Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a Strategist episode 1897. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, it's just Shannon Phillips. Guys, you don't have to worry. You don't have to worry. Stephen Carter has bailed
Zain
0:14
bailed on us last minute. He's pulled a Zain Velji.
Shannon
0:17
Well, it just means that there will be no one to, you know, overwhelm your audio with just random interventions and yelling. We
Zain
0:26
We call that white noise, and it is an acceptable term on this podcast that Stephen has approved of. He has given the stamp of approval to white noise, which is what he emanates from his mouth and other orifices. He wanted the other orifices part included. Did
Shannon
0:40
Did we really have to do that part? No, no, he did. He
Zain
0:42
He wanted it included as part of the legal language.
Shannon
0:44
Oh, Stephen would have wanted it this way? No,
Zain
0:45
No, no, he did want it this way. He, in fact, signed off on it this way. I do like talking about Stephen as if he's dead. See live episode. episode. But that's just part and parcel of elements of his political career, which I'm sure he's trying to revive right now in some backroom corner, which is why he's not here, Shannon. By the way, before we get started, let's put bets on what Stephen Carter's next project will be. And what do you think it should be? Since he's not here, I'm calling an audible. What do you think Stephen Carter's next project will be? And what do you think Stephen Carter's next project should be? Now, for those that know Stephen only as the voice, the white noise, previously mentioned of this podcast, Nahid Nenshi,
Zain
1:27
Alison Redford, Jyoti Gondak has taken swings outside of this province that have not gone so well, but he's tried. Marla Hall-Finley for Liberal Leadership Price, the one won by Justin Trudeau, taking some swings in British Columbia, I believe also in Ontario. So what I'm trying to say there, Shannon, is that the world is Stephen Carter's oyster.
Zain
1:46
Where will he go and where should he go next?
Shannon
1:49
Well, I don't know if if it's a will or should but uh the ontario liberals are in quite a pickle uh and uh not that i wish them success um because i wish my own orange team success there uh but they could sure use some some focused work uh and who they are what they stand for and where they need to communicate into so uh that's that's a political operation that could use some life um newfoundland Non-liberals, similarly, could use some life. And there I would wish Carter a bit more success than I would in Ontario. But those are two political organizations that could use help. If he spoke French, the Quebec liberals are imploding currently
Shannon
2:32
currently over a corruption scandal. So I don't know if I'd want
Shannon
2:35
want him to go from a human level to go into that, but could certainly use some crisis management support. support?
Zain
2:43
So we've got, this is good. I like this, Shannon. So we've got the Newfoundland Liberals, the Quebec Liberals with an asterisk, the Ontario Liberals. I'm going to add Carter's Vengeance Act. I don't know when this is, but I believe it should be coming up soon. Vancouver Municipal. Vancouver. I think Carter wants a second go at that. And then the final thing I'll add back on the table is, even though there's no election, I think Carter wants to run in Calgary again. So I think I think I'm going to say revive the Calgary party for an election that he sets and tries to mobilize his supporters for. I feel like that's what Carter might do next.
Shannon
3:19
I'm not sure if reviving the Calgary party is possible, aren't they? We've got t-shirts.
Shannon
3:24
don't even know where mine is. I think it went in the Value Village pile. I'll be honest.
Zain
3:29
By the way, great marketplace expose on Value Village. I would suggest watching. It was part of my algorithm yesterday on YouTube. Not always a a deal not always a deal but you can find things like calgary party t-shirts which i'm not sure you can find anywhere else uh haxum we'll do a poll on this we'll ask we'll ask the patreon listeners where should carter go next i'm sure that's a domain name we can purchase at where should carter go next.ca um just very close by to his uh offer of speaking gigs uh which are either i believe ten thousand dollars or free for the exact same speech yeah which is good uh shannon it's just you and i carter has officially bailed although we've spent five minutes talking about about him. I wanted to talk about the most important story in Canadian politics. No, it is not the prime minister stalking the First Nations. It is not the fact that the feds gave Stellantis more than $200 million or that Algoma Steel is now revealing that the feds knew about their plans to lay off before giving them half a million, half a billion, I'm sorry, not half a million, half a billion dollars. No, Shannon, it's
Zain
4:29
it's the National press gallery dinner.
Zain
4:32
It is the celebration that is perhaps most equivalent to what we've seen in the United States, where the White House correspondents come together. It's something called the White House Correspondents Dinner. But this is different. And I want to talk in particular about one speaker that I think is making the rounds, at least in media. But I For those that may not be aware, Shannon, what are these press gallery dinners? Like give folks that may have vaguely heard about them what they are. Who's invited? What's the tone? Who hosts it? And I suspect you've been a part of one or two yourself, if I'm not mistaken.
