Transcript
SPEAKER_02
0:04
This is The Strategists, episode 539. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? I'm good. I'm excellent. We are off the heels of recording episode 538 in celebration of the nation down south. How do you think that went, Corey?
Corey
0:17
I always like talking about our American friends, especially Trump, crazy bastard that he is. But I think on certain instances, we betrayed a bit of an ignorance of our neighbors. Very American
Corey
0:28
Very American of us. You were right on point in that sense. In fact, if anybody asks about any of those mistakes we made, any of those omissions we made. We didn't make them. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, that's like eating a cheeseburger with a hot dog and potato chips on it. It's just American.
Carter
0:44
even know where to go. Don't let facts
Corey
0:45
facts get in the way of opinion.
Carter
0:45
opinion. First of all, I mean, I think that our listenership would take an all-Trump episode. And I'm going to ask that our moderator consider that at some point. Because the Trump Express, I don't know if it's going up or down, but it's going somewhere. Somewhere, for sure. We'll
SPEAKER_02
1:00
We'll have to cover it at some point. But at the same time, guys, we've got a very interesting election happening right now. And I'm calling it that. Frankly, the election has begun. I mean, we were thinking that this summer was going to be summer barbecue season, but the attack ads are out and there's a lot to cover. So let's move it right along to our first segment about federal politics called Applaudable, Audacious, or Abhorrent. I'm going to give you six political items that are now in the Zeitgeist federally, and you need to give me your analysis. Are they applaudable, audacious, or abhorrent? Are you ready? We're good? Okay, let's do this. First thing right here. Brad Wall's recent comments at the Council of Federations suggesting that Rachel Notley is handing Quebec a veto vis
SPEAKER_02
1:40
vis-a-vis the Alberta oil and gas industry through the Alberta's environmental plan. Corey, I know you're chomping at the bit, so I'm going to let you go first. Ah, it's abhorrent.
Corey
1:48
You had the Premier of Quebec and
Corey
1:50
and the Premier of Alberta essentially agreeing. You know, Couillard saying, I think I found a partner in Premier Notley. premier notley saying i want to work with you the premier of quebec saying you got to clean up your act though premier not like saying i agree let's just do this and then brad wall out of nowhere like it's like he comes up and he's photobombing almost it's the political equivalent of this and he just starts making snide remarks about sending money down the pipeline and it's like why are you spoiling this agreement with a fight what are you doing here carter what do you sit on this i
Carter
2:23
i think I think it was absolutely audacious for him to stand up and stand essentially right beside Christy Clark, who is essentially created not one veto for
Carter
2:32
for the pipeline to go through her funds, but five vetoes. She has put forward five conditions under which she will accept a pipeline, which we know is not true. I mean, she doesn't have a say in whether or not a pipeline actually happens, but she's done it anyways. So where's Premier Brad Wall standing up and saying, no, no, we won't allow that. that i mean it's just totally a double standard and it was it to me it's ridiculous that he did that um so i think it's audacious that he was that he was able to find it in himself to stand up and make that type of statement cory
SPEAKER_02
3:03
cory what do you think this makes this work and i know you're you're clearly not on the side of defending it but clearly there are a lot of people who are both in the media and politically what makes it work or doesn't make it work there's
Corey
3:13
there's a lot of happy people who think oh good somebody's standing up for the industry and those people tend to be the same people who are still fighting the last election here in alberta frankly yeah
Corey
3:22
i'm not realizing that we have a new premier and she's going to be our premier for at least the next four years i
SPEAKER_02
3:28
don't want to minimize it to that the defenders were not strictly limited to alberta there seemed to be defense coming from all across the country listen
Carter
3:34
listen you make a statement like that and you can get people standing up behind you all over the place look at how he stood up for us he stood up for us but it's it's it's a place of ignorance you stand up you can make that kind of position statement all the time for example you could be pierre pelive or whatever his name is and saying christmas in july and everybody gets their checks today we'll talk about that in a second ridiculous it's utterly ridiculous and there's going to be people who stand up and say i got my check i'm so lucky it's like it's your tax money yeah yeah okay let's
SPEAKER_02
4:03
let's not go down the policy rabbit hole too much i mean you want to you want to know another reason tell
Carter
4:08
me another reason um
Carter
4:10
where's the largest uh leaders dinner for the saskatchewan party held well
Corey
4:14
well it's It's actually held in Calgary, I believe.
Carter
4:16
It is held in Calgary. It's held in Calgary, and it raises more money for the Saskatchewan Party than any of the other dinners that are held for the Saskatchewan Party anywhere
Carter
4:25
anywhere in the world. Okay,
SPEAKER_02
4:26
Okay, so anywhere in the world. Wow, okay. I know. I've had it
SPEAKER_02
4:29
Yeah, weird, like the World Series. Someone took my answer. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_02
4:35
We work in politics, so we know that at some point, regardless of how ignorant you seem to the political class, that things will resonate to everyday people. On that level, Corey, why do you not think a move like this, which has defenders from across the country standing up and applauding Brad Wall, is a good thing, is a good political move, especially in the wake of a very volatile election that could have him potentially looking at leadership of one of the political parties federally?
