Episode 1874: Get Out Your Adderall

Zain 0:01

This is the Strategist episode 1874. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter. How are you? Happy Sunday.

Carter 0:10

It is a happy Sunday, Zain. I'm here with you. It's already like 1030 at night here in Ottawa. I'm up late. This is so exciting for me. What are you doing

Zain 0:19

doing in Ottawa, Carter?

Carter 0:21

I'm making the scene. Are you building a pipeline?

Zain 0:23

pipeline? If you're not building a pipeline, what the fuck are you doing? With

Carter 0:26

hands. It's early investment days, but yeah, I'm making a pipeline of investment to my bank account. That's what I'm doing. That's

Zain 0:34

That's what I heard Ottawa's about these days. Yeah,

Carter 0:35

Yeah, investment to my bank account. That's what it's all about.

Carter 0:40

I'm trying to get some of that sweet, sweet money that Shannon Phillips has.

Shannon 0:44

Well, I hate to disappoint you, Carter, but, yeah, well, it's a nice day here, but it is smoky outside. outside once again as cory hogan reminds us a

Shannon 0:54

a lot of smoke days in calgary and western canada these days and today is another one of them sorry to bring the the opening banter down guys no that's

Zain 1:02

that's good this is very

Zain 1:03

hogan of you i

Shannon 1:04

i like that dark cloud coming in you know i like that

Zain 1:08

embodied his spirit in some ways

Zain 1:11

which is good you

Shannon 1:12

you remember that dark cloud that used to follow the station wagon of the neighbors on the flintstones the weird lease and and they would drive and the dark cloud would would follow them that's me that's me on this podcast so that

Carter 1:25

sorry bringing us down with a dark cloud i preferred carter's exactly what

Zain 1:29

what it is carter's public tax dollar money grab instead i have to say that sounded that sounded more appetizing to me i'm

Carter 1:34

i'm i'm going to get the department of national defense and to invest into this podcast i think they should be what's your contact at the department

Zain 1:41

department of finance sorry shannon this is this is a bit inside but we have a contact that is at the department of finance that does not want us to mention him on air. And Carter, I'm just struggling for his name. I can't

Carter 1:50

can't remember his name. Was it, it started with a G. Let's go with Gord or Tim.

Carter 1:55

Sure, neither of those is correct. Yeah, okay. This is good. But yeah, we had a, we had a contact at the department. Didn't we get him fired? I think

Carter 2:02

think we did. I thought we got him fired. We may have gotten

Zain 2:04

Shannon, you know, welcome to the podcast. We get public servants fired on this show. I don't know if you want to speak to that. Do you want to mention any public servants

Zain 2:13

name? Yeah, for sure. Do you have, A, do you have any issues with that? And B, any public servants you want to actively get fired right now?

Shannon 2:18

Oh, I have a list. I'll have to go back and look at the list that I made before the 2023 election. I

Zain 2:26

still there. Carter, I can scrap the show. I can wait. Yeah,

Zain 2:28

Yeah, we can do it all. This is probably better. You

Shannon 2:29

You probably have to press pause and find it in my Google Docs. Oh, no, you haven't listened to

Zain 2:34

to the show. We'll fill the time. We'll

Zain 2:35

fill the time. No problem. You

Carter 2:37

look in the Google Docs. We'll start talking about other things.

Shannon 2:40

It's possible I gassed that list after, but I did make one. Make no mistake. Was I on the list? No, you weren't ever in the public service. The public service, it's a meritocracy. I was there for a minute.

Shannon 2:51

No, that wasn't in the public service, Carter. The public service is a meritocracy. You wouldn't be in the public service. How

Zain 2:55

How would you have been in there? Did you work for a premier, and who was it?

Carter 2:58

I'm not mentioning her name anymore. Now that we've got a fucking count that goes on the videos. The

Shannon 3:03

The more important question is, Carter, for how long?

Zain 3:06

Yeah, for how long? That's true.

Carter 3:07

was for six whole months. You

Zain 3:09

You know what? You guys are already getting to my main subject. Let's move it on to our first segment. our first segment is it love or are we done guys elon musk and donald trump are fighting

Zain 3:22

and i don't want to be another one of those podcasts that talks about two toddler man children fighting about an inevitable fight however i

Zain 3:31

i do want to talk about stephen carter and shannon phillips how

Zain 3:34

how to win a political breakup and

Zain 3:38

and we've got two folks here representing presenting two very different perspectives on this. Shannon, you've been an elected official who may or may not have broken up with people politically, staffers, otherwise. You don't have to name names or even name scenarios if you don't want to. Carter, your history on this subject matter is well known, and we were just discussing it again. But

Zain 3:58

I want to talk about,

Zain 4:00

in light of what's happening with Elon and Donald Trump, what's some of the rules that kind of go on in terms of trying to fight well, break up well, and preserve a sense of your political upside, Carter. And so I'm going to go back and forth and you're just going to try to throw rules at me. Just simple, easy to understand rules from an elected official side and then Carter from a practitioner, staffer, whatever you want to call it, side, in terms of how to win a political breakup.

Zain 4:31

Does that make sense? And if it doesn't, doesn't to me either. We'll figure it out as we go, Carter.

Carter 4:37

It's a big show, man. This is going to be a big one. Oh,

Carter 4:40

know. I can sense it already. Big numbers on this show.

Zain 4:41

show. Okay, Carter. So the rap on you is that this has happened a few times. You have had public fights, but maybe I'll ask you this. Have you had something, clearly not as vitriolic, but as public as what's going on with Elon and Donald Trump right now?

Carter 4:55

I mean, my exit from Gondek was pretty public. My exit from Redford wasn't very public. That's

Carter 5:02

Because the Redford exit followed more of the rules. The first rule that I'm going to say is that no one generally gets fired from a political office. You leave to go spend more time with your family or to go spend more time on your podcast or to go and spend more time exploring other ventures. By the way, 2011, if

Zain 5:22

if you had gotten fired to spend more time on your podcast, people know that's code for you definitely got fired. That

Carter 5:29

When did we start it? 2012? 2016?