Shannon
5:15
I've never been to a federal one. So all of my experiences are going to be at the Alberta level where I've attended them going back to the Klein years. I haven't been in the last few years, but maybe I went a couple of years ago. But the Alberta ones are, of course, a lot smaller. But federally, they're a lot more fancy. They're a lot bigger. And the press gallery are the organizations that pay to be part of the press gallery. It's
Shannon
5:46
actual membership organization, or at least it is here. And so you have to be a member of the press gallery. So that's all the major media outlets. And then some others that are smaller or more niche, like Politico or those kinds of folks. Right. In addition to the big broadcasters, the big newspapers. And so they throw an annual party. And in Canada, it usually involves either leaders getting up to make individual speeches in
Shannon
6:15
in which they are expected to be funny. And everyone's decked out in their finest, like literally men in tuxes, right? This is not just, you know, put on your Moors everyday suit. It's quite a bit fancier than that. The women are in literal gowns. And the leaders get up and make fun of themselves. Their speech is typically in the eight minute range, eight to 10, seven to nine kind of deal. deal um if it goes longer it uh usually sucks uh uh see francois blanchett this year and who went like 20 plus minutes i think 30 uh and you know to the point where people are yelling at him to get off the stage um
Shannon
6:55
um but they're supposed to be like um they're not off the record federally they are in alberta oh
Zain
7:03
yeah so the broadcast that we like the the reason i'm bringing this up is because one speaker, and I'm not going to bury the lead, Don Davies, I think, absolutely crushed it. And it's now making the social media rounds. That's not the case in Alberta. We actually don't get to see what happens there. And
Shannon
7:17
And so we can get into what they do because they are infinitely more hilarious and risque because they are meant to be off the record. Like, I have seen wild jokes. Like, I have seen the emcee do jokes at, you know, Ralph Klein's drinking habit expense with him in the room when he was premier. year right well obviously he was premier uh but uh like yeah just um really like over the line stuff uh and which is fine right uh but um it's off the record for a reason um but in in uh federally they broadcasted on cpac and i mean my experience of these uh things of watching them over the years or watching coverage or hearing people talk about them was the jack was never ever all that funny you would think that jack layton with the kind of personality was he was very given to making fun of himself he was fine with all of that right a very affable person a very authentic person he was just he just never could i don't know if it was timing or whatever like he he never quite landed it um other uh unexpected leaders could uh you know sort of of land the jokes. And not surprisingly, this year, Carney is pretty, he's known for being quite dry and, and being able to poke a little bit of fun of himself up to a point. He did a good job. But Don, who as interim leader, really kind of, you know, almost let people behind
Shannon
8:51
the curtain of what it's like to be a new Democrat these days. And I think that's why it was was successful yeah
Zain
8:55
yeah i i tend to agree with that and i think he started this his clip which is about like five minutes or so you can find it online um and it's being praised by his political opponents and the media and and of course himself alike um he starts with my pronouns are broken and relevant which i think just sets the tone for for what that um speech looks like good
SPEAKER_00
9:16
good evening distinguished guests colleagues and members of the press gallery my name is don davies and my pronouns are broke and irrelevant i
Zain
9:28
want to dig deeper into like the strategy of these things because there are there is strategy speech writers
Zain
9:33
work on this joke writers will work on this people you have a goal and an aim and you know sorry
Zain
9:41
sorry folks not the biggest story in the country i get it but you know i'm drawn to it from an interest perspective because there is
Zain
9:49
thinking behind it. There is strategy behind it. There is goals that folks have. Frankly, there's a balancing act behind it, which is, in Davey's case, and some may think he may have broken the barrier between saying this is self-deprecation and I have no confidence in the institution I represent sort of thing, you know, to each their own. But let's talk about that in a second. But, Shannon, I have to hear about Alberta. So it's not recorded. Like, the jokes are risque. Tell me about, like, the setting, the format. like give me the the almost the the narrative fiction sort of setup here like what what does the room look like who attends uh do all mlas attend is is is it almost expected uh give me like a a sense of of of the room and and what happens then further on etc yeah
Shannon
10:32
yeah so in the past it was over at the faculty club at u of a and now uh in last at least the last one i attended was at the matrix i don't know where this virus was i didn't go um but uh over the years are you
Zain
10:44
you la to go by the way no
Shannon
10:46
no i would have to like i no i i mean it would be completely normal for me to show up like i know darren was at the last one just because my friend turned into him but um uh like yeah it would be completely uh expected for me to you know darken the door but you just have to make sure that you get a ticket from someone so the caucus gets some tickets to like
