Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is a strategist episode 1903. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. Hello, friends. New
Carter
0:11
New software. I'm very
Carter
0:13
very confused. I don't know exactly what's happening. Hacks
Carter
0:16
Hacks have told us we had to change and I'm
Carter
0:19
I'm not happy. I'm not comfortable.
Shannon
0:22
Carter fears change. Yeah.
Shannon
0:23
Yeah. He's a reactionary.
Carter
0:25
I don't like it. I don't like it at all. It's very off-putting. And now I find myself, I fear so much change in the future. Maybe we'll talk about it today, but I am fearing all the change. What
Zain
0:37
What change in particular do you fear, Carter? I
Carter
0:40
I don't want to have
Carter
0:41
to vote for Donald Trump, right?
Carter
0:45
that's where we're heading, is that we're all going to have to vote for him. I
Zain
0:47
I think he'll still give you an option on that. I don't
Shannon
0:49
don't think there's going to be any voting, you guys. So if we're there, voting a thing is not a thing we're doing. You
Zain
0:55
You misunderstand dictatorships. Yeah.
Zain
0:58
Yeah. No, no, no. They let you vote. The votes don't count. That's how it works.
Zain
1:03
That's true, yeah. They let you vote, but the votes don't count, okay? Yeah, it's just not free and fair. Kind of like the situation we had in Alberta for 50 years. I
Shannon
1:10
I was just going to say, I did live through the Klein years. Yeah.
Zain
1:14
Stephen Carter, this is episode 1903. I don't know if you know this. the year 1903, manpower flight, commercial aviation took off soon thereafter. And our presenting sponsor, Flair Airlines, they wanted you to know that, Stephen Carter. Aren't
Carter
1:27
Aren't they using the same technology? Not a sponsor. They are. They are
Carter
1:30
are using the same
Zain
1:31
The 1903. Many moved on. They went back.
Zain
1:35
Exactly. And I think it's good. It's good for them. By the way, speaking of airlines, have you seen
Zain
1:41
seen this fight between Elon Musk and the CEO of Ryanair?
Zain
1:46
Okay. Oh, me neither.
Zain
1:49
Elon Musk wants a Starlink on the airlines, and the CEO of Ryanair has told him to go fuck himself. In those words? Pretty much those words. He's saying that he's a limited man that doesn't understand aviation and should shut the fuck up. And
Zain
2:06
the escalation. Stephen Carter, you may have missed this. Elon Musk is contemplating just buying Ryanair.
Zain
2:12
This is the timeline we live in, Stephen Carter. Do you fear change?
Carter
2:15
do you fear change? I
Carter
2:16
I do. I fear all the change. And yeah, I have thoughts. I hope we get to cover some of the things that I'm worried about in my timeline, the
Carter
2:26
the one that I'm experiencing.
Zain
2:27
Well, let's just start because it seems like everything is connected. Shannon Phillips, we have a new strategic trade partnership with China. After the Mark Carney government set expectations, what I would describe as relatively low, I guess, based on their past history and trade negotiations, we've come up with a trade deal. We've got 50,000 Chinese EVs that now have a 6% tariff applied to them rather than the 100. In return, China is expected to slash combined tariffs on Canada canola from 84% to 15% by March 1st and suspend anti-discriminatory tariffs on lobster, crab, peas, etc. This has opened up a whole new pathway for people to talk about security and our relationship with China. This has opened up a whole new pathway for people to talk about morality and our dual track now strategy with China, which is, yeah, we don't agree on everything, but real politic, man, we got to get going. Where do you find yourself? Before I ask Shannon Phillips, the former cabinet minister, the policy advisor, the strategist, where do you kind of find yourself grappling with this element of what Mark Carney has described, our new world order, Shannon, with our new deal with China, especially given our relatively recent history as a country with
Shannon
3:43
There's one Venn diagram between me and Jason Kenney. It
Shannon
3:46
It is our mutual disdain of the People's Republic of China under its current Communist Party of China regime. I am not a fan. And, you know, Dan Williams, who is someone whose opinions range from odious to unacceptable and beyond, used to, you know, sometimes get up and make a statement in favor of Taiwan. on and i would find myself as one of the you know members of the caucus paying attention and you know uh feel myself uh aroused to uh uh support of such a statement i am
Shannon
4:17
on the same page as conservatives more often than i am liberals on the topic of china from a moral standpoint 100
Shannon
4:26
100 not interested but i mean that opinion of mine forged over the last 25 30 years or whatever it is has been in the context of there being you know well sometimes we would look down our nose at the democratic bona fides of our neighbor to the south at least they had some and
Shannon
4:44
and it was a much different world than we live in now so I am sympathetic to Mr Carney's positioning I am sympathetic to it for a number of reasons as a western Canadian as well but not only do we have some of these tricky things to navigate, right? Like, what is the leverage that we have with China on things like human rights, democratic reforms, and so on? I would say none. But what do we get on the other side as we open up our vehicle markets to Chinese products that are going to out-compete North American products?
Zain
5:25
Carter, give me your take as an Albertan, as a person and remove strategists for a second, how do you kind of, how are you reconciling this before we get into the hard-nosed political strategy of what Carney's done here and all the trade-offs that come with it?
Carter
5:38
I'm reconciling this simply by saying, you know, we have to have other partners other than the United States. We have to have other groups of people that we're trading with. There is no, you know, when Trudeau put the 100% tariff on Chinese vehicles following following uh following the u.s example it was a very different world it seems almost like it's it was unrelated to where we are now and
Carter
6:03
right now we need to have trading relationships with um with
Carter
6:08
with people who aren't trumpists and that
Carter
6:12
means going to the communists in some in some regard because they're the they're the next the next biggest market there's no uh you know we we should should have arrangements with India. I think we do have lots of arrangements with India, but we can't get there without involving some elements of China. This is a very beneficial deal for Alberta oil markets. It's a very beneficial deal for
Carter
6:38
for Alberta farmers and Western Canadian farmers. This is a very beneficial deal for lots of people, and it's only 3% of our total car car market. And half of those vehicles have to be in the $35,000 or under category. So we are looking at, are
Carter
6:57
are we looking at disrupting a little bit? Yeah, we are. I think anybody who has the opportunity to buy an electric vehicle will be looking at the Chinese-made electric vehicles. But
Carter
7:08
But we're looking at 3%, right?