Corey
5:01
federally? Well, and I got to assume that's why he did it. Not just the money here in Calgary, but to kind of stake ground as the defender of a broader conservative vision. But ultimately, I think when you go down, when you were presented as a politician with the choice of acting the statesman, and let's be clear, this was a move where the premier of Alberta and the premier of Quebec, neither of which really have a ton of authority in interprovincial pipelines, agreed to play nice and agreed that they would all pretend like they were in charge. But when you decide you can be the statesman and let kind of this politics of aggrandizing your colleagues play out, or you can be a demagogue and start attacking it simply because you know it'll rile up a base you need in the future, and you choose demagoguery, you are going to reap what you sow, my friend. Because down the road, if you do want to be the prime minister of Canada, if you do want to be the leader of the Conservative Party, you're going to have to get past this hurdle called 25
Corey
5:52
25% of the votes for leader are from Quebec, and you've just decided to crap all over the notion that they have any responsibility. Carter, do people have
Corey
6:00
a short memory? Does that matter?
SPEAKER_02
6:01
me? Do people have
SPEAKER_02
6:02
have a short memory? Does that really matter?
Carter
6:04
matter? People have a short memory, but it does matter. There are a series of operators in Quebec that will be disinclined to work for Brad Wall, but Brad Wall was never going to win any votes in Quebec. Brad Wall knows that he's going to win all of his votes in British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan. That's his whole thing. Maybe he gets a few in Ontario. And that, in the next leadership for the Federal Conservative Party, that's going to make things interesting. That's
SPEAKER_02
6:33
That's a great segue. Let's talk about the Federal Conservative Party right now. And the
SPEAKER_02
6:37
the Conservatives have continued their attack viciously against Justin Trudeau, despite the fact that Tom Mulcair and the NDP have been in the lead for the last 10 days federally. And this is before the election has even started. So I'll go with you, Carter, first. Applaudable, audacious, or abhorrent? What do you think of that strategy? It's applaudable.
Carter
6:56
applaudable. I'm on the record saying that the conservative campaign team is the best campaign team in Canada because they write out their game plan probably two years in advance and they execute it page after page after page. And it is consistent and they don't care what today's polls say or what the pundits are saying. They execute their plan because they believe that is their best chance to win. Corey? I
Corey
7:18
I think it's abhorrent. I think that there's two mistakes people make when it comes to plans in politics. One is not making a plan, and the other is sticking too rigidly to a plan. And if you're working off a plan you made two years ago, you're going to get into a lot of trouble at this point. Two years ago, Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau was riding high in the polls. Two years ago, Tom Mulcair was Tom Who. And a lot has changed since then. We now find ourselves in a situation where, and it's not just the last 10 days, but since the Alberta election, you have seen the New Democrats leading the occasional poll and certainly trending up. Yeah, but the opposite
Carter
7:52
opposite side of that is where you see other political parties, namely the liberals, where they seem to be developing their entire platform based on tomorrow's polling information. What did we learn in the poll today? Let's make sure we have a platform for that. Let's make sure we have a plan for that, for whatever the poll tells us today.
SPEAKER_02
8:10
today. I think you've both done a good job highlighting the extremes that are in place, right, between taking a plan that's developed years or many months in advance versus basing your plan in the moment. But is there, and I think just for a listenership to understand what a political strategy looks like, what is the level of agility a plan needs? Carter, you're pretty much saying that you believe the conservatives have the best data and the best plan that they wrote, let's say, many months ago, ergo that they have the best campaign going forward today in this moment with this volatility?