SPEAKER_01
11:07
like gets a set
Shannon
11:08
set aside of tickets or you could talk to the media and say hey i want to go but like the tickets are actually quite coveted um and what ended up happening uh so back in the day day you had to essentially go through like your caucus or to get a ticket and it was really hard actually to get a ticket back in the Klein, Stelmac uh even the like you know apprentice years that and so um so
Shannon
11:34
so you know you would you would as a staffer you'd have have to like kind of do some machinations to get yourself in there um
Shannon
11:41
but uh because yeah all the like there are you know set asides of tickets per caucus and stuff but uh uh um
Shannon
11:51
and then but over the years what the press gallery started selling more tickets uh because they it was got more expensive and the press gallery themselves got smaller and smaller yeah
Shannon
12:02
uh and so it ended up being like in the first few years of uh when we were in government just crawling with lobbyists
Shannon
12:11
and so like as a minister i would show up there and just get besieged right by people who had things to talk to me about and it was not fucking fun at all uh and so i stopped going like
Shannon
12:25
one year i went just to watch the videos because each caucus uh does a video but like my desire to be The sort of, you know, buttonholed by drunk lobbyists was diminishing returns over the four years I was in government.
Zain
12:42
Tell me about these videos. Like, is it like, are they skits? Like, are they like ads, tech ads on themselves? Like, what format
Zain
12:49
format do they take?
Shannon
12:50
take? I'm kind of curious. They are hilarious. So, like, Brian Mason was known as the king of these videos. And, like, this was back in the day when it was hard to cut together a video. Of course it was. So, we used to,
Shannon
13:01
like, literally hire a company. in september and brian mason would write the script because he felt very strongly about how how funny as leader of the leader
Zain
13:09
leader of the party yeah
Shannon
13:10
yeah it was yeah or when raj was leader because i was around then too um but like brian took this so seriously uh because he is inherently an extremely funny person right so one year we did trailer park socialists one year we did uh well yeah it was very funny i'm trying to think of some of the other ones like um but trailer park socialist was one i remember i don't know if anyone still has a videotape of that anywhere but one is on youtube and people can go find it and it's the one where and people will find this historically hilarious now uh that brian and rachel as a two-member caucus are teaching danielle how to be an opposition leader and how to hold the government to account because the lore at the time was that the new democrats you know punched above their weight yada yada and so after the 2012 election uh
Shannon
13:58
the storyline was you know uh brian and brian is watching danielle kind of like be too ideological and kind of suck at opposition he's like no no no danielle here's how you do it right here's how you uh hold the government to account and it's in the um oh what you know like military training kind of it's all
SPEAKER_03
14:16
pansies listen up okay ladies
SPEAKER_03
14:20
ladies i'm gonna do the impossible i'm gonna turn you into actual opposition mlas but why but
SPEAKER_03
14:27
but why sir but why sir because you candy ass even though you people are nut job rejects from the fraser institute school of neanderthal economics i actually like you and i like right-wing parties in
SPEAKER_03
14:41
in fact i like right-wing parties so much i want there to be two of them or
Zain
14:49
you you get your political opponents to potentially participate yes so
Zain
14:53
is the thing right is
Shannon
14:54
is you you make you're making fun of yourself uh but you're like oftentimes the other side will come in and do cameos right so one year the pcs in 2015 um richard was former parks minister he was one of the nine that was left yeah
Shannon
15:12
and they did a sort of like wistful thing about still being in government and trying to still be government like in black and white and like it was you know like them standing outside of the window the minister's going hello you know is it me and uh and they there was sort of a bit they did where they were trying to get richard gottfried who looks like brian mason to come in and be oh
SPEAKER_01
15:32
oh that's funny like
Shannon
15:34
like just like and so it's about making fun of yourself like the year that we lost government in 2019 like the whole shtick of our uh video video was um was rachel kind of wandering around the legislature uh still thinking she was premier and having to be taught how to do things like open her own doors and like you know stuff like that right like uh it's it's about making fun of yourself uh and so in 2019 after kenny won when they you know so they went in the spring and they're doing their video and that was one i did attend like
Shannon
16:08
like his uh his video was just basically an attack ad on us and
Shannon
16:14
and it's like that that's not the point here bruh like the point is to me but he couldn't he could not find his way to
Shannon
16:22
to make fun of himself sort
Zain
16:23
sort of thing yeah
Shannon
16:25
yeah yeah so it's it's really it's so illustrative the christmas party is of who can make fun of themselves who is an actual fucking human being uh in politics And who is just, you know, too good for any of that. And it gives you insights into what kind of brittle or resilient leader they might be, I think, as a matter of character.
