Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is The Strategist, episode 575. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? Happy contest. Reveal? Reveal day. Reveal day. Best day ever! Oh, man, it's going to be so exciting. Okay, we're going to get to the politics in a moment, but we finally have the results of our iTunes review contest. Corey Hogan, take it away. way if
Corey
0:24
you haven't been paying attention what we've asked for the past couple of episodes is somebody to put forward reviews of the show positive reviews we said they should be five star or you wouldn't be included in consideration and your quote was we would fucking cut you yeah i believe that was an exact quote of mine and and then in those reviews so casual about you would either say it's a great show except for stephen carter a great show except for cory hogan a great Great show, except for Zane Belgean. Whatever you said, that would be the pool of prizes you were entered into. So, Stephen, you insult Stephen, you're in the pool for the Gerard Kennedy tambourine that was described last episode. Also
Corey
1:03
If I insult myself, you're in the draw for the Al Nurkassam dog tag, which was described two episodes ago. How good is that?
Corey
1:11
Real good. And if you insult Zane, you're
Corey
1:15
you're in the draw for all of the prizes, and yet surprisingly very few takers. very people just kind of forget zane exists a lot of references
Carter
1:22
references back to chester though tons
Zain
1:26
references too many okay how do you want to play this cory what do you want to do first well
Corey
1:30
well look you guys blew us away you were great uh they were a lot of funny reviews a lot of really high quality work uh clearly you need better hobbies ones that produce more than itunes reviews because you're hitting way below your weight here uh but i think the best way to do would is sort of go through the honorable mentions runner-ups and and work our way up to the winner or winners as the case that sounds good
Zain
1:52
good i like that do you want to go first and then we alternate or do you want to go with yours first no
Corey
1:56
no no alternate we'll alternate we'll roll through but here's what we're going to do just to to keep the level of grief as high as possible for all of us here we're going to make uh us read the ones that insult ourselves kind of like mean tweets
Corey
2:09
oh mean tweets exactly
Corey
2:10
like mean tweets yeah mean mean itune
Corey
2:12
itune reviews i like
Corey
2:12
like it reviews right Okay. There
Corey
2:14
There we go. Stephen, why don't you read the first one I sent? This is your
Carter
2:18
mention. Yeah, this is the only thing more absurd than Carter's view on U.S. politics is the size of his freakishly small hands.
Carter
2:30
That's actually really good. Yeah, fantastic. Do you want to do my honorable mention for you, Corey?
Corey
2:35
They're a little more verbose.
Corey
2:37
Long-time listener. In keeping
Carter
2:39
keeping with you. In
Corey
2:40
In keeping with me. Very much so. Long-time listener, first-time raider. The Strategist is the smartest political commentary in all of Canada. No one else comes close. That's nice how you tugged at our heartstrings. See how I did that? The calculated, hard-hearted, no-nonsense Stephen Carter is a Canadian jewel. Nicely balanced out by the emotion-led, spineless, in a bag for the NDP drivel of comrade Corey Hogan.
Corey
3:01
If you want a realist opinion on the nuts and bolts of Canadian politics, The
Corey
3:05
The Strategist is your best and only option. That's pretty good. That's
Zain
3:07
That's pretty good. It's
Carter
3:07
It's the spineless part that
Zain
3:09
love. The spineless part is pretty good. Yeah, it's great. I really enjoy that. Thanks. That's great. Zane, you want to read one of yours? Oh, here we go. So this
Zain
3:15
this is Janine6666. Don't care. Insightful and hilarious. Feels like sitting around the kitchen table talking politics and drinking beer. Great hosts, except for that yammering douchebag, Zane Veltri.
Zain
3:28
Well, Janine, go fuck yourself. You are not going to win. You have not won. She's not winning. You
Carter
3:33
You know what, though? She really pegged you. I'm
Zain
3:34
I'm taking this too personally. She pegged
Carter
3:38
Okay, I'm going to read my second runner-up now. Here we go. Second
Corey
3:40
Second runner-up. You were so close to a tambourine. So
Carter
3:44
Great podcast, but listening to Stephen Carter complain about the politics strategy on House of Cards is like listening to someone complain about the historical accuracy of Game of Thrones. Keep petting the dog, bud.
Zain
3:59
good. I like it. I like it. That's
Corey
4:00
That's nice. Corey? Very fast-paced podcast. Fun and funny takes on current politics. The only part you might want to fast-forward is Corey. Why? look he talks the most which is entirely too much listen if you only get through four or five episodes you probably won't even know who steven and zane are look if you want to hear zane and steven you could probably get through the podcast in about four minutes listen it's a great podcast but could be a whole bit less better but still give her a download oh
Zain
4:32
oh pretty good and that did That did not win.
Zain
4:35
No, that did not win. That's like the second runner-up. Here's someone else that did not win. Cav-triple-oh-seven. Oh, double-oh-seven. There we go. Double-oh-seven. That makes sense.
Zain
4:44
While not at the peak obtained during its early run, and then in brackets, see episodes 6,
Zain
4:49
6, 93, 105, and the critically acclaimed five-part deep dive on the 97 federal election, close bracket, the
Zain
4:55
the strategist lumbers on at a surprisingly high level. It gets full marks despite Zane's repeated attempts at humor and insight. i assume he enjoys sex and travel so he should go fuck off very
Zain
5:07
conclusion very very to the point yeah very nice it really took a turn really took a turn but they're not getting any of the prizes that's
Carter
5:15
that's okay and neither is this guy this is uh this is my next first this is the first
Zain
5:20
first runner up this
Carter
5:21
this is this is very high very
Carter
5:23
very high up there this is very good okay here
Zain
5:25
here we go this
Carter
5:26
this is a great show except for that stephen carter guy that guy is so bad that whenever i i hear his voice i want to kill myself fortunately
Carter
5:35
fortunately listening to his inane rambling reduces my cognitive functioning to the level that i'm mentally unable to figure out how to continue to live and let me tell you this if it is if idiocy ever goes up to five dollars a barrel i want the drilling rights to carter's head i'm sure the royalties alone will put the province back in the black how did that not win oh my god that is epic
Carter
6:02
how i didn't lash out with anger you
Carter
6:04
you can learn from that i
Corey
6:04
i can't learn an
Corey
6:06
informative and often funny podcast now
Zain
6:08
now this one also
Zain
6:09
also did not win yeah
Zain
6:10
this is the first runner up yeah
Corey
6:12
strategists have been an excellent source for political knowledge for me in the past few months i greatly enjoy zane's excellent questions and steven's comments what's with the cory guy It seems like Zane and Stephen walked into a first-year poli-sci class and picked a guy sitting in the front row at random. I've never seen this Corey guy talk, but I bet he fixes his glasses repeatedly to indicate
Corey
6:34
indicate he's read a number of constitutions, including amendments.
Corey
6:40
We don't need well-read and thorough political commentators. What we need is straight-shooting, gutsy types. But most importantly, we need to award me Stephen's prize.
Zain
6:49
Oh, it's pretty good. You were very close. Okay, so are we it? This is the
Carter
6:54
the final one? We're on to the final, the winner. The next one you read is the winner. Which one
Zain
6:58
one of you wants to record? Or which one of you wants to say it
Zain
7:02
No, you're going to read it.
Carter
7:04
I'm not going to read it.
Carter
7:05
it. Yeah, it's in your little email, okay, that we sent to you, the prep work that we do for this show. Here
Zain
7:10
Here we go. Hold on. But
Carter
7:11
But we have to address. Yeah.
Carter
7:14
Yeah, I think we should maybe tee this one up a bit. We have to address this because this is, first
Carter
7:19
of all, Who would have expected more than three reviews? Not us, right? Not us. So we got a ton of reviews. And the first thing is you have to stand out, right?
Carter
7:30
This is where this guy really dug in and figured this out, this contest out.
Carter
7:35
First thing they did, they did something distinctive that enabled them to stand out.
