Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a strategist episode 560. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, how are you?
Carter
0:10
560. I think you made that number up. It doesn't feel like... It doesn't feel like it's real? No, it feels completely made up. Yeah, what about our last two weeks of episodes? Like most of our analysis.
Corey
0:18
last two weeks of episodes should have gotten us to 570 for sure. Well,
Zain
0:22
Well, once again, we went back to the Zoom recordings. I do not know why we
Zain
0:25
we decided to do that, Carter.
Zain
0:27
I'm going to blame it on you. you speaking of which what are you wearing i'm cold it's freezing in my house to describe it to everyone carter's wearing a very nice shirt a very nice tie and then a winter jacket on top of it and we
Corey
0:39
we are indoors we are indoors this is an indoor situation here we
Carter
0:43
we don't want to go into this particular situation as to why it's so cold in my house all the time here's
Zain
0:47
here's what i'm thinking guys i don't even know why we should be recording anymore because today is also the day that serial has come out with their first episode of the second season i
Carter
0:56
i don't know i'm counting personally on a jump in podcasts across the board are
Corey
1:00
are we are we really plugging cereal right
Zain
1:03
right no we're not we're not plugging cereal we're just saying they're the golden state warriors of podcasting and
Corey
1:10
don't know who we are who are we cory you guys remember
Carter
1:13
were number two to cereal that
Corey
1:16
that was pretty good that
Zain
1:18
that was a good day one day that was a good day now they had been off the air for nine months but still we had an episode that's number two Dude, the cereal. That's true. We were desperately trying to get there, and
Zain
1:29
and the climb becomes steeper after today. Let's get into this, because it's been a while since we've recorded. We've got a lot to talk about. Our first segment, take that shovel and dig some more. Guys, I want to talk about what I think is a very interesting subject that is permeating through politics provincially, federally, and even in the United States right now, which is the whole notion of politicians entrenching themselves in their current positions. They have made a move. It has brought on some controversy and some opposition, a lot of it ideological opposition, a lot of it potentially rational and logical opposition. Yet these individuals and characters and politicians have stood their ground on certain instances. So I want to start the conversation off with what's happening here locally, which is Bill 6, which is legislation that's trying to be passed. And I'm not sure where it is yet today, Corey. Just got passed. Just got passed, okay, provincially. But Corey, do you want to give people who maybe not be from Alberta or maybe don't live on a farm in Alberta? Some idea of
Corey
2:25
Bill 6 is. Well, I think any description of Bill 6 is going to, you know, put your thumb on the scale. It's very interesting. This is legislation that the provincial New Democrats have brought in to essentially give labor protections to farm workers where they were previously exempt. So this is WCB, OHS.
Corey
2:44
Seems pretty reasonable, right?
Carter
2:46
right? It's the last industry in Alberta, and Alberta is the last province in Canada. So
Carter
2:51
this is not groundbreaking legislation that is new or different than anywhere else in Canada.
Corey
2:58
No, but what has happened is the farmers have gotten totally up in arms about this. Farmers and ranchers, there
Corey
3:04
there is definitely legitimate criticism that can be leveled at the New Democrats for how they rolled it out. No.
Corey
3:11
Look, when you've got the premier saying there was a mistake and our communications wasn't great, and when you've got the government websites posting things that are inaccurate about the bill, Yeah, those are problems, and I don't think you can pretend those aren't problems.
Carter
3:23
But those inaccuracies are the first set of backing away.
Corey
3:28
there was a set
Zain
3:29
backing away. Okay, let's
Zain
3:31
Corey give us a little bit more context as to what this
Corey
3:32
this is. Yeah, so there's been protests at the legislature, 1,000, 1,500 people essentially chanting that they want this bill, known as Bill 6, which is the farm workers' protection, to
Corey
3:43
to go away, to be gone. The premier has said that won't be the case, as Stephen was just saying. and we've passed it now, and we'll clean it all up in regulation. So it has
Corey
3:53
has not stopped the firestorm. There's a lot of angry people, and it's been a pretty big hit to the NDP. And it's been really interesting. I won't get into it right now, but it's been really interesting to see how Albertans themselves have turned so aggressively against the bill wholesale.
Zain
4:07
Okay, so that's one instance. Let's talk about another one right now, because I want to get the instances on the table, and then let's talk about this whole theme of standing your ground in politics. The second one is Trudeau's tax plan. $1.5 billion potential hole in it, yet he's standing by it.
Zain
4:22
Is that a pretty fair synopsis of the situation, Stephen? Well,
Carter
4:25
Well, I think it is. I mean, I think, you know, anytime you plan, you propose a tax plan or something along those lines, you're kind
Carter
4:31
kind of guessing at numbers when you're running a platform.
Carter
4:34
Some guesses are stronger than others. And I think it's fair to say that this was a weak guess. It was a favorable guess that made their revenue projections look stronger than it was. But essentially, the middle class tax cut costs more than the increase in taxes for the 1%. Let's just call it
Carter
4:53
it the 1%. I'm not sure that it was 1%. But that
Carter
4:58
that increase in taxes doesn't pay for the cut.
Carter
5:01
Is anybody surprised? Well,
Corey
5:02
Well, I think that if there is surprise, it's because this platform was costed. Kevin Page, the former PBO, Parliamentary Budget Officer, sort of said it all looks good. It's a pretty big hole. Well, but that sort of reminds you of the limitation of opposition. You do not have a Department of Finance. You don't have all these economic models. And you don't have the data, frankly, as
Corey
5:20
as much as StatsCan releases this, that, and the other thing. You just don't have enough economic data to go on to figure out what's going to happen there.
Corey
5:28
And yet, to your point, Zane, there is no change of plan. It's like, oh, oops, I guess we move on. Right.
