Transcript
SPEAKER_04
0:03
This is the strategist episode 553. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, how
Corey
0:14
even paying attention. You know what? He's not even wearing pants.
Corey
0:18
I mean, he's not wearing a shirt or pants. Well, no service for that kind of.
Corey
0:24
Well, yeah, you're done. You're like, seriously you're done look i mean seriously at this point we have given 11 hours of commentary over the past few weeks on this
Corey
0:33
this election you say that as if we had anything better that's
Carter
0:36
that's 11 hours on this podcast on
SPEAKER_04
0:37
on this podcast we're
Carter
0:38
we're not counting all the radio television or
SPEAKER_04
0:41
or the upcoming state television the
Carter
0:44
that's right the upcoming state television yeah if
SPEAKER_04
0:47
if you want to watch us on chinese state television we will be speaking the worst mandarin uh
SPEAKER_04
0:53
uh that that state television state has ever seen it's
Carter
0:57
it's gonna be good i'm
Carter
0:58
i'm not gonna lie to you i'm looking forward to it yeah
Corey
0:59
yeah that's true it's happening on the 20th uh
Corey
1:02
uh we'll we'll prognosticate in reverse we'll
Corey
1:06
we'll pretend we already uh or we knew what was gonna happen well
Carter
1:08
well it's nice because the chinese don't really know what happens in an election so we can oh
Corey
1:16
did i say okay so we were going to be on chinese
SPEAKER_04
1:22
we are totally done cory you're right 11 hours worth of content anything to add before we do what we're doing today uh
Corey
1:29
uh no i guess we should just tell people what we're doing today
SPEAKER_04
1:33
carter's on his phone playing a game this yeah okay so
SPEAKER_04
1:36
we have all had enough and what we're gonna do is we're
SPEAKER_04
1:40
we're certainly gonna be here for the duration of this episode but we want to talk to a few of our friends thanks carter for paying attention and this
Carter
1:46
this thing's still still on we're
SPEAKER_04
1:49
we're going to bring on a few of our friends specifically uh jen gerson of the national post and keto maji president of main street technologies they're going to talk to us about what they're seeing from their vantage points we've got a pundit a journalist uh in in jen and a pollster uh in keto and we're gonna poster
Carter
2:06
poster and prognosticator correct
SPEAKER_04
2:08
let's not forget yeah
SPEAKER_04
2:09
and we'll talk to him about that keto's
SPEAKER_04
2:11
keto's put out a very bold prediction so we'll talk to both of them this episode we'll be around we'll um carter will probably just be leaving i don't know what carter will be doing eating
Carter
2:21
grapes are delicious i have to move away from the microphone when i eat the grapes um
Corey
2:25
but yeah that's our episode yeah
Corey
2:26
yeah it's going to be great uh
Corey
2:28
uh actually this is this is going to be great it will be interesting to hear what their senses of the campaigns are after we've given so much commentary that we're effectively repeating ourselves at this Yeah,
SPEAKER_04
2:39
Yeah, a fresh perspective heading into what's supposed to be and is going to be a very exciting Monday. Oh, hey, before we do get
Corey
2:47
I've got to ask.
Corey
2:49
What does everybody think about what was going on the last couple of days with Gagné and the Liberals that happened just after we had our episode?
Carter
2:57
I get frustrated with that. I mean, he's a volunteer co-chair with the Liberal campaign. He makes his money advising companies and others.
Carter
3:04
was he was uh he wrote a memo of what to do to it for his client which is translated what to do if
Carter
3:11
if uh there's a new government if in the case of the ndp or the liberals and uh he gets vilified for it um
Carter
3:18
um and frankly the advice that was given uh
Carter
3:22
was so mundane and so boring i mean well my daughter is 14 could have given that
Corey
3:28
that hold on i don't think we've actually seen the full letter we've only seen excerpts from it but i i agree with your basic point i mean this is almost the criminalization of political counsel which i think all of three yeah have a bit of a how
Carter
3:40
how dare you provide advice to corporate clients here's
SPEAKER_04
3:42
here's here's the ultimate question though does it matter like will it have enough yeah
Carter
3:46
yeah it's mattered it's mattered more than it should have we talked about it for three days on media now yeah
Corey
3:50
well will it will it matter and see ken what do you think my great concern for the liberals uh and my great hope for the new democrats i suppose pose depending on which lens you want to look through it is that this has blunted the the liberal momentum the the notion that we're going to have a liberal majority which seemed more likely than not a few days ago i mean i'm
Corey
4:08
i'm just going to stick with that prediction because there's no benefit in bouncing around and being double wrong but um yeah
Corey
4:13
it certainly impacted the likelihood i'm
Carter
4:15
i'm really happy to see cory using the stephen carter method of predictions don't ever change your bad prediction yeah
Carter
4:21
once you're once you're listen if you're
SPEAKER_04
4:22
you're at nine percent of turnout and And there's 20% of turnout at the advance polls. You know what? You don't change it.
Corey
4:28
That's true. Stephen Carter did that. He predicted a turnout that was lower than what happened on the advance polls. And he refused to change his prediction. You
Carter
4:36
Why be wrong twice? Wrong once is plenty for this character.
SPEAKER_04
4:41
Well, that's good. And speaking of guessing and prognosticating, we'll talk to Kito about that. Because he's also put out a projection similar to Corey's where he's
Carter
4:48
he's also... This bugs me. So I'm looking forward to taking a pollster to task on taking and saying this is what's going to happen. He's not in the business of taking polling data and applying it forward. Well, let's give Kito some
SPEAKER_04
5:00
some credit. Let's give Kito some credit. He's been right two times in a row with the Alberta election and with the mayoral election in Toronto. And he was in the minority when it came to the Alberta election specifically because that was when we were paying very close attention to. Still,
Carter
5:15
Still, I hate the prediction. So
SPEAKER_04
5:16
with that being said, we have on the line our good friend, Kito Maji, president of Mainstream Research. Kito, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_03
5:23
I'm very well. Thanks for having me, guys.
SPEAKER_03
5:25
A pleasure to have
SPEAKER_04
5:26
have you on. Okay, so tell us, from your vantage point, we'll get to Carter, who's busy and is finally engaged. Oh, I'm angry. Something to get him engaged about. We'll get to that in a second. But tell us, from your vantage point, what do the numbers say right now? What should we be expecting going into this weekend? end
SPEAKER_03
5:42
you know our last national number came out this morning uh 38 33 21 and
SPEAKER_03
5:50
and uh you know although those numbers don't really point uh exactly at a majority i think i want to explain my uh you know the other day i tweeted that after what i've seen tonight it's it's definitely going to be a liberal majority correct and how big
Corey
6:07
big it's going to be yeah i felt the same
SPEAKER_03
6:08
same way that remember Remember, a lot of people, you know, we not only do national polls, but also regional polls and riding polls. So when on that night, I'm seeing the likes of Lisa Raiden, Milton losing pretty substantially. And I'm seeing liberals leading in Perth, Wellington, doing a riding poll there. You know, these these are not writings that liberals will win unless it's a majority government. The national numbers don't really point in that direction per se. It's sort of on that razor's edge.
SPEAKER_03
6:44
But if you look at Ontario and Quebec, I mean, in Ontario, the lead is 11 points and it's still moving in the Liberals' direction. And
SPEAKER_03
6:53
they lead in every region except for South Central, which is like Barrie all the way down to like the Hamilton Niagara region in
SPEAKER_03
7:03
in Quebec, in every urban center in Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver, Calgary,
SPEAKER_03
7:09
Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg. I mean, Liberals lead outright in Winnipeg. I think the Liberals will pick up six or seven seats in Manitoba.