Zain
16:45
character. I think that's fascinating in terms of who can. Did you learn from this in terms of who should make fun of themselves in the sense that, is there a limitation on certain folks that shouldn't? Or did you feel like your experience here was that this was net benefits? Because I will then translate this to the federal side of things with the Davies speech in particular and Pierre Pauliev, who, by the way, made an appearance in a skit like format and then in the subsequent speech. But did it kind of teach you about like who should make fun of themselves, who didn't or who couldn't? And I guess my follow up question to that is, did the press treat you any differently or better or sympathetically based on this? Like, did the moments of that off the record evening have any sort of ramifications in terms of how folks were seen? I'm just I'm curious. I mean, we're human at the end of the day. I think the media would probably end up saying, no, of course not. But I'm curious to get your reaction to both of those things.
Shannon
17:42
It, in my view, is so important to establish camaraderie across the aisle and among the players in politics in order to maintain the kind of civility that we
Shannon
17:55
lost. And I do not think it's a coincidence that Brian Mason, who was infinitely smart on his feet, able on the floor of the House, treated the House with both its respect and reverence, but also its irreverence, you know, in terms of how he did his interventions, the quality of his heckles, all of it. It is no coincidence that he is to this day remains friends with Dave Hancock and Thomas Lukasik at a minimum.
Shannon
18:23
Right. Even though his politics are somewhere, you know, probably pretty far to the left of even mine. But, you know, he was able to maintain respect. And that is so important. I think it like and we used to have it right. Right. I always say that we used to have it because the New Democrats weren't a threat to power. And so people didn't have a problem being nice to us. And it's different now. But I think it is so, so important. And it is one of those moments in the year when people can come together. And quite frankly, who should make fun of themselves? Literally everyone, except for maybe the sergeant at arms. like everyone uh should be um able to to do this because at the end of the day you are in close proximity to one another you know the floor of the house isn't that big you're there for hours at a time uh in the old days the press used to be on site as well right uh being able to um see each other as people uh there is a tone there that goes out to the public i and
Shannon
19:32
and so when you have If you have legitimate criticisms of these people, it's not just because your opponent is inherently evil. It's because you have, you
Zain
19:41
criticism. Here's a tradeoff I would take, and I'm curious if you agree with me. Broadcast the Alberta version of this, because even if people have to downgrade their sense of you, assuming it's still a version of what you've attended, which is hilarious, self-deprecating about civility and camaraderie at the end of the day. broadcast the alberta version even if that means people censor themselves a bit because the democratic upside in terms of what that broadcasts to people even if it's a narrow group of people within the province is more helpful than keeping that thing off the record and gated it
Shannon
20:15
might be you know i think it would be helpful for uh the new democrats uh in some ways because like we are are just like inherently funnier. Which I think there's an irony there
Zain
20:28
around like the left can't make or take a joke, which we'll get to in a second when we talk about Davies. No,
Shannon
20:32
No, I think that's horse shit. Like we're just like, reliably we are funnier, right? Because we are able to laugh at ourselves. I think, I mean, in my extremely biased opinion. But also it would be good for Danielle Smith because she is actually able to make fun of herself. As
Shannon
20:49
you've seen. The one or two that I attended since she's been on the scene were like her absolutely making fun of her you know uh like sort of anti-vax kind of uh believes this kind of stuff like and it was funny straight up funny so um i
Shannon
21:03
i i like i think that would be good for people to see but here's the thing her base wouldn't fucking tolerate yeah well there's also see ours would if we were making pronoun jokes or whatever our base would be like yeah fine okay whatever right but her base would lose their ever loving minds it
Zain
21:19
it is interesting to also think like Like if this was a pure strategy play, like let's say that the press gallery approached both political leaders in our province or both political parties, I guess, and said, we want to make this public. I am curious as to whether like the NDP would even agree in that sense, because I agree with you. I think they could be funny. I think that has an extremely witty person to start with. And you've got our entire caucus that could probably do a great job. And some try to on a daily basis evoke a sense of humor. So to be clear, I think I agree with you on that premise. But from a strategy perspective, there might be, I don't want to give any opportunity to humanize Daniel Smith at all. And I think inherently there is a political strategy question there that I think could be maybe not one that's spoken with an outside voice, but certainly is a pure consideration that many would have. And you could make two arguments to it. It
Shannon
22:05
It wouldn't be a strategy on our part. I don't know the New Democrats part. I don't think.