Zain
5:35
Right. Yeah. Right. Stand your ground. Face the criticism. Move on. So first one, Bill Six, Rachel Notley. Second one, Justin Trudeau on this. Let's talk about the third one, which I think is the most intriguing to me, is the lunatic from down south, Donald Trump. Now, this guy seems to be the king of the double down, triple down and increase the intensity and degree of what he's saying. But effectively, almost the same strategy. If someone has criticized him on anything, whether it be his most recent comments about not letting Muslims in, whether they be citizens, visitors, whatever, he's doubled and tripled down on the same notion, standing his ground. Corey, you were going to add something. Yeah,
Corey
6:09
Yeah, let's just throw Godwin's Law on the table right now, right?
Corey
6:13
It's the big lie. You say something enough and you just refuse to accept any of the truth and you go on. He is, of these three, by far the most extreme example. And the big difference is Premier Notley said could have done some stuff differently. Prime Minister Trudeau has said, oops. Trudeau, or not Trudeau, Trump has said, what are you talking about? This is great.
Carter
6:35
This is great. He is actually – you can watch a video of him today with Political saying, I'm a great friend of the Muslims. I am – Muslims love me. Yeah, the Muslims love me. So for anyone
Corey
6:47
anyone who's listened to us for the past few hundred episodes knows Zayn has a rule that the minute you use the phrase, I have always been a defender of the Jewish people,
Corey
6:55
lost. And I think the same corollary is holding true here. I agree. You can't be like, I've always been a defender of the Muslims because that means you've said something absolutely insane about Muslims recently. OK,
Zain
7:05
OK, so we've got it all out on the table and that's what I wanted to do initially. And we'll get into each one of these more in-depthly and talk about the intricacies. But let's take it back to the top. Let's talk about the politics of standing your ground. What is rooted in that and why do politicians more often than not, Stephen Carter, stand their ground and back up? And we'll talk about some of the instances recently. I
Carter
7:25
I think I'm going to turn into this crazy defender of Trump.
Carter
7:29
Go ahead. Rachel Notley admitted, as Corey alluded, that they'd done some incorrect communications. The reality is that they tried to include farm children in the bill, and Lord knows farmers don't want to protect their own kids.
Corey
7:42
You were going to get angry. I got to tell you, I was on CBC last week.
Carter
7:47
week. Listen, farmers want their kids to
Carter
7:48
That's what I heard. I
Corey
7:49
I was on CBC last week. Corey, it was unbelievable. I was a strong defender of farm workers. You're not nearly as
Carter
7:55
as strong as you should have been.
Corey
7:56
Interestingly enough, I think most farmers disagree with you based on the volume of – I've never gotten so much hate mail in my life. Well, farmers are crazy.
Zain
8:05
just wants the hate mail. You
Carter
8:06
You know what though? I'm going to prove my own point because I'm not going to back down. I'm going to stand by that position regardless of how stupid it may seem in hindsight because that is often more safe than going back even a little bit. it. Notley moves back a smidge and says, we
Carter
8:22
we made a mistake. And what does it get her? It gets her more hate. See,
Carter
8:26
the bill is completely flawed. You now have to stop everything. The changes that you've made are not nearly enough. You need to go further. Donald Trump admits
Carter
8:34
admits no error, gives
Carter
8:38
Gives no fox and does
Carter
8:42
does better than Rachel Notley who backs up a bit. And we've seen it time Time after time, when we went back and we tried to clean up another farmer's mess, the 19, 24, and 36 bills in—
Corey
8:53
in— Oh, please don't do the bill number thing. Here's
Carter
8:55
Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to clean that up a bit just by simply saying there
Carter
8:58
there were a series of land protection acts that were put forward by Ted Morton, who was the minister of environment, I think. It might have been energy.
Carter
9:08
Back in the day, before Alison Redford took over, we tried to clean it up. We tried to back up. We tried to make things better. It doesn't make things better. Once people have made up in their minds that these things are bad things, nothing
Carter
9:22
nothing gets better from an apology.
Zain
9:24
I know, Corey, I'm going to give you the floor in one second here, but I need to ask this to you as part of your answer, Hogan. When you are talking about it, like Stephen has here, the retreat is never as good as sticking your ground.
Zain
9:38
Is there not some common sense or some – maybe that's not the question. Is there not someone somewhere saying, you know, okay, if someone's saying that this is flawed, and a lot of people don't like it, if I step back, I'll look reasoned as a politician, I'll look like someone who listens, I'll look like the person who actually cares and is connected. Yet we see it happen so, so rarely. Why is that? well
Corey
9:58
well if you're gonna fail fail fast if you're gonna back down back down quickly uh when you start to dig in and then retreat it's a retreat it's not a redirection there's blood in the water and your opponent's circle and because you have been intransigent for a while being like no problem no problem no problem oops actually there is a problem that starts to make it look like you were in fact disingenuous before and so politicians get themselves into this pretty quickly and pretty pretty painfully and you're right i mean i don't know why politics is the only career in the world where being an obstinate prick is a virtue yeah
Zain
10:31
you could just be like nope that's not what i think no
Corey
10:34
no that's not what i think in fact that's that's that's just basically where it is you can't it looks weak and we you know we've talked about retreat blood in the water the fact is we call them campaigns this military terminology and
Corey
10:45
and when you see somebody collapsing that's
Corey
10:48
that's when you attack Carter,
Zain
10:48
Carter, is that it? Can this conversation simply be – and I know I'm saying that your point is as simple, but is the root of this conversation around strength and weakness? Oh,
Carter
10:58
Oh, absolutely. That's it,
Carter
11:00
Keep in mind what you're up against, right? So you're up against an opposition. In politics, you always have someone who opposes you.
Carter
11:07
Let's pick academia, right? Another place where you can say something, say something, say something. Like the only place
Corey
11:11
place more political than politics. But then
Carter
11:14
you'll see that evidence will shift and academics will change their minds because of the evidence that has shifted. And that is the proper way of doing things. OK, so you
Carter
11:23
you can be entrenched. But when evidence is stockpiled against you and you're suddenly it's overwhelming, you need to change your mind. But in politics, if we do that, the other side pounces. Right. So our opposition attacks attacks us. And further,
Carter
11:38
further, we also get attacked by the media. Well,
Corey
11:40
Well, that's because at the end of the day, unlike academia, politics is zero-sum.
