Episode 803: Septuagenarian Parade

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is a Strategist episode 803. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? Did

Corey 0:10

Did you forget our names there for a minute, Zain? That was a longer delay than usual. Oh,

Carter 0:14

Oh, he forgot your name. My name was fine. He knows who I am because I'm kind of a big deal.

Corey 0:21

Oh, sure. That's what I hear.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

get it out of your system. No.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

We're already into the show and you have not wished me an Eid Mubarak. I wanted to ask you guys how your Ramadan was. As you said, there's so many things we have to talk about.

Corey 0:38

That's true. How are you enjoying eating again for the first time in a bit during sunlight hours?

SPEAKER_02 0:45

I mean, I should ask you the same thing. I mean, how was it for you, Corey? I mean, it's a communal exercise here on the Strategist Podcast. We, of course, follow all religious obligations together. uh and and that includes stephen carter's atheist christmas which i know we love

Carter 1:05

well it's all about pagan consumerism we

SPEAKER_02 1:07

we exchange sam harris and christopher hitchens books it's fantastic it's

SPEAKER_02 1:15

it's uh it just really shakes me to my core uh that tree

SPEAKER_02 1:19

you this year it's going to be dan dennett it's

Carter 1:21

it's going to be fantastic is

SPEAKER_02 1:22

is he the newest playboy in town talking about no God.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

We're already very old.

Corey 1:27

Very, very old. We thought

Corey 1:29

thought politics wasn't enough. We wanted to add religion to this. Is that what's going on here?

Corey 1:33

Well, I mean, have you met me?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

We ended last episode with a small pitch for the Quran. So I don't know why you guys are surprised that this is where we started.

Carter 1:44

Okay, Catholic, Muslim and an atheist walk into a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Let's move it on on to the only thing more important than religion our first segment reviewing our reviews now guys this podcast has been called uh petty uh it's been called meta and uh nothing uh signifies that more than this ongoing segment that we have which is called reviewing our reviews now we do this every now and then where we read an itunes review uh from one of our fans and uh we deconstruct it uh and and you guys have done this in the past you're cool with this

Carter 2:17

i'm already go ahead okay

SPEAKER_02 2:18

okay so So here we go. So this is a review left yesterday by a user, EnviroCritic. We could just deconstruct the name, but we won't because I'll move on because I'm an adult. Subject, Pod Save America knockoff.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Okay. I think that implies class.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

And the text is, this podcast is like Pod Save America with host, singular, who are uglier and meaner. Five stars. ours

SPEAKER_02 2:49

so much to unpack there first of all rude okay rude yeah secondly uh i don't think host who are is correct cory can you can you just verify that for me well

Corey 3:02

well i've never been very good at the english language zane but i i think you are you're getting caught up on a few things am i am i focusing on the wrong part of the review on the wrong part of the review i really five

Corey 3:14

five stars ours that's pretty good way to go guys i mean i would give you high fives but here we are on on this zoom knockoff right now well

SPEAKER_02 3:22

well here's a here's a carter go ahead before i before i jump

Carter 3:24

jump into you i mean like i don't understand the reference to pod save america i mean

Carter 3:29

i'm not a religious follower of pod save america but did like did

Carter 3:34

did they not rip off our format well

Carter 3:35

well this is the this

SPEAKER_02 3:38

right now this is why we're reviewing the review view uh

SPEAKER_02 3:40

uh it's not the fact that it's envirocritic which once again i really want to focus on in a different episode is he critical of the environment is he an environmental

SPEAKER_02 3:53

pod save america copied us we have started and let's let me tell you this in 2015 pod save america anyone want to take a guess when they started their show don't

SPEAKER_02 4:03

january of 2017 guys Guys, I just want to make the point. And they had years of us. I

Carter 4:09

I don't care. We know we were popular in the Washington, D.C. region. I

Carter 4:13

I mean, it is

SPEAKER_02 4:14

is one of our top 12 regions that we have been popular in. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

just want to make the point that

SPEAKER_02 4:21

that these guys have copied us. While they're great working for, let me just check here, President Barack Obama, which is, I guess, a qualification one might have. have uh it is nothing compared to the fact that we originated this format uh so thank you for the five stars envirocritic uh but also uh fuck the guys at pod save america that's pretty much what i want to say so uh so definitely

Corey 4:44

definitely true about the uh uglier and ruder part though we got to give you that that's

Carter 4:48

yeah absolutely you are so here's the thing i

SPEAKER_02 4:50

i actually don't know if that applies to all of us so let's just like our religious practices take that as a communal uh comment and uh and And accept it collectively. No,