SPEAKER_03
7:19
In Alberta, it's 53-35 in Calgary, which points to a couple of seats potential pickup there. And in Edmonton, it's a three-way race. In Vancouver, they lead by
SPEAKER_03
7:34
by 12 to 15 points. In Montreal, they lead by 12 to 15 points. is
SPEAKER_03
7:39
really going to come down to those
SPEAKER_03
7:42
those three dozen seats outside of Quebec City
SPEAKER_03
7:46
City and Montreal in Quebec where there's a four-way tie. Literally, the Greens are at 1.8 and everybody else is at 24-point-something. That's the ridings I'm going to look at on election night. Probably not a riding many people look at closely, but the one I'm going to be watching on election night is a riding called Sheppard in Quebec. And we pulled that one last week. It's a four-way exact tie within not 1%, within 0.5%. If we see
SPEAKER_03
8:17
the Liberals winning that seat, Shepard, it's
Corey
8:21
So, Kito, I have a theory backed up by no data. I'd love to run by you. And that's that the
Corey
8:27
the national polls are underrepresenting the strength of the Liberals because so many people have decided to vote strategically this election. But when they're answering those top line polls, they're going to still say they support the NDP, even though, you know, their heart is with the NDP, but their mind locally is with, for example, in Calgary Confederation, where I live, with the Liberal candidate, because he's just so far ahead of the NDP candidate. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03
8:52
agreed. And that's really what's happened here is when when, you know, not just our polls, but lots of polls have shown going into this election that, you know, somewhere between 65 and 70 percent of the population had this appetite for change. change. And as long as that deadlock was there at the national level, it was keeping all those votes parked in their preferred camp. But as soon as there was that daylight between, I
SPEAKER_03
9:19
I mean, it could have easily gone the other way. As soon as there was daylight for a sustained period of time between the Liberals and the NDP, you
SPEAKER_03
9:26
you know, we knew that about 40 to 45 percent of Liberal Liberal votes could switch at any given time to the NDP, and about 50-55% of NDP votes could go to Liberals at any given time, as soon as that deadlock, and
SPEAKER_03
9:41
and really until the NECAB debate in Quebec kind of caused the surge of the Conservatives and the Bloc at the same time, and really sunk the NDP in the week following that. Once we saw daylight between the Liberals and the NDP for about a week in the polls, that's when it just started snowballing and, you know, strategic voting started happening at the riding levels, which then, you
SPEAKER_03
10:07
you know, created even more space in the national number and it just keeps accelerating. rating so that's why i said at that even three four days ago when when i said majority
SPEAKER_03
10:19
majority and i know cory that you predicted it before i did so uh i have to give you credit for that but well don't give it yet
SPEAKER_04
10:25
yet i'm waiting to see you both be wrong and so we've kept carter silent too long he's actually he's literally dropping his grapes yeah
Carter
10:33
yeah i'm so angry i can't even eat my grapes anymore okay so
SPEAKER_04
10:35
so so strategic voting card did you what
Corey
10:37
what do you want in tell
Carter
10:37
tell tell us first of all We've
Corey
10:38
We've got to just tee this up. Two things Stephen Carter has supreme skepticism for are predictions based on polls and the concept of strategic voting. Sorry, God, I was the second. Yeah, and the concept of strategic voting. So we've pretty much teed him up to get all. You've
Carter
10:52
You've riled me, Keto. So let's talk about strategic voting. The principle behind strategic voting is that these are NDP votes. How solid were these NDP votes from the beginning? Were they actually NDP voters or were they people who were just simply looking to oppose the the Harper conservatives and for that moment parked in the NDP? Sounds
Corey
11:13
Sounds pretty strategic to me, but actually,
SPEAKER_03
11:15
you know, Stephen's absolutely correct. What happened was after a year of being told by the conservative attack ads that Justin's just not ready, people,
SPEAKER_03
11:27
people, they believed it. And quite frankly, the way Justin Trudeau was performing prior to the writ, he was basically proving those conservative attack ads right. He did seem out of his depth, very
SPEAKER_03
11:41
very much so. And so people started looking around, going, OK, we know we don't want Stephen Harper. Who else is there? And they landed on Tom Mulcair and a lot of people. So we knew that that vote was pretty soft. Like I said, about 45 percent of their vote throughout this election was indicated
SPEAKER_03
12:01
indicated that they were strong supporters with no chance of changing their mind compared to about 62 for liberals and, you know, as low as 75 for the conservatives, but in many cases in the 80s. So you're absolutely right, Stephen. They weren't really, I don't believe, NDP votes to begin with. It was just people who were looking around saying they believed the attack ads. Justin's just not ready. They started looking and landed on Tom Mulcair. Further
Carter
12:29
Further hypothesis. We've never seen less brand loyalty from the traditional voter accepting the conservatives than we see right now.
Corey
12:38
Well, I mean, I agreed in the sense that the Liberal and New Democrats are pretty promiscuous with who they'll support, which
Corey
12:45
which I think, again— They're not actually
Carter
12:46
actually Liberal or New Democrats. What they are is
Carter
12:49
is your Canadian voters who aren't brand loyal.
Carter
12:53
And without that brand loyalty, they're prepared to move just about anywhere, including the conservatives if the conservatives run a decent campaign. Well,
Corey
12:59
Well, I don't know about that, but that would be a huge detour. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04
13:04
Yeah. So hold on. Kato, tell me this. You had new national numbers come out today. What's your confidence level? If you were to rank your confidence level on your prediction of a liberal majority, where does that sit today? Does something like the Gagné affair factor into that? Have you been seeing any results with these national numbers that factor
SPEAKER_03
13:23
I would say I'm at 95% confidence level in that prediction of the majority. I think when you look at the region, you know,
SPEAKER_03
13:36
know, somewhere between 95 and 100, it's really going to come down to those four-way races in Quebec and the dozen three-way races in British Columbia. It could be 168. It could be 173. That's why I said today, razor's edge of a majority. How
Carter
13:54
How do you factor in the
Carter
13:56
the trances that a conservative voter is more likely to go to the polls than a traditional liberal voter or traditional NDP voter? Have
Carter
14:05
Have you factored that in across the race? Is that something that you're looking at with your polling structures? Well,
SPEAKER_03
14:10
yes, to some extent. And I'll explain why I think it's it's still going to be overcome by the liberal vote in this election. In the last election, advanced
SPEAKER_03
14:20
advanced polls, the conservatives outperformed their vote, their total by one percent. There were 40% in the advanced polls, 39% on Election Day.
SPEAKER_03
14:31
And that was more than a 10-point lead over the next closest, which was Liberal at the time, I think about 30%. In this one, in our poll, we actually – I'm not sure if there was a graph of that breakdown. I didn't see it. Like I said, it was done in the middle of the night. But what it showed is that Conservatives still won the advanced poll. poll. They won with 34%, followed by the Liberals at 33%, and then the NDP at 19%. So I
SPEAKER_03
15:01
agree, the increase in the advanced poll numbers isn't
SPEAKER_03
15:05
isn't all due entirely to the change vote. There's a very strong, motivated, loyal, brand loyal vote base there for the Conservatives. I would bet money that they won the advanced polls, but
SPEAKER_03
15:18
but to only have won by 1%, it's not They need it to win by 7%, 8%, 10%.
SPEAKER_03
15:26
And I'm saying it's not enough.
Corey
15:29
What's your sense of turnout going to be here?