Corey
11:45
know, you lose, they win. They win, you lose. And that
Corey
11:48
that is a pretty strong disincentive to being reasonable and open-minded about things. And
Carter
11:53
And people say, let's
Carter
11:54
let's do politics differently.
Carter
11:56
Right. We're going to be the ones who base our politics on what the people want. We're going to be the party that bases our politics on the best possible evidence.
Carter
12:05
If we're wrong and we put it out there, we'll go back. We'll
Zain
12:07
We'll listen to. Right. What
Carter
12:09
What could possibly go wrong? Tell
Zain
12:10
Tell me what could go wrong. Everything goes wrong. I think there's a lot of people out there, and maybe I'm just projecting my sensibility, but I think there's a lot of people out there who, when they view something like this, might say, why doesn't this person or why doesn't this politician just take the reasoned approach and say, okay, yeah, you want to pause it? I agree with that. Let's pause it and let's be thoughtful about this, et cetera. Two
Carter
12:31
Two groups of people who don't like that. Number one, they hyper-engage the partisans, right? Right. The partisans on either side of the people who are paying attention, the people who listen to this podcast who are like on sides. Right. I am a conservative or I'm a liberal. They take great joy in pointing out all the other guys mistakes. Right.
Carter
12:48
Right. So and they're not going to take a pass this time just because it was a thoughtful mistake. They're going to say, what are you doing? Making a thoughtful mistake, you morons. And they're going to pile on you. Then there's the second group of people. And that's the group of people who only heard that you made a mistake. Right. Right. Right. The less engaged, the people who aren't paying attention to the low
Corey
13:06
low information voter. They don't care what the process was. Let's unpack that for a second, because we're being killed right now provincially. And I really want to talk about Trudeau and I really want to talk about Trump. But let's finish off this Bill 6 stuff where they're being killed right now is in the low information voter. And on an issue like farm safety, I
Corey
13:26
I mean, everybody's a low information voter. Nobody had an opinion about this period until about three weeks ago. okay right so i've used this analogy before but i'm going to take it and go a different place with it new coke when they brought out new coke they changed the formula blind
Corey
13:42
blind taste test people liked the formula in focus groups people were like yeah this is fine until inevitably in the focus group there was that one person who's like what an outrage and they slowly moved the entire group against new coke right
Corey
13:53
it's because they don't care about soft drinks they don't have strong opinions about it and the reason why those focus groups were representative of what happened in the real world is because people
Corey
14:02
people aren't militant about soft drinks but the people who were militant were almost universally opposed to new coke and it's one of these like i
Corey
14:10
i don't know i don't care but you care a lot man so i'm with you yeah
Corey
14:14
and you seem reasonable this is your thing so i'm going to attribute my sensibility to your thing exactly so this issue is the perfect example of that i fascinating yeah i did polling on on these things a few months ago about farm farmworker protections and when you just ask them about them wcb to farmers having ohs rules and all that albertans then were like yeah of course no brainer absolutely right but the
Corey
14:38
the farmers hated it and they didn't care like they were what stephen carter would call like their give a fuck factor was very very low um
Corey
14:46
and they just didn't care and when the farmers cared intensely voters were like well look i'm not going to sit here and argue with you i don't care so i guess you're right and like that but
Carter
14:55
this is the problem the same we ran into this exact same thing with the 0.05 legislation okay
Carter
15:00
okay where so this is a solution looking for a problem if
Carter
15:04
if we don't tell people the
Carter
15:06
general population that there's a problem before we try and solve it we're going to get crushed yeah and it doesn't matter how good our solution is so 0.05 legislation is legislation that basically dictates that if you're at a 0.05 you're a drunk driver now it's not under the criminal code it's under different under the traffic laws but
Carter
15:25
we take your car and your keys and you know we're mean to you um people
Carter
15:31
people were outraged it's worked in other jurisdictions in fact it works in british columbia it reduces the number of traffic deaths as a result of alcohol i think that's important right
Carter
15:41
albertans didn't understand was we were the number one per capita per capita cause of death or you know drunk driving deaths were right here in alberta because people drive drunk here more than anywhere else we had the most convictions we had the most charges we had the most deaths we had the most injuries we we really like that drinking and driving thing well
Corey
16:03
well we like our drinking us in newfoundland have the highest alcohol consumption in the right
Carter
16:07
right so we need to stop that we need to curb it in some fashion right but we didn't do show that need we didn't show the problem yeah we showed a solution right and that was the downside side and that's the problem with this this this legislation in alberta there was no problem articulated ergo we can't care about the solution and now the die
Corey
16:27
die is cast right now people have just decided they hate this bill uh it's pat and the bill is passed and it's fine and it's a good bill and frankly to
Corey
16:35
to your earlier point maybe it should be covering farm workers families which is the exemption that the province said like no it doesn't have to do with family farms yeah
Corey
16:42
yeah because why Why would you want to have those protections for your children? Yeah, I
Carter
16:46
I mean, why would you want your kids to be covered in the event of an accident?
Carter
16:50
let's just – I mean, that's ridiculous. Kids are replaceable.
