Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a strategist episode 1904. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. How are you, friends?
Carter
0:10
Everyone missed the old countdown that we had. You
Carter
0:12
You know, when Axum goes five, four, and
Carter
0:17
then you start talking. It was pretty great. It
Carter
0:19
It was great. Now we have this new electronic thing. Like, Axum's nearly been replaced. It's tragic.
Zain
0:26
You can get rid of them. Save some costs. costs 1904 by the way steven carter does that did you think we'd make it this far to
Carter
0:32
to the year 1904 no i did not i would know to the episode
Carter
0:36
but i'm not really sure that we've done 1904 episodes i'm not sure that the numbering system will hold up to scrutiny
Carter
0:43
uh which shannon is probably bringing to the table she's probably going to want us to go back and fill
Carter
0:47
fill in the 800 episodes that we haven't done why
Zain
0:51
why would you let people in on that shannon please welcome hello hi how
Shannon
0:55
how are you uh
Zain
0:58
so a little bit too much enthusiasm given yeah i'm not happy yeah
Shannon
1:01
yeah i know but you know given world
Shannon
1:02
uh there's just so many nice people out there you guys and i think we really have to focus in on that right now there's so many lovely people out there they listen to this show uh
Shannon
1:12
uh where's this going
Shannon
1:13
i'm just saying that doesn't feel right well
Shannon
1:16
well i'm just saying that you gotta take your you know uh good things where you can find them you guys you can't not just wallow all the time uh zane in your basement please
Zain
1:24
please let us let us let us in let us in who are you talking about in particular i
Shannon
1:29
i am talking about a lovely woman that i met the other night at the vet clinic and i really hope that she
Zain
1:34
she has a name we need it we need a name her
Shannon
1:35
her name is marissa and she was a lovely woman and
Shannon
1:38
and uh i was paying my bill at the vet clinic uh things are not great in the four-legged department in this house uh but um and she was there she's a very very nice woman. And I also just talked to another one of our listeners named Ben, who is in BC, very nice man. And, you know, there's just so many lovely Canadians out there who listened to this show. I feel sorry for them that they are, you know, such big longtime fans of this show, but they're long suffering and they deserve wonderful shout outs. And everybody is suffering through shitty times in this world. And we just have to be kind to one another.
Zain
2:14
for this. That's a Jesus
Zain
2:16
Jesus fucking Christ. You know what I want to do, Carter? Carter. Unilaterally, I've got an idea. Let's do it.
Carter
2:20
I'm in. I don't even care
Zain
2:22
care what it is. Okay. So we have great listeners. I agree with that. And we also are in a cost of living crisis. Yeah. Okay. Which is why I want to offer our Patreon for
Zain
2:32
for a dollar more than it is right now.
Zain
2:34
I actually want to increase the cost. In the midst of this cost of living crisis, I think what we should do is
Zain
2:40
is increase the cost of our Patreon. Yeah.
Zain
2:43
Yeah. I want to
Zain
2:45
to provide Anybody know how to do this?
Zain
2:48
I do not know how to do this, but I want to do it really badly. Just after hearing that story, it made my heart hearten.
Zain
2:55
And so my heart hearten, just so you're clear. Well,
Carter
2:58
Well, I don't know what's hard over there, but I'm pretty unhappy about it.
Zain
3:01
Yeah, that's good. At that age, I'm sure you are. Yeah,
Shannon
3:04
Yeah, well, I think we should definitely contribute to the cost of living crisis. Thank you.
Zain
3:08
you. We should help. Yeah, we should. This is the way we help. So thank you, Shannon, for sharing that anecdote. out uh it has been the direct result of now us increasing our patreon uh
Zain
3:19
uh subscription right because we don't like by an extra dollar i
Carter
3:22
i don't understand no i think that much listeners it's just the wrong
Zain
3:25
wrong yeah it's the
Carter
3:26
the wrong tone it's
Zain
3:27
it's when when shannon yings we have to yang steven yeah it's
Zain
3:31
it's a zig and zag situation here's where i'm the nice uh speaking that's
Shannon
3:34
that's what people say about me uh speaking
Zain
3:35
speaking speaking of hard-ons um big dick energy from mark carney steven carter um it is It is being called the greatest speech of all time. It is being called a legacy-making speech. It is being called nothing but positive. Stephen Carter, I want to get down to the brass tacks of a strategist and analyze. Was Mark Carney's 17 Minutes in Heaven on the Davos stage as good as it is being written about in
Zain
4:02
in the papers and in the columns across the world? Stephen Carter, top line, give it to me straight. Most
Carter
4:08
of the time what happens is that we get too excited about something, we blow it up out of proportion, and then it becomes forgotten in a few weeks or a few months. Or
Carter
4:17
we find out after time, like for example, the knockout punch of Mulroney in his debate with John Turner, it kind of developed over the course of days, right? It took some time for it to develop. So
Carter
4:31
So there's two types of communications. One that is we blow it up out of proportion, and the other is it takes a few days to come around. And the truth of the matter is this has been blown up out of proportion, but it
Carter
4:47
it also seems to be working. Like people three days later are still remembering and talking about the Davos speech. This is something that I think that world leaders are going to be reflecting on. And it wasn't just a speech for Canadians.