Carter
7:10
right? And 3% is a nice opening, but given
Carter
7:16
given how much we got, But I think we had to do it. And I don't share Shannon's feelings about China. I think that we've been in an era of China where we ignore the human rights abuses and we move forward with the economic opportunities. We've been in that place for decades and decades. Ever since Nixon went to China, we decided that we needed to have this economic powerhouse on our side. And having them just simply make all the products that we buy isn't enough. uh we need to have them as an open market for our products and uh natural resources as well
Shannon
7:52
it's not just china right like
Shannon
7:54
like i just want to make this one point like it's it's also other you know assholes comma various and assorted uh it's uh it's cutter it's the saudis it's india right uh uh mr modi is uh certainly uh a fairly you know he does a lot of things that we don't like right he's not a not a great dude uh but what we're going to have to do is a foreign policy i think and i think this is where progressive canadians need to uh uh really in a domestic context think about this carefully because usually foreign policy doesn't matter too too much to winning or losing elections i i think that's different now and i think what progressive canadians are going to want to think through is our integration more with european union foreign policy and their positioning on those kinds of democratic reform questions and human rights questions. The European Commission, the European Union has charted their own course on this. We've been sort of drafting behind the U.S. State Department, USAID, as some of our Commonwealth and La Francophonie relationships, but we haven't really integrated with the EU on these questions of human rights, whether it's in China, in India, in developing countries in Africa, in the Gulf, whatever. So that is the positioning for us. It's the positioning for the NDP to be thoughtful and sort of for the left flank of the liberals to be thoughtful as well, I think. Let
Zain
9:18
Let me get back to the NDP in a second, because I do think there is room for them in this conversation that I have not seen them engage on just yet while they just so conveniently happen to be in a leadership race, comma, Stephen Carter. I asked you for your personal feelings. And so you You talked to me about your sort of pathway of reconciling. Now give me the real politic.
Zain
9:35
The package of what Mark Carney got us as Canadians and the package of how he communicated, and I think of that as primarily his longer response in the New World Order and how he rationalized things, and he talked about the new rails being formed, et cetera. Give me a grade on what Mark Carney produced for this country last week with that trade deal and the beginning of this sort of new landmark relationship with China.
Zain
10:00
From the politics, remove the feelings, which I know is very easy for you to do, Stephen Carter.
Carter
10:04
For our country? For Canada. I think it's an A+. And I think it's an A+. I think he nailed it, eh? No, I think it's an A+, because he sent a message to the United States and to some of the chief Trumpists, right? Elon Musk. You know, like, I own a Tesla. I would love to be able to get rid of my Tesla and get a Chinese-made electric vehicle. You've got no
Zain
10:26
no qualms about that, by the way, personally.
Carter
10:28
personally. None at all. None at all. I think that the truth of the matter is we need this market. We needed to get it open in the face of tariffs that are willy-nilly imposed. I mean, this extra 10% that's been imposed for those who are supporting Greenland or opposing the American imperialism of Greenland.
Carter
10:50
Greenland. You know, these things could be turned on us at any moment. We have to have worldwide relations. And I think that we are making significant strides with the European Union and Great Britain. But we need to be making significant strides with other significant markets, whether they be South American, Asian or European.
Zain
11:11
Shannon, give Carney a grade, you know, removing moral quandaries aside. Based on the real politic, what would you give him?
Shannon
11:19
I'd give him probably a B+. I'm not going to go A and here's why. Nobody fucking votes on foreign policy. If you ask a man on the street to spell out what NATO means, you'd get all kinds of reactions back. It is not the central preoccupation. The central preoccupation in the seat-rich environment is where you need to have an industrial policy, particular around what's going to happen with your auto manufacturing. And that's what this deal both, you know, doesn't address, but also leaves behind problematically. And there's been no resolution there. And so that's not for standing at the podium in Beijing to talk about, but it is for resolution back here at home. And that work, I haven't seen it. It's not been done. The auto parts manufacturers, the unions, they're rip shit mad. They should be. And so while, you know, great, Scott Moe is happy. Well, I mean, that's not the path to
Shannon
12:20
a carny majority, right? That path goes through Southwest Ontario. And that's where the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are at stake have not been addressed by this. So I have
Zain
12:31
have a very, very well-made point, Shannon, and I think we've acknowledged in the past that Carney's looking at this through—Carter, I think borrowing the term of yours, not political strategy, but economic strategy. And maybe the economic strategy is devoid of the seat count in the 905 Southern Ontario and the impacts, residual and direct, that especially on the EV side this may have. have how big of a hole i guess the way i want to ask you this question how big of a hole is this for carney to to to and because we see the ford populist bluster carney's
Zain
13:04
carney's got my number dude doesn't call i thought we were buds what the fuck like you know that's kind of the general vibe right and may have been accidentally a direct quote um of the guy but carter how big of a hole is this for carney to to come back from china and and then help the southern ontario uh half a million person auto sector? Or do you feel like this is not necessarily acquiring tactical or financial resources from the PM and his policy here?
Carter
13:32
The biggest threat to the Canadian automobile sector is the United States.