Carter 4:58

No, that was you, Zane. Sorry,

Carter 5:02

This is not where I wanted this

SPEAKER_02 5:02

this segment to go. Our next segment, keeping

SPEAKER_02 5:05

keeping the Hucks happy. Guys, keeping the Hucks. Keeping the Hacks happy. Jesus Christ. The Hacks happy. Guys, I want to talk about the wage subsidy. And more specifically, I want to talk about the wage subsidy as applied to both the federal, and we'll get into it in a second, and our provincial political parties. So the story comes out late this week that our federal political parties have all applied for the federal wage subsidy. Carter, over to you first. What do you think of this? Is this like, is this good politics? Is this just strange? Is this just now the new normal we live in? What's the political hay to make here?

Carter 5:41

Well, I'm not 100% certain, but I seem to recall Andrew Scheer being quite critical of this thing. And he is ostensibly the leader of the Conservative Party. So one would imagine that when the CPC decides what federal programs they're going to take advantage of, he may have a word to say. So in my mind, it's just bad manners to pick on the person that's giving you the money. You don't smack them up the head and take the cash out of their wallet. It's just not done. done so let's let's be clear there are things to criticize about all the programs that have been implemented by the by the federal and provincial governments but the

Carter 6:18

the reality is and i think that all the political parties or most of the political parties have seen this

Carter 6:24

organizations need it organizations need support they need help and a perfect program isn't isn't what we're looking for it's something that that makes a difference in people's lives and to criticize the program at the same time as taking advantage of the program A program that is changing the way that businesses operate and keeping employees with their employers. That is just it's beyond hypocritical. It is it's

Carter 6:50

what should be done in politics. And it's just I'd

Carter 6:53

I'd say it's disappointing. But really, the CPC just disappoints me on every front. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Corey, are the other political parties, more specifically the NDP and the Conservatives, doing themselves a political disservice by taking on this wage subsidy? Do they just remove a particular line of attack heading into whenever the next election is?

Corey 7:14

Look, it's bad politics, but it's fine. People

Corey 7:16

People don't like politicians and political staff getting money. They never have. They never will. They think that people are overpaid. They think that it's just some cushy job where all you're doing is tweeting online. The reality is very different. I think we both know that. And you're seeing a lot of snark online like, oh, politics is a business now. Well, yeah, it's a fucking business. It employs people. It has operations. There are things to consider in that context. So why not? I actually don't have a problem with the conservatives or the NDP getting it or the provincial UCP using it because, look, I mean, I can pay taxes and I can criticize how those taxes are spent. I can use

Corey 7:53

use roads and I can say you should spend less on roads. The reality is it's a program that's there for a reason. They should be able to use it.

Corey 8:00

Philosophically, that's how I feel. It is bad politics because ultimately, again, fundamentally, people don't like politicians and political staff getting money. But that's a bullet that they decided they had to swallow.

Corey 8:12

Carter, I see you vigorously shaking your head.

Carter 8:14

Well, I think that there's, I mean, Corey's not wrong. They are businesses. I remember when I was in theater, people used to say that theater wasn't business. Well, if the revenues need to be higher than the expenses, then it's a business, right? And political parties are the same. The revenues have to exceed the expenses.

Carter 8:34

it's not the fact that they took it. And I do think that they're going to suffer a little bit politically. I don't think it'll be a big thing because everybody, every company has tried to take advantage of this in some fashion because this is such a unique situation. situation what

Carter 8:47

bothers me is the hypocrisy of complaining about it uh and and they're not doing program critiques that say this little piece of it's not being done properly here's how you could do this better that that type of critique is not is non-existent um instead it's just a broad attack on the programs attack on the trudeau liberals while at the same time opening up your your wallet and trying to take you know please help us please help us mr trudeau please i mean that's just i

Carter 9:18

i really struggle with the with the

Carter 9:21

the kind of the message that's being sent by that and i do think that while

Carter 9:25

while it will not be able to be used in any uh in

Carter 9:29

in any election commercials for sure it

Carter 9:31

it does undermine the the moral position that the the cpc uh

Carter 9:35

uh likes to pretend that they occupy going

Corey 9:39

back to the whole uh business argument you you pass up on this subsidy and you're are disadvantaged versus your competitors. It's like disagreeing with a tax credit, but still using it. And I didn't see the conservatives returning their $2 subsidy, even though they opposed that back when we used to have per vote subsidies. I think where the conservatives have to be careful is the defenses they're throwing out to that hypocrisy argument are pretty all

Corey 10:05

all over the map right now, right? You see a lot of, hey, no, this is important. These people have families.