Carter 5:33

2015. Holy smokes. But also

Zain 5:34

also earlier. Also much earlier. To be clear, like decades earlier, for sure. Episode

Carter 5:40

with, with Corey, the toddler. Yeah.

Carter 5:43

Nonetheless, I mean, we, we normally,

Carter 5:46

the first rule is that no one gets, no one gets fired. You, you find a reason and you find a way out. I mean, I think even Jerry Butts left under his own terms when he was kind of taking some of the beatings for, for, for Justin Trudeau and the, the we scandal.

Carter 6:02

Was it we scandal or was it another

Shannon 6:03

another scandal? It was SNC-Lavalin. No, SNC

Shannon 6:05

-Lavalin. SNC-Lavalin, that's right. And the Jody Wilson-Raybould. When JWR went and leaked confidential cabinet information.

Zain 6:13

So, Carter, you've thrown a general rule on the table. I'll come back to you in a second because my frame is how as a staffer do you win a political breakup? Shannon?

Zain 6:21

You don't. Any thoughts?

Zain 6:24

That's the first rule. As an elected official, what's rule number one you'd like to throw at me? How does an elected official win a political breakup?

Shannon 6:31

Well, by taking the high ground and by saying as little as possible. by uh certainly if there was a if it was scandal driven then by following the rules of issues management uh in a scandal which is take responsibility over correct uh and communicate your way through uh but don't you know share too much information certainly i i'd never hit back as a a political like or an elected person at all um like i will say that i don't have a whole lot lot of experience with this because once people started working for me they there was hotel california they never left um i had the same constituency staff all the way through the same constituency board pretty well all the way through i was the only person premier or minister who kept my chief of staff for the entire four years i so i think it was because we were just working a lot and uh maybe because i was an out-of-town mla and i wasn't around a lot maybe that helped carter the entire reason

Zain 7:26

reason i'm doing this segment is so that shannon can run a victory lap i don't I don't know if you know this, but that's

Carter 7:30

that's the entire fucking reason that

Zain 7:31

that I started this. No one's

Carter 7:33

one's ever laughed at mine, Floyd. I've

Zain 7:34

I've got two very unique perspectives. This is what I meant by unique. Someone who said no one leave her and someone who leaves everyone that they work with.

Shannon 7:41

Well, I mean, you really, like, it's the usual rules. It's the usual comms rules, right? You're never going to get anything out of a pissing match. So don't try. Neither of you are. And you're better to go quiet. it. Because, you know, leaving under a big cloud is not something that is going to look good to subsequent employers. It doesn't matter if you leave public life after being elected, or you've been a staffer, you've got to think that through. And even if there is context for when you leave, the

Shannon 8:15

the fact of the matter is, is that people out there in the world, employers, don't understand politics, they don't understand political context, and they're not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. So shut your mouth and go do something else.

Zain 8:28

I like these. I've got a few on the board. Take the higher ground, never hit back and go quiet. Carter, do you agree with all three of those? Rather than asking you to add another one, or your first one, to be clear, for keeping the tally on the board, do you agree with Shannon's how to win a political breakup from a politician's perspective with go quiet, never hit back and take the high ground?

Carter 8:50

I think that's exactly what a politician should do when a staff person is leaving the

Carter 8:55

the the the you know the danger is that in

Carter 8:58

in in every office there's always a little bit uh i mean probably not shannon's but in every office there's definitely not i know do you want to mention the rundown

Zain 9:05

rundown again chad we have time we

Zain 9:08

time on the show all

Carter 9:09

all your constituency associates the chief of staff everybody probably stayed the same probably didn't even lose a uh communications person not you you probably kept

Shannon 9:18

that was a revolving door because everyone kept stealing them every time they did anything good they would get sucked up into the vortex of the premier's office very

Carter 9:25

very oh my god

Carter 9:26

a good office you ran oh my goodness

Carter 9:28

perfect show wow i

Shannon 9:30

had lost my train of thought

Zain 9:33

was so unprecedented for you that it is for me i was like wow this is but i asked the question was do these rules apply to elected officials the preview to my next question is would you copy and paste these rules for your side of the ledger stephen carter which is a political staffer or not so much oh

Carter 9:48

oh my side of of the ledger. I tried to keep things very quiet when I left Alison Redford's employee. I mean, it was not to my advantage to create havoc. We wound up actually doing a contract for Alison Redford after I was gone as chief of staff. Who's that again?

Carter 10:07

Alison Redford. You remember

Zain 10:08

remember her? Yeah. We did a contract for

Carter 10:10

for her government. I don't know if you you were there for that one but uh it was the budget choice exercise and uh it was a really great contract we had a lot of fun we did some good work um

Carter 10:23

and i still did some advising to allison which was great and that's what you really want when you're on the way out

Carter 10:28

out the door with a politician you don't want to be completely out the door and i don't think the politician wants you to go completely out the door you

Carter 10:34

know we've talked a lot about how a politician's team never gets larger once they start uh they they wind up with the biggest group of people that love and support them on day one and then they start whittling them off uh especially premiers prime ministers i think it's a little less so for cabinet ministers especially when they can be seen to be going on the way up but

Zain 10:55

want to barnacle on their on their rocket

Carter 10:57

rocket ship or whatever

Carter 10:58

i think that i think that we uh when

Carter 11:00

when you're at the top and you and you lose a key staffer you're losing a significant uh relationship that that uh that moves on for example doug doug wong Doug Wong would never want to leave the Minister of Finance office.

Zain 11:11

office. Doug Wong would never want to leave the Minister of Finance. Doug Wong would never.