Carter
5:02
It was a speech for his peers. And as such, as a speech for his peers, it had it spoke to a to both the target audience of his peers, as well as those of us who just, you know, are his underlings who just, you know, we just vote for the man. That's all we do. But my goodness, what a speech. What an absolute fucking command performance, Stu. Like it was just it
Carter
5:28
it was it was a day to be proud to be Canadian. And normally we like to take the piss from people, but I
Carter
5:35
I was super pleased with that. I just was
Carter
5:37
was super impressed by the speech.
Zain
5:40
Shannon Carter's gushing like a motherfucker, which is what he does like clockwork every five years. So I have not heard Stephen Carter this positive since the Jeb Bush presidency or near the tail end of the Jeb Bush presidency, which was a great four years. I like Jeb
Zain
5:58
Shannon, are you on board the Carnot Express in congratulating Mark Carney to the same level? And then let's get into the whys, because I'm curious about your W-H-Y whys in a second.
Shannon
6:09
Yes, because Canadians have been in the spotlight of, you know, the big bad orange man within the eye of Sauron many, many times. And
Shannon
6:20
And yet, for whatever reason, I think we have felt like we have not been supported
Shannon
6:25
supported on the international stage by that. Whether that was Keir Starmer's extremely tepid responses to kind of standing up for us, whether that's been the EU kind of really trying to mollify Trump. And we
Shannon
6:42
we spent 2025 feeling like nobody was really paying any attention to
Shannon
6:47
to the fact that, you know, the world's most
Shannon
6:52
most advanced military in the history of the planet was running around talking about annexing us. So this got us the global attention that I think we as Canadians felt like we
Shannon
7:03
we deserved and that we had been waiting for. And that's the domestic piece of it, is that Canadians have been essentially waiting for an articulation of our importance on the international stage. It also feeds straight into Carney's electoral coalition.
Shannon
7:19
Boomers remember the concept of middle powers. Boomers remember the Pearsonian foreign policy, the last time that we were proud of our foreign policy and that it was something that was maybe while not vote determining, it was certainly nation defining.
Shannon
7:35
And so there's that piece. uh
Shannon
7:38
uh and i i also think that
Shannon
7:41
that we are in a moment and and carney is the kind of politician that you
Shannon
7:45
you know he could fall into some
Shannon
7:47
some of the pitfalls of of looking like kind of a regular ass politician right he's a banker for heaven's sakes uh but for him to go up and engage in plain talk and
Shannon
7:59
and in authenticity and in straight speech uh
Shannon
8:03
uh there's there's persuasion in
Shannon
8:05
in that uh that i I think we've also been waiting for. We've been in this moment where, you know, maybe Canadians are starting to wonder, is he wobbly? His elbows are down. But there was a persuasion of, no, actually, he's with us. He's just with us on a larger stage and a bigger plane than some of the domestic preoccupations in
Shannon
8:30
in terms of our desire to see our sovereignty reflected, our self-determination articulated so yeah it was exactly what we needed in this moment
Shannon
8:43
big eggplant uh energy yeah
Zain
8:45
big eggplant energy i i i i agree completely um he should know about that uh stephen carter yes here's the thing about
Zain
8:55
about okay i want to talk about the substance of it and i'm actually going to not let you guys go where everyone else goes in terms of let's just Let's just put some stuff on the table. The tone, the length, the words, the prose, all of that. Excellent. In a second here, I want you to go deeper in terms of what Stephen Carter, the political strategist, saw that made this thing very effective. And I'll come to you, Shannon, in a second on that same question. However, before we do that, Carter, there is something, I don't know if ironic is the right word, but there's something rich in the fact that a seminal, if not legacy-making, if not historic speech by a Canadian prime minister is given at Davos when, let's just say one year to the day, we were fighting about the WEF and global elites and Pierre Pauliev saying that one of the principal things that the Pauliev government would never allow allow to happen is to have him or any of his ministers go to that that fuck show known as davos and carter one year later here we are so opine on that for a moment before i ask you back to the substance of the speech and and give me your with maybe without using the word trump give me your analysis of of the journey there uh and the political cost of that one pierre poliev certainly didn't seem like he was paying at the time but
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