Carter
13:36
The United States is going, you know, if they start really ramping up and putting tariffs on our manufacturing and slowing down our manufacturing, the United States is really going to have an impact on that uh you know southern ontario area
Carter
13:51
area the the biggest risk to doug ford's province is not china um he he's already backed down he's already you know he's already said well i i don't agree with him on this one but you know we'll we'll work it through we're grown we're grown-ups we can get this done and uh you know my paraphrasing of doug ford um which
Zain
14:11
could also accidentally be a direct quote could
Carter
14:13
could be a direct quote you never know but this This is the, this
Carter
14:16
this is the opportunity that Carney is trying to, to, or this is the threat that Carney is trying to avoid. Carney is not trying to avoid a, you know, trying to open up an opportunity with China just for shits and giggles. He's, he's trying to open up the, the, the, the relationship with China, your relationship with the European Union, because the threat from the United States, the, the as yet unrealized threat from the United States is continuously morphing. I mean, we were 51st State 15 minutes ago, and now, you know, he's talking about invasions. Like, it's fucking
Zain
14:52
We'll get to that in a second. Shannon,
Zain
14:54
I could use your unique
Zain
14:56
unique perch talking to me about big labor because I understand their concerns. I understand their outrage. But I also buy a lot of what Carter just sold me right now, which is that Carney's New World Order comments responds also to a domestic level of risk appetite or future forwardness that we haven't necessarily – people are going to have to get uncomfortable before we get comfortable. And so if you're a big labor right now, do you play into that narrative? Do you buy anything he's selling? Do you push back? How are you thinking, even if the premier backs down, which today you could call a bit of a scale back from Ford, how are you thinking about this if you're auto parts manufacturers or any of the labor groups, or frankly, big labor overall, looking at what Carney has done
Zain
15:40
done here and may have set the groundwork for, which I think might even be the larger concern?
Shannon
15:47
you know, people can understand on like there's a there's there's a there's a thing called issues being vote determining and salient. Right. And so while we all understand that we need to expand our trading relationships, that the United States is an existential threat to us, that we need to make friends that we didn't want to make friends with people we didn't want to make friends with before. We need to even probably bargain some stuff away. What you are increasingly seeing is an environment where Mr. Carney has not bargained anything. He has simply given things away and not gotten anything back. And so for labor, I think what they need to figure out is where they can work with the government on finding leverage. This concept of leverage has not been used yet.
Zain
16:34
With America? Sorry, or with which
Shannon
16:36
which part? Well, yes, but also with, I mean, like government needs to figure out how they're doing an industrial policy here that gets them a bit of leverage, that gets them a bit of job security for those hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs are at stake.
Shannon
16:51
So labor has to do that. But there needs to be a sense of, you know, like, where is the strength here? Because all we have seen is just laying down a die on, you know, digital services tax and this tariff rate quota for vehicles. And you haven't seen Canada figure out what its own internal leverage is or what it is externally. internally and that is the piece that if it leads it continues to lead to job losses because it already has that's the piece that has electoral consequence and people don't care if the top line argument is correct if they can't pay the fucking bills and so that's that's the thing that is is very very dangerous for Carney's government because I don't see where he's figured that out yet.
Zain
17:39
Carter do you agree with the premise of the problem Shannon's put on the table and if so And even if you don't, help me solve it. Like, help me give me a strategic sort of layer of how, if I'm Carney, I'm starting to solve that pain point. Because he could be right on the macro, but Shannon makes a great point that he could very much be failing to deliver on the micro. Just a great promise of a new world order, even if I agree with it, does not necessarily give a vote to Carney if I cannot, you know, handle my day-to-day week-to-week. Listen,
Carter
18:10
Listen, governments fail primarily due to recession. Economic reasons are the reasons why government fails. Shannon experienced that firsthand, right? Because of the worldwide global issues around oil and gas prices resulted in the NDP being blamed for it, right? Reinforced a narrative. To be clear,
Shannon
18:29
it was all Rachel Notley's fault. I think we can agree
Zain
18:32
agree on that. Yes, indeed. Indeed. Yeah, I will co
Zain
18:34
co-sign on that. Carter, do you want to co-sign on that as well?
Carter
18:37
Absolutely. Yeah, okay. I mean, she was very powerful in the world. The next piece, so if you're concerned about losing your government to economic challenges, you have two choices. You can try and make a deal happen with people who are outside of that economic challenge, which is China, the European Union, uh south america um australia you know the pacific countries uh and and africa to a degree as well i mean we've got all these opportunities to make other deals or we can try and deal with the prime instigator and i i think that the problem is every time we try and do a deal with the prime instigator we're dealing with a lunatic and
Carter
19:21
and the trumpists that surround the lunatic are such that they They will continue to drive
Carter
19:33
absolutely economically devastating ideas for Canada as well as for their own markets. So, you know, it's not like this is going really well in the United States. This isn't going well in the United States either. either. But it's going to take time for it all unfold and the recession that Donald Trump seems to want to really lay
Carter
19:54
lay itself bare in both the United States and Canada.
Zain
19:58
Let me ask you a quick hit on Carney before I move it on to the conservatives, because they've had an response to this as well that I want to get your guys' sense on.
Zain
20:06
Strategic or not strategic, Shannon, for Carney to say that China is a better trade, I'm paraphrasing, trade ally than the the united states at this current moment he said something to that extent was
Zain
20:16
more reliable sorry okay there you go yeah
Zain
20:19
strategically sound or not yeah
Shannon
20:21
yeah uh in terms of what he's trying to do here uh it is and it's also has the benefit of being true i
Shannon
20:28
i like i mean mr she for all of his flaws are there you know many in legion uh is not waking up in the two o'clock in the morning and slapping a 10 tariff on us because we've got four soldiers on the ground in the Greenland, for fuck's sakes. Like, he's just not doing that. He might be doing other things that are objectionable, but you can kind of see them coming, you know, like Taiwan. But, so, you know, I think, yes, it is strategic. But what's not strategic is this, I mean, is this silence around what you're going to do domestically. And, you know, we've been carping on this since essentially February or March. Even since the campaign, there was sort of a bit of a sense of, OK, like, where is the where's the country's industrial strategy in response to this? And I think it's only more important now. And we still kind of haven't seen one. And that's where I think Carney needs to get his act together.
Zain
21:26
Strategically sound or not, Carter, we're more reliable trade ally than the U.S. calling China.