Zain
7:39
Boom. That was it. Second
Carter
7:40
Second thing they did, they
Carter
7:42
they ignored the rules.
Carter
7:44
Any good political strategist worth their salt ignores the rules unless they're going to get caught.
Carter
7:50
This guy didn't get caught. This guy, and I'm assuming it's a guy. This is probably a woman. This is such a smart play. This is definitely a woman. Okay? So this
Carter
8:01
this particular commenter did none of the rules and
Carter
8:04
and did something very unique to stand out. Here we go. I'm
Zain
8:07
I'm going to read it, and then I'll tell you who authored it, and then we'll go from there. Okay.
Zain
8:12
I blame David Coletto for introducing me to the strategist, open bracket, because he did, close bracket.
Zain
8:18
far as Canadian political panels go, either mainstream media or online, The Strategist is by far the best. So far, pretty good. It's not bad. The panel
Zain
8:26
panel is insightful, funny, and self-irreverent in a way other panels can only dream of being. It's worth noting that I've wondered why Zane is a moderator, not a full panelist. True, a panel needs a strong moderator, but one wonders if he chooses to be a moderator because he has something to hide.
Zain
8:42
I'd give this show a five-star rating, but then I'd just be part of the mass. and
Zain
8:47
and itunes would wonder what's up besides i don't think my review itself deserves a five-star rating stretch
Zain
8:54
four stars out of five so
Corey
8:57
we had 50 reviews and only one of them was four stars and
Corey
9:03
i want to be clear if there was two you both would have lost both were lost for sure
Carter
9:07
even said that when we got this one in but
Corey
9:08
but i gotta tell you the stones it takes to
Corey
9:12
absolutely ignore Ignore the rules. Barely even insult Zane. Barely
Corey
9:16
insult Zane. Just like a light touch. A light touch. But insult us all by disrespecting the process to that level.
Corey
9:22
It's very epic. It's very good. So
Carter
9:24
So whoever that person is. How
Corey
9:26
How do they reach out to us
Carter
9:27
us now? Stretch 2-1-2-1. They got to send us a note either on the Facebook page, on the back end of the Facebook page. Send us a
Carter
9:32
a message on Twitter somewhere. Twitter. They can DM us on Twitter. You're
Zain
9:35
You're getting a tambourine and a dog tag. Look at that.
Corey
9:40
Very good. This is a big day.
Corey
9:42
Yeah. Yeah, and you probably wouldn't have won if this wasn't a show called The Strategist. But the way you managed to step away from the crowd like that, five,
Corey
9:49
five, four stars. You get four stars. You get four
Carter
9:51
four stars yourself. You know what I'm hoping? What are you hoping? I am hoping that whoever Stretch is, it's one of the boys in the French Immersion 9i class.
Carter
9:59
Whoa. At El Boya School where my daughter goes to school because apparently they listen to this podcast and that's why they get really high marks in social over the 9f class. Are we just shoehorning shitty plugs in? Is that what we're doing now? Nine fuckers. That's what that stands for.
Carter
10:16
That's true. I don't know how it happened.
Zain
10:18
Wow. Okay. Anti-climactic. Should we talk politics finally? I thought
Zain
10:22
we were just going to talk,
Zain
10:23
talk, you know. More reviews? Corey, do you have another contest? Blow sunshine up our asses.
Zain
10:27
Here we go. 10 minutes, 30
Zain
10:29
in. Let's talk. Let's talk politics. Our first and only segment for today, the strategy of crisis. Guys, I want to talk to you about Fort
Zain
10:37
Fort McMurray. What's happened up north to us right here is devastating. stating 80,000 plus people evacuated from their homes. But today, let's finally get into it in terms of what the strategy of dealing with the crisis is. And to start this, Stephen, I want to go to you because you've got some insight around this table that no one else has, in the sense that you were chief of staff when there was an environmental issue in Alberta. Now, not a total warning or situation like this, but you have been in similar shoes. Well,
Carter
11:05
Well, okay, but similar. And you tried to set the scale, and I want to make sure that we are are setting the scale down
Carter
11:10
entirely this buying was was minor uh we had a windstorm in southern alberta um and
Carter
11:17
it blew out a number of panes of glass in the city of calgary and they weren't sure how that was all playing because the downtown was literally like glass falling from the sky they were shutting down the downtown shutting down the the sea trains and there was a grass fire in lethbridge at the same time there was threatening suburbs now nowhere
Carter
11:35
nowhere near the the catastrophic but the processes work the same and
Carter
11:40
and so i as the chief of staff was informed of what was going on and then i in turn informed the premier right what was going on what we and the role that we wanted her to play as we were going through this because you don't know when to step in you don't know what the what what it is what step what stage do you need to step in nancy's clearly running the show in calgary i can't remember who the the mayor of lethbridge bridge was at the time uh but they were doing a great great job running their show the the local response was great everybody
Carter
12:10
everybody was doing their jobs and and there was a just a simple question of what do we need to do as a province to make sure that this is is managed properly so
Zain
12:18
so tell me be a little bit more granular who does that first call come from and more specifically what what hat do you have on right now is it safety or and be very honest with me or do you also have your political head-on as well in terms of how do you play this for the premier there is
Carter
12:33
reason on god's green earth that the chief of staff to the premier should ever be thinking about safety right
Carter
12:39
right they are only there for politics the people who are there for safety are trained in safety yeah
Carter
12:45
they have experience in safety so they've taken classes they've been training for it for years they're unbelievably prepared the people have been doing these briefings right yeah
Carter
12:56
notley will do a a briefing and then she will hand off to the wildfire expert or she will hand off to whomever from various groups.
Carter
13:04
There is no way that we can approach this from any other standpoint other than political, because the reality is we
Carter
13:10
we as politicians don't have the expertise. We are listening to the bureaucrats. And if the bureaucrats tell us, you
Carter
13:18
know, that we may lose. So in my particular case, we may lose two subdivisions of Lethbridge. Here's what we need to do in order to protect those subdivisions. I don't say, you
Carter
13:26
you know what, But I'm going to draw on my great experience here in fighting grass fires. I think we should try and approach this from a different point of view. I'd really like to bring over a Russian water bomber. Oh,
Carter
13:38
that isn't within my wheelhouse. What's within my wheelhouse is what are the political implications and what are the political ramifications?
Carter
13:45
When do I want Doug Griffiths, who was our Minister of Municipal Affairs at the time, to take the lead? Yeah. Yeah. Danielle Larravee has taken that lead a number of times through the course of this crisis. Or when do I want the premier to take the lead? And in this particular case, the premier never took the lead. All we wound up doing was briefing her and making sure that she knew what was going on in case she would have taken the lead if
Carter
14:10
if we'd lost the House. Corey,
Zain
14:12
Corey, I want to turn to you for a second. I'll go back to you, Carter, and then we'll continue the story.
Zain
14:16
want to be clear and let people know exactly what Stephen says. That call comes to you as chief of staff. you're exactly playing politics that's or understanding this through a political lens is that
Corey
14:26
just because it's a political conversation a political lens doesn't mean it's illegitimate i think that's something i want to flag right now interesting point and and you can't entirely separate politics from safety the fact is crises can be exacerbated by poor communications confidence plays into many forms of crisis uh this is all tied together you know markets people People, property, politics, this is all combined. And the fact of the matter is you can make a situation worse if there's not clear lines of communication and if there's a mistrust in government. Say, for example, that Premier Notley had done so poorly at the start of this Fort McMurray fire that people were ignoring government recommendations, what to do. There was a sense government was lying to them. There was mistrust around there. You can't have that. And it may sound like an extreme example, but it's really not. Let's talk about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. there
Corey
15:16
enough mistrust of the government people were staying in their homes saying you're overreacting this is we can't trust you on these matters it's not exclusively why they did that but people stayed longer than they should have there was a sense of total mistrust after everybody was put into the superdome yeah
Corey
15:31
and there was feces in places and whatnot and that fed into problems that probably went on a lot longer than they needed to because of poor political leadership poor political leadership that led to bad outcomes for real people so while steven in a saying, his hat's not safety, I
Corey
15:47
I think you have to acknowledge that there is a role for political leadership in a well-run crisis. Well,
Carter
15:52
Well, absolutely. I mean, and I don't mean to take it away from that, but I'm just saying that there's an operational expertise
Carter
15:58
expertise in managing these particular crises. That is not something that you come to your political masters for. You
Carter
16:04
You come to the political masters for concise
Carter
16:06
concise communications and leadership.