Carter
8:42
There's two things that I think a good strategy includes. Number one is the mathematical method
Carter
8:48
method by which you will win. because elections aren't about votes elections are about math uh and that sounds i mean it's kind of crazy but that is the way that elections are conducted it's it's about how many votes will the liberals get how many votes will the ndp get how many votes will we get how many votes will the greens get and
Carter
9:03
and all those votes are going to matter in different writings differently and you put put them all together so that you are able to construct a majority government out of that that mathematical equation you
Carter
9:13
you know 338 different writings each with a different mathematical equation each one of those meaning that you need to get 170 plus seats where you come out on top right that's
Carter
9:23
that's the math the second piece that a strategy needs to include is the brand positioning and this is where the conservatives have had the best strategies i
Carter
9:35
think probably for the decade right the decade that they've been governing they have had the brand stephen harper is on on your side stephen pierre pauliev is handing out his checks why is he handing out his checks right now because that was in the plan and
Carter
9:49
and that plan wasn't constructed four
Carter
9:51
four days ago it was conducted or
Carter
9:54
or constructed four months ago or even eight months ago i think
SPEAKER_02
9:57
think that's a good primer but i think there's there's another question i want i want to tease out of this particular one is is it
SPEAKER_02
10:02
it unprecedented is it weird cory explain to me what the strategy could be for not going after the guy that's in first place like carter's saying this is applaudable i'm i'm tipping my bias i'm with you that i think it's abhorrent what is the strategy for not going after the guy that's in first place i mean
Corey
10:17
mean i the only thing i can think of is that they're looking to do this in in pieces right in segments or in phases they're gonna go and knock justin trudeau down to the point where he just he is not in the equation people see this as a two-front uh war and or one front war and then they're going to uh then they're just going to try to take down I'm talking about Canada. Is that possible?
Carter
10:36
possible? No, you're skipping the first stage of my strategy, the math, right?
Carter
10:41
right? The Conservatives believe to their core that there is no means available to the NDP to form a government.
Corey
10:48
I think that's just broken logic. I think that was the
Carter
10:51
same kind of thing. You can think that. You can think that it's broken logic. We heard that. But that's the Conservatives' broken logic. How much did we hear that in the Alberta election? You can't compare it. There are three viable parties in Canada, not two viable parties. And it turns out that the PC's weren't viable. Oh,
SPEAKER_02
11:07
There's a lot to
SPEAKER_02
11:08
unpackage there. And I think Carter throws the Molotov cocktail into the podcast. But listen, there was the strategy of trying to reduce a two-front war into one-front war most recently in this provincial election, Corey. Was there not?
Corey
11:21
not? Yeah, there was. And you saw it play out most specifically during debate night, which we covered in episode 527. You should go back, check the back. Hold on here,
Carter
11:29
though. What you're saying is by
Carter
11:31
by choosing – so by Jim Prentiss choosing Rachel Notley, he chose the opposition party that he wanted to compete against. So by Stephen Harper choosing Justin Trudeau, is he just not simply choosing the competition he wants to compete against?
SPEAKER_02
11:43
against? Yeah, what happened with the Wild Rose coming in and forming opposition? They formed opposition, but they didn't
Carter
11:47
didn't get the second most votes.
Corey
11:49
Well, you got an interesting point, but I think you're missing the broader, more salient point, which is you cannot reduce a two-front war to a one-front war. You do not have that authority as government. The people will decide that. And ultimately, that was the downfall of the PCs. They elevated the people who were actually a bit further behind. I think he's just trying
Carter
12:07
trying to – I think he's learned from election after election. And here's what he's learned.
Carter
12:12
The liberals can drop.
Carter
12:14
The liberals can drop further. Let's
Carter
12:15
Let's get them into the pit as low as we can get them. Make them non-viable.
Carter
12:20
To your point. and then go to the go go to mulcair in september when we absolutely have everybody's attention and we're going to rip him our limb from that
Corey
12:28
that would be great if the tories were at 50 but they're at 30 and their ceiling looks like it's about 35 today
Corey
12:35
today today is today the next day today
Carter
12:38
today is today politics is is fluid we've seen we've seen the volatility of the electorate we've seen it time and time again and i i believe that
Carter
12:47
that uh the the last group of people who will panic
Carter
12:52
going to be the stephen harper conservatives i
SPEAKER_02
12:54
i i think that's interesting i think there's going to be a lot more to discuss on that i actually want to hit you on one point carter that when you talk about politics being fluid yet having a campaign strategy that's been cemented many months ago i think that's something we want to discuss in future episodes you
Carter
13:06
you can have a strategy that takes it takes account of the volatility there's not you mean nancy's strategy didn't change because we're at one percent in the polls in august i
SPEAKER_02
13:16
i hear you and you wanted to win but this is is a a political environment right now that has any of the three parties able to win this strategy was not written i
Carter
13:24
i don't think today the liberals can win
Carter
13:28
okay let's move it out let's move
SPEAKER_02
13:29