Corey 10:10

That argument, I think, is more subject to that hypocrisy attack that Stephen just gave there. But look,

Corey 10:18

look, what are you going to do? You're going to pass up this subsidy and every other political party isn't? That's just not good business, frankly.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Let's zoom in a little bit more to where we live here in Alberta, talking about the UCP, right? So a party that has touted its free market, you know, philosophies and policies. Corey, do you feel like there's a political price to pay here for the UCP? Maybe arguably the biggest critic in the country of the Trudeau liberals to take on this subsidy?

Corey 10:48

Well, I think they have to be very careful that they don't start brush fires on the right. But as long as there's not a credible more right wing alternative to the UCP, I don't think it's a big deal. And I think you can make a, you

Corey 11:01

you know, a coherent argument that, yeah, it's a federal program. Alberta doesn't get enough. Of course, we're going to take advantage of this federal program. I don't think it's entirely misaligned with some of the positions

Corey 11:11

positions that Premier Kenney has taken.

Corey 11:14

But yeah, I mean, again,

Corey 11:16

first principles here. People don't like politicians and political staff getting public money, full stop. So there is going to be a bit of damage on that front. But as

Corey 11:25

as long as everybody's doing it. There's some safety in that. You could easily see this kind of spurring a nice, you know, Western, further right populist reaction. But, you

Corey 11:38

know, that's just something they're going to have to manage. And that's obviously something they decided that they could manage.

Corey 11:42

Carter, what do you think?

Carter 11:43

Well, I think that the problem isn't taking the subsidy from Trudeau. It's the fact that they lost $2.3 million last year and have a net deficit or debt of $1.1 million. Their financial management structure has always been to get out and try and get as many donations as possible. They're modeling the CPC

Carter 12:03

CPC small donor model, and

Carter 12:05

and they've been tremendously ineffective at it.

Carter 12:12

you know, whether it's the United Conservatives or the Federal Conservatives, should be showing us their fiscal responsibility first, and their fiscal responsibility should should should start at

Carter 12:21

at the party that was one of the critiques of the wild rose of the progressive conservatives you can't even get your own house in order it was

Corey 12:28

was a critique that you know currency with about a thousand people within five square blocks of the legislature i don't think that people have those

Carter 12:35

those guys like columns a

Carter 12:37

a thousand square feet has media and the media will write it whether or not it has a lasting legacy and and there still is a you know we'll

Carter 12:47

we'll see how the the The UCB will have to rewrite the rules to make sure that they can do some of this stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Carter, I want to stick with you on this because you brought this up. If you are part of the notly NDP here in Alberta, what are you trying to do with this story? Because they themselves, as far as I remember, you guys can correct me, the NDP here in Alberta have not taken on the wage subsidy. So they kind of have a moral high ground to stand on. So that compounded with the fact that the UCB had, what's the political, hey, you would if you were strategizing for them, make right now? What would you do?

Carter 13:22

I'm not sure I'd do very much. I mean, I'd probably ride it for a story for a day or two, maybe a week.

Carter 13:29

But the problem is that there isn't much there there. So when we break down a story and we're trying to figure out whether or not we can hurt

Carter 13:38

hurt the opposition, and this is something that I think that the

Carter 13:41

the CPC doesn't do particularly well when they're evaluating Trudeau's gaffes, right? If everything that you choose to pick up and run with, you

Carter 13:49

you know, if every little fumble, every little mistake, every little tiny issue, you decide that you're going to treat it as though it is the greatest sin ever committed by a prime minister or premier in the history of mankind, you lose your voice because you're, you know, you're essentially the boy who called Wolf. And

Carter 14:06

And I fear that – I

Carter 14:08

I would evaluate this one and say let's

Carter 14:11

let's – Corey is not wrong. Again, that pains me to say. But it doesn't have a lot of currency in the general population, especially at a time when everybody is trying to take

Carter 14:22

take advantage of the same programs. But it does set

Carter 14:27

set a tone maybe with the media. You can start to maybe add this to the examples list of things that the UCP or the Conservatives aren't good at. And next time they write a column

Carter 14:37

column that says that only the Conservatives can return us to fiscal prosperity, you

Carter 14:41

you put this in front of the reporter's face and ask, how? How? They can't even run their own business.

Corey 14:47

Corey, what do you think?