Zain 11:15

Doug Wong, we hope you are well-employed somewhere.

Zain 11:18

More than likely not at the Ministry of Finance. That's probably not where

Zain 11:22

Doug Wong currently holds a job. Now, I could Google it, and I will, but not before asking Shannon this question, which is, Shannon, is there any time, and the answer might just be a simple no, but I want to ask it, because is there any time when when a political breakup should

Zain 11:38

should turn into a fight should

Zain 11:40

should turn into more uh less of these which seem very you know static very like neutral inert rules is there a time where you're like fuck it we should have a fight about this this should see there should be some some bloodshed about it any thoughts not

Shannon 11:57

not in the moment and you're not going to know in the moment but i would say if there was serious stuff that happened um if you know people are starting to write affidavits and file them uh if uh uh there there was you know some serious harm or wrongdoing that happened then uh then the rules are different but even still you're still following communications rules you are still you are still uh doing things for a reason you are being caught You're being very deliberate about things. You're taking things one step at a time. Hopefully, you're being advised because then you're in a real serious shit kind of situation, not in a situation where it's just I'm mad and I'm going to fly off in a fit of pique.

Shannon 12:43

I think people should treat these like jobs. There is a

Shannon 12:49

a tendency to not view political

Shannon 12:51

political life as a vocation and a serious work.

Shannon 12:55

And that can undermine both the public perception of everyone involved in this work, but also of you as an individual and whether you can actually be a serious person in the workplace. I

Zain 13:07

I like that answer, Carter. Same question to you, Doug Wong. Thank you for your service to this country, which ended in January 2025. Carter, is there any time where a political breakup should well indeed turn into a fight from the perspective of a political staffer?

Carter 13:24

From a political staffer point of view? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that it shouldn't, but in my life it has. And the reason is when, in

Carter 13:36

a perfect world, the staffer shouldn't feel like they're being picked on or that in some fashion that they're leaving under a cloud. The best way

Carter 13:46

leave is even when things have gone horribly wrong, you want the exit to be the same as when things have gone wonderfully right. um you shouldn't be able to tell the difference because that's the stink that happens when a political staffer leaves if something goes bad that stink sticks to the politician too it

Carter 14:04

it doesn't come off so your best bet is to allow the a

Carter 14:08

a no stink exit from both sides but if there is stink and all of a sudden things start getting thrown at you which was the thing that happened to To me, with

Carter 14:17

with the Gondek piece, there was no real choice but to defend

Carter 14:22

defend myself, defend my reputation, because things were being said and things continue to be said that aren't true and aren't part of the reason and rationale for me leaving that office. Shannon,

Zain 14:34

Shannon, I see you nodding your head.

Shannon 14:37

Well, I believe quite strongly that people need to stand up for themselves and defend themselves. I have personal experience with it. I have done it. And at personal cost, too. So and so has Carter. And so I agree with that. But what Carter's saying isn't at odds with what I'm saying. You're doing it thoughtfully, you're doing it deliberately, you're hopefully getting some advice. Even if you are a comms professional, you've gone and talked to other people who are also in that world and going, okay, here's how I'm going to, I want to play this out. And they can go, yeah, that seems, you know you're probably uh being too emotional right and uh to pull you back from the from the ledge i have been advised that way uh over the years when i was dealing with uh nonsense from the the lethbridge police service because

Zain 15:23

because you do get

Shannon 15:24

get uh stuck in your own uh way of thinking and in your own perspective and uh in politics as in relationships as in life you're probably only got a part of the part of the story and you do need to have some adult supervision when you You are speaking especially about yourself and especially about your own reputation and especially about things that affect you emotionally. You absolutely need someone, an external person to come in and put like a coat of paint on it and go, nope, we need to make you more rational. And then you can go talk to the public.

Zain 15:58

Carter, I'm picking off of what, taking off from what Shannon said, but also what you mentioned, this concept of leaving under a cloud. And often when that happens, it's when there

Zain 16:09

is really no real story to it and people start speculating about the tea leaves that exist. You know, remove all the weird, you know, toddler baby dynamics from the Trump aspect of it. What's at the heart of it, at least in my perspective, is why is Elon gone so early? Right. Like this must not have been a situation where it was a mutual parting of ways. Someone was fired. Someone was let go. Timing is a very interesting one. Right. How did you only last six weeks on the job? How did you only last six months on the job, two months on the job? These sort of questions. And that is

Zain 16:42

is an example of what can generate the cloud.

Zain 16:45

Is that that plus the rumor mill being like, ah, well, here's what's going on. So how do you, as a political staffer, without escalating, because you've told me the rule is to never make this break up a fight, but what does it look like to then defend yourself in this regard? And I ask both as a practitioner, but maybe even some personal experience that you may have on this.

Carter 17:03

Well, from my own personal experience, you know, when I was leaving Jyoti's office, I'd wish that we had had the opportunity to finish the strategic plan. Because if we'd finished the primary objective of that piece, then I could have left and said, you know, my work here is done. I'm a strategist. We created the strategy and I'm going to go off and do other great work. You

Carter 17:22

had a neat story to

Carter 17:24

I had a neat story to tell. An accurate story

Zain 17:25

to tell. Right. And

Carter 17:26

And I think that this is where Elon is also facing a challenge. He has not got a neat story to tell. Doge is not done. Doge isn't

Carter 17:34

Doge is still in the middle of it. And arguably,

Carter 17:37

arguably, I mean, something, especially given the size of the dust-up, something has definitely happened. Well,

Zain 17:43

Well, there also doesn't even seem to be, going to the Elon aspect of it for a second, just to add to your point, there doesn't even seem to be a viable celebratory mission-accomplished off-ramp for him, right? Like no interim sort of like we hit 50% of our goal or like some story. It seems like this was very abrupt and then kind of came out of nowhere. But back to you, Carter.