Corey
16:51
replaceable. I will say –
Corey
16:54
That's what I've heard. Yeah, me too. I will say it totally baffles me that at the end of the day, farmers and only farmers can say, no, we don't want these labor laws because tradition. Like imagine if bankers were like, I'm sorry, WCB, OHS, those things don't apply to us. it's our tradition as a bank not to do that that's crazy it's just crazy to me but let's move past that because that's not what we were talking i
Zain
17:17
i want to move past that but with one final question and i think i know your answer to this but talk to me about the degree of of confidence that you had in rachel notley not backing down did she take the right approach even her acknowledging the fact that there was a communication problem accepting responsibility of it and then saying but i still want to move this forward and i want to regain your trust steven i'll go to your first was that the right approach i
Carter
17:42
i mean i think that was interesting that she basically said uh she started to make some concessions earlier and then once the the the the vitriol didn't stop yeah
Carter
17:54
uh she basically said okay fuck it we're just gonna do it well let's take our beating now and we'll move
Zain
17:58
it and let's give some clarity to people she was out of the country her her ministers effectively rolled this out right and it was a total shit show town halls everything was kind of falling to pieces and she came back accepted responsibility effectively one fell this is a
Carter
18:13
a big problem you can't say you're doing a consultative process when the bill's in
Zain
18:17
in the legislature yes
Carter
18:18
yes we you know we have a misconception of what consultation is we think that consultation means that we're going to acquiesce that's not consultation but
Carter
18:28
processes should not be undertaken when
Carter
18:31
when the bill's in the actual legislature right
Corey
18:33
right failed on that parkour you wanted to add something oh yeah i just think they were surprised that people were were opposed to it because they probably had numbers very similar to mine that albertan said yeah of course they had this should be done but as a result they were caught a bit flat-footed they didn't have third-party validators lined up i think they were a bit lackadaisical about the the materials they put on their website and whatnot that like those things should have been caught early and uh you know eventually these things started coming in you saw a bunch of op-eds from the afl alberta federation of labor things like that but by then i mean i don't want to say it's It's too late because now it's over. And there will be very mad farmers for a while. But to be honest, most of them already didn't like the government. Yeah,
Carter
19:10
Yeah, it's not like they were voting NDP. Well – Some of them did. Some did. But that's not going to be the case.
Zain
19:16
case. So I wanted to get your answer on this. What did you think of Notley's performance on this one? She doubled down. She stood her ground.
Zain
19:24
We think it's the right move. But to the degree of that, did you feel like her execution of that strategy was good? I don't think she should
Carter
19:28
should have backed down at the beginning. I think she should have said this is a good – What we did with the Bill 5 or the 0.05 legislation. This is good law. This is going to save lives. And we care more about saving lives than we do about your petty concerns.
Corey
19:44
Well, I think it's tough for a premier to write off agriculture as a petty concern, even though – Okay, we can talk about how small it is to the economy later. But look, she got handed a bad situation, a situation that blew up in her absence. I will note with this government, the things that I think they should be more concerned about, they do very well because I think they think them through carefully. They've obviously got very smart people in the premier's office working through the permutations. The things that should be slam dunks, those have not always gone off as smoothly. And I think if there's a lesson here for the NDP, it's that everything should be considered a threat and everything has to be put through the lens of somebody who's aggressively against it. Now, where she ended up picking it up, she did fine. She did exactly what she had to do. The communications was a concession that was a non-concession. She didn't say the bill was bad. She essentially, in her own gentle way, reprimanded her ministers. So move on. Okay,
Zain
20:37
Okay, Trump is a dessert of this three-stage, three-course meal. So let's go to Trudeau and let's talk about the tax plan there. Corey, what's the difference here specifically in this situation? And what do you make of the strategy that Trudeau is kind of trying to balance right now?
Corey
20:52
To me, it seems less defensible, doesn't it? Like, Notley at least had policy on her side. Trudeau has a $1.5 billion hole in his numbers, and he's just like, oh, well, yeah,
Corey
21:02
yeah, you know, we're going to run a deficit anyways. What's a billion? Throw it in the pile. He has not been that flip. He's been close
Corey
21:09
close to that flip. It's pretty crazy. Is it not a little crazy that this is not considered, like, a fundamental flaw with the plan? man. Better go back to square one. Carter, is it not? Is it crazy? I think that's a good question. If you go
Carter
21:20
go back to square one, though, it undermines your entire financial platform moving forward.
Corey
21:25
Okay, but the fact it is undermined.
Carter
21:28
Yeah, but I don't think here's the thing. We're talking about it. It's gotten a little bit of attention. The minute he backtracks, it will double or triple the attention that it's getting. So let's
Zain
21:38
let's get that on the table. Him standing his ground conceptually and strategically, right move. Can I get you you guys on that and is that the right move in this situation well because what i'm hearing you say is is that he doesn't have policy on his side but politically does
Corey
21:53
does this make sense i think you should just say soak the fuckers and raise taxes more on the rich yeah
Carter
21:57
yeah well okay i'm less in favor of that because i'm making more money than you but anyways i think that at the end of the day he he's just he's best to walk away from it and say the projection was off we're moving forward it.
Carter
22:10
Because I think if he tries to make any corrections, it's
Carter
22:14
it's going to get ugly. We
Corey
22:15
We can't continue hollowing out that. He's creating time bombs for himself in the future. We've got to figure out this revenue thing. And it doesn't work to just essentially create $1.5 billion of tax cuts.
Corey
22:26
That's a big tax cut that just kind of came out of the sky out of nowhere because his numbers were wrong. And I think that we have to acknowledge that's not a good way to run a government.
Zain
22:34
So what was, in all honesty, Corey, what would you have done in this situation if you were advising him right now what would that strategy be because i don't think i have clarity as to what i kind of do as to what you were
Corey
22:45
were trying to fill the hole i mean either increase the taxes more on the top one make it two percent or uh bring in a new tax or an excise or something just figure something out because uh just to say like no big we're going to continue on as though that's not a problem to our fiscal plan i think look
Corey
23:01
look it's 1.5 billion dollars it's not going to break the economy not going to break the government there's
Zain
23:04
there's going to be a crash so what i'm hearing Considering you there is not necessarily retreat Hogan, but effectively remedy the current situation that he's in.
Corey
23:10
in. I would say if you consider it a retreat, you're
Corey
23:14
you're going to act like it's a retreat, and it's going to come off as a retreat.
Corey
23:17
Treat it as a double down. Like, wow, when we got in here, we already know the books were worse from the conservatives. Tie that in there. This number is not going to be enough. We've got to raise taxes more. Stephen Carter,
Zain
23:27
Carter, what would you
Corey
23:28
you have done? I like that idea by
Zain
23:29
by Corey. I would have played the Harper.