Corey 14:48

Well, if I'm the Alberta NDP, I am only going after the UCP. if I am 100% certain I am not going to need to call on that wage subsidy, because you want to talk about hypocrisy. It's one thing to use a federal program that's out there that you may have ideological challenges with. It's another entirely to slam somebody for using it and then get it yourself. That is true hypocrisy. And I think that when I look at the comments the Alberta NDP have made, they've been pretty measured. It's more like, so far, we haven't used the federal wage subsidy. And they're keeping their options open because they, like the rest of of us have no idea how long this is going to go on. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 15:25

the last thing I want to talk about on this subject is the messaging. So we talked about the politics, the political upside, downside. The one interesting thing about this story was how it was rolled out. So if you recall, it was rolled out initially as something that the federal NDP alone were taking advantage of. And there was almost a profile on the federal NDP, their staffers, their building. And I think what they tried to do was get out in front of it, own it, rather than the other two parties, the Libs and the conservatives, who also were taking advantage of this but weren't waving their arms loudly. Carter, over to you. What did you make of this? Because for the first four hours of this story, and I know this is inside political baseball, but for the first four hours, the public thought this was a program that only, of course, the federal NDP would come in third place were going to use. But what did you make of their strategy and what would you have done differently?

Carter 16:19

i don't know how that i mean i i tried to reconstruct how the story was kind of broken because you know it

Carter 16:26

it struck me that that uh the cbc i think it was the first it was broadcast on the cbc from what

Carter 16:32

what i could see but i'm sure we'll get corrected if i'm wrong um

Carter 16:36

um they thought they had a scoop yeah

Carter 16:39

they thought they had a scoop and they were going to out the ndp

Carter 16:43

and then i think you

Carter 16:44

you know it was really pretty

Carter 16:46

pretty quick oppo that just said everybody's doing this or at least you know the federal conservatives are as well and

Carter 16:51

and then it became well are you you know then everybody was asked it's

Carter 16:54

it's the same thing that happens when uh bill

Carter 16:56

bill clinton admits that he's had you know smoked marijuana within five minutes everybody else in the in the country every politician's asked have you ever smoked marijuana um because that's the story of the day so every political party was asked are you taking this subsidy and very quickly the stories were revised But it will stick in many Canadians' heads that it was only the damned leftist NDP who were taking advantage of this program

Carter 17:20

program for politics. I don't think there was any advantage to the NDP.

Carter 17:26

And I think it'll only reinforce existing negative stereotypes.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Corey, what do you think? Do you feel like this was a strategy on the NDP's part? Or do you feel like they got scooped? I mean, we're asking you to, you

SPEAKER_02 17:37

you know, guesstimate a bit, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

Corey 17:40

they might have been trying to soften the ground or somebody on the inside might have mentioned it to a reporter. It's hard for me to say. I'm sure somebody out there knows and, you know, I won't speculate too deeply. But I will say, regardless of how it got into the media's lap, you would think that they would have asked the other parties before they ran with it. But they had a scoop and they wanted to break it before somebody else broke it. And that is kind of one of the challenges of Twitter and the instant news cycle, I suppose, that people don't feel they have the time to do that diligence all of the time. Look, I will say this. One

Corey 18:12

One of the things that politicians on both the left and the right have been pretty keen to do whenever they are not benefiting from any of these, whether it's subsidies or donation supports, you know, because donations get huge tax credits. I have some shocking news for people out there. That means that is public money being foregone. Basically, the equivalent of public money going to these parties through that too. too. But, you know, politicians have stoked that flame, right? They've said this is ridiculous. We shouldn't be giving public money to these. They should be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and fundraise for themselves.

Corey 18:46

And maybe they'll think a bit harder about that now, now that they need to rely on these subsidies as well. I know there's more than one conservative politician that I follow who has given these great pay-ins to, no, these public dollars are are well spent on democracy, right? Democracy is important. Why wouldn't you want it to go there? I think it's ridiculous. It wouldn't. Well, these are the same federal politicos who are also the first to say, get rid of that federal wage subsidy. What a waste of money. It should only be private money that is going to political operations. So look, I mean, there's a lot of hypocrisy going around, but as I am fond of saying, hypocrisy is the human condition. I don't think anybody's going to take too much of a beating for this. The federal NDP, I suspect Stephen is right, in six months some people will only remember that uh because of uh the fact that after four hours it just wasn't news anymore and it's really less news once everybody's doing it um and certainly when i looked at just comments and feedback on stories 80