Carter
16:08
And that is really all that we we need to bring to the table, but that is still lots to do. And it is a all-encompassing piece. Leadership, by the way, does not equate action.
Carter
16:21
This is one of the fundamental pieces that I think we run into a misunderstanding about when we say we want someone to lead. Well, they should be acting.
Carter
16:30
Not necessarily. Oftentimes, the strongest leadership is when we don't act, when
Carter
16:35
when we say we're going to allow things to run their course, and we're going to allow things to do what they need to do before I stand up there and I make things bigger or worse by saying the wrong things at the wrong time.
Zain
16:46
Carter, I want to jump off that in the sense of what those pillars are that politicians can do. But give me one quick, you know, back to the story that you had. You said specifically that the premier did not act in your example that you're giving and your story that you had. Was that deliberate or was that strategic on your guys' part that you did not have the premier do do more than get briefed
Carter
17:06
we never really uh entered a position where the premier needed to uh
Carter
17:10
uh nenshi uh was running the city of calgary one very very well there was some uh no requirement for additional resources from the province or from outside municipalities uh the lethbridge one looked like it was going to be a lot worse than it turned out to be uh the wind shifted and moved things away um so what would
Zain
17:29
you do it's that action of inaction that ultimately was that Which
Carter
17:32
Which is stand up front and say, you know, ladies and gentlemen, get ready to evacuate.
Carter
17:37
Right. Kidding. That overreaction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not something that you want to do. They were ready. You need to be ready. And you'd be amazed at how many times we run into situations where a municipality is in a near state of emergency or something could happen. And this was just one of those modest things. This particular summer is going to be bad. This is just the beginning. Right.
Zain
18:02
Right. Corey, I want to spend some time on this. So we're at a point where I'd like to define and
Zain
18:07
and let's spend some time on what exactly politicians can do. Carter defined two pillars are communication and leadership. Is there anything else you'd like to add or any texture you'd like to add to those two? I
Corey
18:17
I think what people have to keep in mind is that it's not like when a crisis happens is the first time government has considered the thought that a crisis may happen. And there is an entire system in place to deal with it. And most of them are variations in some way, shape, or form of what's known as the incident command system. So are
Zain
18:33
are you saying that there could be a plan that the government has in place? There's
Corey
18:35
There's always a plan. There is a plan. Right. Every time. Absolutely a plan. Okay.
Corey
18:38
And they have contingency plans for all of these things. And they have contingency plans for when there is no contingency plan, frankly. Right. But what the political leadership has to do is ultimately stay out of the way and be that communicator in chief unless there is some sort of division between their experts and a decision has to be made. Now, you try to avoid making those decisions because, frankly, it's better that the experts make them if there is somebody in an area of expertise that can oversee that. But, look, you
Corey
19:06
want a crisis to be solved by the people closest to the crisis. That's one of the basic fundamentals of an incident command system. They're supposed to be flexible enough that you can involve more people and create more of a hierarchy. But you're better off having a small hierarchy with the experts making those choices and local people making those choices if that's possible. And if I can
Carter
19:23
can jump in on that. Yeah, do. people were very, very critical of Rachel Notley for not declaring a provincial state of emergency like day one of this particular fire. But
Carter
19:31
But to Corey's point, Corey is bang on. There
Carter
19:34
There was a very capable command and control model in place in Fort McMurray that was doing what needed to be done.
Carter
19:41
And all the province needed to do was marshal resources. We don't need a state of emergency to marshal resources and add additional resources to fighting a particular fire or to to dealing with a specific incident. You do not
Corey
19:52
not want to make things more complicated than they need to be. It
Carter
19:54
It only happened when they started to see multiple fires that had multiple different resources being required. That was the moment when
Carter
20:04
when things shifted. Right.
Carter
20:05
Right, where all of a sudden you have to move from a command-and-control model in one municipality to a command-and-control model that is dealing with multiple municipalities. And that was the point when they declared the provincial state of emergency agency because it was at that moment that local became
Carter
20:25
bigger than one single municipality. Talk
Zain
20:27
Talk to me about what effective communications does look like, like tactically. Is it, and let's just talk about the message, is it have to be universal? What are some of the principles of effective communications? Corey, I'll go to you on this. These
Corey
20:38
These principles are pretty common, not just to crises like this, but all crisis communications. So if your company has fucked up, you're going to be familiar with some of these principles. Yeah, they are. Keep the doors open because otherwise people will go through the windows. They'll peer through. They may misinterpret something. Only communicate what you know for a fact. Do not speculate. Do not start going into broad conjectures and try to limit the scope of your conversation to the issue at hand. You do not want to sort of broaden it needlessly, right? right? There are more, but I think those are sort of the key ones in this context. It's very important that government is being concise, being factual, and probably goes without saying to say they need to be open. Because if people start getting the sense government's not sharing, that's when you start to get wild speculation.
Zain
21:23
anything else to add to Corey's principles there?
Carter
21:26
Oh, no. I mean, I think we've all done these crisis models for different different organizations and they all are the same. The biggest one that I think that people misinterpret is they try and control the message.
Carter
21:37
What do you mean by
Carter
21:38
Controlling the message looks many different ways. Like the first big thing with controlling the message is trying to get out your side of the story, right?
Carter
21:47
right? Let me put out what I want you to hear, right?
Carter
21:50
And so I'm controlling the message. Do you have an
Zain
21:52
an example of what that could have looked like in this situation? In
Carter
21:55
In this particular situation, it could have been something along the the lines of um the evacuation is proceeding in an orderly and controlled fashion right
Zain
22:02
right to make it look like that
Carter
22:03
as a government look at how good we are doing this everything is working as we are supposed to work well to that point
Corey
22:08
point you don't want the first thing people to hear is that it's not happening in an orderly and controlled fashion it's what we term the anchoring principle which is the first information people hear on something is the one that all other information is compared to and kind of has a is more founded in people's minds and you have to sort of prove that it's not rather than prove that it is so
Zain
22:26
so can i can i and just to stop for a second there so if that was the one where you try to control it what would the the one where you don't try to control it be for example just
Carter
22:34
just so people are clear you're emphasizing that people need to evacuate at this particular moment in time this is not a time to question whether or not you should leave leave
Carter
22:41
leave you need to get out here's the methodology by which you do it now you're going to you're going to show people right
Carter
22:46
how orderly you are we need you moving south down highway 63 or if you're in this particular neighborhood you're going to go north here's is where you're going to go to. You are going to go to this location. Those are decisions that are made unbelievably quickly that
Carter
22:59
that need to be communicated very quickly and very authoritatively. So your message is the methodology of which we want
Carter
23:07
want to show control by
Carter
23:09
by being controlled. We want to show, you know, we're not trying to control the message so much as we are trying to push the information out as quickly as we can. And that tone then determines whether or not people People are reacting the way we want. We've already brought up Hurricane Katrina. One
Carter
23:26
One of the big problems of that particular disaster was there was no authoritative voice. What
Zain
23:32
He was doing a heck of a job. Heck of a job, Brownie. If
Zain
23:34
If you don't have an authoritative voice, it's not going to work. That's
Zain
23:37
That's what you guys tell me all the time. Heck of a job, Brownie. Hold on. Oh, no. We went there. Corey, what bridges leadership and communications? Is there anything else that's necessary to effectively – especially in this situation where having a message is not enough usually in politics. You need to control that message and massage it. This is a different situation, is it not? Or am I overreaching there?