Zain
23:31
You think they have enough of those cards left?
Carter
23:35
yeah. You can play the blame Harper game for quite some time because the people who didn't vote for Harper
Zain
23:39
Harper still don't like
Zain
23:40
Harper. So you can play it for quite some time. Was this one where you would have used it if you were on the inside advising him? Yeah.
Zain
23:45
You would have, eh?
Carter
23:45
I love the blame the guy before strategy. And
Zain
23:48
And so what would you have done? Blame the guy before and fill the hole like Corey? No, no. You
Carter
23:51
You would have done
Carter
23:52
I left the hole open. The reason we have such an enormous deficit is Stephen
Corey
23:58
You can only go to that well too many times. And one of my favorite jokes, right, is Khrushchev resigns. and he hands his successor two letters and he says the first time you get into trouble read the first letter the second time you get into trouble read the second letter right so
Corey
24:13
so there's a grain shortage in the soviet union and khrushchev's successor reads the first letter and it says blame
Corey
24:18
blame khrushchev for everything that went wrong previously and he does he goes on a speaking tour starts pounding his fist saying damn khrushchev but don't worry we fixed all the problems of the old regime and we move on and
Corey
24:29
and the crisis passes well another crisis comes it's about iron production iron production is well off the soviet union's in a lot of trouble and he says what i guess it's time for that second letter sits down opens the second letter you know what the second letter says sit
Corey
24:44
sit down write two letters you
Corey
24:47
you only get to blame the person before you once like not literally once but you get that once this
Carter
24:52
this is but this is that window and that That window closes, I think, on the budget presentation in 2016.
Corey
25:00
Yeah. So considering it's a budget and those things are happening, I would have tied it all up. I would have confused the issue. I wouldn't have made it exclusively about Harper because that's a little tougher because it's also about your platform. But you throw enough dirt into the air and then you essentially say this whole financial regime doesn't really work because of Harper and his shady numbers. So now we've got to go with a new plan.
Corey
25:21
Enjoy your increase in taxes top 2%, right? Right. That's what I would have done.
Zain
25:25
done. Let's get on to Donald Trump. We've talked about at the offset that this severity and the degree is crazy. It's off the charts in terms of his stand the ground on politics. And I don't really have a question here, but I want to effectively get your thoughts because I don't even know where to start, Corey. So I'm going to go to you first for your thoughts here. What do we make of Trump and the politics and the political strategy he's currently playing? Oh,
Corey
25:48
Oh, man, it's disgusting. And it's the natural extension of what we talked about with Notley and with Trudeau, which is you stand your ground because your enemies win if you lose, right? And so we should take a hard look in the mirror and say to ourselves, do we really want to encourage that kind of behavior in our politicians? Because Trump is where you end up, okay? And Donald Trump has gotten to the point where he – you remember, maybe you saw, but he was doing this thing where he was essentially mocking the disability of a reporter. Oh, I saw that, yeah. Right? Disgusting. And then he claimed afterwards, like, I didn't know he was disabled. No,
Carter
26:19
I just told my hand funny.
Corey
26:37
When you're in the argument of splitting hairs and going through the lists and saying like, yes or no, does he pass the checklist? You've got a serious fucking problem and this guy should not be in consideration, right? But he is. And he's showing a lot of those same like crazy, you know, nation first, facts be damned. We will be great again. Blame the minority. Really bad behaviors that have led so many people to so much wrong. Trump
Zain
27:11
Trump is the natural conclusion of stand your ground politics to the nth degree. Agreed. Can that happen here in Canada, Stephen Carter? I
Zain
27:19
I think so. You
Zain
27:19
You do, Ed? I've
Carter
27:20
I've been arguing for quite some
Carter
27:21
time that I thought that the United States was with their red-blue split. So for those who don't follow U.S. politics quite as much, it means that those areas that are red, so red being Republican, are getting more red. They are getting more ingrained. Those areas that are blue are getting more blue, and they're getting more ingrained. And you can look at them on the presidential. There are less and less swing voters. uh that's not it's not actually that's not even true there are less and less swing vote states right the the voters themselves are becoming less likely to align with a political party but this this
Carter
27:59
anti-intellectualism there's there's an anti you know there's a reason i used the academia example in the beginning um we
Carter
28:06
we have to be willing to admit our mistakes because Because of new evidence, there has to be. And you have if you're not able to do that within your own government, there will be a change of government that will do it for you.
Carter
28:18
And what we're seeing right now is that there have been mistakes made by Obama, to be sure. He's not the perfect president. And
Carter
28:27
Trump is this crazy representation of a lack of of sane Republican voices for for decades. I mean, look at the last presidential race in 2012 when we went through Huckabee for a week. We went through – Santorum,
Carter
28:47
course. Santorum, Herman Cain. Herman Cain, my one-week wonder. You know where he was – 999. Oh, my God. These guys were not smart. And even today, I
Carter
28:56
I think that as of today, it may have changed because of – Ted
Carter
29:00
Ted Cruz may have bumped up. But when I'm calling Ted Cruz the reasonable one – Oh,
Corey
29:04
Oh, fuck. I know.
Corey
29:05
know. We have issues. Yeah. Yeah. Ben
Carter
29:06
Ben Carson's fucking nuts. OK, so we got not just Trump. We've
Carter
29:11
We've got Carson and then we've got Ted Cruz. These guys do not, as a collective group, represent sanity. And that's the problem.