Corey
15:33
I'm looking at it and I'm thinking I'm pretty optimistic turnout will be high. And one of my basic theories
Corey
15:40
theories is if turnout's high, that's going to be good for the liberals because that
Corey
15:44
that shows that people who wouldn't necessarily have voted when turnout 65% showed up. and that's that's got to be good for the the challenger in my opinion but do you have any sense from your numbers or any of the stuff you've done about where we're going to be heading on election night i
SPEAKER_03
15:58
i i believe that i believe that the turnout will be up i think there are still you know pockets of strength for the ndp whether we look at saskatchewan or the islands in vancouver or parts of toronto parts of montreal there's still a lot that you know pockets of strength for the NDP. So they're going to be motivated to get their vote out. Um, liberals
SPEAKER_03
16:18
liberals definitely have momentum and, and are going to be, you know, the, the, those change voters are definitely going to have lots of motivation to get out and vote on Monday and conservatives wanting to retain, um, you
SPEAKER_03
16:32
you know, that votes like it's like a hundred percent guaranteed. I agree with Steven. It's so loyal. It's so motivated. It votes every single time that that base is there um whatever
SPEAKER_03
16:42
whatever it's it's somewhere between 31 and 33 percent um you
SPEAKER_03
16:47
you know the challenge and we were talking with my staff uh on our on our conference call yesterday and and talking about how do you weigh um you know not just for eligible voters the the challenge is to weigh for people who actually will get out and vote traditionally yeah
SPEAKER_03
17:06
now in this election we're We're actually having to try to account for some kind of patience factor because
SPEAKER_03
17:12
because what we saw at the at the advance polls is that because you can't just use the card as identification, it might create greater lineups. It might turn an
SPEAKER_03
17:22
an average wait time of two and a half hours into an average wait time of four hours. And, you know, especially in cities where people lead busy lives, they have a commute. um yeah blue
SPEAKER_03
17:33
blue jay games you have kids in ballet you know school and different things everybody has that are
SPEAKER_03
17:40
are you going to on your way home from you know to watch the blue jay game when you see if you have if you have a choice between stopping at the beer store and stopping at the at the polling station which one is going to be your priority um
Carter
17:54
priority chose beer store well the The way the Jays
SPEAKER_03
17:56
Jays are playing, I think everybody's
SPEAKER_03
17:58
going to need a drink. Agreed.
SPEAKER_03
18:02
But, yeah, so that's the challenge. And I have to assume, I guess, that that patience factor is going to be the same more or less across the board, although I do believe because
SPEAKER_03
18:11
because of the traditional strength of the conservative vote that that plays into their advantage as well.
Carter
18:19
Yeah, I mean, this is where I'm – so I want to ask you one more question before I, you know, discredit you. um the or
SPEAKER_04
18:26
or tries to i
Carter
18:26
i try to try to discredit you yeah
Carter
18:29
the what's going on with the undecided where
Carter
18:32
where are we in terms of percentage of people who are continuing to to maintain themselves as undecided voters well
SPEAKER_03
18:39
well so that that number's at around 10 percent and and i want to say one other thing about the undecided so we did ask people we
SPEAKER_03
18:48
we always ask people their likely vote But we added for any time we poll after advanced polls, we always ask people, the first option is, did you already vote? And I've already given the breakdowns on those.
SPEAKER_03
19:01
But the funny thing is 5.7% of those who said they voted still indicated they were undecided. So there's obviously a hidden vote
SPEAKER_03
19:09
vote there. I don't want to call them, you know, I don't want to say they lied to pollsters. You
Carter
19:16
You can say that,
SPEAKER_03
19:18
Okay, I'll say that. So they lied to pollsters. So for us to tell exactly, since 5.7% of the people who already voted won't tell us how they voted, but at least among the undecideds who are telling us how they're leaning and where sort of potential switching votes, the Liberals lead in all those categories right now,
SPEAKER_03
19:41
now, and they weren't necessarily leading those categories all along. So there's still 23 percent of the NDP vote that might change its mind before Election Day. Remember, we were in the field Wednesday, Thursday with
SPEAKER_03
19:53
with only four days to go. Still, 23 percent of NDP votes might
SPEAKER_03
19:58
might switch. Still, 15 percent of liberal votes might change their mind and only about 9 percent of conservative votes. So that means there's
SPEAKER_03
20:08
there's obviously a lot of people in different ridings where they think maybe their preferred candidate doesn't have a chance and they might throw their vote somewhere else.
SPEAKER_03
20:17
When you do all the netting out of
SPEAKER_03
20:19
of all those potentials, it means the Liberals have an opportunity to gain as much as 1
SPEAKER_03
20:25
1.7. The NDP could go down by 0.9 and the Conservatives could go down by 0.8. uh, eight. Uh, so we could see it at closer to 39, 39 and a half, uh, with the NDP down almost at 20 points.
SPEAKER_03
20:45
if, if those, if all those movements do in fact take place.
SPEAKER_04
20:49
So, so Kito, you know, this is interesting because, you know, when, when we were chatting about this earlier, you know, one of the reasons why I think people should listen to you is, is you've been right on two big elections recently. We just mentioned the Alberta election in the mayoral in Toronto. But with so much volatility in this election, I mean, I think this is kind of the germ to what Carter's, you know, question or issue was, is that, is polling today, your polling, anyone else's polling, a good tool for projecting forward, especially considering the volatility we have that you've just described?
SPEAKER_03
21:19
Yeah, I think it's, you know, I'm not going to give you the standard, you know, pollster line. Oh, it's a snapshot. And we have to keep that in mind. No, I think we should. the ultimate aim of of what my job is is to is to try to to you
SPEAKER_03
21:35
try to project what it's going to be like uh come monday night and we work very very hard at trying
SPEAKER_03
21:42
to get there and there's lots of factors that that come into play and i even mentioned the stuff about patience factor and you
SPEAKER_03
21:49
you know it's funny because my staff were actually researching you know how how does as patients correlate to age and patient you know if there's any studies out there we you know we try to do our absolute best to try to factor in all these things and
SPEAKER_03
22:03
and and sometimes you know um
SPEAKER_03
22:07
sometimes we fall a little bit short but but yeah ultimately my i'm my aim is to be pretty
SPEAKER_03
22:13
pretty bang on on on election night okay
Carter
22:15
okay so zane's been really nice to you and and said how on how things have gone when you're right.
Carter
22:20
I'm the dick on this group, so let me ask you.
SPEAKER_04
22:23
you. Carter, you're the dick in
Carter
22:25
that you hang out with,
Carter
22:26
honest. I don't know why. I think I'm a delightful person. When have you missed and why have you missed?
SPEAKER_03
22:32
What have I missed? When
Carter
22:33
When have you missed on a projection and why did you miss?
SPEAKER_03
22:39
I've missed on a couple of by-elections. We actually were off by more than the margin of error in the Sudbury by-election provincially here. Um, last year, uh, we had the order, right? We were the closest among the three pollsters who actually put a number out there by
SPEAKER_03
22:55
by elections turnout models are a little bit different. It's really, it's, it's much more hard to, to put any turnout
SPEAKER_03
23:03
turnout waiting, uh, on the end because those models are significantly different. I think we learned a lot in that one and, and, and have adjusted for other, for future by-elections. um we were just outside the margin of error in the calgary foothills by election um on the one number uh i actually still you know as and you probably remember my personal opinion despite the numbers was that the ndp was what was going to win because because we had it relatively close um lost the bet to my staff cost me a lot of money i had to buy uh
SPEAKER_03
23:35
uh ipads for for everybody. Um, and, uh, you
SPEAKER_03
23:41
you know, what else have I been wrong? Um, I don't think any big one, just by elections. And I think it's because the
SPEAKER_03
23:48
the turnout models are very different. Having had, you know, lots of real life, uh, experience, you know, uh, campaign experience myself for 20 years. Um, you
SPEAKER_03
23:59
you know, I, I, our turnout models are based on mountains and mountains and mountains of of data on real elections and real turnout and i think that that's why we've had you know because it's about that the company has a background as a technology company with databases
SPEAKER_03
24:16
that that that data has helped us develop a pretty good model for what voter behavior is like yeah
Corey
24:23
yeah i mean that the campaign experience i i like that you guys have that i'm going to give you a bit of a plug here i described you when someone asked me the other day what did keto do before this i said he was a campaign ronin you wandered the country working on elections
Corey
24:40
but uh you know there's something to be said for that because i'll tell you even like my own internal spreadsheet models and whatnot and what's turnout and how our undecided is going to break and what's the difference between an undecided identified you know generically versus an undecided identified by the campaign which are really just polite opponents most of the time anyways we all have formulas well of calculations but i'm not saying even that mine were particularly good my point is we were thinking about these things because we'd seen them in campaigns and i'm not convinced that all of the other pollsters uh i don't want to pick a fight i'll let you pick the fight with cap or there but uh but
Corey
25:14
i wonder how much they are just almost being blinded by the science you know for
SPEAKER_03
25:21
always i in my arguments with other pollsters and and i'll be honest i don't even read other polls i i don't i don't look at their reports i don't try to you know learn anything from what they're doing um you
SPEAKER_03
25:35
you know it's not an academic exercise right it's we're gonna know who is right pretty soon in three days so the whole what ifs and i'll let other people have those have those arguments but um
SPEAKER_03
25:49
um you know i'll
SPEAKER_03
25:51
i'll just let the results speak for themselves i think we're gonna be pretty close um you
SPEAKER_03
25:56
you know Tomorrow, we may throw
SPEAKER_03
25:58
throw out a little adjustment, right? We continue to sort of stop poll and if there is significant movement. I usually don't like to poll in the last 48 hours, even though a lot of people say that that's when. But we've spent a lot of time drilling
SPEAKER_03
26:12
drilling down into the undecided. I think most pollsters kind of ignore the undecided and go with the traditional model that the undecided breaks exactly the way that the decided vote breaks. Stephen, you'll know this very well. all. That was not the case at all in Alberta in 2012. It wasn't the case in British Columbia in 2013. And that's why, and
SPEAKER_03
26:32
and we spotted those, you know, that
SPEAKER_03
26:36
that most of the undecided was actually shy PC supporters in Alberta in 2012 and shy PC liberal supporters in 2013.