Corey
24:02
Well, that's something I'd like to talk about a bit later is that we all of a sudden expect that we're going to act a bit different in a crisis and politicians have to act a bit different. And I'd like to unpack that a tiny bit. Do you want to do that right now? Let's
Corey
24:14
Let's keep talking for a minute about what's in front of us. The basic skill set that a politician has is fundamentally one of communications. I don't really think I'm going to shock anybody by saying politicians
Corey
24:25
politicians are not inherently experts in health, education, transportation, all of that. What they are good at is
Corey
24:30
is conveying the sentiments of the electorate into
Corey
24:33
into government and taking government and explaining it to the people. That's fundamentally the job of a politician is one of communications. So that's why they are slotted into these roles in sort of an incident command system function like this. not only does the buck stop with them but this is where they're best suited to be it just would make absolutely no sense to have uh rachel
Corey
24:52
rachel notley out there with a fire hose trying to knock down some flames on some trees that's not really where her skill set is right right and and by the way this is why it's a bit ridiculous when people say why isn't justin trudeau in fort mcmurray right now why so he can have a photo op carrying two dogs one over each shoulder hair blowing in the wind like it's not going to solve the problem right and and that's That's why I think people are, you
Corey
25:15
you know, people are always very demanding of politicians, but it reaches almost absurdity when they start expecting them to get involved on the ground in these situations.
Corey
25:25
It's not like it would ever be just Justin Trudeau or just Rachel Notley. They go with entourages. They involve
Corey
25:31
people. They're taking some folks off the front lines. Do you remember when Stephen Harper tried to get everybody to sing Oh Canada, the firefighters? Anybody remember that?
Carter
25:39
that? Oh, it's horrible. Oh,
Corey
25:40
Oh, God, yes. Right, because they're fighting a fire and they've got a job to do and they're not there to be your puppets. Right, right, right, right. So let's
Corey
25:47
let's just be very clear that it's not always useful to have a politician on the ground. Okay,
Zain
25:52
Okay, so we've talked about some of the theory and some of the practice that you've had in this, Carter, a little bit. Let's talk about the specifics of this case. Rachel Notley. Stephen, how did she perform or how has she performed so far as premier of Alberta in this – her first real big crisis? I
Carter
26:08
I think she's been excellent. I think she's been excellent. the the she's struck the proper tone yeah um she's she immediately and
Zain
26:17
tone for you what is that tone for you you mentioned in theory it has to be authoritative is there anything else that you saw that she was giving i
Carter
26:22
i thought she had a much higher degree of empathy than
Carter
26:25
than what we've been seeing from our leadership for some time when you go back to that completely tone deaf presentation that uh stephen harper did in colona last year uh where everybody pointed out We're just months away from the election. You've got these firefighters lined up behind them. It's just the world's worst photo op. There's exactly zero empathy. There was exactly zero human emotion, and it was a staged thing that backfired tremendously. When you compare that to where Rachel Notley has been,
Carter
26:58
enabled others to stand forward and take the reins and look good. The firefighter chief for McMurray, name eludes me, they're
Carter
27:10
they're doing portraits of the guy. People think he's a hero, and that's in no small part because Rachel Notley has enabled him to be a hero.
Zain
27:19
Right. Corey, how do you think she's performed so far?
Corey
27:23
Well, very well. I think that there's really two ways a crisis can go. And most of the time, it seems to me that politicians understand it and they're sensitive enough to the issues that it goes in their favor. Sounds funny, but it's kind of a rallying thing. People rally around political leadership in times of crises and they're more willing to cut them some slack. And you see moments like all of a sudden Brian Jean can praise Rachel Notley, Rachel Notley, vice versa with Brian Jean. Right.
Corey
27:52
Because everybody sort of puts it aside and says, okay, we've got to deal with this before we get back to it.
Corey
27:59
that's weird to me yeah right and you want to discuss that i do want to discuss that but she's performed well i mean you have to give her pretty good marks and i think that
Corey
28:09
people who are looking for ways that she's performed badly are just showing how ridiculous and partisan they are right oh
Carter
28:16
well they they are absolutely just bashing on trudeau and and notley um
Carter
28:20
um from the from the right from the very far right and these These are the people who don't believe the government's good for intervention. Right.
Zain
28:28
tethered to the ideology
Zain
28:30
in. They're just entirely
Carter
28:31
entirely tethered to, I don't like you. Anything you do, therefore, is going to be bad. And look, I want you to do something different.
Carter
28:40
You know, it's just utterly ridiculous. It's
Corey
28:42
It's mindless. I actually saw a comment on social media that had people from both sides getting in on it. But it was someone saying, look how much people have given to charity. just proves we don't need government well tell that to the firefighters tell that to the roads that got people out of there tell that to the central command and control tell that to the matching funds all right it's just nonsense and if you're trying to buttress your worldview with such nonsense it just proves how out of touch you are although i do think it's funny that there's almost this sense that you must donate then charity is expected of you and yet these are in many cases the same people who would be like never raise my taxes there is no purpose for us to centrally command those things right it's it's like this
Corey
29:22
notion of government as a greedy force rather than a central force which i think the left ultimately needs to address because the reality is government is supposed to be us coming together and tackling these challenges and i think it's almost a bit stupid that we're solving a problem like fort mcmurray by being asked to donate five dollars at safeway interesting
Zain
29:40
interesting we'll talk about the charity component in a second
Zain
29:42
i'm hoping so carter let's talk about not only for one more minute in this regard what does she need to do to not screw this up going forward good
Carter
29:52
news bad news yes good news she's done a great job so far right right bad news there is no way forward for her to continue to do a great job really tell me why because this isn't this is the way that we work right what do you mean we who's we population gen really
Carter
30:07
yeah well first things that we're going to be starting to look for is is a blame someone to blame right
Carter
30:12
right so someone to blame will be the next thing that we look for And it will be her fault that two weeks from now, the Fort McMurray residents are told that it's going to be another two weeks before they're allowed back in their houses.
Carter
30:24
It will be her fault that all the houses got burned, that there could have been a better prevention strategy, that the province forest management structure. You expect that all to
Carter
30:34
All of it. It always does.
Carter
30:35
It always, always, always does. The
Carter
30:37
The cutting of the firefighter
Zain
30:38
firefighter budget, et cetera, et cetera. You think that's coming
Carter
30:40
coming down the pike? And it doesn't even matter if it's logical. The cutting of the firefighter budget is illogical. It didn't impact in any way the
Carter
30:50
the fire. But you know what? We're going to use that as a reason why it's bad. And we've done this forever. We always blame our
Carter
30:58
our political masters. Redford, Nenshi didn't get blamed because he was the mayor of Calgary during the flood. Redford got blamed because she was the representative from Calgary as the flood happened. Now, maybe she didn't do it properly. Maybe she shouldn't have gone to Jasper on day two of the flood. Maybe. I don't know. I wasn't there at the time. Maybe there's a pressing need.
Carter
31:20
the reality is that we look for scapegoats. We were looking for a scapegoat in Alberta already for the economy. And Rachel Notley, and I think it's probably, we'll
Carter
31:30
we'll start to see it in three, four weeks, and it will really pick up in six weeks to six months. Corey,
Zain
31:34
Corey, you seem in almost agreement with Carter. Is that fair to say?
Corey
31:41
To a point. He's right that we're going to start naturally turning the guns around and pointing them at people and saying, whose fault is this? Let's not forget to use his economic argument, right? We're looking for a scapegoat for Alberta's economy. We turfed the last government because they had done such a piss poor job with the economy. And then a large portion of the population immediately blamed the people they put in to fix it without giving them an opportunity to fix it. it's just you know this notion that we have it's been two weeks what have you done for me
Corey
32:09
and that's going to be the case a bit with this fire certainly they're going to say maybe the government didn't take it seriously enough there's not a lot of evidence of that but there just needs to be some niggling doubt and somebody's going to latch on to it right but she does not have to lose and i don't think this has to be quote unquote as good as it gets i think that it's always in
Corey
32:28
in a crazy like you know
Corey
32:30
i'm not comparing this to 9-11 but after 9-11 george w bush was at 90 approval right again that sort of rallying thing in a time of crisis it's
Corey
32:38
it's not if you were to poll on her right now i think she would do much better than even a strong baseline right but there
Corey
32:45
there is going to be an argument to come that i think the ndp is well positioned for and and fundamentally when we start separating everything and saying what the hell happened we're
Corey
32:54
we're going to be talking about what started the fire like was it a cigarette was it a lightning strike what what What was it, right?
