, we'll be like, oh,
Carter
19:36
Or we'll be like, oh, yeah, everything,
Zain
19:38
you know, like, we'll
Zain
19:39
we'll forget. All the real. Yeah. All real. We'll forget something. So, like, there is something to be said about shorter, pithier, more meaningful titles. I'm also curious myself personally in this acute sort of moment with Carney, if the Secretary of State will lean more towards the specific skill sets that these junior ministers bring to the table and or areas of acute pain or pressure. So how much do they double up on the economic files or particular types of files that need conditions. So like a subsector of housing on the funding track, a subsector of finance, a subsector of part of his build plan. And how much are
Zain
20:17
are they trying to address and signal priority? And how much are they trying to take advantage of someone's unique skill set that might be occupying the role? The interesting thing with the junior ministries and the state ministries, especially how they've been used in in the UK and other commonwealths is they often are not assigned either a full department or any department at all. They're relatively agile and they can often speak to the skillset of the person holding that particular office at that particular time. Because when you blow it up, there's really nothing you're blowing up other than a role and a couple of staff. There's no ministry or there's no department behind it. And so you can have these sort of utility players who speak to a particular particular moment in time or skill set that they bring i'm going to be looking for that tomorrow being like oh that makes sense for that person uh
Carter
21:01
uh as a reaction to some of the things
Zain
21:03
things we see in the tv procession tomorrow morning carter
Carter
21:06
carter are you watching tomorrow morning i
Carter
21:08
i have a i have a breakfast meeting that i drove to edmonton for oh no so
Carter
21:13
so every once in a while i have to get paid for doing stuff just just
Annalise
21:17
it and cancel it right now go to the website hire carter to speak that's your plug carter exactly what's the website for
Zain
21:22
for 90 book the bidet for a nice 90 at 7.30 tomorrow and just
Carter
21:27
up that iPad, man. You know, I wondered why it was more expensive tonight to be able to get to the bidet.
Annalise
21:33
Guys, another one for you. Mandate letters. Talk to me about, I think we saw with Trudeau this detailed mandate letters that were released publicly.
Annalise
21:42
What do you think should be a good, what is a good strategy for Prime Minister Carney when it comes to mandate letters? Like, follow that same thing or Or I
Annalise
21:54
don't like should he be totally detailing it or should he be like leaving it up to people to shape it? Or if he's got like no flowery language and he's got these really specific topics, just run with it. You're in charge of this. This is your job. Like talk to me, Carter, you've you've been involved in mandate letters, I'm sure, in your roles as chiefs of staff. What's the what's the good mandate letter strategy? strategy?
Carter
22:18
A great mandate letter strategy is to have a very clear mandate letter with three or four items that need to be achieved in the next year or two. And those mandates are clear and understandable. Unfortunately, in federal politics, I think it's a little bit harder sometimes. We're picking on the department, you know, the Minister of Transport. So I'll just continue to pick on the Minister of Transport. I mean, do we even know what the issues in transportation are going to be? Do we know what issues might pop up? I like the mandate letter because it tells the minister what they have free reign on, but I'm afraid of the mandate letter because anything not included in that mandate letter is often seen as off limits. And I would much refer that the mandate letter says, these are our three priorities, but you go ahead and be the minister of this department. You should be the actual minister of the department instead of the prime minister's office being the de facto minister of the department. And I think Zane was kind of, you know, alluding to that a little bit earlier in the conversation. You know, when the prime minister's office is the ministry of everything, then these mandate letters become much less meaningful because really each one of them could be, come and see us before you do anything important.
Carter
23:39
I really think that that's been the mandate letter for quite some time, even with the trudeau stuff when trudeau's government was trying to control from the prime minister's office i would like to see if we have these super qualified individuals saying that are in the top 10 ministries assuming
Zain
23:54
assuming that's right yep yeah
Carter
23:55
yeah that their mandate letter be something along the lines of please bring us your priorities back to uh the the privy council cabinet
Carter
24:04
let us know um what is happening from you know week to week so that we can adjust Just our priorities as a government, because shit is going to get real.
Annalise
24:14
real. Zain, jump in there. I appreciate that. To the point at the beginning about differentiating himself from Trudeau and Trudeau's liberals, is there an opportunity to do that with mandate letters? I
Zain
24:23
I think there is. I think there is. I mean, like, there's the baseline question of whether they're public or not, right? Because they don't have to be public. They don't have to be, yeah.