SPEAKER_03
26:47
There may be some of the shy conservative supporters out there. I've read a bit about that in the last couple of days from other people uh i don't think it's going to be enough to overcome yeah
Carter
26:57
yeah i don't buy that either yeah they're just more likely to vote that's the piece that we're not factoring in i think it's a 10 point difference in voter turnout yeah
SPEAKER_04
27:06
well i guess we'll see well guess we will see keto we'll leave it there but final words any any final thoughts before uh before we we let you go here final
SPEAKER_03
27:13
final thoughts it's it's gonna come down to uh you you know, a couple of ridings, uh, look for those, those four-way races in Quebec to really be. And I predict that the
SPEAKER_03
27:25
the vast majority of those close races all going to be one by one party. And if, if it's, if you see liberals winning Shefford early on in election night, majority guaranteed it's over.
SPEAKER_04
27:38
Keto Majri of Main Street. Thank you so much for joining us. Have yourself a good weekend and an even more exciting Monday, bud.
SPEAKER_04
27:44
right. Thanks, guys. We'll
SPEAKER_04
27:45
We'll see you. Thank you. Take care.
SPEAKER_03
27:47
It's been the highlight of my election.
SPEAKER_04
27:53
Have a good one. All righty. So before we bring our friend Jen Gerson on, what do we think of what we just heard from Kato? Carter? Well,
Carter
27:59
Well, I mean, maybe in a future episode, we're going to do a conversation with a pollster where we can really dig into the various things that we believe about polls and why. I mean, he took a different position than most pollsters when he said, you know, it's just a snapshot in time, but I don't do that.
Carter
28:14
why i mean yeah the projection piece is the thing that i object to the most and i think that uh keto you know he has his model uh the way he does things it has a value um he articulated
Corey
28:25
articulated that value quite
Carter
28:26
quite well i don't agree
Corey
28:27
agree i mean i think that's the best thing about keto every other pollster hedges by saying oh snapshot snapshot don't worry about it shouldn't be
Carter
28:33
be in the business of protecting out let
Corey
28:34
let me tell you that's the only reason anybody reads those polls they
SPEAKER_04
28:37
they don't read them as to what their neighbors want to think today and what yeah
Corey
28:40
yeah they're not they're not reading be like oh snapshot today no bearing on monday they're trying to themselves ascertain what that means for monday just
Carter
28:46
just it puts you i mean every time we get asked for our own predictions i hate it as well yeah
Carter
28:50
i hate this because you're
Carter
28:51
you're not good at
SPEAKER_04
28:52
at it let's say i
Carter
28:54
mean when you're trying to be wrong it's
SPEAKER_04
28:55
it's a lot easier no
SPEAKER_04
28:57
no yeah no that's that's that's a fair point i
Carter
28:59
i mean i mean so that was great right yeah that was great and i'm now and i i enjoyed that he let us ask the questions that we did but i still think that we've we we should dig into a poll in a future episode where Where we actually say, okay, how would we approach this as strategists versus how he approaches it? Now, he's an interesting cat. You brought it up, Corey. He's part strategist. He's
SPEAKER_04
29:19
He's got decades of campaign experience
Carter
29:20
experience behind him. This isn't just a pollster. This is a pollster slash strategist.
Corey
29:24
strategist. And not partisan campaign experience. That's one of the things I love about Keto. I mean, I think he's a moderate guy. I don't want to put words in his mouth. But he would work on any campaign that was reasonable enough. Very candidate focused. I've
Carter
29:35
I've worked with him before.
Carter
29:37
He's done campaigns. Likewise,
Carter
29:39
yeah. He's worked with all of us, I think, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's legit, and, you
Carter
29:44
know, if we're banging on pollsters, he's not necessarily the first one I pick up the phone and bang on. Well,
Corey
29:48
Well, there you go. You'll have to let us know which one on another day. But
Carter
29:52
But now we get to pick up the phone and bang on media.
Carter
29:55
Well, there we go. This is outstanding.
SPEAKER_04
29:58
media party, indeed. Well, we'll have a conversation. We're actually going to do it right now. Here is Jen Gerson from the National Post.
SPEAKER_04
30:04
Jen, how are you?
SPEAKER_00
30:05
Oh, great. I'm really looking forward to being blamed for all of this. It's going to be great. This
SPEAKER_04
30:09
This is all of your fault. And I'll stop there. That's pretty much it. This is all of your fault. I
SPEAKER_00
30:14
I accept that. I'll take all of the blame and effigy and you will berate me for it. And thus, the sins will be expelled and we can move on to the election part.
SPEAKER_04
30:25
That sounds very religious. Carter is nodding his head. I'm pretty excited. Yeah, he likes that. Listen, so Jen, you've been covering this campaign for its entirety. We've talked about the long runway of this campaign leading to more mistakes. You know, looking at the inside of the campaigns, what have you seen and what are you seeing leading up to this final weekend?
SPEAKER_00
30:44
Well, I can't take any full credit for being a particularly diligent cover of this campaign. You know, I've kind of been doing a bunch of things here and there. I
SPEAKER_00
30:53
I certainly haven't been where a lot of my press gallery or parliamentary press gallery colleagues have been, you know, following the planes, doing
SPEAKER_00
31:00
doing this 24-7, day in, day out. But
SPEAKER_00
31:02
I will just say from a
SPEAKER_00
31:04
a media perspective, the 11-week campaign has been – I think it's all universally agreed that it's just been hell. Like it's – I think people are squirrely. I think tempers are right at the end.