Corey
33:01
And that's what we'd call a proximal cause, right? That's immediately what caused the fire. Yeah.
Corey
33:05
But there are what we would term distal causes, right? So it was dry. That was a distal cause. Nobody would argue that it being dry, you
Corey
33:12
you know, contributed to the fire.
Corey
33:15
Nobody would argue that climate change, well, very few reasonable people would argue climate change makes it more likely to be dry. Right.
Corey
33:21
The question will become, can she tie those two distal charges together into it in a reasonable way and say, like, look, this is exactly why government is acting on climate change. you want to talk about carbon tax that
Corey
33:31
argument has to be one i think going forward and you're looking at a tough one to make no it's not no because you're looking at me right now like it's politically insensitive but fundamentally that's what i think we need to unpack next on this podcast because it it's it's like this all
Corey
33:45
all right your friend their dad has a heart attack
Corey
33:49
that guy not not exercising not taking care of themselves you
Corey
33:54
absolutely be correct when you you say, well, he should have exercised more, but that would be heartless, right? Sure. But at the end of the day, if you don't want him to have another heart attack, get
Corey
34:03
get his ass on a treadmill.
Corey
34:05
And that's the situation Alberta is going to find themselves in going forward. We don't need to be insensitive by pointing to climate change. But the fact of the matter is we are having more extreme weather events, and we need to address that in some way, shape, or form. And the NDP is the only party in this province that's actually made some groundwork towards doing that. Okay,
Zain
34:21
Okay, so I was going to talk about the strategy if you were advising Notley, that whole spiel. and Corey's kind of given me what his pathway
Zain
34:27
pathway would have been or would be for her going forward. Carter, let's call this the second part, phase two, right? The backlash. What would you advise her going forward? Would it be similar to what Corey is suggesting here?
Carter
34:37
Well, no, because I think that ultimately it's, as usual, what Corey's describing is a losing battle.
Carter
34:45
He's just so good at that. I would change the channel.
Carter
34:51
You would? Oh, yeah. I'm not going to win in Fort McMurray. I don't have it. You know, I'm not overly concerned about that. I got two MLAs up there. They need to try and figure out how to survive. That's OK. I'm going to call that their problem. I'm instead going to focus on something that I can unite Albertans around. Right.
Carter
35:06
Right. What's what's my channel changer?
Carter
35:09
The same way that the forest fire changed the channel on everything that Notley was talking about up until the forest fire hit. Yeah.
Carter
35:16
She needs to change back to something else. She could try what Corey's talking about. She could try and change that channel back to what are we going to be doing to prevent this from happening again? And to be very clear on what Corey's point was, this is not politically insensitive to talk about.
Carter
35:33
Climate change is not politically insensitive to talk about being related to forest
Zain
35:37
But tone is a huge change from where she is sympathetic and empathetically to this. It's
Carter
35:42
It's not even tone. You just, you know, people brought it up. I mean, we had an asshole karmic, you know, people start immediately talking about karma and things like that. And they're just being assholes because at that particular moment in time, people are losing their houses.
Carter
35:59
At a point in time in the future, we're going to be looking for a way to make sure this doesn't happen again. Right?
Zain
36:06
don't think phase two for her is that time, though? I
Carter
36:09
I think that phase two is going to be change the channel to something else that you can win on. And I don't know what it is. I mean, I always go back to health care because I have one note.
Corey
36:20
it's not phase two. I want to be clear. It's not phase two. It's act five, right? There's going to be something. Explain the difference.
Corey
36:27
So act three in a play, in a standard play, is the climax. That's where everything happened, and that's where the die is cast. cast right it's literally sort of i think where the phrase the dice casts come from was act three in a play julius caesar i
Corey
36:40
i know that was it doesn't matter guys let's move on uh but the point of the matter is there
Corey
36:46
there is going to be cleanup and there is going to be blame attributed and if you need to make the discussion it's
Corey
36:53
it's going to happen you can sort of move pieces around to make that discussion bigger or smaller as steven has alluded to but regardless that discussion is going to to happen and you need to have a good conversation about it and frankly right now if the last thing on record is the government expressing
Corey
37:06
expressing flippant attitudes about you know the fire budget because the opposition did bring up in in the budgeting process maybe this should be higher and
Corey
37:14
and the government didn't exactly say no but it was kind of flip response you
Corey
37:19
need to have something different there and you need to talk about how you have been acting on it and how you're trying to find solutions to it and to me that's pretty obvious it's climate change what's
Corey
37:26
what's going to be be interesting is to see how receptive people are to that argument right off the bat again
Corey
37:32
again talking about proximal and distal right when there's a mass shooting in the united states somebody fires the trigger a
Corey
37:38
a distal challenge would be they bought that gun somewhere and that was pretty easy to do right right that gun was manufactured by somebody who was trying to sell the gun this is why you see both of those things being under legal threat every now and then because it is so painfully obvious that they are resulting in more mass shootings that doesn't mean the gun company pulled the trigger we
Corey
37:57
we have to have a conversation about where blame ultimately ends and when we can reasonably push blame further i
Corey
38:04
think that conversation has to happen we can't just look here
Corey
38:07
here in calgary right we had a flood that was like what a one in 50 year flood and a few years later we had the one in a hundred year flood the
Corey
38:14
the math is starting to look pretty shady you know i'm not saying that climate change caused either of these things in and of their own right but they certainly made these events more likely.
Corey
38:23
We need to talk about that. It would be utterly irresponsible for government not to talk about that. Carter,
Zain
38:28
what is Notley's plan, if you are in her shoes right now, to deflect blame? If you know it's coming, like you said, and you know that the conversation is going to happen, that she could have done more to prevent this, etc., what
Zain
38:41
what is your strategy to deflect blame?
Carter
38:44
Well, I think this is where we should start talking about proxies so
Carter
38:48
i'd be looking for a proxy partner to start this conversation for me explain that um who
Carter
38:54
who who where are organizations or people that can say these things that i don't have to so i can be agreeing with them as they as they start to talk about this who shares my concerns
Carter
39:06
cory's not wrong i
Carter
39:07
hate that right bugs me cory's
Carter
39:09
cory's not wrong he's right but
Zain
39:12
you could have left that Corey's not wrong and it wouldn't have had to say he's right well I
Carter
39:15
I like to explain it to the listeners um
Carter
39:20
what do we do next how do we yeah how do we get them there you're on her side and how do you deflect this what do you do you
Carter
39:26
look for a proxy and the proxy for me is probably going to be the insurance group there's
Carter
39:30
there's a massive massive group of insurance companies that are what's the word I'm looking for here fucked after this you see
Corey
39:38
talking about the big loss Intact Insurance is the biggest insurance company in this country, and they are talking about a massive loss as a result of this. They're going to suffer because of this. Biggest insurer in Alberta in particular, too.
Carter
39:48
too. Yeah, and so all of our household policies. So go to your filing cabinet where you keep this stuff. Take a look inside, and if you've got an intact home policy or,
Carter
39:57
or, frankly, any home policy, get ready, kids, because it's going up. Guess who's on your side, Rachel Notley, when we're talking about climate change? Guess who's wondering why we get bigger and bigger hailstorms? This house that we're in right now, in the last seven years, we've had to replace the siding twice. When I say we, I don't mean me. I mean the insurance company, right?