Carter
21:31
It's strategically sound. I mean, I totally agree with Shannon. uh it is it is both sound strategically and objectively true um so you know call it like it is and reset people's expectations for who we're going to be dealing with in the future as
Carter
21:47
as long as our um primary trading partner and let's be clear the united states has been our it is still our primary trading partner um we
Carter
21:58
we we are going you know all this diversification that we're doing is just simply, you know, fluff
Carter
22:05
around the edges because we're not going to undo the United States as our primary trading partner. But it's not wrong to say that China's a better partner than the United States.
Zain
22:17
Shannon, talk to me about the NDP here federally before I jump to the conservatives because I think we can do this in a quick round or two at max. There's obviously a NDP strategy to hog labor and workers. That seems very obvious. If you want to add any color to that, you can.
Zain
22:34
Where I'm more mixed, I guess, although I have a leaning, but I'm curious to get your take. Where I'm more mixed is if there is any strategic lane for the new Democrats to talk about the moral issue here. Democracy, Taiwan, Uyghur population, deals with China, CCP, that whole, I'm going to just call it a random but connected basket of things. No one's picking up on that right now. The conservatives are really about spy cars and security, and I'll talk about that in a second to get your take on.
Shannon
23:04
is there a lane here for the New Democrats that they should be playing outside of the hugging of labor?
Shannon
23:10
The NDP federally has always played that conscience of parliament role. I mean, back when Jack was saying we need to get out of Afghanistan, you know, way earlier than anyone else, I realized that we absolutely needed to get out of Afghanistan. You know, everybody just called him Taliban Jack, right? Right. But like the NDP has always played that role and they should continue to play that role. Is it the number one domestic conversation? Probably not. But there is a role for conscience of parliament. There is a role for the for the party to be pushing for a new both foreign assistance and foreign policy articulation and new partnerships on the global stage. No question about that. Vote determining? No. There's like four, you know, nerds and international NGOs that will pay attention and care. It doesn't matter. We still do it because that's part of who the party is. Right. And sometimes you're condemned to be yourself. The more important lane for both the New Democrats and the conservatives is how are we ensuring
Shannon
24:11
ensuring that our that we've got, you
Shannon
24:14
you know, government participation in the right kinds of of industries to make sure that we have jobs and we're protecting our economy and we're protecting key industries. industries that's that's the piece where uh they should be focusing all of their energies and working uh hard with labor uh there's a lane for the conservatives too i don't think they're going to take it carter
Zain
24:33
carter any comments on the ndb or can i move on to the conservatives for you you have anything to say that the the
Carter
24:37
the ndp and you know they're going to talk about this but the problem is there's so much upheaval in the world there's so many challenges in the world it just sounds like a litany of of problems being listed off uh when you start you know talking about china the united states and ice and you start talking about you know the the um the
Carter
24:57
the ukraine palestine it
Carter
24:59
it just there's so many fucked up things right now that you and all could be described
Zain
25:05
described as a ten alarm fire to be clear right like i don't think that they've been artificially
Zain
25:09
artificially inflated not to say you're suggesting that but i think the struggle i have and the reason i asked the question is that there really doesn't seem to be that
Zain
25:17
that conversation had with any sort of fever pitch ditch any one of those, really.
Carter
25:23
And it's really going to be very difficult if the NDP moves
Carter
25:28
moves away from its central premise, which is that Canadian workers should be paid more, Canadian workers should have a better economy to be participating in.
Carter
25:37
I would be very reticent to start listing off all the different challenges that are facing us in the world.
Zain
25:45
Carter, talk to me about
Zain
25:47
conservative grade to the conservative strategy for me, purely
Zain
25:51
purely security. It's an easy to understand message. You, Mark Carney, said they were the greatest threat. Now you're making strategic trade relationships, landmark deals with them, and you're letting their EVs, which are Wi-Fi and OTA updates over the air, come into our shores. What the actual fuck? You have a lot of explaining to do. That, in a nutshell, is the conservative tact at the moment against this trade deal. Graded for me. i
Carter
26:15
c minus i just don't see this being a big i mean my fucking tesla has grok on it for god's sake you know like what
Carter
26:24
am i supposed to like like
Carter
26:26
guys the world is falling apart uh the the united states is our biggest security threat right now people aren't concerned about chinese cars spying on when how often we go to duncan fucking donuts or tim hortons right like it just doesn't it doesn't matter uh what matters is um opening up a new market uh and and being uh as successful as possible in in accessing the world's i think it's the number two market but it's probably going to be number one in what five years yeah
Zain
27:00
yeah shannon someone who's had a a stronger kinship with the conservatives on the china file uh not to say not Not to say I am driving you to say something that you don't want to say, but do you have greater sympathy for this security line? How
Shannon
27:16
How would you grade it?