SPEAKER_00
31:16
I would also notice that the type of – I shall euphemistically refer to it as feedback
SPEAKER_00
31:24
we've been getting on social media has been uncharacteristically nasty and personal and pointed. so
SPEAKER_00
31:30
so it's just been it's it's not been a pleasant couple of months i would i would put it that way yeah
Corey
31:35
yeah i i would love to run the sentiment analysis on twitter on the election hashtag because it's just getting angrier and crazier in my opinion people are losing their damn minds the strategies coming out of the parties seem less and less coherent but maybe that's just because i'm getting less and less uh you know comprehensive and thoughtful it's it's just we tried this once Let's never do this 11-week campaign stuff. Never
SPEAKER_00
31:57
Never do it again. Let's never do it again. Like, you
SPEAKER_00
32:00
you know, a typical, you know, 35-day campaign or 20, 30, 35, depending on the election. I mean, that's bad enough. Those
SPEAKER_00
32:08
Those are hard enough. But, I mean, I think you've got to also,
SPEAKER_00
32:11
I mean, again, I'm not trying to whine or anything like that. Everybody, this is true of politicos and the workers and the campaigners themselves. But, I mean, this is a long time to be away from your family. This is a long time to
SPEAKER_00
32:21
to be working these kinds of hours. It's a long, long time. So, you know,
SPEAKER_00
32:25
know, it doesn't surprise me that the strategy is falling apart. It doesn't surprise me that the media are making mistakes. It doesn't surprise me that the
SPEAKER_00
32:33
the errors are popping up. I mean, people are just – I mean, there's a human element here, and that is people are tired. They're just tired, right?
Carter
32:39
It seems to me like everybody's kind of begging for stories too. Like there's no real stories that have emerged. This Gagné piece to me is –
SPEAKER_04
32:49
Do you make anything of that, Jen, the Gagné piece that's come out recently? I thought
SPEAKER_00
32:53
thought the daily piece might have been interesting until I actually read the actual advice that he gave TransCanada. And then I was like, oh.
Corey
33:01
Yeah, I mean, I've written a thousand memos like that.
SPEAKER_00
33:03
If you read the memo, it's basic civics. He's giving a basic civics course
SPEAKER_00
33:09
course to his employees and his role as a contract government
SPEAKER_00
33:18
I kind of left feeling totally cold about it. But I
SPEAKER_00
33:22
I understand why it's been a story. I understand, you
SPEAKER_00
33:25
you know, why people are concerned about it. But I think if you actually read the memo itself, you're just kind of left going. That's that's the scandal. Yeah,
Corey
33:33
Yeah, well, I totally agree. And I kind of feel like the big flop here was actually the liberals initial response to it, getting him to resign. And then just in the next day, kind of threw him under the bus a little being like, I was wrong. wrong um if
Corey
33:47
if you say it's wrong it's very hard then to be like but it wasn't a big deal and and they wanted to make this a one
Corey
33:53
story but in the absence of anything else going on it became like it's well
Carter
33:57
well nothing else is going on it's hilarious because at the end of the campaign and everybody should be gearing up but instead it's like oh thank you know we're just we're so tired there are no media stories left 77 days of trying to create something and now there's no stories left so people are just grabbing grasping at straws well the other
SPEAKER_00
34:14
thing i'll just point out is that I think this is the first real campaign where we've seen that the media actually isn't
SPEAKER_00
34:20
staying or going along for the rides. They actually aren't on, generally speaking, aren't on the buses. They're not following the campaigns around. This is really the first campaign where that's been the case, where it's just been too expensive and too long for
SPEAKER_00
34:31
for anyone, for very many media outlets to justify, you
SPEAKER_00
34:34
you know, putting a body on Stephen Harper's plane for, you know, 11 weeks. Like you just can't afford that anymore. And so I think I think that we've actually seen huge impacts on the coverage as a result of that. And I think you're entirely correct. There haven't been the stories. There's been very
SPEAKER_00
34:50
very little spontaneous. There's been very little coming out of the campaigns themselves. So
SPEAKER_00
34:54
So the goat's got to eat.
SPEAKER_00
34:57
So what do you do? Well, you wind up going around the campaigns. You wind up focusing way too much attention on things like the social media bozo eruptions. you
SPEAKER_00
35:06
you wind up searching for scandals and
SPEAKER_00
35:09
and and and making them big deals because you know you've got to fill the pages man you you've got to fill the content and
SPEAKER_00
35:14
and you can't always fill it with the boring whistle
SPEAKER_00
35:17
whistle stop stuff you can't always fill it with with the scripted stuff because it's just too dull yeah
Corey
35:22
yeah and i don't want to be picking on cbc they're pretty nice to me but i think cbc's been like the worst offender for the non-story story like man has anti-harper sign on van gets gets pulled over and ticketed how
Corey
35:33
is that a story but there's just they they they you know you got to fill those column inches and you know when there's when it's digital and there's no limit to them yeah
SPEAKER_04
35:41
yeah as as as a journalist jen how's kind of your response to that been have you found it to be personally or around your your hood been a struggle to kind of cover this election yeah
SPEAKER_00
35:51
yeah actually do you know my real problem with this election is that i found it to be um demoralizing and boring welcome
Carter
35:58
to the strategy no
SPEAKER_00
36:01
i mean like like if one of these leaders any three of them i mean don't go wrong i kind of have i i kind of dislike all of them but for different reasons yeah
SPEAKER_00
36:09
i think that's a lot of canadians actually with a particularly compelling um set of ideas
SPEAKER_00
36:15
or or a particularly um interesting vision that something that i could have sunk my my teeth into or my brain into i
SPEAKER_00
36:22
i think that i could have started to get behind it but i think i kind of lost the plot on this campaign when this when it became about the niqab yeah
SPEAKER_00
36:29
when it became that was when i was just like i'm out i've mentally i've checked out like i can't i can't because the niqab stuff was so problematic because you
SPEAKER_00
36:38
you were damned if you in the media you were damned if you if you did and you were damned if you didn't because if you if you played along with the narrative and said hey
SPEAKER_00
36:45
hey guys this whole debate is a non-debate and it's ridiculous now
SPEAKER_00
36:50
know your your audience is going to react and say, you're the bad guy.
SPEAKER_00
36:54
You're, you're, you're, you're, uh, playing into the liberals, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't see the real threat of, of Sharia law and yada, yada, yada.
SPEAKER_00
37:02
And if you, um, you
SPEAKER_00
37:04
you know, if you discuss this at all, you lost, that
SPEAKER_00
37:08
that was the, that was the, that was the problem. If you discussed it, even to sort of point out how stupid it was, you were playing into the conservatives narrative. You were playing they wanted you
SPEAKER_04
37:18
you to play in this domain right yeah
SPEAKER_00
37:19
yeah you were you were playing the classic media party domain and
SPEAKER_00
37:22
and um you you couldn't you couldn't win for trying so i mean i didn't i i had so many opinions about the niqab and
SPEAKER_00
37:29
and so many opinions about what was going on and i'm like no i'm actually hurting the narrative to contribute to it i'm hurting the narrative to even give this any more oxygen
SPEAKER_00
37:39
and and that was the point where i'm just like i i don't know what to write about out anymore i i've given up i've given up all the things yeah i
Corey
37:46
i mean even the pre-nicob discussions about the economy infrastructure all of that when you get right down to it you're
Corey
37:53
you're 100 right these are not big dramatic conversations we're talking about you know 10 billion dollars or not in a two trillion dollar economy as much as they might try to wrap both of their decisions as you know grand dramatic action or you know protecting the country against ruin and all of this that it like Like the differences were so small that
Corey
38:13
that the conversations and the arguments became so petty. And I'd say around mid-Oct or mid-September, I just got exhausted with it. I don't know about you, but like there just
Corey
38:22
just wasn't very much there. There's
SPEAKER_00
38:24
There's nothing there. It's just how many times can we talk about infrastructure spending? Well, we did. We spent lots of time talking about infrastructure spending.
SPEAKER_00
38:31
We spent lots of time talking about deficits. I mean, the debates gave us something to do.