Zain
22:09
I don't know if I
Shannon
22:10
I agree. I think it's only upside. Because I think Daniel would be, I mean, we saw it this last weekend. Kent, that base is not in the mood for anything approaching the old ways of doing politics.
Zain
22:24
politics. You know, we should have talked about that,
Shannon
22:25
that, that the premier got booed
Zain
22:27
booed by her own party. But, you know, we're
Zain
22:28
talking about this instead.
Shannon
22:30
I know we're not talking about that, but it's the same thing. It is interestingly the same thing. It's the same constraints for her. Like, her ability to just, like, be normal and do politics in a normal way is severely constrained by this monster that she
Zain
22:43
she has created. I agree. Like the normal sort of or frankly, not even the normal, the prized, the prized victories that you could take back to your base no longer count. They this this is a group that will settle for nothing other than, you know, fuck red meat. They want blood like that's kind of probably the analogy to put it right like that. Who gives a shit? Well, you know, let the other people celebrate a pipeline. We don't give a shit about that. And, you know, who gives a shit if you sound human? And we want like we've got a new end goal that is the most extreme version of the end goal that you can imagine that is probably more than likely never achievable. Yet that is what we want. And anything less seems to be. And
Shannon
23:23
And it's all culture war all the time. Exactly. So your ability to make fun. Like there's a reason why Trump doesn't go to the American press gallery. Right. Because like, you know, like if it's all culture war all the time, stepping outside of yourself and being even a little bit reflective, it
Shannon
23:38
it does not work. you're going to get blowback from that. Would you be Nahid right
Zain
23:41
right now in terms of base politics, trying to stitch together like the Rachel base alongside the activist base with a new sort of what I call the Nahid plus, the Calgary plus model that kind of, you know, stitches together the coalition for the NDP? Or would you rather be Danielle's who's still, you know, maybe despite the separatists, they've got nowhere else to go per se electorally and maybe just be her because conservatives you know, long standing line, I don't know how it's true, but I'll say it anyways, ways fall in line uh
Shannon
24:13
i think new democrats also fall in line you know the old uh the american saying of uh republicans uh uh fall in line and democrats have to fall in love i don't think that applies uh because i i don't think there's a base versus you know accessible voter pool problem for mr nenshi you know it's almost an overlap you're right
Zain
24:32
right you're right there there Yeah.
Shannon
24:35
The problem there is more on Danielle's side.
Shannon
24:38
But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, they
Shannon
24:41
they both have the same problem, which is there. There is a pool of accessible voters. How do we find them? Yeah.
Shannon
24:49
And Danielle, she has constraints because she has her her base holding her back because they want to just fight the culture war all the time. They don't want to talk about the economy.
Shannon
24:59
And for Nothead, it's finding ways to go and and and connect with those folks. And it's not the base that's holding him back at all. It's just the media environment resources, the usual problems of a progressive party. Yeah.
Zain
25:13
Let's move it on to what we saw this past weekend. Don Davies gives the best speech in the press gallery. dinner by far. Five minutes where he goes after himself, he goes after his political opponents, he gets a standing ovation to end it. I mentioned his opening, pronouns being broke and poor.