move it out let's let's move it out gotta kill them dead okay so let's talk about justin trudeau and the liberals you know we have been on record in this podcast saying that out of any of the three major political parties federally the liberals have the best campaign team behind them in terms of candidates in terms of the people
Carter
13:46
people in terms of the people
SPEAKER_02
13:47
people who are standing behind
Carter
13:48
behind justin trudeau no
SPEAKER_02
13:50
no no no in terms of infrastructure i'm not talking about that in terms of candidates the best campaign team or candidates behind him yet the focus through the entire summer has still been justin trudeau applaudable audacious abhorrent oh
Corey
14:03
oh i think it's audacious i can understand why they're doing it they see right now that they've got to shore up up their leaders credentials and and i think they're going to continue to try to do that going into the election it's
Corey
14:15
it's tough to say i mean as much as they're doing that i think one of the things i've noted about justin trudeau and the liberals in the past two years is they really have put a pretty big emphasis on grassroots campaigning they've
Corey
14:26
they've gone out they've really driven the metrics at a riding level they've tried to recruit local candidates i
Corey
14:31
i don't know if there's not a bit of a disconnect between their their local focus and their national strategy but But maybe that will reconcile itself in the coming
Corey
14:39
coming months. So am I
SPEAKER_02
14:40
I hearing audacious but could be upgraded to applaudable
Corey
14:42
at some point? Well, it's audacious. I think it could be downgraded to abhorrent at
Corey
14:46
at some point. I'm
Carter
14:46
already at abhorrent. Really? Oh, yeah. I mean, I just – I think that you – you have to take advantage of your candidates, particularly strengths and weaknesses. Now, sometimes you can try and turn a weakness into a strength. But
Carter
14:57
But realistically, you can't. You can't take that thing that defines them as negative and try and turn it into something that's going to be positive. What you have to do is take the positives and emphasize them. Make them more important than the weak points. Justin Trudeau is able to assemble a team. Stephen Harper can't. Fair
Carter
15:14
Fair enough. Let's campaign. I'm ready to go. That's it right there. Let's do it. Stephen Harper's team consists of Stephen Harper. Yeah. Right. Jason Kenney isn't a part of his team.
Carter
15:25
Right. His right hand man. You've got ambitions.
Carter
15:28
Who are the people that Stephen Harper listens to? They might be five people. people
Carter
15:33
mean really listeners at home figure it out write down a piece of paper right now how many people does stephen harper listen to well
Corey
15:38
well i think if you want to get to five three of them are old recordings of him from previous i don't think
Corey
15:44
don't think right so
Carter
15:45
so why not take the fact that justin trudeau inspires a great team around himself and push those people forward and
SPEAKER_02
15:52
and i'm going to push back a bit summer barbecue season a lot of you know shaking hands kissing babies this is the guy who's got the best sort of photo op you know photogenic credentials credentials is it still a mistake in the summer not to put out the rest of the team bring the team with you absolutely bring the team with
Carter
16:08
with them right so there's four people who are going to ask you about policy tonight bring the team with you and all of a sudden someone can ask you about policy and you say oh you know what scott bryson's here scotty come on over here talk to this fellow over here we can do that no problem facilitate
SPEAKER_02
16:22
facilitate okay i want to move it on to to our next point here the
SPEAKER_02
16:26
the ndp attack ad on the conservatives this was the the enough ad the guys you guys may have have seen this one this is the one where they list my
Carter
16:32
my favorite part yes the
SPEAKER_02
16:34
the one at the end so so to fill people in this was the ad where the ndp had listed a whole bunch of conservatives in trouble going to jail uh and it said you know are you have you had enough like like the rest of us what do you think of this ad cory i mean we we discussed it off here as being a little bit vanilla but at the same time knowing the time the place that it was released applaudable oh audacious abhorrent applaudable i don't know if
Corey
16:58
i necessarily thought it was that vanilla i thought that oh If I had a concern with it, it was that it was an ad that attacked the conservatives but didn't necessarily lead you to vote New Democrat, even though there was this kind of blow at the start, like the conservatives were supposed to clean up liberal corruption and suggested they all fell down into the muck. But how
Corey
17:17
how they've released it, how they've talked about its release, everything they've done to maximize its public relations effort as
Corey
17:23
well as maximize its on-the-ground effect has been really impressive. They are only using it online in areas – they're targeting it to areas where it is blue-orange fights. They're not targeting it to three
SPEAKER_02
17:36
three-way fights. And the surprising thing here to fill people in is that they've aired these ads in those blue-orange ridings, but Tom Mulcair is now physically boots on the ground over the next 10 or 12 days going to each one of those ridings to double down on the efforts that they've seen on TV and online. It's showing a lot of savvy. Carter,
SPEAKER_02
17:54
how would you rank this? Applaudable, abhorrent, audacious? What do you think?
Carter
17:57
I mean, you've taken an ad, you've positioned yourself. I think it could have done a better job of making sure that the liberals, especially the liberal senators, were thrown in with the conservative senators a little bit more. They're both, you know, all of them are in the same soup trying to get themselves out of the expense scandal.
Carter
18:16
they took an ad that they spent virtually nothing on. Right.