Carter
40:17
right? This is happening more and more frequently, and it's going to get harder and harder for us to get insurance. So our better proxy from the government's point of view, the
Carter
40:26
the government has a relationship with insurance, right?
Carter
40:29
There is a relationship that we can work together to get this particular message out. out
Carter
40:37
don't have to do it as government i don't have to send shannon phillips out to talk about right
Carter
40:42
climate change and how we have to tax the environment instead i send out uh
Carter
40:47
uh the insurance companies who say hey maybe some of that carbon tax levy can be used to underwrite some of these unbelievably high premiums that we're going to have to charge or something right
Carter
40:59
or something but they validate the
Zain
41:00
the government's point of view that's
Carter
41:01
that's the main thing validated they carry the the ball right
Carter
41:04
right right so they're not just you know saying what you want them to say they're leading the charge they're going out and this proxy group when you can use proxy groups like that yeah
Carter
41:15
unbelievably successful communication strategy interesting
Zain
41:18
interesting cory do you got any comment on carter's idea of insurance then moreover do you have any another one that you'd like to posit or do you feel like this strategy that
Corey
41:25
that was a really inspired choice it is a financial industry industry it's not known for being touchy-feely or left-wing but it is very much in tune with climate science how it's impacting things the economic downside it
Corey
41:38
it region by region almost this is what their actuaries have to do and
Corey
41:41
and they can they can absolutely buttress the government's case if i'm the government i am talking to them now and i'm i'm talking about how we can start pushing that message out the fact of the matter is the insurance companies got hit real hard during the flood they
Corey
41:56
they got hit real
Corey
41:58
by that hailstorm that stephen carter was talking about and they got murdered by this fire and the previous fire that we had in alberta uh
Corey
42:05
uh which was by no means the same size but it also devastated the
Corey
42:09
slave lake fire right yeah and that
Corey
42:13
that that's a great choice i think that other industries in alberta may be a little bit more skeptical simply because their bottom line is is impacted differently by it but they're by no means if you're going to be talking to the oil companies you want to be talking to the internationals they're used to this this is a conversation they've had all over the place yeah
Carter
42:30
yeah but even the sin crews and sun course this is the first time we've seen an impact on actual operations yeah yeah right so you have um you
Carter
42:39
you know mining operations or oil sands operations that literally could not continue continue operating because of this particular fire. We need to try and find ways to deal with that. Corey,
Zain
42:49
Corey, before we move on, any other strategy in mind for you outside of the proxy one that you feel like she should potentially consider implementing to deflect blame that may come in Act 5? Yeah,
Corey
43:00
Yeah, it's really about bringing everybody together. And I think you take advantage of the fact that there's still a sense that goodwill needs to be universal and quote unquote political differences have to be put aside. Reach out to Brian Jean, work with him to sort of create this i don't know mcmurray rebuild task force try to get well there's still the opportunity co-opt everybody get everybody involved in it so that ultimately whatever decision is made they can't say that they had nothing to do with it and they're on the sidelines throwing stones carter
Carter
43:29
carter you're gonna have a
Carter
43:29
special committee of the of the legislature put brian gene as his chair let's demand that he has to behave right one of the One of the things that's so frustrating is that he's been behaving this last week in a way that's completely opposite of his brand to
Zain
43:45
Well, the man's lost his home as well, right? Well,
Carter
43:47
Well, he has, and he's lost two homes apparently. I mean this is a big freaking deal for Brian Jean.
Carter
43:57
everything that he's done to this point has been adversarial with the government. Everything that the Wild Rose has done has been adversarial with this government. I think that this is an opportunity, if they want to, to actually show that the wild rose could govern by moving from an adversarial structure to a look what we could do to – look what we would do, look how we would do it. Right,
Zain
44:14
right, right. Okay. Let's talk about – sorry. Let's talk about some of the other stakeholders that we have as well, Corey. Let's start with the federal government. What should they be doing right now in both theoretically but also specifically in this case as well?
Corey
44:29
that the federal government, this very same way that Alison Redford and Stephen's example stayed out of it as much as possible and left it to local people, should probably stay out of it and leave it to Rachel Notley. But you are going to see, I suspect, I would be shocked if this week you don't see a visit from Justin Trudeau to McMurray now that it's a bit more under control. Yeah. You're
Corey
44:48
You're also going to probably see with that. So it doesn't look like just a photo op and announcements to help the people, either government financing or let's just face it, it's going to be money because that's the easiest things for governments to announce. And some commitment that we will rebuild McMurray bigger, better, shinier. And that's
Corey
45:07
that's probably the extent of the federal government's involvement. And it's probably appropriate that it ends there, in my opinion. Carter,
Zain
45:14
Carter, what should the federal government do? Can they screw this up somehow?
Carter
45:19
yeah i guess they could screw it up i mean they could delay funds like the harper government did uh but in the moment it's actually relatively straightforward just praise uh with you know give them what they need and move on it's it's the actual execution yeah where the federal government tends to fall down yeah
Corey
45:37
yeah the federal government can screw it up to your answer jean cretien screwed it up in 97 with the winnipeg floods right you look insensitive to it you look like it's not a big deal. You don't care what's happening. You move on too quickly.
Corey
45:49
You can't afford to do that, especially if you're Justin Trudeau and looking to build roots in Alberta in particular and Western Canada in general.
Corey
45:56
Let's talk about corporations.
Zain
45:56
corporations. They seem to have a role in this particular fire as well with the oil and gas companies trying to open up their spaces as places where evacuees can go. But Carter, do corporations also have a risk when they act in a crisis like this? yeah
Carter
46:13
yeah so there's two types of altruism or i guess there's only one type of altruism but people try to be altruistic yeah
Carter
46:19
when really they're putting their own needs first like
Carter
46:22
yeah so so um you
Carter
46:26
you know there are the oil and oil sands companies that just immediately opened up their their work camps no questions
Carter
46:31
questions no questions asked it wasn't about them getting any attention it was solely about those groups of people being needing to be served and and i was impressed by that i've seen uh many many examples of people doing the right thing and doing what needs to be done to help people um but
Carter
46:49
but then you see stuff and right now it's just a little bit niggly stuff that's starting to bug me and the stuff that's starting to bug me an example
Zain
46:55
example like any oh
Carter
46:56
oh yeah yeah you do oh i got examples late
Carter
46:59
what are you thinking tomorrow's
Carter
46:59
tomorrow's net proceeds of the blank will be given to the fort mcmurray right or to the red cross right so our our Our proceeds of our sales.
Carter
47:10
So you buy more,
Zain
47:10
more, we still get them. Yeah,
Carter
47:11
Yeah, I mean, I'm still going to get it. And I say proceeds. Well, what does proceeds mean?
Carter
47:15
What does proceeds mean? Does it mean every
Carter
47:18
every dollar I bring in, I'm going to give to the Red Cross? Or does it mean I'm
Carter
47:23
I'm going to take the net after
Carter
47:24
after my costs and give it to the Red Cross? After I brought all these people in as customers, and then I'm going to try and bring them back again and again and again. It's a marketing strategy overlaid on top of a tragedy. and
Carter
47:36
and we see it time and time again and i think that it has it has backfired in the past and it
Carter
47:42
it could backfire this time it tends not to backfire on mom and pop right
Carter
47:47
right so the little mom and pop shop the ice cream shop that's doing proceeds you know whatever that's probably not going to back but if you change and imagine yeah
Carter
47:57
imagine if calgary co are um safeway canada safeway said said, you know, we're going to make a donation of tomorrow's proceeds, come
Carter
48:05
come and buy grapes, and we're going to give the proceeds from the grape sales for McMurray, wouldn't we just end up and say, why don't you just give a freaking donation?
Carter
48:13
Right. So that, to me, is one of those places that corporations need to be very, very careful. If it were me, I'd say to them,
Carter
48:22
make a donation and try not to be ostentatious about it. Be Canadian about this, not American. That's how I would approach it. Fascinating.