Carter
29:20
This is not going well in the United States. We are not seeing intelligence. And I don't know how it ends. So
Zain
29:26
So I don't mean to try to shoehorn this point in, but I want to ask you almost the inverse of this question. Does the attractiveness of the strategy of tripling down and standing your ground in politics produce candidates like Trump and Carson? And does being that what's the word term you use like an obsessive prick, like you could just you could be that guy and like it's a virtue, or you could be that person. It's a virtue. Does that produce candidates who can effectively be Teflon to the most vitriolic shit that you can come up with? Well,
Corey
29:56
Well, look, it's the free market of politicians. And if you're, if a politician who does this is rewarded, you're going to have more politicians who hate this kind of behavior. That's just the market at work, right? I don't
Corey
30:07
don't know where this ends either. It's really very troubling. I think even the fact that this guy is polling 25% of Republicans, you know, this is, this is just nuts. uh but
Corey
30:18
but this is also an outcropping of that red blue thing people yelling at each other but not talking to each other i know that might sound trite or like i don't know but they've
Corey
30:28
they've forgotten how to make basic arguments and and so you have people like donald trump coming in and filling the gap can i tell you what a problem is donald trump can say you
Corey
30:37
you know shut the borders to muslims and some americans say okay
Corey
30:41
okay why not actually democrats let's let's hear that and democrats are like are you fucking nuts that's crazy and they take it as like just foundational truth that plurality and multiculturalism is good because
Corey
30:54
because we thought that conversation was over and we forgot how to have that conversation and so it like the democrats aren't really helping themselves i know nobody wants to engage and give it credibility but on the other hand you've got to be able to make the argument why that's insane a little less flip right
Corey
31:10
and and it reminds me of uh i think it it was in the 20s it was a very famous scientist whose name escapes me but he was on a train and this guy's like a physicist he's very intelligent and this guy on the train does not believe the earth is round and he's sitting there and he's arguing with him and he realizes he's absolutely forgotten how to convince somebody the world is round because he's just taking it for granted that everybody knows the world is round right
Corey
31:34
well here we are guys we're at a point where we just take for granted that like that pluralistic multicultural society is the the right society. And there are many strong arguments as to why that diversity giving strength. But I think we've kind of forgotten how to give them and make those arguments. And sensible people need to step in at some point and re-articulate what we're taking for granted. Carter,
Zain
31:52
Carter, I want to tie a bow on this a little bit, because we could go on forever on this topic. But how do we take the lessons of something that's happening in the United States, Donald Trump, Ben Carson, this, I can even call it radicalization of the GOP themselves, and politicians there? What are the lessons that we take here, especially when we're seeing similar strategies, political strategies being applied locally, provincially, federally, not to the same degree, but they are happening. People are entrenching and that's becoming more and more commonplace in politics. What's the lesson we take away?
Carter
32:23
Well, I think we should first of all celebrate the fact that we have a three-party system instead of a two-party system. The ability to take a middle ground is really important. And I think we've seen in the last year or two, too, especially that most of the parties have unburdened themselves with right and left wing continuum.
Carter
32:42
Sure, they want to be seen as a certain point on it, but they're able to jump around a little bit and they sound more reasonable in Canada as a direct result.
Carter
32:51
The second thing that I'd like to talk about is the idea of zero sum game.
Carter
32:56
Personally, I was really pissed off with Greg Clark, the leader of the Alberta party, for jumping in on the pro farmer side with the Wild Wild Rose, the PCs, and opposing Bill 6. David Swan, who we
Carter
33:10
we have attacked a few times on this. Friend of the farmers, though.
Carter
33:13
Friend of the farmers, but because
Corey
33:14
because he's done the work. He has always passionately supported that cause. When nobody cared about it, he cared about it. And
Carter
33:19
And so if I were Greg Clark, what I would have loved for Greg Clark to have done is to say, well, who's the most learned man in the legislature right now on this particular topic?
Carter
33:32
I'm going to go talk to David Swan. morning to find out what he thinks of this particular piece of legislation. And I'll tell you what, he wasn't out on the steps of the legislature, agitating farmers, telling them how bad this legislation was, and reinforcing them subtly that yes, their farms could be taken away from them if this legislation is passed. No, they can't. No, they won't. Here's what, you know, we're going to try and protect people and give people coverage if they get hurt.
Carter
33:55
If I want to see our politicians actually go to the most learned person and ask them what the the hell is going on because at that point we might be able to get better government okay
Zain
34:05
okay i want to move it on i honestly think we can go on that forever did you want to add something before i do no
Corey
34:09
no uh stand your ground uh we reward it we shouldn't but
Corey
34:14
but what are you going to do it's actually right now you know political it's good political strategy so you
Carter
34:18
you ask cory and i when it comes time you hire us to do your next campaign we're probably gonna tell you stand your ground you
Corey
34:22
you are right fortunately i mean right now the system just rewards it so fascinating
Zain
34:28
i like that I like that that's our conclusion after, what, 30-some minutes on the topic. But I think it was fun and fruitful. Okay, our next segment, our Grab Bag Strategy Meter. I'm going to talk about a few things. You guys are going to rank the quality and the strategy of how they were unrolled, communicated, whatever you want to hit on recently in Canadian politics. The first one, Trudeau's announcement of his parliamentary secretary, Stephen Carter. One to ten, what do you think of them? Both in the quality of the people, the rollout, not much drama around it per se. What do you think? I
Carter
34:55
I think it was completely underwhelming. Really?
Zain
34:57
Yeah, I mean— And is that a good thing in this case?
Carter
35:00
I don't know. I mean, these are people that you should be able to go to and get answers. I mean, they should be more accessible than their ministers. These people, on many levels, you could say these are the people who are supposed to be reaching out to the grassroots or the general population on these issues. And I don't know who they are, and I don't know why I would care.