Carter
18:18
Right. They produced it. They
Carter
18:21
They got tons of media coverage because no one else released an ad at that time. if i you know liberals release ads but never run them would be my advice you know you've always got more creative ideas in a campaign than you have money to broadcast them this is the time to be releasing every week an ad that
Carter
18:37
that you're never going to broadcast right you broadcast it on the internet a few times and some uh youtube pre-rolls cost you is this is this a testing
Corey
18:45
testing phase to see what sticks yeah i was just going to say that it's it's part of what we were talking about a few episodes ago where they're going to test out certain arguments and see how they do i do find the absence of the liberal senators quite telling it tells me that they are going to try to make a play for those liberal voters they don't want to go too negative on it because ultimately the coalition they're trying to build must include the liberals to get themselves i think
Carter
19:08
think the fault the fault of that type of logic is that most people don't see themselves as liberal voters they see themselves as people who happen to vote liberal we're
SPEAKER_02
19:15
we're voting liberal they
Carter
19:16
they voted voted liberal last time they voted liberal next time but they are willing to move no most voters today willing to move i
Corey
19:22
i agree with you to the point where i don't and here's what i mean the
Corey
19:26
the new democrats see an opportunity they see a wedge uh not with the liberal voters but they see it with the liberal supporters it started with bill c-51 you started to see that those more engaged liberal supporters were being pulled away by that and that's the group that they're looking after and saying you have a home with us they're not trying to antagonize liberals dyed in the wool red wake up drink your coffee salute your picture of pierre elio on the wall kind of liberals they want those people and and this was all ultimately as much as we're talking about how good it was this was targeted to guys like us right and it was targeted to that opinion leading set who all wrote about it and this continues what i think is pretty clever strategy by the new democrats to open their arms to people who have traditionally supported the liberals in an organizational sense That's
SPEAKER_02
20:14
That's interesting. Both agree on this. Both think it's applaudable. I never thought that would happen. Both
Carter
20:18
Both of us like negative ads.
SPEAKER_02
20:19
Well, there you go. Big fans.
SPEAKER_02
20:21
fans. Because both of us like data.
SPEAKER_02
20:24
Let's move it on to our next point here. Okay, so the universal child care benefits.
SPEAKER_02
20:28
This was released today. This was the Christmas in July that Carter was referring to. What do you think of this move of releasing these checks right now? And I don't have the facts all with me right now, but a couple hundred bucks for each family that has a child. Releasing it right now through our favorite minister, Minister Pierre. And so does this move itself, the timing of it, Corey, applaudable, audacious, abhorrent, too transparent? What do you think? Abhorrent. I mean, it's
Corey
21:00
abhorrent. It's the kind
Carter
21:00
kind of thing that really,
Corey
21:02
and I'm not sure, and I'm not saying it will, but it could have backfired pretty badly. And it may still I still
Carter
21:07
still I still think it could backfire right now. People are getting their checks and they're trying to figure out why they got their checks when they, you know, I
Carter
21:15
I got 800 bucks. Look what I'm going to do with this. It's a lot of money. Oh,
Corey
21:19
Oh, my wife's already spent it.
Carter
21:21
yeah, it's a lot of money. And it's going
Corey
21:22
going to she is. And it
Carter
21:24
it may actually push down some of the recession fears. Right. So the fact that we're going into a recession may end in this next quarter because of the amount of spending three
Carter
21:34
three billion dollars in checks going out. Now, let's compare this to Ralph Bucks. So I'm calling these Harper Bucks. So Harper Bucks are out $3 billion. Ralph Bucks, back when we had the natural gas boom in Alberta, were $2 billion. Everybody bought an iPad, right?
Carter
21:50
iPod. Or iPod. I'm sorry, we didn't have it. That's when I got my first iPod. Everybody bought their very first iPod. This
Carter
21:54
This is just a blatant grab taking your money and buying your vote. Because
Carter
22:01
Because the reality is we may eke out a surplus this year. But
Carter
22:06
But I think it's mathematical tomfoolery. And if you look back over the last nine years, we've added $200 billion to the debt at
Carter
22:18
at a time when we reduced the GST by two points. We've reduced income taxes. We've given back this universal child care credit.
Carter
22:26
And all we've done is
Carter
22:28
is make it so that we have to pay it back later. I
SPEAKER_02
22:30
I hate to be so cold-blooded, but give me one second. Take out the economics and the policy of it. It's still an abhorrent move politically?
Corey
22:38
because it plays to people's worst instincts. No, I think it's even worse than that. I mean, we're still, this is August. It's not even August, guys. It's July. This money, I wasn't joking when I said that Lori, my wife, has already allocated it, essentially. Who's going to remember this come October? And, in fact,
Corey
22:55
you know, you'll have a little bit more, but the surge is over. I don't know what they were thinking with this. This is spending a lot of money for relatively
Corey
23:04
relatively little gain and I think that the risk of backfire is too large. I don't know. This
Carter
23:09
This is the worst type of politics in my mind. I mean they've already taken somewhere close to a billion dollars over the last – I can't remember how many years. Three, I want to say, to
Carter
23:17
to advertise what they've done.