Zain
25:31
Obviously, some folks online and other places saying that it lands too closely with real frustration about the party's finances or that he's punching down on the pronoun aspect of it. I'm curious to get your take on this. Was this a net W for him and the party? and does it have any level of long tail beyond this conversation which might be the last one that someone is going to have publicly about it before we head into the christmas season and forget that it ever happened or would you say that you know there could be a there there in terms of what this could mean for for the party and how it's seen well
Shannon
26:05
well i i'm not gonna uh lie i did have conversations where people like damn why isn't dawn running based on this speech alone uh really
Shannon
26:16
uh i you know like uh that was fire that was good you know um i i think uh in many ways um just a moment of honesty is uh really important for the party too right and it's important for for people who want to vote ndp uh but were frustrated from doing so in the last few elections i would argue uh to kind of go okay you know like uh the party isn't being run by a bunch of people who don't realize that there are problems here um but uh he was also because he is you know an underdog of the house he he was able to you know uh make
Shannon
26:56
make fun of everybody uh in a way that was not too much it was not over the top it was not an attack ad uh it was just funny and it was was just pulling everyone down a peg including himself and that's what these things are supposed to be right they're supposed to be a little peek behind the curtain of we are all people here
Zain
27:14
here that we're we're not we play it does show that in some ways that there is like there is a bit of theater right we defend vigorously a reality often that doesn't exist but in these rooms we can acknowledge the truth right um in some ways but
Shannon
27:28
but it's also the truth that people are talking about there absolutely
Shannon
27:32
absolutely are like yeah obviously you know things are not great for the new democrats and it's funny to make fun of elizabeth may and uh you know and it's it's also funny to take pierre down a peg it is my one question i always
Zain
27:45
always swirl with and and this folks who've listened to this podcast for a long time be like this is one of zane's longtime questions which is is this shit portable i always wonder if it's portable beyond the room and say i'm not saying this becomes don Davies new persona it's not who he is it was tightly scripted it was tightly managed however for someone like Brian Mason it kind of like that you tell me if I'm wrong but the version of the press gallery Christmas dinner that you saw was kind of him it was portable like it went both ways he applied that same level of wit persona quick on his feet into but then out of that dinner into like that that sort of real sort of world I wonder a hundred
Shannon
28:25
hundred percent you know the The sort of twitch of the mustache and the little twinkle in his eye, right, as he was landing a funny thing. It made him a person that the other side and that Albertans felt that they could relate to. Do
Zain
28:38
Do you think we're not doing enough self-deprecating day-to-day in our politics, but we're reserving it just for moments like this? Or do you feel like self-deprecating day-to-day is just handing yourself a meme to the other side based on our culture? It's a question I fundamentally struggle with, if I'm being honest. There's parts of me that says, fuck it, what do you have to lose? If they want to disingenuously try to use what you've said in a self-deprecating fashion as clickbait or an attack meme, let them. Probably doesn't have much mileage. The other part of me is like, why would you do that when it doesn't sort of meet the moment? And it's so offside, so zagging when everyone's zigging on how they communicate sort of thing. And frankly, a very singular, similar way these days in our politics.
Shannon
29:25
well i think it's probably too polarized uh and like as someone who carried the polarized files uh for a long time you know every like i would not uh tell a joke up at the podium i had them in me and
Zain
29:39
and knowing you on this podcast even more based on these conversations i'm sure you had turns of phrase i'm sure you had witticisms i'm sure you had responses to questions i'm sure you had had a bunch of that shit that you had to what purge out of yourself i guess in a way i
Shannon
29:56
i just wouldn't i mean every once in a while i would uh drop something that was a little bit you know sort of like self-deprecating uh or you know but no like first of all sarcasm doesn't travel it doesn't translate like it's almost like you're speaking two different languages and when you try to do sarcasm in your second or third language some people will relate to this it doesn't work
Shannon
30:15
um because culturally it doesn't translate and you are in a different cultural milieu when you're standing up there uh at the podium yes i just said it i
SPEAKER_01
30:23
i was gonna let it slide until the 800th time you guys made the mistake they're lecterns not podiums um
Shannon
30:30
um uh but uh but also um it's it's it's too polarized and number three i would say that women are not funny saying we all understand that's true
Shannon
30:42
uh and uh they're not allowed to tell jokes or um be interesting in no it's true to be serious and then they're a bitch so those are your choices choose accordingly um otherwise you're you're you're fundamentally unserious and not very smart in a bubble head uh so um but like every once in a while though with media i would kind of you know make a glancing reference to sort of something that was a little bit more self-aware right yes because i was sometimes in in these, like, fucking interminable press conferences that were 80 or 90 minutes long, right? And so, like, literally I did some of the longest press conferences that, well, I did do the longest press conferences
Zain
31:22
in the government. Yeah,
Shannon
31:22
Yeah, no one said the road to Alberta
Zain
31:22
Alberta politics. Right, right, right. Yeah,
Shannon
31:24
Yeah, so, um, you know, like, you have to, kind of, in order to get yourself out of a line of questioning or whatever, right, to kind of touch on something and move on. But, uh,
Shannon
31:35
uh, it's not helpful. It is not helpful in this polarized environment because everything becomes culture war.
Shannon
31:42
Right. No, it's because the last thing that the other guys want to talk about is anything having to do with the real conditions of people's lives or the economy.