Shannon
27:18
Well, let's take the argument in two pieces. The first argument is like, well, you said, before you said, and
Shannon
27:26
you're saying something else. Bitchy
Zain
27:28
Bitchy and silly. Yeah, I agree. So
Shannon
27:31
So bad, right? Right. Like, you know, you are caged in as an opposition. If you're going back to you said something else before and now you're saying this, you just sound like just such a little bitch. Right. Like it just doesn't work at all. Now, the security argument, if it was kind of in a more patriotic, wrapped in a more patriotic to Canada argument and like we should be, you know, supporting our own cars and we should be supporting our own industries and and wrapping yourself in the flag. You know, we should be able to compete with these cars on the, you know, these Chinese cars on the international stage. We should be shoring up our own industries and we should be protecting Canada and protecting industries. I would have a lot more sympathy if it was wrapped in that kind of sort of a vibe as opposed to weird 5G World Economic Forum. The Chinese are listening to your half-baked conversations sort of a vibe. those that that's where the the line of argumentation is going for mr paliafra and it certainly doesn't work for me but i don't think it works for the vast majority of canadians once again he's going at that that really narrow base of 25
Shannon
28:44
25 30 percent of canadians uh and and not understanding that he's got a whole lane on patriotism and you know conservatives used to wrap themselves in the flag they don't do that anymore they're uh and it shows carter
Zain
28:59
point around what pivot or what tweak you would make to the conservative message from last week i'll ask you the same question um you know inspired by shannon's comments which is what would you uh what tweak would you make for paulieff uh based on on his current lane that he's playing in i
Carter
29:14
i mean following ford is the right way to go i mean when doug ford came out against this agreement he was essentially the lone voice i mean scott moe was singing uh carney's praises um you know this is this was a great opportunity i think for pierre pauliev to follow forward and to start to i don't want to say reconcile but close the gap that exists between that progressive conservative party and the conservatives uh in
Carter
29:42
in general or the canadian conservatives um but
Carter
29:46
but instead they they wanted to write their own they want to write their own message all the time and they wrote their own message this time and i think that it just misses is the mark it's not uh
Carter
29:56
uh i don't even think it speaks to 20 25 percent of the population shannon i i think it might speak to 15 to 20 percent of the uh core conservatives um that are fearful of china and still have that chinese fear i think most people right now most canadians most most conservatives uh with the notable exception of the alberta separatists are uh are absolutely terrified of what's happening in the united states uh although i guess the conservatives would lay down their arms as soon as they invaded so it's all fine uh
Shannon
30:27
uh carter let's say yeah
Shannon
30:29
yeah i just want to i will say that probably ever did have one tweet on the uh one posting on the website that uh uh publishes child pornography that website he put a post on that website that said uh something like some really supportive things of uh uh
Shannon
30:45
uh the auto industry and jobs and and then but then quickly that evaporates into chinese spice car spy cars right
Shannon
30:54
right and that to me i honestly
Carter
30:56
honestly is a takeaway because
Zain
30:56
because that's what you have michael chong kind of talking about across the the airwave that seems to have been their thing um
Zain
31:01
um they didn't go down the worker path exclusively they now coined but they had it there well
Zain
31:06
well they they coined another three-word slogan chinese spy cars and like that now we know that like as a like you know as a phrase. And to their detriment, I think, I tend to agree with you that the pie here or the universe here is relatively small for them to pick up on.
Zain
31:24
Carter, let's talk about your fears of change. Which ones do you, which one is the greatest fear of change for you, Stephen Carter? Is it, do you want to talk about Greenland? Do you want to talk about Canada? Because there's recent reporting that NBC and others have made over this past weekend alone that talks about Trump's eye towards canada not being well not real and then there's a new element that has been added i shouldn't say officially but we've got further evidence now an affidavit by national security experts sounding the alarm that separatist petition is not only extremely vulnerable to u.s foreign interference that conversations have already begun around some of the financing from down south to fund elements of the separatist uh referendum in which i'll remind our listeners They are currently collecting their signatures for, are in their four-month window to do so. So, Carter, where do you want to start? Do you want to start in Greenland? Do you want to start us as a country and maybe perhaps Alberta as the first part of picking off an invasion into Canada? Or do you want to talk about foreign interference? All of these are connected, I guess. They
Carter
32:26
They could all be called foreign
Carter
32:28
So, where do you want to start? They're all connected and they're all linked together. I mean, I think that one of the things to remember is that imperialistic countries are imperialistic beyond, you
Carter
32:40
you know, they're not just trying to get one territory. You know, the going and getting Greenland is just the beginning of the imperialist nature. They will grab more. They will grow into other areas, whether those areas are in, you know, the, you
Carter
33:01
know, the Cuba range or if they're in Canada's range, anything that's worth grabbing, they will grab. And if they feel like they are entitled to Alberta's oil and that there was some sort of, you know, tomfoolery with our referendum, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see, you know, the troops massing at the Montana border as an absolute and direct threat to the Canadian country. country you know canada is in general i'm terrified of this
Carter
33:39
this pro-expansionism this pro-imperialism that is coming out of trump's mouth because it doesn't have a natural end once you take greenland you may as well take canada once you've taken canada what's next right you
Carter
33:54
you know cuba is on the table mexico is on the table how do you control the immigration problem take them over over
Carter
34:01
right take him over you've already got venezuela you
Carter
34:05
you know what what's next i'm just absolutely terrified of what's next out of these out of his mouth be and it and don't think that we've got time don't
Carter
34:15
don't think oh this is just the ramblings of a lunatic and it could take years for it to be to to be uh implemented we are watching the real-time implementation of ice and it has taken a very short period of time you know before you've got the head of ice what What is his name? Dan Bugniotto or whatever his name is, walking
Carter
34:35
walking down the fucking streets of Minneapolis wearing a Nazi length trench coat. You know, he's not wearing that thinking, you know, I really like a long length slicker. It makes me look good. He's wearing that because he knows exactly what the fuck he looks like.
Carter
34:50
Right. And that's what he wants to be perceived as. I don't want us to be using the word Nazis anymore when we're talking about these guys. They're Trump is fashion.
Zain
34:57
I think fascists is I don't
Carter
34:59
don't think they're even fascists. They are Trumpists. They are in a cult of personality. They are simply following Trump, and they have imperialistic desires, and those imperialistic desires are going to be realized at some point.
Zain
35:17
Carter, do you still have your bunker before I move on to Shannon?
Carter
35:19
It's not a bunker, which is very disturbing. It's a bug-out plant. Okay, it's a bug-out plant. And we've started to update it based on the – because the invasion problem is a different problem than what I was thinking.
Zain
35:32
Shannon, it's hard to laugh, but it's
Zain
35:38
it's hard to laugh. It's hard not to laugh, and it's hard to not take anything Carter has put here at face value based on recent actions
Zain
35:48
actions by the U.S.
Zain
35:50
I want to get to a point where we can have a conversation, even on this episode, around, like, how people should be processing this and how they should be acting upon this. So maybe I'll start with you on an individual. How are you processing this and how are you thinking about acting on this suite of things? Let's start with Alberta. Alberta, separatism connected to American imperialism.