Zain
24:30
They can be private. They can be summarized, or they can be fully public.
Zain
24:34
And so I really like what Carter's doing. And it also plays into a notion that our friend Corey Hogan has brought up on the show multiple which is often people in government and in politics, like govern and politic, like psychopaths, right? Like you wouldn't see this in the workplace. You wouldn't in any sort of normal, non-toxic workplace, see a boss hand you an aggressive sort of letter that's one-sided and then never speak to you ever again, which is by the way, kind of the relationship that even the most senior ministers have with one's prime minister.
Zain
25:05
And so I really am into Carter's idea of saying, here's what I think the priorities are. I want you to co-create with me and I want you to do it relatively quickly. And we'll kind of mold
Zain
25:16
mold something together and then gel it relatively soon now that you've been given this role.
Zain
25:22
We know any boss who gives you directives and then never speaks to you again and then just asks you when they're done is
Zain
25:28
is not any sort of true collaborator, right? They're not an inspiring leader. They're a boss. They're a manager. They're not necessarily leaders. So I think there's an opportunity to break the mold a bit. Whether that happens or not, we'll see. There's
Zain
25:43
There's two things I have written down here that I think are important, though, for Carney.
Zain
25:48
Number one, it goes to your previous question around titles. Less is more. I think the flowery, almost sort of you are now the face of housing across Canada. As people search for a home, you will now be like the Trudeau stuff. Enough
Zain
26:01
of that. No rhetoric. Just like simply like roles, responsibilities. And then the second point I think that's really going to be important is that these
Zain
26:10
these are wartime mandate
Zain
26:13
You have to keep the crisis thread through
Annalise
26:16
all of them. We
Zain
26:17
We are in a crisis. Your file, at least in anything major that touches on the economy, your file is in crisis. crisis there's tons of upside and opportunity i task you with your experience skills and your readiness to serve to do these things but do not be mistaken we are in a crisis therefore the following metrics for you are aggressive but achievable i'm here to help you in every single way uh and and move any sort of barriers that you need but i think one thing should these be made public even if the summaries are made public is that these are wartime mandate letters not peacetime mandate letters. These are not go out and stakeholder engage. This is go out and get shit done. That is the mandate we have won. That is the mandate we are going to act upon.
Annalise
26:57
Well, Carter, is the mandate letter not also just an opportunity, to Zane's point, to reinforce the key messages and reinforce the times we're in and what people need to do?
Carter
27:07
It absolutely should be. I mean, keep in mind that there's going to be, well, some 30 to 40 of these things. So these mandate letters can and should tell a story. It shouldn't just be, you know, here are my three things. It should be, here's what I'm expecting from the departments as we move forward. Here's what your responsibilities as minister are. You know, the economic diversification ministries, which have traditionally been quite small
Carter
27:38
small ministries with low priority, they might be super important in the coming weeks,
Carter
27:44
weeks, months of tariff discussions. You know, suddenly every ministry may be looked at differently because of what's going to happen with with Trump's tariffs or whatever the hell he's going to announce about Canada this week. Who knows? Lord knows my my TikTok algorithm doesn't quite have it figured out yet.
Annalise
28:08
Zane, did you want to jump in there?
Zain
28:10
I think Carter's notion of story is really interesting and important. important i i'm curious what you think you both of you around a story carter of if you do your job well here's what the future could look like for people and maybe that's too overly ambitious but i do feel like something that governments struggle with is talking about the upside right to say if you do your job well canadians will be able to move freely do this do that have greater greater security in doing A, B, and C. That's what's on the line here. And I almost, you know,
Zain
28:44
it almost seems contradictory to like kind of set the bar like that for your ministers. But I think a story that can inspire and that they can use to kind of as a North Star for why they're doing what they're doing in this moment could also be important. And so one thing I think that we have not seen enough of as part of that storytelling is if you do your job really fucking well, here's what it could look like like when we, in terms of what we achieve. And I feel like, you know, you might be like, well, why does one need to make that public? I
Zain
29:14
I think it's both accountability and motivation for this moment that I think also allows a bit of a reset in terms of how a government communicates, not just externally, but with each other and with this team. And if they're truly a team, I think that's going to be quite important. Suzanne,
Annalise
29:29
Suzanne, you're saying put people first in the storytelling.