SPEAKER_00
38:35
And then what? I
SPEAKER_00
38:36
I mean, and then what? And this is the thing that I actually kind of baffled by the conservatives decision to lengthen this campaign out, because, you know, I thought conservatives
SPEAKER_00
38:43
conservatives being the evil geniuses that they are, you
SPEAKER_00
38:46
you know, I would have thought they would have had every week,
SPEAKER_00
38:48
like, we're going to discuss this this week, this this week, and this this week, and we're going to dominate the agenda. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
38:53
Instead, what has it been? It's been the
SPEAKER_00
38:56
the Duffy trial and debates about whether or not we're in a technical recession or not in a technical recession and
SPEAKER_00
39:03
and social media blowups. It's been an election about the cabs. It's been an election about nothing. It's been an election about nothing. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04
39:10
Yeah, that's an interesting point. You bring up the conservative policies. We were discussing the first or second week of the campaign. Remember the home renovation credit and the Netflix? That's what we were talking about. And we were speculating that this was going to be the whole campaign. Every four days, there's going to be one of these. Well,
SPEAKER_04
39:27
and they were teasers.
Carter
39:27
teasers. They were teasers. Teasers to what, though? They were supposed to lead us to a big idea at the end of the campaign that we'd all be turning around on and all be thinking about, and it turned out to be the niqab. Well,
Corey
39:38
Well, I actually don't know what happened to their policy of the day because they were doing that pretty consistently. And they still, even last week, you know, they
Corey
39:44
they had their, you can extend your maternity leave to 18 months. Yeah, that's right. Or whatever it was. I can't remember now. Yeah, but only be
Carter
39:51
be paid for 12.
Corey
39:53
But only be paid 12. Yeah, so thanks, you know. That was always the case, sort of. You could have just hoarded that money and worked it out with your employer. Yeah,
Corey
40:02
I don't know. I mean, at some point in the campaign, the wheels just fell off entirely. hirely i don't know if this was always the plan of the conservatives to switch to these
Corey
40:11
issues i mean i i almost don't want to call them issues they're just so great or was it just something they did midway
Corey
40:17
midway when they're like all right this isn't working throw at the playbook i don't know i
Corey
40:21
i mean what's your sense i
SPEAKER_00
40:23
i mean my sense going into the last few days is what is this campaign about right now what are what's going to be the ballot question going into most voters minds now it's
SPEAKER_00
40:31
it's going to be a mixture of do
SPEAKER_00
40:33
do i trust stephen harper do i like stephen harper and
SPEAKER_00
40:37
you know um do
SPEAKER_00
40:38
do i trust justin trudeau and can i believe uh
SPEAKER_00
40:42
uh when harper says that trudeau is going to cost me x number of dollars with his tax plan i
SPEAKER_00
40:47
think like that's that's what this that's what this entire 11
SPEAKER_00
40:50
11 week nightmare has come down to like do i like i mean
SPEAKER_00
40:54
mean that's it i don't see i don't see any other idea here i mean i
SPEAKER_00
40:58
i think trudeau when the refugee crisis came up Now, Trudeau had an opportunity to really turn this election into something about Canadian
SPEAKER_00
41:04
Canadian values and how Canadians see themselves in the world.
SPEAKER_00
41:08
And then it became about how the refugees were Muslim. And then we stopped talking about refugees.
SPEAKER_00
41:16
I mean, that was
SPEAKER_00
41:17
was that. Oh, OK.
SPEAKER_00
41:19
OK, then. So I guess that's we're not talking about that anymore, I
Carter
41:24
Yeah, it's like we're all afraid to talk about real issues. So we're going to have a campaign about minor issues because Lord knows if we bring up something that actually matters, we're going to lose.
SPEAKER_04
41:33
Right. And now we're having ballot box questions. I agree with you, Jen, on trust and likability. And when you're talking about likability with Harper, that's not a ballot box issue that the conservatives were pushing for, certainly.
Corey
41:44
certainly. So is this the nature of a three-way race? Everybody wants to play it safe because there's always two opponents who are going to tear you apart on any issue you take a bold stance on? Is that kind of where we are right now? It seems like. Jen, what do you think of that?
SPEAKER_00
41:57
did i think do i think that no i'm not sure that i blame this on a three-way way so much as i blame this on an election campaign that's completely dominated by strategists no
SPEAKER_00
42:06
no i'm sorry i had to get a shot in there that's
SPEAKER_04
42:08
that's why the three of us weren't working on this one
SPEAKER_00
42:11
um no i mean i why did this happen was it because it was a three-way race i don't no that couldn't be it could it no could it i mean we've had we've had tight races before
SPEAKER_00
42:23
so what what was it just that all of the leaders and all of the parties were chicken shit this time i yeah
Carter
42:31
they were all chicken shit because they all thought that they could lose and every time they lose they lose their jobs now so i think that they were chicken shits i think they hired chicken shit strategists i think they forgot the first principle of an election is to actually put ideas on the table that matter to canadians they instead chose to put out netflix tax as though that existed and they they made shit up to try and make an election happen this is the seinfeldian election and it's it's turned into a a farce and as a result i hope that harper gets punished and i wish that all three of them could be punished but it looks like only two carter you don't think
SPEAKER_04
43:06
you don't think any of the parties brought key issues onto the table
SPEAKER_04
43:09
in the way they should have any of the parties uh
Carter
43:12
uh i was happy a little bit with the ndp bringing some health care issues but then they put 2.3 billion dollars to an international or to a nationwide farmer care program that would be eaten up in about four seconds of actual
SPEAKER_00
43:28
can I can I give the liberals some credit here that before the writ was dropped they tried to
SPEAKER_00
43:33
put forward a fairly ambitious suite of of ideas including of course electoral reform and first first passports and then we never talked about it again yeah
Carter
43:43
yeah but that's the failing though you actually had ideas no
Corey
43:46
no no see now that was totally intentional if i'm the liberals hearkening back to that time they were being beaten up by c51 progressives were pretty mad at them and they decided they would create some red meat for the base with electoral reform in my opinion because that was that's an issue that not a ton of canadians will latch on to i can't even remember how many times i've seen somebody suggest something about the senate or the house of commons or something and it just it never never polls that well never catches is on i think that was entirely give
Carter
44:14
give me give me health care give
Carter
44:17
give me big issues give me leadership yeah give me you know trade
Carter
44:22
trade was a big issue but we tried to skip over it or
SPEAKER_00
44:26
or how about this uh uh you know uh what about um assisted dying susa or the euthanasia stuff like
SPEAKER_00
44:31
like that that could have been a major uh compelling policy point for the ndp or the liberals like like we're going to put put together a
SPEAKER_00
44:38
a very interesting package to assist you if you choose to go the euthanasia route and that these are going to be the substantive policy forms we put, but that would have been a really important heart
SPEAKER_00
44:51
heart-clenching sort of issue they could have addressed. We never talked about it.
Carter
44:55
Yeah, but again, it's dangerous, right? And in fact, the liberals, I thought, were absolutely positioned to do not just an assisted suicide assisted dying but a whole platform plank on health care and again they whiffed yeah but guys
Corey
45:09
guys i mean okay hold on i've won one final point on that just because like that is so off brand for what the liberals did the rest of their campaign you can't run the optimistic campaign on assisted dying i'm sure you can do it on health care you do it
Carter
45:22
it on health care you do it on keeping people alive healthier you can't you frame dead dead grandparents
SPEAKER_04
45:27
grandparents is what carter is saying you
SPEAKER_04
45:28
you frame it in a way you just gotta spin i'll
Carter
45:30
i'll give you my number later
SPEAKER_04
45:31
later oh my god i can make this listen
SPEAKER_04
45:33
listen listen chad i want to talk about the last couple of days and and you know there's been some um certainly some controversy um with two endorsements one of your paper at the national post um going with the conservatives um throughout all of its papers that that the the whole post media that that you guys own um
SPEAKER_04
45:51
um what do you make of that i mean what can you tell us about that is
Corey
45:54
is yeah go ahead let's just say once we get through Through this question, we are definitely going to be picking on the Globe and Mail.