Zain
48:28
Fascinating. Corey, what would your suggestion to corporations in the midst of a crisis like this be you
Corey
48:33
have to be very mindful that you want to let's let's be real the charity angle always has a bit of pr in it even if it's defensive you don't want to look like you're insensitive you want to look like you're part of the community and all that the
Corey
48:45
line between charity and pr can be pretty gray and pretty dangerous and i'm not knocking them i think labatt was really great to send all of the water to fort mcmurray but the fact of the matter is they sent it in labatt branded cans yeah
Corey
48:56
and that's what i say when i say it's gray it's it's going to be a issue by issue thing and you're going to have to be quite careful because at a certain point the public will start to look more jaundiced towards these things right now gratitude is sort of overwhelming but as we get a bit further out cynicism that's inherent in all of us when we start looking at these plays is going to grow and so some of these later actors that get in right now i'm going to tell you some of the spontaneity you know spontaneity also plays a big part in this there was a couple who posted this receipt they got an original joes right right Where it showed that the server just said, this one's on us. Because they overheard that they were trying to pick up their life after losing everything in McMurray.
Corey
49:34
And that went nuts on Facebook. Shared tens of thousands of times, if not hundreds of thousands of times. And the server itself was like, oh, that was really great. I was glad my manager let me do that. And thanks. That seemed pretty spontaneous. But now you're starting to see almost like the
Corey
49:49
the more corporate equivalent manufactured version of that. like you'd come to come to i'm sorry to single out banana republic but come to banana republic and you'll get like x percent off right yeah that starts to look like
Corey
50:03
like i that's not organic i mean no we got we have to be very careful here people uh but it does sort of play into a broader thing like uh
Corey
50:13
uh here we have this this kind of just totally random system of charity to solve these these problems as they come up and i get that sometimes problems are so big they
Corey
50:22
they seem like government can't handle them but what do we have government for if not problems that are too big for the individual and and it's just so random to me that you can be at safeway and somebody will say to you would you like to donate five dollars to fort mcmurray and you might be like yeah sure like is that really how we should be dealing with these problems like just like random impulses at the cash register is that does that make sense to anybody fundamentally like i get the idea that you want to be charitable i do make a donation to the red cross but like just everywhere you go randomly being asked for an extra five bucks is is this what we're replacing government and proper government response with yeah
Zain
50:58
yeah okay so let's get into charity for a second right and let's talk specifically about the red cross in this situation because most of the funds whether directed by government or media have been suggested to go to the red cross now this is an organization that has infrastructure that has volunteers that has support but this is also an an organization that has 30 million dollars left over from haiti five years ago yeah this is an organization that has 43 million dollars still left over from the southern alberta floods so when we talk about charity should the red cross i'll ask this to you first carter should they be prepared for some backlash coming their way in the next couple of weeks and if so if you're advising them what would you tell them and then we'll talk about the charity component writ large but i want to talk about what they should be expecting in the next week or two my
Carter
51:45
my dad called me my
Carter
51:46
my dad says story time with
Zain
51:48
with steven here we go who
Carter
51:49
who should we support we
Carter
51:51
we want to give money we want to give money and we wanted to do it in the best possible way how can we do that for fort mac
Carter
51:56
yeah for fort mcmurray i mean this is a big issue my father wants to to do something and i
Carter
52:02
oh my god you know it's it's i don't actually know ultimately
Carter
52:06
ultimately i said i think that when you've got the provincial government matching red cross donations and you got the federal government government-matching Red Cross donations, you should give to the Red Cross. Right.
Carter
52:15
But then I think to myself, hey, I
Carter
52:18
I remember that little flood we had,
Carter
52:20
and I remember the Red Cross collecting a shitload of money. $40
Zain
52:23
$40 million, and I think they had $15 million still left over, yeah. I
Carter
52:26
I don't remember seeing very much done with that money. I'm not seeing Red – you know, I saw far more citizen initiative in terms of charitable giveback than I saw the Red Cross. And I didn't see those citizen initiatives getting any money. So I'd like to actually know how
Carter
52:41
how this was actually used. And I'm going to be much more diligent when it comes to this Fort McMurray fire of checking the Red Cross because I don't trust them.
Carter
52:51
And that's fundamentally one of our bigger problems.
Carter
52:53
To Corey's point, sure, we may have lost trust in the government.
Carter
52:58
Sure, we may have. But we have some accountability with the government.
Carter
53:02
What's our accountability with the Red Cross?
Carter
53:04
What am I supposed to do? Am I going to unelect the president of the Red Cross? Am I going to stage a protest that they have to listen to me on because my vote will matter to them at some point in the future? It doesn't matter. And this was just one moment in time. And then if they don't give the money, and
Carter
53:22
and ultimately I think they give the money. I think there's audits and things that are done. I
Carter
53:26
don't mean to impugn them.
Carter
53:28
No, neither do I. But in
Carter
53:30
order for this to work, it needs to be seen to be working. And that's where I felt the flood response fell down. You know, I think that that's where the Haiti response falls down. I think that any time that we can question it, and
Carter
53:46
and we have no recourse. With
Carter
53:48
With government, I have recourse. If Nenshi had screwed up the flood, we could have unelected Nenshi a year later or two years later. A year later.
Carter
53:57
We had a vehicle by which we could get rid of him. I have no vehicle by which I can just take away the Red Cross. Corey,
Zain
54:04
Corey, do you agree with Carter when he says that you need to see it happen? You need to actually have that visual visualization. Suppose you were advising the Red Cross today. These articles are starting to come out. The skepticism is starting to grow. What do you advise them with their situation as it stands today?
Corey
54:20
Well, it is one of those questions that doesn't have an easy answer. And I do want to say when you talk about Haiti and whatnot, we have to be very mindful. The Red Cross is not one thing. It's 188 different societies and a federation that has a couple of different bodies, you
Corey
54:33
you know, the committee, the foundation, all of it. It's very, it's more of a concept than it is like a one command and control structure. So let's not say the Canadian Red Cross is responsible for all the ills in Haiti. Okay, let's
Corey
54:47
let's just start there.
Corey
54:49
fact of the matter is there is not a lot of command and control. role we we don't really know and in a certain sense it's a bit lazy by government that they have abdicated disaster response to a private organization yeah
Zain
54:59
yeah so is that normal like is it is normal it's
Zain
55:03
it's normal now what do you mean what do you mean by now carter like the recent now i
Carter
55:06
i think that in the recent history we i mean so you go back a long ways in history and this was the only means available government didn't have the capacity to respond to a lot of these things government waged war that
Carter
55:16
that was you know government uh you know cobbled together an education system at one point was very local.
Carter
55:25
concepts of big government are very new of what is it we want from our government. And the reason, generally speaking, that we've had to put government in place is sometimes these non-profit societies or charitable organizations haven't done things quite the way that we'd like them to. I mean, I know that the government has borne the primary responsibility for residential schools, but people forget there was a non-profit agency that was a big partner in the in the residential schools trained all their instructors managed all their teachers had them all on their staff actually it
Carter
55:56
it was the catholic church now we don't talk about it we you know government fault government did it but
Corey
56:01
but there's a detour a little bit stuff around but no but
Carter
56:05
i'm saying we had a responsibility to take care of these things as a at a government level but now we partner with a non-profit organization organization we innate
Carter
56:15
innate we we abdicate responsibility yeah
Carter
56:19
for the big the people who fear big government that's
Carter
56:24
for those of us who say at least with my government i've got accountability right it's
Carter
56:28
it's not better right
Carter
56:29
right i'm not you
Zain
56:30
you said you found this interesting though that that the government has done this they've effectively abdicated this to one organization look
Corey
56:36
look sometimes governments collapse and that's why you need an international red red cross movement to move into places like haiti haiti imperfect though they may be right but
Corey
56:45
but let's not forget that they are private organizations with minimal oversight the tainted
Corey
56:50
tainted blood scandal in the 90s resulted in us bringing in canadian blood services which was the first big national program that
Corey
56:58
that kind of reversed this movement towards privatizing all the big national programs and it happened because the red cross fundamentally dropped the ball big
Corey
57:05
big time people died right and we decided it needed government oversight and we needed to move it in in-house so to speak right government
Corey
57:13
government has not fully abdicated disaster responsibility they are doing an incredible job there's ama the alberta emergency management association in the states of course everyone knows fema these groups exist they they navigate these things and they do these things but isn't
Corey
57:27
isn't it weird i mean it's just a little weird to me i mean you almost wonder why the government's not taking donations but people would react so different to that it's never
Corey
57:36
good it's such a funny
Corey
57:37
funny thing to me it's
Carter
57:37
it's so funny people love giving money to health care but but they don't give it to the provincial government to set up arms, legs, or organizations. Back
Zain
57:44
Back to my initial question here. Do you have a strategy or anything in mind if you are advising the Red Cross today what to do? Carter says you need to visualize it to make it look like it's working. Is there any advice that an organization like the Red Cross could use right now?