Corey 19:45

80 of the people thought it was just the ndp so carter

SPEAKER_02 19:49

carter closes off any final thoughts on this well

Carter 19:52

well i'll tell you if the alberta ndp hasn't gotten it yet they should get it now they got a free pass that's

SPEAKER_02 19:57

that's a good thought very interesting Okay, let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, everyone's a director directing someone's directives. Guys, I want to talk about political staffing. This is a, and of course, Corey, you would appreciate the title of that segment, coming from the ever famous managers managing managers. Is that what it was? The Ross Sherman

Corey 20:20

Sherman book? Yeah, so

SPEAKER_02 20:21

so a derivative of that. But I want to talk about political staffing. And this comes to us from a story here in Alberta, where it was revealed, can I say, that Jason Kenney's political staff now totals $2.9 million. And I think this is an interesting gateway for us to maybe talk about what a political staff within a premier's office looks like. I think both of you guys have intimate knowledge of not just the titles, the positions, but frankly, the operations of these things. And, you know, maybe I'll start with you, Carter, which is, first of all, let's comment on this particular Alberta story. So let's start with the Alberta part of it, which is, is this a scandal for Jason Kenney and the UCP? And if I can just, you know, try to catch people up, it was ultimately revealed that it's $2.9 million. Many people said that some of these positions never existed in the previous Notley government. government, the UCP has come back and said, Oh, no, we're actually 20 plus percentage points cheaper than the notly government premier staff. And then you had a UCP MLA, Drew Barnes, come out and say, Oh, I'm disappointed by these numbers. These are very high, especially in these, you know, crisis pandemic time. So let's just start with the political story at hand. And then let's go deeper. Carter, is this a scandal that the UCP needs to be worried about?

Carter 21:33

Well, I do think it's one of those moments where they can't this type of story can take off. And there's two sides to it. The first is just the amount of money that's being spent. There will be cutbacks. There have been cutbacks throughout the civil service. So there will be people who say we should have a cutback across all the government staffers as well. um but

Carter 21:57

but on and then the other piece of it is just the sheer dollar value of some of these salaries some

Carter 22:05

of the staff are making uh

Carter 22:06

uh over two hundred thousand dollars a year i you know in full disclosure i made more than two hundred thousand dollars a year when i was working in the premier's office um that's

Carter 22:18

is what it is uh that i asked i got and we move on um that

Carter 22:23

that to me is the the bigger one you know when you have somebody who's making enough money you know making so much more money and albertans are hurting um

Carter 22:32

they're still making that money through this covid crisis i would bet that they're all earning that money uh with the notable exception of matt wolf um they

Carter 22:42

they shots fired what

Carter 22:46

it's totally true um there

Carter 22:48

there are these are jobs that need to be done There are jobs in the premier's office that need to be done. I don't know how much money Alison Redford's office costs versus Rachel Notley's office versus Jason Kenney's office. First of all, it doesn't just break into these little boxes that cleanly. You don't put every staffer that serves the premier doesn't necessarily work out of the premier's office. Um,

Carter 23:15

you know, we have, uh, departments and all of it's public, which is how all of this gets known. Um, but because, because

Carter 23:24

because these things are so difficult to compare, Kenny

Carter 23:29

Kenny will be able to, to, to brush off criticism saying I

Carter 23:33

I saved 20% compared to what Notley cost. I'm sure Notley was able to say she saved 20% over what Redford cost. And I know because I was there when we were dealing with a changed political environment as a legacy of Ralph Klein, because

Carter 23:52

Ralph Klein had eliminated these

Carter 23:55

these issue managers. managers they used to be called policy i can't remember the exact title but they were policy people in every ministry including the premier's office and he got rid of all of them

Carter 24:04

um so we didn't have those places we didn't have those positions so there's there's a lot of it's almost impossible to compare so long answer short it's almost impossible to compare i think kenny will be able to brush it off i think he's going to have a harder time with the matt wolfs of the world making $200

Carter 24:23

to seemingly simply tweet at those

Carter 24:26

those who disagree with the premier.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Corey, what do you think? Is there a political story here? Or is this just an extension to your comments from earlier that the only political story could be that people don't like public servants of any kind or political staffers getting paid?