Shannon
36:09
Oh, I'm not, I mean, on separatism, I'm just continuing to, you know, say the things that normal people think. which is that it's really bad for the economy, extremely destabilizing and invites foreign interference by a bunch of fascists. And I'm perfectly right. So there's that and I do think that we are all going to have to put our oar in the water in terms of a campaign later this year because if it's not a referendum on separation, it's a referendum on separation's policy platform and
Shannon
36:38
and so we're all going to have to have that conversation. On a personal level I know some people in Minneapolis Minneapolis and, you know, day before yesterday, I just texted to them and I'm like, give me some organizations that can take money from outside of Canada. And I'm going to signal boost them because people can't go to the laundromat or pay their rent or anything else. Because like, we're in a like quite literal, like Anne Frank situation in the city of Minneapolis, St. Paul. And so that is what I did. I mean, and I think we should all be thinking about that. How do we help people um because
Shannon
37:13
because 50 bucks goes a long way uh and uh so there's that um but uh i think for canadians in politics we need to think about um i really do think we need to think about what patriotism means uh and uh what like you know and and on the left certainly patriotism nationalism these have been words that that were sort of rendered kind of dirty words in the last 30 years But we were always, especially on the progressive left, about, you know, our strong border and a national industrial policy and, you know, that sense of Canadian identity and Canadian exceptionalism as distinct from the United States. You know, and then we had 30, 40 years of neoliberalism and globalization kind of batter those identities down. But it is time to have that conversation over and above some of the, you know, dangerous distractions and divisions that have come at us from the far right. That is what we need to be doing. And we need to get over ourselves. We need to have adult conversations across parties on this and have that, I think, revive that sense of Canadian identity. You know, go back to our Mel Hurtig books and pull them off the shelf. See what they got in there for us. So I tend to agree with everything you said there.
Zain
38:32
And as three folks who talk about this stuff on a podcast and then try our best to like act it into the universe, I think we've got a pretty good like understanding
Zain
38:41
understanding of the state of affairs.
Zain
38:46
how do I say this? I'm pretty concerned by the lack of activity. Is
Zain
38:51
Is that a fair, tell me if that's a fair statement. Like, this seems to be like any other, everyone's waiting for someone to take the lead, and now that Lukaszek has done it for Alberta, are we just going to task him for saving the country? And I don't mean to hyperbolize. I'm trying to keep myself in a guardrail that's relatively reasonable or reasonable-minded. But I am concerned by the lack of activity.
Carter
39:16
See, I think I'm not as concerned. I think we're at the talk stage. Tell me why. I think we're at the talk stage. We're not at the action stage. I mean, what are we going to do, right? Are we all going to go out and buy guns and get prepared to stage a rally? No, we're going to buy Canadian flags
Zain
39:32
flags and at least get that ship going again from
Carter
39:34
from early Jan. You know what? I was literally just thinking I should get a Canadian flag and put it on my balcony.
Carter
39:40
Yes, again, let's start. This is literally what I was just thinking. I do want to see that type of action, putting the Canadian flag out on your house, is exactly something that we should be doing. But I don't think that we're setting up a militia that's going to stand at the Coutts border crossing. um i i just you
Carter
40:02
you know i don't know how to stop donald trump from from deciding that he wants this piece of uh of the risk uh you know the risk board right he's just oh i'm gonna roll my dice he's got all the dice he's got all the men what
Carter
40:17
what are we gonna do right we're gonna stand there and watch you
Carter
40:21
you know this this is if they wish to be imperialistic towards us they're going to be be imperialistic towards us like there is very little we can do i think that is both cogent
Zain
40:31
cogent analysis and defeatist organizing i
Zain
40:33
i guess is where i am stuck with right
Zain
40:35
right he's like yeah carter i'm not going to be part of a militia okay i've been spending the last 20 years trying to perfect chai right like i'm not i'm not the i'm not the person we need okay i have no biceps or triceps i've been i've been working on something else okay a lot more important uh however right i i do think there there is, I do still feel an organizing deficit. I do feel an urgency deficit. I do feel an attention and seriousness and reconciling with what's happening deficit. Maybe that's what I'm trying to articulate to you.
Carter
41:09
I mean, I'm interested to hear what Shannon has to say, because my view is, I don't know how we organize this. This goes back to the conversation we had last week when we said, you know, do we organize against the signatures? And
Carter
41:23
And I don't mean to have have the
Zain
41:24
the same conversation again but i do think there's another element that's been added on it's not
Carter
41:27
not the same conversation it's
Carter
41:29
it's a different conversation because they're talking about invading our country shannon
Zain
41:35
yeah shannon what do we fucking do what
Carter
41:36
what do we do shannon
Shannon
41:37
shannon what do we do well
Shannon
41:42
i guess the first question is is it is it is it in alberta we're all albertans uh or is it uh uh nationally or is it kind of in alberta test drive some shit and uh uh then you you know, kind of export it with more kind of national concerns. That's number one. Number two, what are the issues that are, like, is it just we are Canadians, we need to be strong Canadians? I actually don't mind that because we have seen some instances since the end of April where our elbows are down and we're just penguin walking, you know, fucking Charlie Chaplin walking into this, into our conversations with the Americans. So we do need to get those elbows back up a little bit. We do need both a defensive and an offensive posture.