Zain
29:33
Well, put people first, but also, you know, don't suggest very clearly that if you do it correctly, if you do it well, if we align, if we collaborate, if we empower each other, if we promote cross-ministerial collaboration, if we embed accountability, and if I'm there with your support with the bully pulpit of the prime ministership, here's what we can achieve together. And that here's what we can achieve together paragraph almost is a copy and paste from every single mandate
Zain
29:59
letter of an imagined future that this government is thinking of in their head for Canadians. And you're playing your, not
Zain
30:06
not small, but extremely large part in making that three, four, five sentences a reality.
Annalise
30:11
that work, Carter? I almost like them to have that North
Zain
30:14
North Star story, you know?
Carter
30:16
Is it getting too fluffy? No, it's not getting too fluffy. I think that, and one other thing that I would do is probably put in which ministries we need to cooperate with the most, right? Like this is, it's not just a game, right? Right. Like there's a tremendous amount of work to be done and cooperation that's going to need to be done. I would also like to see mandate letters for the committees, you know, with that type of here's what we can expect. The problem is, how do you write the deliverable? The challenge of making a cabinet is twofold. First of all, it's selecting the talented people. Right. There's and and you've got to balance regions. You've got to balance capacity. You've got to balance a whole bunch of different problems.
Carter
31:01
That's a problem. But the second is just getting ready, right? Just getting the departments ready, getting the mandate letters done, getting the, like, it just goes
Carter
31:13
goes and goes and goes, and there's not enough time. So I'd be very interested to see what mandate letters are actually released and how complete they are. My feeling
Carter
31:26
is that given the amount of time that's passed, I'm looking for people to be in this C plus missing information type of grading rather than
Carter
31:36
everything is, you know, as Zane is describing it, we actually have a through line and a beginning, a middle and an end in each
Annalise
31:44
each of these letters.
Annalise
31:45
But they also don't have to release them. Like, could you not make another headline later in the week or next week or something with your... Go
Annalise
31:55
Go ahead. As we try
Zain
31:56
try to figure this out, like, I think I'm landing on my sweet spot, which is an expanded mandate letter of five to seven priorities with a story about the crisis basis, the story, the offer of support, and the ability to co-create these. And get back to me with your feedback. Talk to your DMs, ADMs. Let's get, like, talk, get back to me and my people with your feedback. Let's mold these. That's the private one. The public one, don't release them full. summary with a pithy three to four key issues that you're going to target that are being assigned to you um what the what the goals are and then that that same sort of sense of like crisis urgency and a bit of a story around it the story of this country the story of you this why we need you and your skills and your leadership and the story of all of us right now um and
Zain
32:45
and why this is urgent at this present moment so a summary version half a page to a page not the trudeau version 30 to 50 items
Zain
32:53
items which by the way i
Zain
32:55
think both from a priority perspective but as well as a rhetorical perspective just does not work if there's 30 to 50 items there's zero items frankly if there's 10 items there's zero items and if there's 30 to 50 items you're putting 30 to 50 items out there to keep your your your the opposition accountable to you and you're never going to achieve those even if they're big or small what
Annalise
33:15
what do you like zane you've mentioned what you're looking for for tomorrow what headline do you like what's the good we talked after the Trump meeting with Carney like that you know a a a minus a plus performance what's like a good headline and I asked this thinking back to 2015 I was like what what stood out when Trudeau named his first cabinet and I don't know what comes to mind for you guys but for me it was that gender parity line because it is like why
Annalise
33:40
why is gender parity important because it's 2015 was like international news and
Annalise
33:44
and it's wild how much has changed in 10 years. But what do you think is a good headline coming out of tomorrow for Carney?
Zain
33:54
So it could be something that he delivers from the podium, like a 2015-style quip when he does a press conference with the Carter loves us, and he's going to love it tomorrow as well, with the human wall of
Zain
34:05
of ministers who have all the power
Zain
34:07
power in the world, but won't say a fucking thing tomorrow
Zain
34:10
because they're going to be standing behind their prime minister. So
Annalise
34:12
So Carter's going to love
Zain
34:14
uh so it could be equipped there but i think we're already seeing a telegraphed we
Zain
34:17
we record here on monday night i think we actually know what they want it to be they want it to be about new faces yeah
Zain
34:22
they want it to be about half the half the they're trying to engineer that quote across three to five media uh mainstream media sources right now um over half will be new over half over half we've seen it like so many times now um
Zain
34:38
think they should want it to be about focus and results.