Carter 18:02

Well, go ahead, Jen.

Shannon 18:03

Well, that was what giving him the key and him standing there with a black eye in the Oval Office was about, right? That was supposed to be the grand send-off without any, you know, specific metrics associated with it of the great work of Doge. And I'm struggling for even if they even talked much about Doge in that press conference. um i

Shannon 18:24

i i i think that uh in this like carter's right that having like a little you know things to to pin it on is better for everyone involved uh because it also makes the elected person look like she knows what she is doing um

Shannon 18:40

um and that things aren't just chaotic uh and they can fire well

Zain 18:44

well and hire well and exit

Shannon 18:46

exit and messy and and uh if things aren't working out that you can just handle it, right? And just decide, okay, well, this isn't going great. So you're going to finish this work, Carter, and I'm going to say nice things about you. And you're going to say nice things about me. And we're going to go off into the world. And I'm going to look like a competent manager as a brand new mayor at City Hall, and life's going to be good. Well, her first six months didn't turn out that way, now did it? Not at all. And in large part, if you've got headlines lines that are you know the instability at city hall and this and that and people sniping at each other that that that looks very very bad uh for someone who has just come in as a brand new mayor uh

Shannon 19:29

uh first and like let's just let's just put it out there first woman mayor right

Shannon 19:34

right um and uh there's a good chunk of the population that wants you to fail right because ideologically or whatever They're not happy with what you've brought in and

Shannon 19:46

and what you might what you might do from the mayor's chair. So there's there's an issue of competence there on how you handle this stuff, too. And as for the rumors and stuff you're talking about, Zane, like you're almost better off in many cases to just let all of like don't speak to it. Just let it sort of float because it'll pass. And then when it comes time to do the retrospective on the four years that you spent as mayor, it

Shannon 20:10

it won't even be mentioned. But if there is a public dustup, if there is back and forth, it'll be in there and not just as an asterisk.

Zain 20:18

Yeah, that's very, very insightful. Carter, I see you nodding your head. I've got two follow-ups for you on this based on what Shannon has said. Sure. Specifically on the staffer side. Anything to comment here before I jump in?

Zain 20:27

Give me the questions, brother.

Zain 20:28

So here's question one.

Zain 20:30

And I think this also applies to you in some ways, but it's also relevant to the Elon Trump situation, which I'm kind of borrowing this topic from, which is what if the power Our dynamics are, they're never equal because I think advantage politician, but what if the brand, brand is more equal than not, right? So Elon, Trump, strong, like not equivalent, but strong brands, Carter and principal, insert principal X here, like you're a well-known political commodity. Now, not as much as the mayor, but to those that matter, you are well-known in a sense. So, like, I think you can borrow this, but there are other political staffers that are also well-known. What do you kind of make of some of the rules both of you have put on the table when the brands are perhaps a little bit more equal than not, where advantage is not just default to the politician?

Carter 21:21

Well, there's different audiences, too. If you look at someone like a Jerry Butz and Justin Trudeau, I mean, when Jerry left, you know, people were thinking that that was in large part the brain that was leaving the organism, if you will.

Zain 21:35

feel that was like a well-manicured PR play on Jerry's part? Like the intellect is leaving the chat sort of thing? I

Carter 21:40

I don't think that it was a well-manicured. I don't think that he manufactured that. No. I think that he took the high road on the way out. I think that it was just the audience that knows Jerry, the audience that knows Justin thought,

Carter 21:54

thought, well, there goes the brains of the operation, which I think actually was kind of a disservice to Katie because I think Katie was just as much the brains of the operation as Jerry. Well, this is actually

Zain 22:04

actually at the heart of why I asked that question, which is like, do you feel like, in part, and I think we all three of us may know Jerry in different ways, but like, in part, was that a strategic, deliberate

Zain 22:14

deliberate move, right? Even if we don't know, to kind of say, like, you know, with this leave, which is a strong brand play for him, when he leaves and then reemerges in different aspects of public or private life.

Carter 22:26

Well, I mean, his departure, I think, was one of the ones that was designed to achieve something but didn't achieve it in no small part because his own personal

Carter 22:37

personal brand was so strong within the various audiences. It didn't, it did not affect the, it didn't, it had more impact on the office of the prime minister than it probably should have, given the situation by which he was leaving. I

Carter 22:54

I don't I think that his was a really good example of you can't just lose a staffer sometimes when you're trying to save an office you know because that's the other reason we leave right we leave because something's gone horribly wrong in the office and a staffer needs to leave to take the fall for the principal and I'm not sure how much that any

Carter 23:16

staffer right it's the third you know Doug Wong takes quite a beating for Christian Freeland's letter to Justin Trudeau um but it doesn't really matter it it i'm not sure

Zain 23:27

sure we've actually proven

Zain 23:27

proven on the show we've done our deep dive on the patreon that doug wong wrote that letter right we

Carter 23:32

we did do that yeah

Zain 23:33

we did one on patreon if you're very clear if

Carter 23:35

if you're ten dollar patron you can uh actually listen to all of our back episodes i'm

Shannon 23:39

really nervous we're going to get sued now twenty

Zain 23:42

twenty dollar twenty dollar patron we actually have video evidence of doug wong writing a letter she

Carter 23:46

is um she is uh taking She's taking the Corey Hogan role right to heart. She's embodied his

Zain 23:53

I like this. Yeah.

Zain 23:55

I have a heroous soul. Any thoughts on the brand aspect, Shannon? Like, you know, and I know you can't speak from a personal experience on this, but obviously you're like been a practitioner. You've been around this world. What if it's a staffer who has got a powerful public brand, maybe brighter, if not equal to the principal?