SPEAKER_00
46:01
always have a hard time trying to explain to people who don't
SPEAKER_00
46:04
like or understand how the media works very well about
SPEAKER_00
46:09
about what an editorial is. And I think that to
SPEAKER_00
46:12
to understand what happened with these editorials, the first thing I have to talk about is what an editorial is. And just point out the fact that an editorial is
SPEAKER_00
46:21
is not the same thing as a column. An
SPEAKER_00
46:24
An editorial is not the same thing as news content.
SPEAKER_00
46:30
a bit of an archaic tradition
SPEAKER_00
46:31
tradition within newspapers. It's an unsigned piece
SPEAKER_00
46:35
piece of opinion or copy that's usually in the same place in the newspaper every day, runs about the same length every day, and
SPEAKER_00
46:44
and it is the voice of the newspaper on the issues of the day. And
SPEAKER_00
46:49
And it's written by what we call the editorial board. So the editorial board typically involves the
SPEAKER_00
46:54
the publisher, the editor-in-chief, and a handful of writers. I mean, I'm kind of a hit
SPEAKER_00
46:58
hit and miss member of the Post's editorial board. Sorry, that was
SPEAKER_00
47:03
not a Freudian slip. lip. I was just going
SPEAKER_04
47:06
going to say that.
SPEAKER_00
47:06
that. So it's like, for example, ideally, this is the idea. Every day you're supposed to meet with your editorial board. You'll discuss the issues of the day and
SPEAKER_00
47:14
and you'll sit around and you'll have a debate about what we want our editorial to be about and what we want our newspaper's opinion to be about. And then one person will then write the editorial based on that discussion. And that person who writes that editorial will oftentimes not agree agree personally with that position, but
SPEAKER_00
47:33
but you still have to make a coherent argument for that point that day.
SPEAKER_00
47:36
So editorials are traditionally the place where, um,
SPEAKER_00
47:40
um, the owner of the newspaper, the management of the newspaper can, can, can weigh in and say, this is my opinion on this. And this is what I want the paper to reflect. And traditionally the editorial was a, that
SPEAKER_00
47:50
that is a, that is an okay space for the editor, for the, for the owners to have that
SPEAKER_00
47:56
There's nothing untoward about it. It's
SPEAKER_00
47:58
It's longstanding newspaper tradition.
SPEAKER_00
48:00
What's degraded here is that the literacy among the readers, the readers don't necessarily understand that that's what's happening. And that's the problem as I see it.
SPEAKER_00
48:10
But anyway, so there's nothing unusual about the
SPEAKER_00
48:13
the owners of a paper coming to the editorial board and saying, we're endorsing this party
SPEAKER_00
48:18
for this election. And even if that endorsement is out of line with how the general coverage has has been. I
Corey
48:26
what's unusual this time is that almost all of the daily newspapers in this country are owned by one post media. And that's
SPEAKER_00
48:33
that's the other thing that's changed. Now we're having the owners taking their traditional prerogatives and
SPEAKER_00
48:39
we're combining that with the media convergence that's happened over the last couple of years. And
SPEAKER_00
48:45
And now all of a sudden we can have an
SPEAKER_00
48:47
an owner in an office in Toronto say, you know, I want my newspapers to be endorsing the conservatives And a couple hundred newspapers across the country will endorse the conservatives. So
Corey
48:56
So what bothers me about that is that it's a couple hundred different endorsements. I would actually have no problem with it at all if it was one endorsement run in a hundred newspapers. But the impression it gives is that, you
Corey
49:08
you know, paper by paper, everybody is in like there's this broad consensus, right? And that's what I think is problematic. It almost seems to me a bit duplicitous. And
SPEAKER_00
49:18
And yet I think when the Aspers, I think, now I'm going to have to double check my history because now we're going back beyond before my time. But I think when the Aspers did that, it was an uproar.
SPEAKER_00
49:28
So I actually agree with you. I think that a better
SPEAKER_00
49:32
better way to to to keep this institution alive, if we choose to keep it alive going forward, would be to do one 600
SPEAKER_00
49:39
600 word editorial, 800 word endorsement and just force all the papers to run exactly the same thing and just say at the bottom of it, this
SPEAKER_00
49:47
this is the post media's endorsement for the election and
SPEAKER_00
49:51
and just sign it. you know the ownership you know like i actually would have no objection to that and i think that that would be a clearer way of
SPEAKER_00
49:57
of of of doing this and still maintaining the rights of the owner while at the same time making it clear to the reader what's going on i
SPEAKER_00
50:04
agree that there's an element of duplicitousness around forcing
SPEAKER_00
50:07
forcing the individual um on the ground editorial boards to write different editorial endorsements i agree i actually also have a problem with that and i do think the whole system i will point out is not clear to the reader anymore and we that that's That's part of it that needs to change. On
Carter
50:20
On the plus side, we get some wonderfully weak endorsements.
SPEAKER_04
50:27
lot of pablum, for sure. Chen, you mentioned in this recent comment whether it's a tradition we still keep alive. Do you inherently see a value to it as someone like you mentioned is a hit or miss member of the editorial board?
SPEAKER_00
50:40
No, no, no. If I were in charge of these things, I would probably just get rid of endorsements. And I would get rid of all unsigned editorials. for
SPEAKER_00
50:48
for a lot of reasons um
SPEAKER_00
50:50
um the most pragmatic one being that readers uh don't click on these things online they even even when they're these things are really interesting and well written because
SPEAKER_00
50:58
because there's no byline attached to them um
SPEAKER_00
51:00
um they tend to die and they die really quickly so yeah i
SPEAKER_00
51:04
i have a i have a purely pragmatic approach
SPEAKER_00
51:07
approach to this and that is if putting a byline on a piece of writing makes that writing more popular especially online and it does then
SPEAKER_00
51:13
then why wouldn't we put our byline on So,
SPEAKER_00
51:15
So, I mean, no, I would get rid of this institution or I would I would pretty radically alter it if I were in charge because I just I don't see the value in it. But at the same time, I would much rather have the
SPEAKER_00
51:25
the owners weigh in under their own name. Like I would much rather have Paul
SPEAKER_00
51:30
you know, write a column for us and have this is at the bottom. Paul Godfrey is, you know, the CEO of Postmedia. I think that would be more clear for the reader. And
SPEAKER_00
51:39
And I actually think it would probably be better read because I think the readers would be like, yeah, I'm sure I'm interested in what the CEO has to say. Sure.
SPEAKER_00
51:46
You know, I actually think that there's more of a connection there that happens. The whole voice of the newspaper thing is is is ancient and anachronistic. And I think it's probably outdated and needs to go. Right.
SPEAKER_04
51:56
Right. OK, so on that point, we have to ask you about the Globe and Mail. Now, the Globe and Mail, for anyone who hasn't caught up, endorsed the Conservative Party, but did not endorse Stephen Harper. So, I mean, my my my quip was this is like endorsing cheese, but not milk. And, you know, so what do you make of that? I think a lot of people were outraged, thought it was pathetic, pretty cowardly. But from your vantage point, what are you thinking?
SPEAKER_00
52:19
Well, it's like endorsing the Globe and Mail, but not a newspaper run by old middle age white men.
SPEAKER_04
52:27
think that's jen's way of telling me i'm never gonna own a newspaper guys
Carter
52:32
jen's way of saying she's never working for the global mail uh
SPEAKER_00
52:35
uh if anyone out there needs to hire someone uh maybe i need to rethink this journalism career um uh
SPEAKER_00
52:45
think i i think everything that can possibly be leveled at that at that endorsement probably has been um
SPEAKER_00
52:53
think probably it suffered from um a writing by committee problem which is as i explained to you how how how how these editorials work is that they're they're not one person writing them they're a
SPEAKER_00
53:05
group of people fighting vociferously over an issue and then coming to an opinion and usually assigning the person uh
SPEAKER_00
53:11
uh who who most disagrees with the opinion to write it and then the thing goes back to the main editor and then sometimes also the The publisher wants to take a look and then the editor in chief is going to want to weigh in. So the whole thing is kind of written by committee.