Zain
34:44
It's a results-oriented, focused group. One thing they should not try to swing for is leaner and smaller because no one's buying that shit.
Annalise
34:55
30 and 10 juniors, Zane.
Carter
34:57
What do you mean no one's buying this? But that was
Zain
34:58
was the whole thing heading into tonight. I don't think they should spend any more capital trying to go with leaner, smaller, whatever, small government. And like whatever they're trying to indicate, go with focused. Right. And that's going to be how you map the titles and how you map the people and go with results driven.
Zain
35:13
That's what they want to try to engineer tomorrow. In addition to the headline
Zain
35:18
headline of brand new sort of thing.
Annalise
35:20
Carter, what's an A-plus headline out of tomorrow?
Carter
35:24
It's a new government instead
Carter
35:26
instead of the fourth term of the liberals. It's a new government, a new direction. it'll be interesting how this foreshadows the speech from the throne. You know, it'll be interesting to see how this foreshadows the relationship with all the various regions of the country. You know, it's a hard country to govern. It's got a lot of different spaces, a lot of different types of people, and a lot of people who are going to say, if I didn't get X, then I am pissed. And whatever X might be, they'll be looking for it in the mandate letter they'll be looking for it in the speech from the throne they'll be looking for it in
Carter
36:03
in cabinet composition so there'll be two different stories there'll be a national story that you're hoping to get um you know new government out of and then there'll be the regional stories which will all be we got what we wanted our star is here our a star is born right or our um cabinet cabinet minister of 15 years survived or
Carter
36:24
whatever the situation may be, or more likely the regional stories are going to be all about those who got dumped and got overlooked.
Annalise
36:34
so segue there Carter, cause you brought it up. What's a,
Annalise
36:38
what's a good headline for Alberta given what is happening in Alberta right now? And we can chat more about it in a sec, but like what, what's the, what's the, what does Alberta want to see?
Carter
36:49
I think Alberta wants to see strong cabinet ministers. I think that we have two MPs and people want to see that there's two cabinet ministers that can get the job done. I suspect that anything less
Carter
37:01
less than that is going to generate negative headlines here. The
Carter
37:04
The same way that I think that, you know, like there's 20 members of parliament in the lower mainland of British Columbia. They'll be wanting to see, you know, four or five, six different people in cabinet from the lower mainland. land um i suspect that they'll that they'll be disappointed in the lower mainland but i'm not entirely sure uh this is the beauty of cabinet we don't know who's on the planes uh we don't know who's you know who's going to to ottawa to to uh walk up to rito tomorrow rito uh what is it rito hut rito chateau we've
Zain
37:40
actually been reduced to a cottage oh
Zain
37:43
that's what it is The
Carter
37:45
That's the one Not
Zain
37:49
sounds like Sunglass Hut Sounds like something you'd find at the downtown Ottawa mall Well
Carter
37:54
Well you know I'm old Words escape me RitoHut
Zain
37:57
RitoHut.ca is actually also where you can find What can they find there Carter?
Zain
38:04
Strategist Sunglasses Available at RitoHut.ca Perfect
Annalise
38:10
Last one on this guys not specifically to cabinet making but staff and I bring it up Carter in the fall um when I was periodically on this podcast we would talk like I'd be like guys explain it to me why are the liberals why is Trudeau being so dumb about this and you and Corey would always be like because they're working with the c team like they you know it's 10 years in they don't have the a team they don't have the b team they're working with the c team when it comes to staff what type of I guess like opportunity or differences does Carney have with, you know, he's not dealing with the same people who were there a year ago.
Carter
38:47
Well, of note, he hasn't named his chief of staff going forward. He hasn't said this is Marco.