Corey
57:56
Well, do better than make it look like it's working. Make it work. And I think what needs to happen is if you want to make sure that in a world with more disasters, people continue to turn to the Red Cross, you need to prove that those dollars are being spent wisely. Yeah,
Zain
58:09
Yeah, let's talk about the final point on the segment that you and I wanted to chat about, Corey. It's the whole concept of all the rules and norms going out the window a little bit during the era of a crisis. How about you tee us off on this and we'll go from there because I can sense a rant coming because the glasses are off. No,
Corey
58:24
No, I don't know if there's a rant. I don't know if I have the energy to have a rant.
Corey
58:30
really struggle with crises. I really struggle with how people act. I really struggle with how all of a sudden we're all together and we're supposed to share. the emotions drive us a little bit social norms and it's not just the emotions drive us it's
Corey
58:42
it's that on one day we act one way and something bad happens and we act as though the
Corey
58:48
the way we were acting previously was
Corey
58:51
was too silly or superficial and now it's serious time and what it says about politics and what it says about society and the way we govern ourselves on a day-to-day basis that we ultimately get to a point where we're like oh now we've got a real problem we've got got to just stop all of that is almost depressing to me right but let's just make it more basic
Corey
59:11
should you ever be in a position where you are acting differently just because something has happened like that look if it was a bit important enough for you to say yesterday you should feel free to say it today regardless of whether or not there's a crisis if it was fundamentally something you shouldn't say today after a crisis you probably should not have said it yesterday The rules should not change that starkly as a result of a fire happening in Fort McMurray. Why do we put up with people acting like children and saying outrageous things and not getting along? Why is it not the norm that our politicians can get together and say Rachel Notley's doing a good job? Why does Brian Jean's house have to burn down for that to be the case? I just do not understand I do
Corey
59:53
do not understand and I just feel so uncomfortable every time a crisis starts because I'm supposed to act differently but
Corey
59:59
I really don't feel that different you know it's terrible and I hate when these things happen to people and people losing their homes is gut-wrenching but this
Corey
1:00:09
this happens all the time why is it only serious when all of a sudden we're jolted out of kind of this dream that we're in that everything is just fine why?
Corey
1:00:19
why? Why? I mean, very few people have died in Fort McMurray, thank God. Yeah.
Corey
1:00:25
And we're able to come together and put aside the nonsense for Fort McMurray.
Corey
1:00:29
How many people die in gang violence? How many people die from gun deaths in the United States and now growing into Canada? How many people die because they're not getting the health care coverage they need?
Corey
1:00:39
And yet it's silly season all the time when we talk about those issues.
Corey
1:00:42
I just do not understand it. On a fundamental level, I cannot get comfortable with the idea I'm supposed to act differently when a crisis hits.
Carter
1:00:51
Yeah, it drives me crazy. I see this continued hyped
Carter
1:00:54
hyped-up partisanship. And I think Corey and I have both fallen prey
Carter
1:00:58
prey to it once in a while. So I think we were –
Carter
1:01:01
I mean, I'm not sure that we're Brian Jean level or Derek Fildebrand level.
Zain
1:01:08
this goodwill dissipates, right? This goodwill that you have of strong community, of coming together and getting us over this ultimately dissipates back into the norm. does it not yeah
Carter
1:01:20
yeah it does and that's too bad if
Carter
1:01:22
if i was advising a candidate right now there was somebody who who wanted to uh make a difference and try and win the next election i
Carter
1:01:30
i would say we're going to take this particular moment in time requires a kinder gentler approach to politics um a conciliatory cooperative approach
Carter
1:01:41
approach to politics you
Corey
1:01:42
you know there's a flip side though that i i think i'd be remiss if i didn't talk about and it's that there's also this stifling Like all of a sudden we're not supposed to – we're supposed to pretend climate change isn't real until this passes, right? Good point. There's being insensitive and then there's burying your head.
Carter
1:01:58
head. Yeah, but there's the insensitivity of some people tarnished
Carter
1:02:03
tarnished and tainted that particular argument. Democracy
Corey
1:02:06
Democracy and thoughtfulness is not something we only tolerate on good days. It's not something we put aside and say, no, no, democracy is for when everything is fine again. That's
Zain
1:02:14
That's nonsense. We see this a lot after gun shootings, right?
Corey
1:02:17
right? do you know we absolutely need to be talking about these things when these bad things happen and they happen for political reasons and i'm not this is not the same as the gun shootings which has so clear cause and effect in my opinion but
Corey
1:02:31
yeah you know why i'm so concerned about climate change you know why i'm willing to pay for it because shit like this happens okay like do i have to stop saying that like don't get me wrong yeah
Corey
1:02:41
yeah i'm not of the it's karma bullshit approach that people are having to this that's nonsense and you can be a human being about these things but that doesn't mean that we like
Corey
1:02:50
like like this happens all the time and it's just it's so frustrating to me and that's the end of my mini rant you
Zain
1:02:56
you know what and that's the end of the segment we'll leave it there our final segment are over under our lightning round steven carter i'm going to you on a scale of one to ten please rank how rachel notley did during this crisis so far i
Carter
1:03:06
i give her nine yeah
Zain
1:03:08
yeah cory what are you gonna give her yeah nine over
Zain
1:03:11
over under on six over under on six the actions of her cabinet during this crisis so collectively you're looking at municipal affairs education came out today talking about diplomas her collective cabinet over
Zain
1:03:24
over under on six stephen carter i'm
Carter
1:03:28
i'm gonna go with over because i've actually seen them doing stuff yeah
Corey
1:03:32
definitely go over and if i was grading on a curve it would be a home run let's not forget get that this cabinet almost to the person did not have any experience in the legislature that's time ago last year that's correct stephen
Zain
1:03:46
stephen carter yes or no or in or out i should say on trudeau and his response particularly in fort mcmurray this week uh
Carter
1:03:54
uh in but i'm looking for him to visit looking
Corey
1:03:57
the visit cory i'm
Corey
1:03:59
i'm right on the line for some of the reasons i just went into you know he goes and he gives rana ambrose a hug and everyone's emotional and all that and we're We're all acting a bit different and a bit weird. And I don't know. I can't grade people when they're acting so unusual.
Zain
1:04:12
A one-word strategy for the Red Cross going forward. Stephen Carter, what would it be?
Zain
1:04:17
One-word strategy? Give me two or three words. I know you're verbose that way.
Carter
1:04:21
Show us you're doing something.
Zain
1:04:25
Results. Results. And finally, if
Zain
1:04:28
if there's one thing you could change about the NDP response going forward or one thing you'd suggest to the NDP going forward, what would it be? Stephen Carter? partners find
Carter
1:04:35
find lots and lots of partners the
Corey
1:04:39
the more malicious or machiavellian co-opt get your political opponents who are immediately going to start pointing fingers into the tent with you because this is your one opportunity before this goodwill dissipates fantastic
Zain
1:04:49
we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 575 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time