Carter
23:19
Right. So now they've taken a billion dollars to advertise all the good work that they've done for us. And now they add three billion dollars to that total and give it back to us in these little checks.
Carter
23:29
And they are little checks. I mean, there'll be big dollars for a lot of people, but
Carter
23:33
but those people are also likely paying much, much more than this in income taxes. Or child care.
Carter
23:39
Or child care. People were asking, where's my $90 a day for my child care?
Carter
23:45
This is our reality. This money does very, very little for Canadians, but it does a lot to put us back into a deficit, into a debt.
SPEAKER_02
23:54
That's interesting. Okay, I want to move it on to our last point in this segment.
SPEAKER_02
23:59
So, there was an NDP candidate based out of Quebec who was running against Justin Trudeau. Now, you guys have heard of this probably. She had a very interesting past, a separatist past, talking about her separatist leanings. And the NDP said
SPEAKER_02
24:13
said they were fine with it. They were fine with her past in that regard. Now, yesterday she resigned her candidacy in running. So let's take that out of the equation. What do you think of the move of the NDP to support her past in this regard? Corey, is this applaudable, audacious, or boring?
Corey
24:29
I think it's audacious. I get why they're doing it, but I've said this. I know you guys disagree, but I think that national unity is the New Democrats' biggest weakness. And I think things like this just drive that home. home the uh the problem the nds have at the end of the day is that they have to so
Corey
24:46
so much of their support in quebec which is so much of their support towards government uh originated
Corey
24:53
originated with the bloc quebecois the bloc is a funny creation just like the pq in that it's it's a kind of an amalgamation of nationalists and leftists right and and and the the cross-pollination between Between those two, it
Corey
25:09
it did not end when everybody moved to the New Democrats. So they've got to walk that tightrope. And that's a pretty dangerous place to be when you're running to be prime minister of Canada. The
Carter
25:18
reality, though, is that we've
Carter
25:20
we've seen a prime minister of Canada before walk this tightrope. It was Mulroney. Yeah,
Corey
25:25
Yeah, and we also saw how that show ended. It
Carter
25:27
It ends badly, but you get to govern for eight and a half years. So he governs for eight and a half years. And
Corey
25:33
And then the country almost explodes. Well, I'm not going to lie
Carter
25:36
lie to you, but he had a good run. I mean, this is the price that we pay when we play with this particular currency.
Carter
25:43
think enough Canadians. When we buy our election with
Carter
25:47
with the separatists' vote,
Carter
25:50
right, then you're playing with fire. And this is why that coalition, the coalition that Stéphane Dion was looking at, that
Carter
26:00
it's not the idea that two parties can gang up on another party. or three parties can gang up on another party. It's that you're willing to put your lot in with the separatists, with the people who want to break this country apart. And that's where Mulcair
Carter
26:13
Mulcair is playing with fire and I don't like the currency that he's buying it with.
Corey
26:17
Well, I think enough people remember the Mulvaney situation. I don't think that's imagery
Corey
26:22
imagery that he wants to start evoking. But I think it's ultimately
Corey
26:26
ultimately about a pretty significant difference in how, well, separatists are what we generally call them in Western Canada. sovereignists are what quebeckers would call them there is um a lot more gray in quebec and i think outside of the province of quebec there is very little tolerance for that kind of talk well
Carter
26:43
well i think that the liberals can only access it by going negative very
SPEAKER_02
26:47
that's i didn't get your answer carter what did you think that was uh
SPEAKER_02
26:52
abhorrent all righty let's move it on to our next segment this next segment's called in and out of control taking the magic pill guys
SPEAKER_02
26:58
guys you've both been in campaigns we've all been in campaigns frankly where at some point you, you stand at your current situation and you just wish there was a magic pill you could take to rectify one major element or one major tenant of your campaign. And that's the chance I'm going to give you right now. So I'm going to give you five pills that you have a choice from. Choose one of these five pills for each of our major political parties as they stand right now. So the pills that we have are strategy, execution,
SPEAKER_02
27:25
execution, the leader of that party, timing, or the team. And I'm going to list to you the political party. So, for example, we'll talk about the liberals. And you tell me if you were leading that strategy today, which one of those five pills would you take? So once again, strategy, execution, leader, timing or team. Corey, I'll start with you. Let's go with the NDP, which if you were leading this campaign right now, you're up during the summer. You were not expecting to be in this position right now. Which one of these magic pills would you take? Would it be a strategy, execution, leader,
SPEAKER_02
27:56
leader, timing or team? I feel like
Corey
27:58
like I'm going to have to ask you to say that at least four more times. But for this one, it's clear to me it's team. The New Democrats federally have the same problem the New Democrats provincially had, which is their crest came after all of the nominations happened.