Corey 24:43

Yeah. And actually, the way you teed that up, I have a million things to say on this topic, all of which will be boring if I go too far so i'll try to keep it on treetops but look first of all uh there's a difference between political staff and and public service staff that is not well understood i think and fair enough right uh because those lines haven't always been perfectly adhered to which sort of builds into my point here but political staff are allowed to be um political right like they they can have an axe to grind they can they can put what we'd call contrast messaging in there more aggressively talk about how they're better than, you know, the other side. Public servants aren't like that. You know, I was a public servant up until two and a half months ago, and we have a code of conduct, and we're expected to comport ourselves in a certain fashion. And there's just different rules of the game. And so I say that as a tee up to this point. A growing political staff isn't always bad, because those positions existed in the Klein era. Those positions exist in a lot lot of governments. But what they will often do in absence of putting them on the books as political staff within a premier's office is hide them within what is supposed to be a nonpartisan public service. So in many ways, when you see it, like quite candidly, it can be, you know, somebody having the courage to just say, all right, we're going to put some sunlight on this. This is the way it should be done. Certainly, Rachel Notley, with the release of all of the political contracts was a big step in that direction, you know, moving a lot of the issues management there steven when you were chief of staff under redford uh the creation of the press secretaries which moved the political part of communications out of the public service undoubtedly grew the size of the political staff but it was the right thing to do and then the last thing i'll say is there's a lot of ways to measure growth and where the where the where the people are there is the premier's office there's the minister's office are you talking about political staff overall are you talking about uh positions also that that might be funded by individual departments. It's all over the place. But, you know, fundamentally, this

Corey 26:41

this comes back to people do not like to see political

Corey 26:45

political staff making big

Corey 26:48

big money. And maybe

Corey 26:49

maybe I'll take a breath there, Zane. But before we get off this topic, I have something to say about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Okay, okay, I'll come back to you. And I want to maybe go to Carter for a second, because you've teed something up for me, Corey, which is the construction of a political office. So if I'm going to open a bracket and I'll close yours in a second, Corey Carter, open this bracket for me. Walk me through. You become chief of staff to Premier Redford, right? What are you doing to construct that office in the premier's office, quote unquote? And then if you have extra sort of needs, extra sort of desires to extend that political operation, what are some of the things that you guys did? How did you play around with this? Walk us through what constructing a political staff looked like. Well,

Carter 27:32

Well, let's start with who are my real stakeholders. So

Carter 27:36

So first of all, we have to separate the three. So

Carter 27:39

So in Alberta, especially, the

Carter 27:41

the three elements of governing of politics blend together. So it's supposed to be separate and distinct. So

Carter 27:50

the separation and distinct is the party, the

Carter 27:53

the legislature, and the government. And

Carter 27:55

And people will go, what? What do you mean? How are these things different? Well, they are different. The legislature, the actual legislative body, is the 87 MLAs. They are the ones who make the laws, and then the government implements those laws and manages that through the ministries and through those processes. So I have to manage the legislature differently than I manage the government. But I'm still the chief of staff of both of those. And in a totally different world, there's

Carter 28:24

there's the party, right, which is the party memberships, the actual political arm,

Carter 28:30

arm, right? And this is why a party can pass a policy at their policy convention that never sees the light of day in government. government because

Carter 28:40

because it's ultimately the legislature that has to pass it for the government, you know, for the government to

Carter 28:44

to dig into it. When you have those three things, then it starts to dictate the functions. So

Carter 28:48

So if we focus principally on the legislature and the government, just as the primary areas, I have to have staff that manage the legislative process, which means I have to manage my caucus, which means I have to manage the legislature, the business of the house, House, the business of the legislature, the committees, all of these things are functions of government and they need to be managed. And they are managed both

Carter 29:15

both through the premier's office and through the liaison's office. And those different liaison's offices had different names. But the

Carter 29:25

objective, like we had a deputy chief of staff whose sole job it was to manage caucus and the legislative process. Um, that deputy chief of staff made sure that our caucus was happy because there's

Carter 29:38

there's a lot of moving pieces and every single member of your caucus knows that they should have been a cabinet minister. Um, especially the ones that weren't made cabinet ministers. Um, they, so they have, they are difficult to manage.

Carter 29:51

And then we had a, um,

Carter 29:54

deputy chief of staff who was in charge of policy and trying to figure out what the hell the right solutions are. One of the things they don't tell you when you get into politics is that all the easy decisions are made by the bureaucrats. If it is an 80-20 decision, it is made by a bureaucrat. So, so far away from the premier's office, you don't even, you don't hear about it. It didn't even happen in your world. The

Carter 30:15

The only things that get to the premier's office are 51-49s, right?

Carter 30:20

What should we do, right? We have an electricity problem. They're threatening to turn off one of of the electricity plants. What do you think we should do?