SPEAKER_00
53:24
And particularly when it comes to things that are like endorsements that are widely read, there were probably like half a dozen people with their fingers in that particular pie. So that was your first problem. The
SPEAKER_00
53:34
second problem is, is, you
SPEAKER_00
53:36
you know, I actually think they're there. You could have written an editorial to the effect of we
SPEAKER_00
53:41
we endorse the policy positions of the Conservative Party, but we would heavily encourage Stephen
SPEAKER_00
53:47
Stephen Harper to step down after he's elected.
SPEAKER_00
53:51
I think that you might have been able to get away with that.
SPEAKER_00
53:54
But I think that there were some real phrasing problems with it. I think the headline was problematic. I just
SPEAKER_04
53:59
just What do you think they were going for, Jen? Were they thinking that the reaction would be, no, that makes total sense, and that is totally actionable. What do you think they were, in that room, being someone who's been in a similar room, what were they exactly going for with this endorsement, do you think? I
SPEAKER_00
54:17
think that what happened in that room was very human. I think that you had a lot of people who had real concerns about the Harper government and its history of governance and
SPEAKER_00
54:26
and had real objections to it.
SPEAKER_00
54:28
I think that that editorial
SPEAKER_00
54:30
editorial screams of a senior member of the editorial board, whether it be the editor in chief or the publisher saying, OK,
SPEAKER_00
54:37
OK, but we're still going to endorse the conservatives and here's why. And
SPEAKER_00
54:41
I think that you got
SPEAKER_00
54:43
got an end piece
SPEAKER_00
54:45
piece that was Frankenstein together from these competing and problematic realities.
SPEAKER_00
54:52
That's what I think happened. I'm not sure that if
SPEAKER_00
54:56
if anybody in that board sort of stepped away and let it sit for a day or two, then came back to it and reread it, they probably would have been like, no, this doesn't make much sense. You know,
SPEAKER_00
55:06
we're going to endorse the conservatives, we might as well just endorse the conservatives and stop fucking around about it.
SPEAKER_00
55:12
you know, these things can get very heated. And as I said, I mean, you guys know how committees work. It's it's it's they don't. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
55:20
Anytime you have a group of people try to write something, particularly when feelings are very, very emotional and heated. heated these
SPEAKER_00
55:27
these things tend to fall apart really dramatically and nobody can see the forest for the trees anymore and you
SPEAKER_00
55:32
know i think that that's just what happened here um so
SPEAKER_00
55:34
so i you know i just i just think that this was a my suspicion
SPEAKER_00
55:37
suspicion is that this is a classic example of why groups of people don't write things and shouldn't yeah
Corey
55:44
yeah i was just i mean the whole thing was so baffling i you know it's not obviously an option anybody has to put an asterisk on their ballot and say but hey harper or resign would you after you know so many comments about like yeah they're endorsing the conservative party of narnia and whatnot yeah i thought it was a real miss uh the facebook q a they did on there i think i struggled i went through hundreds of comments and i think i saw one that was positive and um i mean that's the internet the internet's a snarky place but you
Corey
56:14
you know this election i
Corey
56:17
mean i don't know who's gonna win on monday with a hundred percent uncertainty but i know that walmsley lost this election yeah
SPEAKER_00
56:23
yeah it did me oh
Corey
56:24
oh my god between the globe debate and this it's just he's being crucified right yeah it's
Carter
56:28
it's a bad election for the global mail jen
SPEAKER_04
56:30
jen we'll we'll leave it there any final words what do you what do you have to say for monday give us the media party's official stance as the ambassador the
SPEAKER_00
56:39
the ambassador of the media but it does there's no media party man um
Carter
56:44
it's not true i heard it just the other day from measure like
SPEAKER_00
56:48
i mean you know we all actually get together now and for have drinks in calgary and call it like the media media party calgary branch just just to make fun of this whole conceit but um
SPEAKER_00
57:02
know i know i know and we're gonna have like little robes and shit soon it's gonna be fun um
SPEAKER_00
57:08
look i mean i just sort of think the general sense from everybody is just i don't care anymore just end it just put it out of its misery just Just kill the horse.
SPEAKER_00
57:16
Just end this stupid election and let us move on with our lives. I think that's my overwhelming takeaway. End
SPEAKER_04
57:23
End this election. Move on with our lives. Jen Gerson from the National Post. Thanks, Jen. Thank you.
Carter
57:28
Well, that was exciting.
Carter
57:29
Yeah, it was good. We have Jen. We have Keto.
SPEAKER_04
57:32
We had guests. That was very exciting. It means you had to do literally nothing, Carter. I
Carter
57:37
really glad we got to phone this one
SPEAKER_04
57:39
one in. You're just playing Candy Crush on your phone and just chime in when you feel like it. Yeah,
Carter
57:42
Yeah, basically I was... What level are you up to now? I'm doing really well. I'm really proud of myself, and I think I can keep going.
Corey
57:48
Well, this is going to – well, this
Corey
57:51
this was fascinating. This was good, yeah. I enjoyed it. It gave us some context. Let us step back, understand. You guys have any different feelings about this election after talking to those two?
Corey
58:00
Well, that was going to be my closing
SPEAKER_04
58:00
closing question, but thanks for stealing it. I mean, listen,
SPEAKER_04
58:03
listen, I probably am on your coattails on this one, Corey. I'm thinking liberal majority. I think that collapse happens. happens that volatility that keto highlighted for us right with the with the ndp voters i think that happens i honestly do i think tom milcair resigns on the night of the election and you know we've got prime minister justin trudeau leading the majority government he might not have to resign he might lose his seat and that's a possibility no
Carter
58:30
no no no no no it's going to be a weak liberal minority you heard it here first because i'm right and you guys are wrong cory
Corey
58:38
cory What are you thinking? You asked the question, but. Yeah, I don't know if I've changed much of my thinking about any of this. It's, well, it was a great reminder of how much I've disliked this election. Oh, yeah.
Corey
58:52
When you're in it, you're just kind of in it. But taking a step back, I don't think anyone's going to go in and say, like, 2015, one for the ages, man. That
SPEAKER_04
58:59
was great. I just can't
SPEAKER_04
59:00
see it. Yeah, you know, the main thing that Jen highlighted for me in particular was, where did this conservative arc go? What were they building up to, right? Like, I totally forgot about that once they started making this a campaign where they reacted to
Corey
59:13
issues. Yeah, it was like it was the Ark of the Covenant. They opened it up and it melted their faces.
SPEAKER_04
59:20
No, or did it? Because if they had played the second half of the niqab debate correctly, they could be the ones in first place right now. Is that not possible? I don't even know what correctly is at this point. I
Carter
59:29
I don't think you can take those bullshit issues. I don't
Carter
59:34
know. We're all in a bubble.
SPEAKER_04
59:35
We're just saying shit at this point. point. I don't even know what I just said.
SPEAKER_04
59:42
God it's over. Our
Carter
59:43
Our next episode, we get to focus on what happened, where we're going, and what's going to happen next. I
Carter
59:48
think that that's going to be a great
Carter
59:50
great place for everyone to be. A
SPEAKER_04
59:52
A great place for everyone to be and an absolute great place for us and everyone listening to reset, to get away from the campaign mode and start talking about what happens from there on in. Last question question I want to ask you guys. Carter, you're not changing your vote, are you? Is you're still going liberal minority? Oh,
Carter
1:00:07
Oh, yeah, I'm not. I'm not changing. And I'm right. Why would I change? Corey,
Corey
1:00:10
Corey, you're sticking with it? You know, as I said at the top, what's what's the upside in changing?
Corey
1:00:15
Sticking with it. Okay,
SPEAKER_04
1:00:15
Okay, we'll see you after the election, everyone. That's a wrap on episode 553 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and I guess this week, Jen Gerson and Keto Magic.