Shannon 24:15

Well, I think it depends on the circumstances, right? Right. Like when Brian Topp left from being our chief of staff in government,

Shannon 24:22

government, a lot of people knew who he was. You know, he had run for leader of the federal party after Jack died. But I mean, he left after whatever it was, 12 months, 18 months. I can't remember. It was it was not there was no problem with it. He was just going on to do other things. It

Shannon 24:38

felt like a scheduled

Shannon 24:40

It was and it was in many ways. And so, you know, he was kind of like, all right, new chief of staff incoming. coming right uh and the people that that are the the person who came in to replace him john heaney was also kind of a that makes sense right to uh all of the uh the observers in that situation um i

Shannon 25:01

i think with jerry it was an attempt for him to do uh this sort of adult in the room issues management right you have uh an issue uh a real crisis that has enveloped the prime minister's office and so I the number one rule of issues management is you know the top guy or gal or as close to the top as possible has got to take responsibility right and so that was Jerry's attempt to do that I did was he at fault in my view absolutely not that I anyway I have a lot of feelings about that particular scandal but you know I because and I also respect Jerry very much for doing that um did it work no not really because the government was kind of on a downward trajectory as it was and you can almost uh plot their polling downward trajectory from when jerry left uh

Shannon 25:50

uh but um i mean it was big enough though to damage to

Shannon 25:55

if other communications uh skills and chops in that office being equal uh

Shannon 26:01

uh and if we maybe if we were doing politics kind of more in in the old days, it would have been enough to go, okay, we've turned the page on this SNC-Lavalin thing, right? Which it didn't, it

Shannon 26:13

it did on SNC-Lavalin, it let the air out of that balloon.

Shannon 26:17

It didn't on the government's overall trust popularity, that kind of stuff. I mean, yeah.

Zain 26:22

couple more questions on this that I want to move on. Shannon, I'll stick with you for a second before I come to you, Carter.

Zain 26:27

What if your staffer, the practitioner

Zain 26:31

practitioner you're working with, they choose to fight?

Zain 26:34

They choose to blow shit up. Maybe they don't want a future career somewhere. Maybe they just feel like this is the best way for them. Maybe they feel like this is how they get underneath and out of the cloud of rumor mill that is surrounding their reputation or otherwise. Or maybe this is just what they do. They fight. If they choose to fight, do your roles of go quiet, tie your hand behind your back sort of thing still apply? Or is there any nuance or caveats you want to add before I go to Carter?

Shannon 27:03

Oh, well, I think it really depends. Again, are they making very, very harmful accusations? Is this actionable in court? It really depends on how they've chosen to salt the earth. From their perspective, is this smart? Absolutely not. They better have a good Adderall

Shannon 27:24

Adderall prescription so that they can write themselves a book real quick and punch that out. Because it's the only way they're making any money for the next couple of years unless they choose to change careers.

Zain 27:35

Carter, any thoughts on this before I go to your final question here?

Carter 27:38

I mean, I just think that the best bet for everybody is quiet. Yeah. You guys are

Zain 27:44

suggesting that there is a win-win scenario here. Oh,

Zain 27:46

yeah. Yeah, there is. There is.

Carter 27:48

is. is i mean there was there there was for allison there was for jyoti and for you know there there was for jerry there was for justin there i mean i look at at rachel's office rachel went through three chiefs of staff in four years um it wasn't exactly uh the job that everybody could hang on to and each one of those departures was managed well two departures and only because nathan stayed state right to the end. But the departures

Carter 28:18

departures were managed well, and those departures being managed well made a difference to her government, whereas the other governments, the ones that don't manage it well, tend to come out very poorly in the end.

Zain 28:34

Carter, here's my final question for you, playing the staffer once again in this scenario. If someone were to approach you with a similar set of circumstances being like, okay, Carter, how do I win this fight? How do I preserve my reputation? Would you advise anyone to hire comms support?

Zain 28:50

Often we find ourselves practitioners of our own making the communicators. We are the experts, especially if we are in political roles that require that, and most of them do in some way, shape, or form. We don't seek external support issues, management, crisis, PR, et cetera. Would you advise that? And by extension, you may know know where i'm going and you feel free to answer whatever you feel comfortable with did you ever consult external advice when in any of the situations that you found yourself in from a maybe legal shore but i'm thinking more communications in that regard oh

Carter 29:20

oh yeah i talked to lots of different communicators i'm not sure i listened to any of them um

Carter 29:23

um but you know like for example that sprawl interview that that stands the you

Carter 29:29

you know one of the more uh tricky

Carter 29:32

tricky communications choices that needed to be made refresh people who

Zain 29:36

who may not be be familiar give people a sense of what was up and how many of us uh got uh dms in our inbox to

Carter 29:43

i think that i was aware so the sprawl is a local uh long form uh communications uh piece magazine however we want to describe it media media

Carter 29:56

they were doing in a series of interviews into me i got feedback from the uh the people who were being asked questions that this was was happening and instead of waiting for it to happen and being the last person interviewed i made the choice to call the reporter and be one of the first people interviewed which was setting the table and constructing my own discussion points right um some people thought that that was crazy and other people think it's genius um i tend to fall into the genius category but

Zain 30:28

but there is there is another other sort of element to this which i i think think you'd agree with which is you gave this guy more newsworthy shit than any one of the people being interviewed combined would give him totally

Zain 30:41

right like you said some shit man like you really did like i wasn't like if i was being interviewed which ultimately i wasn't because i don't think they needed it after they had an hour 30 with stephen carter like they were just like okay fuck that rest of that shit like it's not gonna be as good as what carter has just given us himself about himself well

Carter 30:59

well i think that i told a story that was was true and uh inaccurate and unfortunately for me my stories that are true and accurate have uh have some highs and lows um but uh you know better be better be honest about both of those right you got to be honest about the highs as well as the lows shannon

Zain 31:19

shannon any final thoughts well

Shannon 31:21

well i i think that there is a there is is a line between uh making sure that things are accurate and uh that you you are well protected and going quiet and that is a hard line