Carter 30:31

Fuck, I don't know. Like, why are you coming here? Shouldn't someone smarter than me be making this decision? But it's a political decision. So it winds up in the premier's office and we have to make those types of decisions quickly and wisely. And so you have to have a deputy chief

Carter 30:46

chief of staff or in some cases, a principal secretary who's managing the

Carter 30:50

the actual policy. And then you've got the chief of staff Who's supposed to be running all of those things. And then underneath that, you've got the comms piece. You've got the policy shops, which we often hide in the executive council. But they are, you

Carter 31:05

you know, they're policy

Carter 31:07

policy people working for the premier in the bureaucracy. So,

SPEAKER_02 31:11

So, Carter, can I ask you straight up like and this is this is not a criticism to how your management, but is

SPEAKER_02 31:17

it true that like you guys ultimately had political staff in places that were not the premier's office serving the premier?

Carter 31:24

Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. But what is serving the premier mean?

Carter 31:29

Right. So we have we have an international affairs department in the international affairs department. We traveled a tremendous amount. So we had a staff person who managed a large component of our international travel. Now, they did other things. And

Carter 31:45

And that wasn't necessarily political.

Carter 31:49

Right? Like, everybody in the government serves the premier in some fashion. um

Carter 31:56

so you know it's it's it's just a question of is it political and the answer is you know travel's not really political you can house um i think that kenny's got a tour manager you

Carter 32:08

you can very easily house

Carter 32:10

house a tour manager in what was called the public affairs bureau before cory Corey ridiculously

Carter 32:17

ridiculously changed the name.

Carter 32:20

You know, you could very easily have someone like that in that space. It's not political. Managing the premier's travel, that's

Carter 32:26

that's not where the decision is being made. It's about making sure that there's a card

Carter 32:31

card to take that person, you know, to take the premier from one event to the next event.

Carter 32:35

It doesn't have to be managed in the office as a political.

Carter 32:40

And this is, I think, where Klein was trying to take it. Try and take us down to the base levels of politics. What is the actual politics? And his position was, and I think it was Jake Epp, who was the finance minister who took us down to like nothing?

Carter 32:53

I'm wrong with that, but it was someone with a three letter last name.

Carter 32:57

Anyways, the model changed

Carter 32:59

changed and they said the

Carter 33:02

the only really political staff are the minister. And

Carter 33:05

And they took us down to like

Carter 33:06

like a scheduling assistant and an

Carter 33:08

an EA and a minister. I mean, the minister's offices became incredibly small. And

Carter 33:12

And we just found we were still wrestling with that legacy when we got in. And that's why we created the chief of staff position and

Carter 33:19

and the press secretary position so

Carter 33:22

so that there would be an extra person for the ministers. to think about the policy and the long-term implications, not

Carter 33:30

not within the political lens.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

The last 10 minutes were probably the pillow talk you needed if you want Stephen Carter talking nerdy to you about political staffing. That was quite the deep dive. It felt very quick. It was like, oh my God, I love this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah, no. I mean, I think it's quite illuminating. I think there's some headlines here, right? Like you had autonomy to construct your office how you saw. You were able to, let's just put it frankly, very political staff in places that people may not go looking for in certain ways. And I know you're cringing at that, but that's kind of what it was. Corey, is that is that fair? You're shaking your head. You're also cringing. I'm just trying to understand. Like you guys are both saying, well, yes and no. But Corey, add some color. What am I getting wrong?

Corey 34:15

Yeah, well, what I would say, Zane, is that if they're in the public. So there is there are examples of that in Alberta's history. There's no question. Right. I think that they are pretty rare these days because generally speaking people have understood that's a that's a pretty dangerous thing to do but uh it's no question that certain jobs within the public service just

Corey 34:34

just work better if they are politically aligned and politically attuned to the government of the day and um look

Corey 34:43

the reality is uh they

Corey 34:47

they still need to be qualified for the job they still need to be able to manage within the public service, and they still need to be able to, to competently deliver those things, or else the public service will chew them up and spit them out. That's just the nature of the public service, right? And so much of it requires you to follow the rules and play the games. But so

Corey 35:05

so I would just caution you about just painting too broad of a brush and implying that the people who work in the policy coordination office, for example, working up policy documents for the premier are, you know, quote, unquote, political hacks, that's not the case, they are are required to do a job and they are they would be required to do the same job on any government it's just simply easier if they have kind of a philosophical alignment with the government of the day um