Shannon
42:27
And that comes from the people. Mark Carney, I think we have just seen, is not, by dint of character, really disposed to an aggressive sort of posture vis-a-vis other CEOs south of the border. He's not interested in such a thing. uh but so but he was pushed to that from public opinion uh and as these uh events sort of ramp up south of the border there's clearly an appetite from uh canadians to go back to that so giving canadians some very specific things we can do number one our alcoholics already tanked the americans uh alcohol business so find another one that we can fuck with uh and remind canadians as as that booze comes back on the shelf, that we shouldn't be buying it. And, you know, give Canadians another two or three things that they can, not everything, so we're not standing in the grocery store endlessly looking at labels, but two or three products that we can go after just as much. Do make it easier for people to go to one place to, you know, like they went and got the hats for a little while, but make it easier for Canadians to go and get their other, you know, know, performative flags or other, you know, demonstrations of their patriotism. Sure, that's part of a campaign, quote unquote. That is part of something that civil society can do. I do think that in Ontario, it is time for a Defend Ontario Jobs specific campaign
Shannon
43:52
to talk to Ontarians about if they're, you know, like, that we're starting to see some evidence of of union jobs being sold down the river. So it's time to start kicking back and
Shannon
44:04
and to make that hurt a little bit and open up that lane for the New Democrats. And if the Conservatives want to occupy it, there's probably some space there. And I think there's a great appetite from Canadians. But and then, you know, there's there's other things that people beyond the political can do and
Shannon
44:21
and should do. Right. And in fact, because politics is now downstream from culture, are probably, we're probably better off to start talking about these things in cultural terms. And, you know, we would never vote for this. Wrap yourself in the flag, Canada. It's true. We wouldn't, at least not
Zain
44:43
one more question on this before I go to Greenland.
Zain
44:45
Just a small thing that maybe- You're actually going to go to Greenland? Yeah. Because
Zain
44:49
would be a pretty
Carter
44:49
pretty important step. That'd be good. Well,
Zain
44:51
Well, we might see sending troops there. I want to talk to you about that, if that's a good idea. Carter, project into the future for me. The
Zain
44:59
The U.S.'s rhetoric on invasion becomes stronger. Alberta's referendum continues its signature collection, if not is officially granted petition status. We debated last week about whether that's happening or not. Go with me here, though, right? Almost irrelevant in some ways, whether they get to my question, that is. this
Zain
45:15
is not going to be one campaign to save us all to be clear like as campaigners i
Zain
45:20
i i think shannon's inner answer is acknowledged and i'm curious if you agree that this is not going to be one campaign to save us all this is not going to be forever canadian this is going to be citizen initiatives multiple campaigns politicians non-politicians culture celebrity pop like culture like all that or
Zain
45:37
or it needs to be i guess is what i'm saying it needs to be like even if you you don't know what to do carter give me a sense of the pieces on the board that at least need to be in play that's kind of what i'm curious to get your your your take on this i
Carter
45:50
i mean i think it is multiple campaigns i think it is multiple levels of campaigns i think it's the business community rallying uh i mean there there has to be every community needs to rally and fight its own battle um you know whether it's uh hockey teams or schools or i mean imagine the changes that would happen in our society.
Carter
46:13
The Western alienation is hilarious compared to what we'd be faced with if we were part of a United States. And let's be clear, I don't think we'd be a state. I think we'd be a territory, right?
Carter
46:26
right? We would be Puerto Rico. And you
Carter
46:31
you don't have to look very hard to see the disdain with which Americans treat Puerto Ricans. I would imagine that we'd be just the exact same, seen as nothing but a drain. Our Canadian identities around health care, we need, you know, everybody who's involved, everybody who's sought or had health care needs to start to realize what this threat really means. What this threat really means is that an end to our Canadian way of life. And we need to start fighting back collectively in multiple campaigns. But I think right now, I
Carter
47:03
I still think the best ways for us to do it is be talking amongst Amongst our groups and all of us saying the same message, fuck Trump. Socializing it.
Zain
47:14
Speaking of fuck Trump, Shannon Greenland, part of us, part of it seems like it's inevitable. The other part of it seems it's preventable. Troops being sent on the ground by NATO allies, Canada contemplating sending these symbolic troops to the ground or on the ground to Greenland. What's your take here on Canada's role? What we need to do as Trump rhetoric, even today, gets even more stark with why he's doing this. You didn't award me the Nobel Peace Prize. I no longer give a fuck about peace exclusively. I'm going to take this place. That's pretty much what that letter said. Shannon, how are you thinking about Canada's role here? here?
Shannon
47:54
Canada is a northern nation, and Inuit who live in Canada share a great deal with Greenlandic Inuit, and
Shannon
48:03
and it's also in our national security interest to exercise our sovereignty in Canada's north, and part of that is understanding self-determination for Inuit in Canada and also in Greenland. So that's my introduction to saying Canada absolutely should be sending troops. We are are either in NATO or we're not.
Shannon
48:23
And we need to we need to be serious, right? Like, are we a serious country or not? And this is this is a fantastic opportunity for Mr. Carney to figure out how he's going to make his 2% NATO target over
Shannon
48:39
over the course of this budget year by investing first and foremost in people, in the people of the Canadian Armed Forces, and making sure that they have the best training and the best equipment, sure. But they also have very, very good salaries. And it is a career that we aspire to, that has civilian purpose, when needed. Again, we're a northern country, we're a remote country, there are many, many instances where an emergency response, we do require the military, and we should have more of them. And we should invest in that emergency response capability. But also, for these national security reasons. Now, we have bases up there, there that are NORAD outposts that are co-managed with the United States. The Americans are there with us. And the only other people around, the people that are doing the rangers activity are Inuit. And the communities that they come from do not have the appropriate water, housing, social infrastructure, roads, ports, all of the things that crisis response, all of the things that we need to make sure that we have safety safety, and security for people who live up there. That is a national project. There is nothing, I think, regressive about it. I think it is fundamentally progressive. It is pro-people politics. And it is a massive state investment that is about much more than understanding the military as toys for boys. And that has to be how we think about this, in my view, if we're going to take a progressive approach to it. I have not heard any of this come from anyone in a position of decision-making. And there's a beautiful opportunity to do so. And it can start with send well-equipped, well-trained, well-paid troops to Greenland and show that a career in military service has a civilian applicability, that has civilian respect, and that it's about national security for the country and for the North and for the people who live in the North, which is the UN.
Zain
50:50
Carter, what do you think of our NATO commitment here? Do you agree that we have to send troops on the ground?
Carter
50:56
We have to put troops on the ground. We should be putting troops on the ground this week.