Shannon 31:36

line to walk um

Shannon 31:38

because you are always better off to go quiet but especially

Shannon 31:41

especially in this uh in these times right when people aren't and

Shannon 31:47

and there's lots of nefarious actors actors out there who are not interested in accuracy at all and would be happy to burn your reputation down, especially if you are on the progressive side. It is important to make sure that there is accuracy in that you stand up for yourself. As for talking to outside people, like I said before, like, hopefully, good heavens, if you are a political person, either on the staff or the elected side, you have a friend or two that is a professional that you can talk to. If you don't, you need to ask yourself about your life choices. If you don't have 10 or 15 people that that you could phone up just at the drop of a hat to be like, I have this problem. Do you have 10 minutes to talk to me? I want to know what you think I

Shannon 32:26

do. If those people aren't in your phone, question your life choices and go make some friends. Because if you've been in this business for, you know, five plus years or, you know, and that's like at the bare minimum, if you've been in it much longer, like Carter and I have, you better have those people. And they should come from all kinds of different perspectives on the the ideological spectrum and elsewhere. You should know people, and you should have a good enough relationship with them that they want to do you a solid of listening to you rant for five to seven minutes and then giving you their take on what you should do next.

Zain 33:00

Carter, I'm going to move on to a different topic, but under the same header of love, which is love seems to be in the air, or at least communication

Carter 33:10

late at night between Donald

Zain 33:10

Donald Trump and Mark Carney.

Zain 33:13

They're talking, and they're talking privately. CBC has reported that that is indeed happening. Melanie Jolie and the PMO have both confirmed it. But of course, the lines seem very conventional and standard. We're not going to negotiate in public. We're not going to provide you any details. At the same time of these conversations, these late night phone calls, texts, whatever they may be, Stephen Carter, we've

Zain 33:34

we've been hit with more tariffs and

Zain 33:36

and a doubling of tariffs. So the question is, there seems to be, and you may disagree with my premise here, so fight me on that. There seems to be a bit of a communications gap, which is Carney seems to be advancing the ball down the field as it relates to at least volume of conversation with Trump. But we are also being hit with additional tariffs targeted, of course, global tariffs, but we're included in them, in this case on steel. So, Carter, does

Zain 34:00

does this leave a communications vacuum for Team Carney in terms of what's happening, progress down the field, what we're doing, how we're doing it? And if so, if you agree with my premise, what

Zain 34:12

what would you do to advise them right now with this? Because it seems like there's one piece of good news, hey, we're talking, one piece of bad news, and I think people are left with, wait, do these things connect? Are they related? And if they're not, the vacuum seems to be saying, oh, these are related, and this is not going well for Carney, so to speak. So talk to me about this and the advice you'd give them if you agree indeed with my premise. I

Carter 34:32

I think that all negotiations

Carter 34:35

negotiations can't survive public public awareness. You must do negotiations in private. They must be kept between the principles of the negotiation team. And the fact that Carney is negotiating with Trump, I think, gives us tremendous advantage because I think that Trump is an imbecile. And I think that Carney's not. So this

Carter 35:02

this is a great opportunity for Canada.

Carter 35:04

Canada. But I do think it puts pressure on us as a nation, heading

Carter 35:08

heading into the G7 especially.

Carter 35:12

These private conversations with Donald Trump aren't going to remain private for long. There is a very short window to actually achieve something because he doesn't have the attention span to have a long-form negotiation, have a long-form expectation of an outcome. come. I've said it before that I suspect that Donald Trump has a lot more respect for Mark Carney than Donald Trump has for anybody else, because Carney comes from the world that Donald Trump admires and envies, and that's for people who've made money. He

Carter 35:45

He has space for those people. And

Carter 35:47

And Mark Carney's made a lot of money. He's not lost a lot of money. He's not lost a lot of fortunes like like donald trump and i think that that holds some interest for donald trump but i think that there's a limited window for this and this limited window will come to an end i'm putting it at the g7 shannon i think that that's when this will be uh coming to some sort of a head i think that the argument that i have with your premise is that people are currently putting this on as a difficult spot i think that you're projecting forward a week or two but

Carter 36:21

but i think that the

Carter 36:22

the G7 is when things are going to come to a head, and there'll be an awful lot of pressure on Prime Minister Kearney.

Zain 36:29

What do you think of this? Shannon, do you feel like there's an issue here? Or do you feel like in the absence of an issue, people are trying to find an issue? Like, how would you analyze this current situation? They're talking, but we're being hit with additional tariffs. And there's no real explanation of like, where we're going as a the country on this thing well

Shannon 36:47

well there's a big chunk of ice under the water uh that uh that carney can hit by fall if he's not careful and i would say fall is extremely generous because what what they're in the they're in this position now where they're

Shannon 37:02

they're talking according to reports um carney wants to land some kind of canada u.s you know deal as part of his 90 deals in 90 days right for for trump he wants a deal but

Shannon 37:14

but we've been slapped with these additional tariffs that are to be clear going to absolutely shit kick canada's steel and aluminum industry we are going to see imminent layoffs in southern ontario in quebec in northern ontario uh in the sioux and elsewhere um probably in in regina there's a steel plant there uh there's a number of different places uh where where this is going to hit and hit hard.

Shannon 37:40

So Carney has to respond, but he doesn't have the same kind of elbows up, kind of, you know, like, let's all make hats and T-shirts, kind of, you know, sort of brave heart to the barricades kind of response that he had, that wrote him into the prime minister's office. He doesn't have that right now. Should

Zain 38:01

Should he? I think that's the heart of my question. Should he? or what

Shannon 38:06

what is the strategy? What is the play?

Shannon 38:09

He's absolutely hamstrung right now because if he wants to get something over the line, he can't be blowing himself up in public to our previous topic, right? Sometimes you just do not have that emotional response that you want that is even good politics. Sometimes it's not available to you.