Carter
38:53
Yeah. We haven't we haven't named the chief of staff. We haven't seen deputy chiefs of staff. We haven't seen the principal secretary. Braden Cayley seems to still be standing beside him. You can recognize his bald head over, you know, every time I see it, I think there goes a brother there goes a brother and uh you know i see i see that and i think you know uh i'm glad that braden's still there but i'm interested to see who the team will be this has to be the a team it has to be the best possible team that you can bring because it never gets better um it is the you know so if you're carrying people over from the trudeau regimen then you've got a regime sorry not regimen totally different uh the regime Are you really mixing
Annalise
39:32
mixing up your words tonight?
Annalise
39:39
to drive all the
Carter
39:40
the way to Edmonton. But
Zain
39:41
regime of Trudeau... Has gone to your butt because of the bidet. Yeah, exactly. It's just now going back up to your head.
Carter
39:53
The regime, if it's all from Trudeau... The regiment, Amy.
Carter
39:57
Rideau Hut. Yeah. Keep talking, Carter.
Carter
40:00
If it's all from Trudeau, we're going to have real issues. because the Trudeau team wasn't that great at the end. But I'm not sure where Mark's going to be reaching out, Mark, to Zane and I, Prime Minister Carney, to you. To you, at least, yeah.
Carter
40:17
Yeah, at least. It's a little different.
Zain
40:22
it's a white guy thing amongst white guys.
Carter
40:27
I think that I'm
Carter
40:30
I'm really looking forward to seeing who the chief of staff is i'm really looking forward to seeing who uh the the communications team looked like you know like all of this
Carter
40:39
this and i'm looking forward to seeing who's in the minister's offices because i think that's going to tell a story too i would like to see like there was a uh quote in the newspaper last on the weekend saying it was like the hunger games and i would like it to be like the hunger games because only one out of 20 survive from the trudeau era i'd I'd like to see a whole brand new, a whole new cohort of liberal staffers come in and take over the government, because I think that's the energy that's going to be required.
Annalise
41:09
Zane, do you agree? And do you think there's like a lineup of those people? Like, and I think this goes back to those conversations we kept having in the fall. Like you guys were like, well, no one wants this job anymore. Like anyone who wanted to be a staffer was doing it 10 years ago. go like is there is there enough yeah fresh
Annalise
41:25
fresh blood and new vibes that there's that lineup of people who want what's like a really hard job i
Zain
41:32
i i'm not sure if carter believes what i'm about to say but i'm gonna say it anyways we'll
Annalise
41:36
we'll see we'll watch his facial expression which
Zain
41:39
which is i think this is a moment for carney to look outside of the traditional political uh field for talent
Annalise
41:48
does not like what you said carter
Zain
41:51
carter because he is a political hack uh with uh with limited outside skills here's
Zain
41:58
thing mark carney has
Zain
41:59
has a lineup of people across the world um
Zain
42:02
um wanting to work for him that
Zain
42:04
that have worked for him that have experience with him many of them which are canadians by the way who and i've talked to a number of them over the course the last number of weeks saying, should we come back? We've had these conversations. We've never worked in politics, but they're smart, capable people who want to help Mark Carney. And I think there's a space for those folks, especially when you're trying to look for a rejuvenation of
Zain
42:30
of talent. You want to do it in a way that kind of looks at
Zain
42:33
at skills over patronage, knowledge skills and and and mindset and and and pedigree over how long you've been with the with the political party and then you add and supplement that with those who know how to run a political office and so carter you know some
Zain
42:49
some of harper's chiefs of staff remind me if i'm wrong was
Zain
42:52
was it nigel wright that came from the corporate world yeah
Carter
42:55
he wound up leaving under a cloud of Right,
Zain
43:03
But I would not be surprised if Carney goes in that direction for his chief. A name you and I, the three of us, do not know. But
Zain
43:09
But someone that works well with him, that has been his chief of staff, maybe even with that role. role.
Zain
43:14
And I say that purely speculating, right? Maybe even with that role in the corporate sector and other places that Carney has served, but with that skill set to make things happen, to make things run, to make things move, to gatekeep on his behalf, to make strategic decisions on his behalf. I
Zain
43:31
I think there's a role for those people that have been in Carney's life before. And there's a bunch of folks across the Western world because of his vast network that want to either come back and work with him or come to Canada and work with him. I think that's an opportunity in a lane that is fundamentally unique to Mark Carney in this particular moment, especially with the crisis posture that he is promoting to the rest of the world. Because for many people, this is not just a Save Canada PMO. This is a Fight Trump PMO. And I think there's a lot of people who want to be stakeholders,
Zain
44:02
stakeholders, if not passengers or leaders in that venture. venture.