Zain
35:18
Corey, we've always talked about the Liberals having more than enough weight in terms of quality of candidates to form two cabinets. this is effectively cabinet number two with their parliamentary secretaries
Zain
35:28
secretaries quality of people roll out what do you think what do you give this carter didn't give me a number but he never does so i'm i'm
Corey
35:33
i'm just learning for the first time it happened i
Corey
35:36
know i kid but no
Corey
35:37
no i think that's like honestly
Corey
35:38
honestly it was just not a very big thing and and nor should it be in my opinion i i think that parliamentary secretaries serve a role i'm not going to pretend that they're they're not doing anything they're actually very useful people and by the way if you're trying to get something done on parliamentary secretaries who you should be trying to talk to first because ministers have so much on their plate but you know it is an internal thing and as long as the people internally feel like oh this is awesome i got this job now you
Corey
36:03
you don't want it doesn't help you to
Corey
36:06
to go out and and elevate the parliamentary secretaries when you've just made a big um virtue of having such a small cabinet so why would you so on that sense i guess a seven and
Carter
36:17
and didn't everybody get a parliamentary secretary almost
Carter
36:20
everyone i think so yeah and what i mean so there's there that was interesting to me it was just sheer volume of them right right
Carter
36:26
right you know every time i read a page i was like there's another page holy shit how many people right and
Carter
36:30
and then the the second thing is i'm surprised to see like someone like joyce murray as a parliamentary secretary um
Zain
36:36
why were you surprised did you
Carter
36:37
you not because it's usually on the up-and-comers usually
Carter
36:39
usually give your parliamentary secretary role yeah it's training to fill into the ministry yeah
Carter
36:46
don't know i think joyce Murray, by being left out of cabinet, this is a nice down escalator as opposed to the up escalator than all the other parliamentary secretaries. That's
Zain
36:56
That's a good point. Okay, let's move it on. This one, I think you're going to give me a number on. Carter, the Wildrose response on Bill 6 here in Alberta, what did you make of that, 1 to 10, and how they effectively incited the, and I'm not going to say the protests, but effectively, they were very crucial in trying to rile up the The farmers, what did they do after it? Were they able to show a pattern altogether? What do you think the wild rose strategy 1 to 10 was?
Carter
37:21
I think the strategy of working rural Alberta against government to take that natural inclination, I mean, something just as meaningless, I don't want to say meaningless, but vaccinations, right? Your lowest vaccination rates are going to be rural because of, because of, because of. This is an opportunity to gain a lot of support. They don't have a lot of trust in government right from the beginning. The Wild Rose was the group that riled up the farmers against 19, 24, and 36, which we've already explained. And the Wild Rose riles them up against Bill 6. The Wild Rose now has a base of
Carter
37:55
of rural Alberta that they can count on getting a lot more MLAs elected in next term.
Carter
38:03
was a pretty sound strategy if it was perhaps not the most ethical move.
Zain
38:08
Am I hearing a 9 or an 8? I
Carter
38:10
I really want to give them something high because I really like the fact that they've got people behind them. Yeah.
Carter
38:14
Like a nine. Yeah.
Carter
38:15
And I really want to give them something like a three for being dumbasses for opposing this piece of legislation. Corey
Zain
38:22
Corey Hogan, Stephen gives him a nine and a three. Just typical Stephen, never following the rules. Usually
Zain
38:29
gives me no numbers,
Carter
38:29
numbers, now gives me two. I find the rules to be arbitrary. But this is
Corey
38:34
is true. Every question to
Corey
38:36
Carter is a Kobayashi Maru. He can just do what he wants. it's
Carter
38:39
it's like playing calvin ball the question is a cheat
Corey
38:43
give me a number i'm i'm losing the show guys uh well look i was actually going to give you different numbers for short term of course you were of course you're late on me though i'm interested to hear them they kicked up a lot of dirt they made a lot of fuss uh they got a lot of emails and they got a lot of contact information from a lot of angry farmers and don't discount that for their fundraising and whatnot yeah
Corey
39:02
but long term five because the more you go to that well the more you are creating a party that is controlled by extremes right and ultimately and fundamentally i think the wild rose is gonna have a hard time finding the middle and it's not like this isn't the middle on this one albertans have decided they're against bill six okay right and so the wild rose are with the majority there but they
Corey
39:24
they are becoming they're falling into that classic wild rose trap right they are becoming a little too beholden uh to the right now you
Corey
39:31
you got to give him credit though on the amount of dirt they kicked up i was very amused however to see that yesterday clips started to surface of brian jean supporting wcb coverage for farmers oh yeah during the wild rose leaders debate was good
Corey
39:44
and and it's like oops apparently you're a giant hypocrite but yeah
Carter
39:47
yeah there we are this is people walking back from an issue yeah
Carter
39:50
he changed his mind and now he's a giant hypocrite according to cory hogan the
Zain
39:54
the trudeau government's um media hits back in in Canada about Paris? What do we think about climate change internationally as it relates back? How are they doing 1 to 10, Stephen Carter?
Carter
40:04
I think that they've managed it unbelievably well. I think they're going to get a 9 from me. And, you know, we're coming from a province
Carter
40:10
province where climate change and climate change theory has only recently been accepted.
Zain
40:16
mean like a week and a half
Zain
40:19
15 days ago. You
Carter
40:24
I think they've done a great job. And it's been interesting watching Canada unfold on a national stage. You know, one more, Canada's back, and I'll probably just bash my head into a door jam or something. I don't like that part, but I do think that Canada
Carter
40:37
Canada has taken a leading role, and the media have covered it as such, and I think that's good for the Liberals.
Corey
40:43
Yeah. Corey Hogan. They played it perfectly, and it didn't hurt that all of the premiers but Wall were on side, right? I mean, somebody— Even Wall was kind
Carter
40:51
kind on side. At
Corey
40:52
this point, though, somebody should start following Brad Wall around with a trombone just to go wah, wah, wah. I mean, he's just become that guy. He's the last conservative. He's the Debbie Downer of Confederation right now. It's
Zain
41:03
It's the Debbie Downer of Confederation. So Brad Wall was my next question. Do you want to give him your independent number? Did he stand up for
Zain
41:09
right-wing sort of balanced perspective, try to get that center right all the way to
Corey
41:16
vote? I don't know. Everybody I talk to says he's not running, that he doesn't really want to get too far away from Swift Current. And that's that. But he's sure acting like a guy who's running. And he's been the most effective opposition to Trudeau, in my opinion, bar none.