Zain
31:50
It's wise. Like, I don't disagree with you. I think it's wise. I'm just maybe I'm hoping for a world in which I'm not saying I'm projecting what I think my assets in politics, if I ever entered, would be. But I'm like and I think they're similar to to other peoples where they're like, oh, like, you know, that that wit, that joy, that elements of sarcasm, not taking yourself too seriously. at some point you realize the real world limitations of that and maybe i'm wishing for a world that was different um and and and and i'm trying
Shannon
32:21
trying to be like everything is mom donnie but like he put humor in his videos but and and some of it was about his opponents i think i think the
Zain
32:29
the biggest takeaway from that
Zain
32:31
i don't think people are fundamentally grasping is that the way he ran a very negative campaign is by taking up the posture of joyful warrior this is something our our friend Jim Murkowski, who's current chief of staff for EB, would say is that that posture allows you to run a deeply negative campaign with a smile on your face. Jack
Shannon
32:48
Jack Layton did it.
Zain
32:48
And it's absolutely true. Mamdani found a playbook, which we've used quite often in Canadian politics. See Nenshi 2010, when he ran a very negative campaign for mayor as an underdog, but had a smile on his face the whole time while doing it, looking like a joyful, witty, young, sub-40-something orator, but like running a very negative campaign saying some extremely harsh things with a smile on your face lets you get away with stuff so i think there's a pathway in our politics for that i think maybe it's been abandoned or perhaps needs a bit of a revival it's
Shannon
33:20
it's in the structure of the yes i think that's
Zain
33:22
that's true too right
Shannon
33:23
right so right like so i mean how jack did it was the top two-thirds of his message was just blisteringly negative uh but then he would uh be able to exit out of that and do an offer to people or an optimism that seemed genuine because it was. And in a product of his 20 plus years in politics prior to that, people forget that, right? That before he became leader of the NDP, he had been in Toronto, like elected in Toronto politics since the early 80s. So he had done so much of this and he was able to deliver that bottom third happy part in a way that seemed authentic to him. uh and and sometimes he was funny uh but just not at the press gallery dinner
Shannon
34:07
but and i think there's a there's a place for that it's not just a happy worrier but it is a place for uh in video like in the way that we communicate now with set piece videos there's a way to have record scratch and you know uh do things do funny things well like you do uh with with the, whatever
Shannon
34:28
whatever the fuck this is. Right, right, right.
Zain
34:29
Yeah, trying some of that sort of stuff in our politics. By the way, Producer Haxson, we have her title for the show. It is Women Are Not Funny, Shannon Phillips. That is, it is, they'll put that in quote by Shannon Phillips. Everyone
Zain
34:45
Sorry, everyone knows that women are not funny. Which, by the way, can I, as an aside, one of the most joyful things that you have provided me as a gift is to let me know that Sarah Hoffman does stand-up comedy. I don't think I'm outing her stand-up comedy career on this podcast, but that brought me a tremendous amount of joy and a back-and-forth conversation with her around our favorite comedians, which, by the way, I will say, rebutting Shannon's extremely sexist take that women are not funny, the funniest comedian in the world, Maria
Zain
35:16
Bamford. And if anyone ever has a chance to go see her, please go see her. But the fact that Hoffman does stand-up comedy is one of like i don't know like my 2025 highlights and i haven't seen her perform live yet but i'm gonna try my level best to do so i
Shannon
35:28
i have and like i have known hoffman for 25 years and i've known her relatively recently two things yeah like
Shannon
35:35
like she is both hilarious and gross
Shannon
35:39
and like and she would always make the dirtiest jokes and like i am 12 and so i would just always always hit the floor um and she doesn't let a whole lot of people see that right but uh but her uh comedy even had me a woman of not really delicate sensibilities going whoa sarah um
Shannon
35:59
um so it is great uh it is her timing is impeccable like there's so much that goes into uh stand-up comedy to my mind it's it it's as alien to me as walking on a tightrope of how fucking hard it is uh and and she like it's something that i could never see myself she's
Zain
36:21
she's so good there's also like daytime um you know if this is her moonlight and what she moonlights with there's probably like daytime value to what she to the skills that she's building on the stage in terms of uh oratory and other things and frankly one feeds into the other she's had the skills to be able to do stand-up comedy but like the process and the reps will probably help her uh in in being an opposition opposition uh mla and frankly a leader of any sort of stature as she chooses to advance with her career uh and in whatever direction so that was very exciting to me can we talk about the final sort of leg of this very weakly improv built stool that is this podcast uh shannon phillips which is uh pierre pauliev also had a strategy this is a guy who has not shown up to many of these uh in in the past from what i understand and not dissimilar to some president i guess i guess most presidents show up to the white house correspondence and this has really been a trump Yeah, the Trump phenomenon, I was saying that, has been the guy who hasn't shown up. Polyev, long seen as the guy who couldn't take a joke, but then shows up while Chris Wilson, Canadian gem of 22 Minutes, is doing a Pierre Polyev impersonation. And the two of them have a bit together where they put on glasses and bite into an apple. And then Polyev shows up and does his thing. I'm curious what you think Team Polyev was trying to do here. I always add an added calculation. calculation. I don't think it was just to be funny, because if he wanted to be funny, there was many avenues and many opportunities. And this platform was available to him many, many times to do so. Do you think there was a this moment calculation that Pierre-Paul Lievre walked into within that room? I certainly do. But I'm curious to get... What
Shannon
37:58
What do you think it was?