Carter
50:59
We shouldn't be dawdling. We should try and find out whatever exercises are happening up there. And we should send our very best troops. You know, this is one of those moments where you send your best trained troops, not just your um you know you know and it doesn't have to be a full division it doesn't have to be a big big group it just needs to have troops on the ground that say we
Carter
51:25
we understand the threat and we're we're here to resist i'm intrigued with what we should do with NORAD uh
Carter
51:31
uh i don't have an answer to it but
Carter
51:34
at some point um maybe NORAD's outlived its usefulness for canada why
Carter
51:42
Why do I say that? Because I'm a lunatic. Because at this point, I don't think, I find it very difficult that we're serving in a joint
Carter
51:51
joint capacity with someone who wants to invade us.
Carter
51:55
Call me crazy. you.
Zain
51:56
The brighter question here to me, Shannon, that we haven't gotten to is
Zain
52:01
is the reason Mark Carney was elected was to get us the trade deal with the United States. And then what Mark Carney then took as a mandate was I need to diversify my trading partners, which he's attempted to do with the EU, as we briefly alluded to. We talked about the China deal extensively. We talked talked in past episodes about India and other places.
Zain
52:23
What does this do from a political strategy perspective for Mark Carney in terms of the time it buys him and the latitude he has on the U.S. side of things, right? Trump continues to want to invade. So you think that that invasion of Greenland, let alone Canada, like furthers this narrative that Trump is still serious and crazy and hard to deal with and hard to negotiate with. But is there any penalty or risk for Carney to not delivering this thing sooner rather than later, or has he just, from a pure political perspective, bought himself more time?
Shannon
52:58
I'm going to quibble with the premise. I don't think he was elected to narrowly get us through Kuzma. Again, I think most people who switched from NDP to Liberal or from Conservative to Liberal in some key seats, the reason why they did that is because they saw him as an adult who is able to meet the moment, whatever the moment means, and it can mean something different at 2 o'clock in the morning from a true social post than it means at 6 o'clock in the morning. And I think that's what Canadians were reacting to when they gave Carney
Shannon
53:29
Carney keys to Rideau Cottage. So I think, yeah, it buys him an explanation as to why we don't have a fucking deal, because you're dealing with a crazy person. um and uh and i think increasingly canadians are are of the view and it seems like the government of canada is of this view that what why would we want to negotiate with this person let's ride the puck for as long as we can uh because at least this sort of quiet cosmo situation that we're in you know that gets abrogated uh on on certain files i periodically is a preferable situation overall for a trading relationship than than uh having a new deal that you know is not great, like, for example, is prevailing in the UK.
Shannon
54:16
So this is, that wasn't his mandate, but I think that maybe his numbers even come up in response to these latest threats because Canadians elected him for a broad range of reasons around adult-in-the-room kind of a vibe.
Zain
54:35
Carter, talk to me about this. Talk to me about what this does for Carney on the US file. while. Does it buy him time? Does it give him other strategic outs? Does he even have to get a deal between now and the next? Give me give me a sense of what you think this
Zain
54:47
this has kind of meant for him.
Carter
54:49
I think that the deal
Carter
54:50
deal with a madman, I mean, when we talked about elbows up, we were talking about not getting run over.
Carter
54:56
And that, you know, continues to be a problem, not because Trump's kind of trying to run us over, but because he's literally a madman who you can't predict how he's going to behave in any given moment um you know it did we didn't elect mark kearney to be neville chamberlain who just you know kept folding uh in the face of hitler um we are you know we're and we're watching now as mark kearney uh realizes that there seems to be very little to do on the front of the united states and as such has moved his his uh negotiations somewhere else rather than just continually having to acquiesce to the ramblings of the madmen.
Zain
55:39
I'm going to move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. And I've really only got one question for you. And Shannon, I'm going to start with you. How important is it for Mark Carney that this China deal is met by subsequent, quickly met by subsequent other deals that are signed? EU, other places in the world that kind of showcase this momentum. Or does this, or in your mind, is just this one and done, and large enough to buy him more time between the next deal.
Shannon
56:05
think what's important is that we see some new jobs being created as a result of whatever he's doing when he's flying around, right? So I think new plants in southern Ontario, new auto manufacturing, different, you know, like either the South Koreans or the Germans have been bandied about. Those kinds of new investments, those are important.
Shannon
56:30
That, like the doing, right? Some kind of results, not like I got a deal with the EU, but I got some new investments from a German pharmaceutical company, or I got some new investments of, you know, a new Hyundai plant, whatever, right? That is what he needs. Again, I'm going back to the domestic here. I think it's just really important that he doesn't lose the plot. Because there's a whole lane of him just talking to CEOs and hanging around the World Economic Forum of criticism of him. Meanwhile, it's just pink slips and EI lines at home.
Shannon
57:10
That's a real vulnerability for him, and it's an albatross. us carter
Zain
57:15
talk to me about this does car does carney need subsequent quick trade deals to kind of make the case that we're truly diversifying or does this buy him enough time to to you know until the next one or until our next sort of uh continuation here i
Carter
57:29
i don't think that mark carney thinks he's got time i
Carter
57:32
i think mark carney thinks that everything is moving up at a very high pace if you take a look at uh like immediately he leaves china and goes to was it qatar katar katar and then davos
Zain
57:44
believe davos this week
Carter
57:47
he's gonna go he's going to keep going around the world i mean the man has barely had a break for christmas and he's just been flying everywhere trying to make as many deals as possible i think he's signaling to us that he honestly believes he's got to have the world's strongest relationships with the rest of the world possible because the united states just isn't going to be a partner
Zain
58:10
what wild times we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1903 of the strategist carter uh brought to us by flare airlines i don't know if you know this flight 1903 yep they're using that technology um so not a sponsor okay well why why do you have to do that why do you have to do that it's like every time i hear not a sponsor now i feel like someone wants to run for office trump
Shannon
58:32
to run for office i just don't
Carter
58:32
don't want to be sued what do you want to run It's not going to get sued. They're delighted to have us.
Zain
58:37
They are. We are pretty much their entire marketing budget. My name is Zane Velja. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.