Corey
41:31
So, yeah, I mean, he did exactly what I expect he wants to do. I just think it's funny in the broader context how he's the one voice.
Corey
41:39
Carter, what did you think of Brad Wall in Paris?
Carter
41:43
Brad Wall in Paris sounds like it should be some sort of a movie.
Zain
41:46
Brad Wall sitting in his hotel room in Paris not knowing what to do.
Carter
41:50
I thought it was fine. I mean, Brad Wall is a premier of a small, well, I don't want to say a small province, but yeah, it's a small province. And, you
Carter
41:59
know, they have an election before the leadership and that's going to, it's just, and I bet you Brad Wall is just angry. He's just angry because he doesn't know how to play this strategy.
Zain
42:07
Finally, 1 to 10 on the throne speech. Give me a ranking on the strategy, the rollout of it. I mean, it was a short throne speech. You guys don't even seem engaged on this question. It's just, I think that gives me the answer though. Yeah,
Carter
42:18
Yeah, I mean the throne speech was short and sweet and it just reiterated promises and it was not –
Carter
42:25
I mean it was like half a line on marijuana legalization. That's
Carter
42:30
a big fucking deal and
Carter
42:32
it was a half a line.
Corey
42:34
I'll tell you, throne speeches post-election are just not that interesting because they're just the platform being rehashed. You're not waiting for any big surprises, right? No, talk
Carter
42:42
talk to me in two throne speeches. Well,
Corey
42:43
Well, and we'll see and I think that will be a more interesting throne speech. but uh as it stands right now he did what he had to do what i just hate the throne speech i think it's so absurd that we have a governor general who has to deliver a speech as though he's the politician i would love the throne speech to be we're going to do what the prime prime minister says and now over to you justin because why do we do like it's so archaic but like it was boring it was boring yeah
Zain
43:07
yeah great okay let's let's move it on i want to move it on to our last segment our last segment are over under our lightning round and i'm adding another part to it something in or out and i wanted you guys to tell me if you're in or out on a specific person policy issue over the course of the last seven days okay so let's start with that bill morneau the minister of finance cory in or out on him right now based on where the liberal government is with that tax plan for
Zain
43:33
for the last for the next seven days short term out out stephen carter out
Carter
43:36
out i always wanted scott brazen who
Carter
43:40
who did you want cory do you want to let us know who you wanted
Corey
43:42
i just i just wanted a good newfoundland boy who could take care of things shame
Zain
43:46
shame is all reagan in
Zain
43:48
in or out on ann mcgrath as the new deputy chief of staff to rachel notley here in alberta stephen carter
Carter
43:54
out i mean another outsider coming in to to to prop up the the uh the bureaucracy up there isn't going to help him cory
Corey
44:02
cory in she's an albertan in my books and uh was
Carter
44:06
was it when she ran for the communist party that she was an albertan or was it a different time calm down i'm just asking yeah
Corey
44:12
uh i i think that she will bring a lot of expertise insight she was a good get i think it was probably a position just created for her yeah
Corey
44:19
yeah she's super smart
Corey
44:21
well okay and to my point the things that the premier's office have been really on top of they've handled really well don't be surprised to see a lot more handling at the premier's office and she will assist with that scale
Zain
44:31
scale of one to ten justin trudeau to appear on the cover of vogue magazine magazine yes
Zain
44:36
yes now the picture is already up online oh yeah
Corey
44:39
yeah is that the cover that's just i think
Zain
44:41
think that's the cover nice cover i'm
Carter
44:42
i'm not it may not be the cover i don't i don't really know that picture is pretty crazy i was hoping for a demi more nude version of justin trudeau where he's covering himself up but i'll take this one yeah
Corey
44:55
yeah he uh just powered through that comment yeah we're just gonna move on he uh he he's uh good i mean i think you like that look i mean it's all branding it's all good vogue has got an international audience good stuff blah
Corey
45:09
way to go let's
Corey
45:10
let's take advantage of it this
Zain
45:11
this is all over the place who's the gop nominee look
Zain
45:15
at this i'm just throwing this at you i don't care i've lost the show anyway seriously john
Corey
45:19
john casey cory do you want to give us a reasonable answer i don't know if trump could ever be considered reasonable but i'm really starting to get pretty worried at this point that it's going to be trump because of the way their system set up and because it's like this crazy game of chicken where like the republican The Republican field is not clearing fast enough.
Zain
45:34
I'm sad to disagree with you. Over, under, on 10, over, under, on 10, the number of parliamentary secretaries that become ministers in the next cabinet shuffle. Stephen Carter, what do you think?
Carter
45:43
Under. He's got a really young group that will stay for a while.
Corey
45:47
Yeah, way under. I think it'll be under five. Really? Okay.
Corey
45:50
I was thinking two.
Zain
45:51
Are we in or out on post-election Tom Mulcair?
Zain
45:55
What do we think so far? Hold on. Did he step down? Is he still in? Is he still around? He's still around. And he's shown up every now and then. No, he hasn't. he's shown up he's shown up he is not i understand
Corey
46:05
understand what you're trying to do to give me an answer what do you think i'm out out are we out on him i feel like he was almost photobombing that cop 21 picture um
Corey
46:15
i i don't i mean i i every every new democrat i talk to is like dead man walking you know and the next convention is here in alberta and i just can't imagine that you
Corey
46:25
you know maybe with time we'll be like yeah tom mulcair reasonable guy good guy and maybe that's the the plan like people resign Zion so quickly these days, but I just don't know how he comes back from this.
Carter
46:34
No, he's done. And
Zain
46:34
And finally the in or out on the phrase I know where your head's at on this one, Carter. Canada's back.
Corey
46:42
So out. Corey? So in.
Corey
46:45
It's branding, guys. It costs us nothing. Canada's back.
Corey
46:49
And you know what? The world is buying it for some crazy reason.
Zain
46:52
for fuck's sake. Oh man, we can have a huge discussion, but we'll leave it there. That's episode 560 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.