Zain
38:00
I honestly think it is a very small sand in the glass jar of likability that he's trying Trying to accumulate. I
Zain
38:09
I don't know if it's more complicated than that. And it's a highlight to your see Shannon's earlier comments around how hard being funny can be. But the fact that he was aided by by someone who often plays him on on skit television and then gives a pretty like not as good as Davies and I think not as good as some of the other leaders. But, you know, down the middle speech attends, you know, and kind of gives an A for effort, I think does enough for at least a momentary portion to add a couple of grains of sand into that container that they need to fill on likability. Maybe to me, if I'm reading tea leaves or in this case grains of sand, it is an acknowledgment that likability isn't bullshit and that people do care about it. I'm not saying pure poly of changing who he is. don't get me wrong but that they're they're trying they're going to try with some set pieces to make that happen this is this is my my take
Shannon
39:05
uh i think that's correct i'm going to build on it so
Shannon
39:10
so uh they did a whole like kind of twitter strategy around this appearance oh i missed this completely
Zain
39:17
completely okay so you you had to
Shannon
39:19
to have been planned right where they had michelle rempel garner and others saying oh oh, Pierre's so funny, he's killing it, da-da-da-da-da. The show was also tweeting some crazy
Zain
39:28
crazy shit in between. Yeah,
Zain
39:31
I'm not going to bring that up here,
Shannon
39:31
here, but go see
Shannon
39:32
if she's still on. But there were others. There was clearly an attempt to magnify the fact that he was there and in the room and make it bigger than it was. And then, you know, Don Davies goes and steals the show, which is funny. He had some stuff in his bit that was kind of for his space, right?
Shannon
39:53
right? Right. Like still making fun of the media, all this stuff, like, you know, like not like not funny. He said, you know, 22 Minutes is the
Zain
40:02
the funniest show on CBC after Power and Politics, a show that he's often treated
Shannon
40:05
treated with. Like David
Zain
40:06
David Cochran, the host there. Like, OK. Yeah.
Shannon
40:10
Like David Cochran is the literal nicest man in that room. So why don't you go ahead and just like take a bunch of runs at him for no particular reason? Yeah.
Shannon
40:18
So but I think there was another audience and that's his caucus. You think all interest. OK, I agree. I am changing. I am changing how I am. I'm talking to the media. I actually am kind of funny. You know, I can participate in the usual trappings of how the institutions govern themselves, you know, i.e. the press gallery and their rhythms and their traditions and all of that. Uh, uh, and I mean, if anything, it's a message to the media that like Pierre Polyever is maybe doing things differently, right? So it's just a, an ability for, for them to weave that in to, you know, uh, as a proof point of maybe he's changing a little bit. I
Zain
41:04
I also, not to, not to put too much on staffing. I also think there's just something to be said about Katie Merrifield, who's now joined as Pierre Polyever's communications directors as his friend of the show, former, um, you BC operative and strategist, and if I'm not mistaken, also worked in Alberta as the executive director of communications and
Zain
41:22
right? So if I'm back in just pre-pandemic, if I'm not mistaken, around the pandemic for Kenny. Well,
Shannon
41:28
Well, yeah, she bounced around a little bit, but she was sort of with Kenny in the premier's office. So she's not Polyev's
Zain
41:35
Polyev's DCOM. I think it's been five, six months on that. This might be an element, and maybe she was brought in for this purpose to kind of highlight this as well. So I think there's something to be said there. Shannon, look at this. We've hit 40 minutes on this topic that I thought we'd probably have five minutes for.
Shannon
41:52
I feel sorry for the
Zain
41:53
the listeners. No, no, no, you shouldn't. You shouldn't. You know why? Because we don't care about them. That's on brand. Yeah, we don't care about them. I bet they've taken nothing away. And you know what? At least we've been white noise, which is what Stephen would have wanted while they do their dishes. It is what Stephen would have wanted. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1897 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Valji with me as always and singularly Shannon Phillips, and we shall see you all next time.