Shannon 38:25

And so his window for that is relatively short. I would actually put it just beyond the NATO summit, Heather, And because there's going to be these big things in the air, right? And even if communities, organized labor, others start to really say, like, what are you doing on these tariffs? What are we doing to respond? Or start really ramping up the pressure on Carney to talk about publicly or even with smaller groups of people what is actually happening in these negotiations. He still has a bit of air cover of, you know, big lightning in the sky files. The NATO summit's going to be a big defense push from them. And so he has a bit of time. But if the opposition's smart, they're going to be starting to, as I said last week, starting to talk about unemployment across the board, right? Because these job losses are in private sector, highly unionized sectors. So that's the first thing. There's a ready-made political constituency there for whatever political party is smart enough to go find them. uh

Shannon 39:26

uh carney has some ability well probably the disproportionate ability to reach them right now with good news but he has to have something so he's a little bit handcuffed meanwhile the opposition parties can just say whatever whatever they want right uh and so uh that is is a headwind for him um

Shannon 39:46

and so he's probably and then you know people aren't really paying attention he's probably got until september uh until he either has to have a deal or it has to go and fight Those are his two options. And he has to find a deal that doesn't drive Canada into a permanent situation with an unstable White House and another, what, like six, eight months until the politics and the bid terms start to turn up? And a White House that might even lose its political currency around tariffs if the shit really hits the fan starting in the fall, as we expect it might.

Zain 40:22

Carter, G7 deal, would that surprise you? Like genuinely be like, holy shit, like it would be fast, but it's this time next week, roughly, right? Like for a couple of days starting this time next week, I guess a better way to say it. But would a G7 deal on home soil with the US, obviously there's dramatic flair to it and Carney's not immune to that. In fact, he seems to be leaning into, I want to do generational shit on a generational sort of narrative. But would that surprise you? Not at all. didn't

Carter 40:49

didn't the uk do a deal a couple weeks ago like it was it wasn't even being talked about and all of a sudden the deal's right there i mean donald trump like i i suspect the deal is not a 350 page uh you know usca ma whatever the heck the the new the new nafta is yeah usmca

Carter 41:09

yeah i think it's going to be uh you know one piece of full scap with with two signatures um i i just don't think think it's going to be the same level of complexity and detail that the real leaders would be doing. I think that Donald Trump needs to have his victory, and it's going to be a relatively easy piece of negotiations compared to these really detailed and difficult, and frankly, better deals that will be constructed. But Mark Carney, I think, will have us to the place where it's reasonable to expect a G7 type of piece of information. I

Carter 41:45

I think it's also reasonable to expect that it could take the entire summer uh

Carter 41:49

uh i don't think that it is a you

Zain 41:51

you mean you mean alternatively not like in

Zain 41:53

in a yeah alternatively right i

Carter 41:55

i i but i think that you know both

Carter 41:58

both outcomes are reasonable um

Carter 41:59

um but which one is probable and i think that the probable one is something that is shorter given trump's uh uh

Carter 42:06

uh noted intention span issues i

Shannon 42:10

it is it wouldn't surprise surprise me at all but i i am nervous about it and here's why the the uk deal was essentially uh just reeked of starmer making a deal out of weakness it is bad for the uk economy it is three and a half pages of nonsense he's already getting blowback for it and uh it really did look like he was you know sort of there out of desperation i'm very deal versus

Zain 42:34

versus the right deal i think this is well

Shannon 42:36

and so there's there's that it was also you know it's very surface, right? Which I think has come to characterize just the Starmer government. I'm very disappointed in them. I think they've largely sucked on a number of files. The challenge for Carney, if he is going to land something for the G7, if he wants that big sort of nice big headline, mission accomplished banner kind of thing, he

Shannon 43:04

he needs to be really careful that it does not fundamentally rewrite right the canada u.s trading relationship that started with the auto pact in the 1960s and that has largely been about canada accessing u.s markets for our stuff like that has been the driver all along for us we are the smaller economy and we're a lot a raw commodity economy so there are big risks in like sort of baking something in with this extremely unpredictable predictable White House that might just turn around anyway and be like, oh, well, we baked in, let's just say, because the rest of the world is dealing with this 10% tariff, right? We baked in a 10% on everything, but tomorrow it's going to be 50 anyway on a whim.

Shannon 43:47

So he really has to be careful that we're not hitching ourselves to something that's going to remake industrial policy for the next three and a half, four years until we've finally seen the hind end of this guy.

Zain 44:01

Steve and Carter, we're going to move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. It is late for you. It is several hours past your bedtime. I can't believe

Carter 44:07

believe I've stayed awake this long. Are you going

Zain 44:08

going to be able to function in your cash withdrawal pipeline meetings in the morning?

Carter 44:12

I don't think so. Yeah,

Zain 44:13

Yeah, but the money comes to you. You're

Carter 44:15

You're a white male. We're

Carter 44:15

making so much money on these podcasts now. Oh, I'd

Zain 44:19

I'd say we're not, but okay. So much money. I'd say that's not true. I'd say that's not true. Stephen Carter, are you in or are you out on Prime Minister Carney inviting Narendra Modi to the G7?

Zain 44:33

It was a controversy-filled invite, which hit the news late last week. Are you in or are you out on Carney doing this? I'm

Carter 44:43

I think that India, our relationship with India needs work. I think that there's all kinds of places to put that work into. to. I don't think that we should be treating them as a pariah and not having a relationship with them. But I think that inviting them to the G7 is a step too far.

Carter 45:03

It's not the equivalent of inviting North Korea or Russia, but it'd be like inviting Saudi Arabia to the G7 with the the ills and the mistakes that Saudi Arabia has made and the state-sanctioned killings that they've done. It's not the right choice.