Carter
28:11
See, for me, it would be timing.
Carter
28:13
Let's have the election today. Let's have the election right now. If you could take a magic pill, you would say let's have it today. It's timing. And guess what, folks? It's October 19th. I don't have any more time to step in my own doo-doo. I'm just going to go to the election, and I'm going to throw my life
Corey
28:27
life down. See, but you think this is as good as it gets for them, and I'm not convinced this is as good as it gets for them.
Corey
28:32
Interesting. You think there's more to peak? I think that there's more to come. Oh, that's
Carter
28:36
that's fascinating. The best is yet to come. Okay, so let's— But it's not going to be there on October 19th. Let's
SPEAKER_02
28:39
Let's move it on to the conservatives. If you are the conservatives right now, strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team, which one do you take a magic pill for right now? Carter, I'll start with you. I
Carter
28:52
I would take it with the team. You
Carter
28:54
You would. There's two gigantic problems with the conservatives right now. The first problem is I don't think that they have the front bench that they want to have. Right.
Carter
29:03
Right. There's people on the front bench that I mean, they lost a lot of all stars just before the election.
Carter
29:09
The second piece is what
Carter
29:11
what if they lose?
Carter
29:13
What if they lose on October the 19th? Who
Carter
29:16
Who is the heir apparent or better yet? I mean, I hate heir apparent. They just, you know, people who don't have to run basically unopposed just make me sad.
Carter
29:26
who are the five people who
SPEAKER_02
29:28
could pique curiosity, who would be interesting, who
Carter
29:30
who would be interesting that we can actually get excited about that if this falls in a year or if this falls in eight months or, you
Carter
29:37
you know, assuming a minority government. Yeah.
Carter
29:39
In the next election, we can immediately rebound, earn
Carter
29:43
earn back our war chest and fight another campaign. It seems like
SPEAKER_02
29:46
like that team is standing on the outside looking in with people who may have resigned from this cabinet. I don't
Carter
29:51
don't know they're coming back. Do we know that they're coming back? That's
SPEAKER_02
29:53
That's interesting. Corey, if
SPEAKER_02
29:54
if you had a choice to take one of these pills, do you need me to repeat that? No. I
Corey
29:57
I think that Carter's not wrong, but team is a symptom of strategy. This has been the Harper government for so long, and their focus has been on one man for so long that they have found themselves in an untenable situation. situation and look it's not just the question of the harper focus although the harper focus is going to ultimately cause them a lot of trouble if they lose this election steven is 100 right about that yeah
Corey
30:21
i think that they've also got to contend with the fact that they've set a strategy which i've already kind of raised some concerns with it is still focused on justin trudeau meanwhile tom mulcair is leading in the polls and i don't think that that is bringing that
Carter
30:36
that up like Like, it's a bad thing. I disagree with you, but I can see where the strategy leads to the team. I will concede that part of the point. Okay.
Carter
30:43
Okay. Softly begging me to do it. Look at us finding this consensus. Look at us. When you're so wrong, by the way, I was the
SPEAKER_02
30:48
the big one. This is going to take a hit at a rating. When we find consensus, people get mad at us.
Carter
30:51
us. Oh, this is true. Okay,
SPEAKER_02
30:52
Okay, so we chalked one up for team. We chalked one up for strategy. Guys, the last one, the Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau. If you are the campaign strategist right now, sitting in late July, which one of these pills? Bill, strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team? Corey, I'll start with you.
Corey
31:08
Well, look, it could be strategy or execution or leader. I think they've got a couple of weaknesses, and there's no slight— You'd
SPEAKER_02
31:14
You'd go as far as saying leader. Well,
Corey
31:16
Well, the concern that some people have had, and I have to confess this was a bit of my concern when Justin Trudeau was made leader, was that he was popular for being popular. And when you're not popular anymore— He was a celebrity.
Corey
31:28
He was a celebrity. The celebrity trajectory, as Stephen would often say, is a lot rougher than the politician celebrity. And ultimately, in absence of popularity, you need to have them look thoughtful, look forceful, look strong, look something. That's what got Mulcair through the lean times. I want to know what Justin's is there. But that ultimately is
Corey
31:48
is not the biggest problem to me. And I don't think that their strategy is the biggest problem. I do think it comes down to execution. I understand the need to make the big play for the center. I understand what they were trying to do when they did things like Bill C-51 and coming out in favor of it, but they've been too clever by half with execution, too complicated in execution. They have executed poorly, and I take no joy in that. But I think when you look at a party that was at 40 percent in the polls and leading for a year, you've got to ask why they've ended up where they are now, and it comes down to execution. Corey takes a magic
SPEAKER_02
32:20
magic pill of execution, Carter. What do
Carter
32:22
do you take? Well, it's entirely execution with a splash of team. uh so whereas i was pointing to the conservatives and saying the team is in the political ranks and cory was talking about the new democrats with the team in the political ranks i fear that the team is on this particular in this particular instance behind the scenes it's the it's the it's the advisors it's the people talking to uh to trudeau and giving him the advice where the team starts to fall apart i have nothing but respect for katie katie telford i think is a a world-class operator. But I think that she needed a bigger team and needed some voices from across the country and some new people after the leadership.