Zain
44:08
I think in addition to that, I'm very conflicted on the Trudeau question.
Zain
44:11
In one way, it's been one of the most successful PMO operations in a very long time for the liberals. It's been obviously the most recent, but I don't even look at most recent. I'd say most successful in the way of longevity, but
Zain
44:24
but it's had its soft spots.
Zain
44:26
Comms has been a soft spot.
Zain
44:28
Overall, sort of a rapid response in crisis management has been an issues management, if you want to call it that has been a soft spot uh and one would potentially uh kind of suggest that their overall sort of showcasing of of the team and and showcasing roles across the board has been a soft spot so i'm actually quite conflicted without a sort of definitive result on where he should go with the trudeau team but i suspect that they're going to stick around at least for now um but how does he integrate new people especially those that have a desire to work with him is going to be a really interesting question carter
Annalise
45:01
carter it looks like you did not agree with what Zane was saying based on your facial expression, which people can watch on YouTube. I sold him at the
Annalise
45:09
Yeah. You stuck out your tongue, I believe. Your face looked really frowny and upset. Yeah,
Carter
45:14
Yeah, I mean, it was so long ago, I don't remember what was said, though. It was a Corey Hogan
Carter
45:20
It was a Corey Hogan-length response, for sure. Listen, I think that,
Carter
45:24
first, there's a couple of things. When he waxed on about Trudeau, my brain turned to absolute mush. This was not the world's most successful, you know, liberal
Carter
45:37
liberal government. I think that it lost its way relatively early in its second term. By the time we got the third term, they were just taking advantage of the opportunity to get reelected. They weren't bringing a real vision to the table. So I disagree with that. And I think that from the middle of the second term on, sure, there's some stars. I think of Hannah Wilson, who worked with Chrystia Freeland, who ran the Calgary Center campaign of Lindsay Lunau. I mean, she's a once
Carter
46:10
once in a generation talent, but that talent needs
Carter
46:15
needs to move on to the next world, too. Like I would be I'd be feeling sad for Hannah if she wound up back in government again, having been there for I think it was two terms of Trudeau. I think that her opportunity lies outside of government. And I think the government's opportunity lies outside of Hannah. And that's not a slight. That is a that is a testimony to her skill and her ability. But at the same time, it's an opportunity for change. This can't be the extension of the Trudeau government. It must be the beginning of the Carney government.
Annalise
46:52
I enjoy the shout out to Hannah because she's great. I know her well. But someone like Hannah, and I'll say this because we know Hannah, but she's young. Like Hannah is young. Don't you think from a career perspective to be like, hey, new
Annalise
47:05
new man in town, things are doing differently. Get some more experience.
Carter
47:10
How much more experience does one need? I mean, she was, you know, very high up in the finance department. Who was the guy that, you
Carter
47:18
you know, was listening to the podcast that we shouted out that almost got fired? You know, like we had big
Carter
47:25
big ties into finance at one point. We
Zain
47:29
We were huge in the finance department. We
Carter
47:31
We were huge in the finance department. I think that, you know, the point of the exercise here is that people have to, government
Carter
47:38
government is not like industry where you have a 30-year career. OK, so you're saying move on. You have a three to seven year career in government, and that's good because government needs to refresh itself much more than an industry does, because industry, you know what, an industry corporation can fail.
Carter
47:55
Government can't. Government needs to continue.