Zain 45:25

Shannon Carter alluded to it, of course, the controversy stemming largely, but not entirely, out of the state-sanctioned killings. Modi was also the governor of Gujarat, and there's a large sort of anti-Muslim sentiment in the BJP, you know, in India. Not only has Carney invited, by the way, to be clear, Modi has accepted.

Zain 45:42

Shannon, are you in or are you out on this?

Shannon 45:44

I am out on it. I can understand why they are doing this. Number one, they do want to diversify their trading relationships beyond the United States and China. I get it. I also understand that Trump has decided not to attend the G20 this year. So what Carney's kind of doing is essentially like inviting the whole world. In other words, sort of like diluting him and kind of making it a little mini G20, right? He's got the Aussies there. He's got obviously India. He's invited Claudia Scheinbaum. That's right. Yeah, but I don't know if she's coming. I don't know if that's, but and so, you know, okay, I understand what we're trying to do here. But, you know, if you're trying to dilute Trump or add larger economies, I mean, I can think of some that haven't meddled in our elections or killed our citizens on our soil. And so I would be looking at, you know, why not invite a South Africa, Brazil, you know, there are other countries in the bricks, not just India. There are other large economies with whom we can expand our trading relationships. That's what I would be looking at doing. I just don't think that

Shannon 46:55

that India's response on murdering someone in a state-sanctioned killing on Canadian soil, I do not believe that they haven't taken responsibility. They haven't investigated. They just lobbed spitballs at Mr. Trudeau. They have actively meddled in our nominations and attempted election interference. So, you know, there has to be a bar, right? Right. Mark Carney is fond of saying that markets don't have values and people do. Well, here's

Shannon 47:25

here's a nice example. Show us that people have values, because if it's about the trading relationship, fine. Yeah, markets don't have values, but Canadians do.

Zain 47:35

Shannon, I'm going to stick with you with our next one. Pierre Poliev, his leadership numbers have plummeted double digits. On the question of preferred prime minister in a new poll, Carney is at nearly 50%. Of

Zain 47:47

course, we've just had an election happen. happen.

Zain 47:49

Pierre Polyev at 28% down a dozen points. Of course, I just said we've had an election happen. So maybe this doesn't matter. But this is a guy who's kind of out of a job and with this future, not entirely secure. So my question is, is this overrated, Shannon? Or is this underrated in your mind that that Pierre Polyev's leadership numbers are taking a double digit hit? hit it's

Shannon 48:11

it's overrated right now uh but if the cpc war room takes this as overrated right now and just decides to continue on with business as usual and and wait for gravity to bring them back up or or whatever i would think that is a foolish calculation um opposition

Shannon 48:29

opposition leaders or whoever loses the election always goes down a little bit right after the election that just happens And so I don't think that that's a huge deal right now. However, Canadians got a good, solid look at that guy in a way they didn't even between when he won in whenever it was 2020, like 22, 23. Anyway, whenever he won the leadership in 22 and the election, people got a good look at him. And now that's the outcome of it. And so they're going to have to be really mindful of that and make sure that they have a plan in place, that they are cutting their caucus in on that plan, because this stuff will bubble over the summer. and they better have a plan for some rehab in September and October on his image, his tone, his substance, all of it, because they can't. These are not good numbers, but I wouldn't be freaking out right now.

Zain 49:33

Carter, listen, it's an election that's just happened. Buyer's remorse probably doesn't set in this early. That being said, to Shannon's last point, it's a 20

Carter 49:41

20-point gap, according to Nanos, between Carney

Zain 49:44

Carney and Polyev right now. Is this overrated?

Zain 49:47

wave it away or underrated in your mind it's

Carter 49:50

it's underrated i think this is a significant drop for someone who is not a likable character um

Carter 49:55

um he he was close to being the prime minister and he lost uh and now people are saying like i think that the reason he was close to being the prime minister was not because people liked pierre poliev is because they did not like the other guy so now that the other guy has faded the memory of him has faded i think that this is a a fairly significant collapse that will continue. And I can't tell you how wrong Shannon is in their analysis. I just have to throw that in one more time.

Zain 50:26

time. No, I appreciate that, Carter. Yeah, I appreciate

Zain 50:29

it. No, it's because there's that truth telling. And let's end on this. Stephen Carter, we mentioned this, G7 begins next week. So this week, the week prior to the G7, what

Zain 50:39

what advice would you have for Mark Carney in one sentence? Lay it on me.

Zain 50:43

Don't try and go mountain

Carter 50:44

mountain biking in Kananaskis this month.

Zain 50:46

Okay, that's good. Very good. Practical. I like that about you, Carter.

Zain 50:49

You go practical. And

Carter 50:50

And it's really from the heart. You know, it's something that is meaningful to me.

Zain 50:54

Yeah. No, no. I think we've heard it often on this show. Shannon, any advice in one sentence to Mr. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, as he prepares for

Carter 51:02

for the G7? I don't get a chance to clean that up. It was a funny one, and now I don't get a chance to. No, it's fine. You

Zain 51:07

You know, it's fine. It's too late for you. You think it's funny. It's not. Shannon, lay it on me.

Shannon 51:11

I'm going to cede the floor to you, Carter. Carter, do you have a follow-up? Get

Carter 51:15

Get a deal done with Donald Trump.

Shannon 51:19

I'm going to say just get through it one step at a time and avoid tantrums because the last G7 hosted on Canadian soil resulted in a Trump tantrum and avoiding

Shannon 51:31

avoiding that is probably best. Maybe it'll work out, but they're usually best avoided.

Zain 51:38

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1874 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. you with me as always Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter and we shall see you next time

Carter 51:52

thought it was a funny joke it wasn't

Zain 51:57

midnight for you there in

Carter 51:58

in the most boring dull city

Zain 52:00

city in the world you might be the funniest person in Ottawa right now I'll give you that that place fucking sucks

Transcript