SPEAKER_02
33:06
Fascinating. We'll be back with this game at some point. I think this was interesting to hear your guys' results. Let's move it on to our last segment of the show, puzzle
SPEAKER_02
33:13
puzzle pieces, lightning round in the over-under. You guys, are you ready? Ready
Carter
33:16
Ready to go. Quick responses,
SPEAKER_02
33:18
responses, not necessarily super quick for the first one, because i do want to dig into this a bit more if
SPEAKER_02
33:22
if you could replace one of the federal party leaders right now with any retired or sitting canadian politician who would it be and for which party cory i'll go with you first
Corey
33:31
first oh wow that's a great question um i i think it's i would like to see what jean chretien could do in this territory with uh with justin trudeau's oh man
Carter
33:40
man jean chretien against stephen harper oh
Carter
33:44
would be a battle that would be a battle
SPEAKER_02
33:46
would be real you
Carter
33:47
you You know what? Replace Trudeau with his dad.
Carter
33:51
I mean, to be honest, Pierre-Eliot Trudeau,
Carter
33:56
didn't know how to campaign out west, but he could campaign in Quebec. That
Carter
34:00
That would be fascinating. That would be some interesting fun. He sold
SPEAKER_02
34:04
would be a lot of fun. Fantasy Canadian politics. Okay. Notley or Wall. Notley or Wall. In one year, who
SPEAKER_02
34:08
who comes out of this verbal spat looking on the right side of history? Corey? Not
Corey
34:13
Not Lee, because ultimately these conditions, whether or not we want to acknowledge them, are a political reality, even if they're not a legal reality.
Carter
34:20
Wall, because he's going to have $150K in his jeans and no one's going to remember this particular spat that happened in July of 2015.
SPEAKER_02
34:28
Over, under, on 7 out of 10, Carter, you were responsible in some part of putting this Canadian energy strategy on the agenda. agenda over under on on on seven out of ten as to the results that that it is is come out with uh as part of this most recent council of federation it
Carter
34:43
it is over uh it is a fantastic thing that has been signed uh the premiers to get them all on board is a significant achievement um gory
Carter
34:52
gory is is uh often we'll say uh the analogy is only nixon could go to china perhaps only not leaking get us our pipelines yeah
Corey
35:01
yeah i'm gonna say over this is amazing last time they couldn't even even get christy clark to agree to start a process to look at this right
Corey
35:08
the fact that they got all of the premiers and look there's some people who say it's not it's not very specific come on i mean you got to crawl before you walk and they actually got into a bit of of content here they talked about carbon they talked about technology they talked about market access they got
Corey
35:24
all access all of the premiers to agree we need to access markets that sounds so simple but we've been so so far from that for so
Carter
35:31
so long. And the only way we can access markets is to go through other provinces. Absolutely. Which
SPEAKER_02
35:35
Which of the three federal parties has the most effective attack ads going forward? Carter, you first. Going
Carter
35:43
Well, given that the liberals have removed it from their quiver, it is going to be the conservatives.
Corey
35:48
Conservatives. Corey? Well, I think you've got to assume that the conservatives will continue to be successful. They've effectively run Justin Trudeau into the ground. As much as I liked the NDP ad, The conservatives remain the masters of this. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02
36:01
Absolutely. Yes or no, the liberals walk back from their promise to not go negative in this campaign with negative attack ads. Carter, you first. If
Carter
36:08
If they don't, they will be in Ignatieff territory.
Corey
36:12
Corey. Well, they will, but they won't call them attack ads. They'll call them contrast pieces.
SPEAKER_02
36:17
Which party has the easiest path to a majority in your opinion, Corey?
Carter
36:21
What is wrong with you? I was not expecting that. The conservatives. Conservatives are sitting in the majority now, and they can retain.
Corey
36:28
75 seats in Quebec, 20 seats in BC, 25
Corey
36:31
25 seats in Ontario, and then you've just got to pick up a smattering across the country.
SPEAKER_02
36:36
Corey, your one-word strategy for the Conservatives going forward?
Corey
36:40
Well, I got nothing. I
Corey
36:43
I mean, that has been their strategy. Finally,
Corey
36:45
your one-word strategy for the Liberals. Carter?
SPEAKER_02
36:52
That's a wrap. Episode 539 of The Strategist. with me as always Corey Hogan Stephen Carter I'm Zane Belger and we'll see you next time