Annalise
47:59
OK, Zane, do you agree with that? You're just rolling your eyes right now. No,
Zain
48:04
No, I'm still conflicted. The reason I think these staff should consider coming back is
Zain
48:10
is because it's not about what they can do for themselves. At some point, it's about they have the prerequisite skills to be able to keep the country and certain ministries on the guardrails. so especially if carney goes with this idea of bringing new people in that he wants to work with that he's comfortable with which is absolutely his right he's a fucking prime minister he can do whatever he wants and i think it is actually a good idea on its own merits but you're gonna need some of these folks that that that have experience and yes they've been part of the damn trudeau administration carter oh my god right but they know how shit works they know how to keep the train on the tracks they know they have experience it's not it's not about what's in it for them at a certain point if they come back it's about in this crisis moment in this wartime posture where we're fighting for the sovereignty of our country while one province has to separate from the country what can i do to ensure that my skills are put to maximal use that
Zain
49:07
that there's a question there it goes back to the carney quote uh doing something for the sake of doing something or doing something to want to be something this just falls into that former category and i think that applies to staffers too even if carter thinks the trudeau government sustained for some of them okay
Annalise
49:23
okay guys let's move into a cabinet making lightning round and then carter what's the have the oilers scored have you heard cheering what's going on i i
Carter
49:31
i can't i've looked over at the stadium it's still standing uh good news the arena is still there uh that is an An update from Edmonton. Thank you. Great
Zain
49:40
Great live report. A civil war reporter. Did you see how he moved that
Annalise
49:44
that mic around? During
Zain
49:45
During the separation of 2026. It's good.
Annalise
49:49
excited to report. Carter is on theme.
Annalise
49:51
Okay. What did I say? Lightning.
Annalise
49:56
Lightning round. Lightning round. Rapid fire.
Annalise
50:00
fire. Fire de rapide. Rapid fire for tomorrow at, what are we calling it? Rideau Hut. Rideau Hut, yeah. Rideau Hut, you can get sunglasses, rideauhut.ca. How
Carter
50:11
How to just sunglasses.
Annalise
50:13
Perfect. Carter, we didn't get into any names. We didn't say any names, but give me some names of who you're looking, who's in, who's out.
Carter
50:23
Oh, my gosh. I mean, Gregor
Carter
50:25
Robertson, I think, needs to be in. I think Evan Solomon needs to be in. I think our pal Corey should be in. And who
Annalise
50:31
who needs to be out? i
Carter
50:35
out is really tough because i don't really you know like i'm i'm i'm i'm not really like the reports are that christopher freeland's out the reports are that she's
Zain
50:44
she's back she's back in again by the way ctv's doubled back on their report saying she's back in oh
Carter
50:51
fantastic i mean i don't know who's in i don't know who's out but i do know that um i'll
Carter
50:56
i'll tell tell you it's going to be carnage if if there's if it's 50 new people then there's going to be people out that we were not expecting out who
Annalise
51:05
who are your top three in top three out i
Zain
51:09
don't have those i think it's more about the quality of folks on the front bench the top 10 i think the out is more about is
Zain
51:19
is there any shock value to who is left out from the trudeau era right um who was indispensable in the Trudeau era and they find themselves not, I think that's frankly, in some cases, helpful. So the Freeland rumor, which has been going around, kind of made sense to me because it was moving on from an era, right? Moving on from a particular era. Now knowing that she's, or now reporting that
Zain
51:44
that she's back in, what's
Zain
51:46
what's a replacement of that? How do you kind of truly truly signal. Because one headline they can't afford, because
Zain
51:54
because if it's Carter's headline of a new government, or it's my headline of focus on results and derivation of that, one headline they can't afford is Trudeau era. They cannot afford that. So they didn't need enough people out from the Trudeau era to, serious people enough out from the Trudeau era to make that case.
Carter
52:13
Can I just make a point that- I'll
Annalise
52:15
I'll let you even
Annalise
52:15
know you shouldn't because it's a- Zane ignored
Carter
52:18
ignored the premise of the question as well as I did. He
Annalise
52:21
He didn't answer it. You gave six names. He didn't give any.
Carter
52:25
He at the end didn't. Let me
Zain
52:26
me give you six names. He
Annalise
52:28
the end of the day did
Zain
52:30
a great job. Top three in Stephen Carter. Annalise Klingbeil, St. Palchie. Top three out. Stephen Carter.
Zain
52:41
Top three in Evan Solomon, Corey Hogan. Very good friends. And I'm hoping there's some surprises that come out of the Atlantic Canada, more than a couple, I think would be really
Annalise
52:53
really interesting. See what he did there, Carter? He just gave two names and then said more than a couple.
Carter
52:58
Cody Boyce. Okay, there we
Annalise
52:59
we go. Guys, we're going to leave it there. That is a wrap on episode 1868 of The Strategist. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil. And with you, as always, Zane Belge and Stephen Carter.