Corey 35:29

this this is a deep dive and man alive i uh i i think that uh we could take this an awful lot of different ways but i i want to kind of drag us out for a second and just say

Corey 35:41

the the premier is the premier and the premier can structure his or her office however they see fit and

Corey 35:48

and executive council which carter mentioned but didn't explain really what it was is the premier's ministry so like the premier is a minister like any other and executive council's their job the public service and whatnot is just to make it so everywhere as need be and uh they do but that's not to say there aren't rules and that's not to say people don't try to bend rules i wouldn't want to leave the impression the public service doesn't push back when it's inappropriate it's It's a very complicated picture, and I think people try to make it very simple. Start pounding their fists and saying, what an outrage. Look at this premier's office staff. It got big, right? Well, maybe it got big for good reasons. Maybe it got big because the work changed. Maybe it got big because what was previously being buried in a ministry no longer is. And then people look at the salaries and they say, nobody should make more than the premier. Well, here's a bit of a newsflash for everybody. buddy. The premier gets paid shit, given their responsibilities and given their workload. The

Corey 36:45

The CTF said nobody should make more than the premier. That is a lazy red meat comment. And I can understand why Jason Kenney reduced his salary. It was still a stupid idea, right? You're conservatives, the supply and demand, right? Market economics. You want good people in these jobs. You have to offer them good salaries because guess what? These jobs are fucking terrible. And if you think they set you up for the next job, you're living off of a scenario scenario that maybe existed 40 years ago, but definitely doesn't now. Instead, it's a scarlet letter. You are aligned with a political party and non-political people will be like, oh, yeah, it might be sending a signal if we hire them. They might think that we're conservatives or New Democrats or liberals or whatnot, right? It is not an easy job. And if you want good people in those jobs doing good work, you got to pay them.

Corey 37:32

I argue that you should probably have half Half as many MLAs being paid twice as much. Again, market economics here. But that

Corey 37:39

that doesn't seem to be an argument that's got any kind of currency with the public, which is really unfortunate. I mean, we pay them less than they could make in the private sector. We burn any future employment opportunities they have. We make them work all

Corey 37:52

all hours of the day. And we wonder why the quality of politicians is slowly declining over time.

Carter 37:58

There is no ladder. I mean, let's pick up on one point that Corey made. There is no ladder that you climb out of the premier's office. There's no ladder that you climb out of these jobs. These jobs will haunt you for

Carter 38:09

for the rest of your life. And people do them because they want to try and make the world a better place. But all we see is people getting punished. I mean, Alison Redford is still being punished for being premier. You know, I'm punished for working for Alison Redford.

Carter 38:28

That's ridiculous to me. It's utterly ridiculous because like

Carter 38:31

like them, loathe them. I don't really care. they're trying to do the best for the for the province just

Carter 38:37

just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean that uh they

Carter 38:40

they should suffer financial consequence forever cory

Corey 38:43

off on this yeah yeah

Corey 38:45

yeah carter you know who's not being punished me works for the liberals conservatives new democrats i'm

Corey 38:49

i'm a real triple threat okay

Carter 38:51

now you're just now he's

SPEAKER_02 38:53

he's just asking for it this piece of shit actually you know what before i move on i've actually got a question um talk

SPEAKER_02 38:59

talk to me very very quickly about if you are Jason Kenney right now, this government, let's just say this starts picking up more traction. There's more currency in the media for this story. There's more currency within the public for this conversation because these numbers are easier to understand than billions, right? It's people's salaries, relatable. If this starts picking up, which it will, if it's in this province or at the national level, it will somewhere. What would your political instincts say how to defend this? Would you go down the track of saying, you know, Corey, to your Your point, market economics, like these people deserve good salaries. Like what is the political communique right now that you're thinking of if you worked in any of these premier's offices or if you're leading up or spearing heading the messaging on this?

Corey 39:40

Well, look, I've seen 18 different versions of this. This comes up all of the time. I can think of in my

Corey 39:47

my just under four years with the government of Alberta, the number of times a version of this came up is too many for my hands.

Corey 39:54

And, you know, you just sort of kick it and you wait for this controversy to go down and then you move on. Like everybody gets their turn in the spotlight when they get a big job like that. You know, there's a lot of 200K plus jobs in politics. I mean, that's the thing

Corey 40:09

thing is, and I will say, lest anybody think I am saying that political staff are just this unalloyed good.

Corey 40:18

think that people at the top of the game in politics, almost all of them deserve every dollar they're making. They work incredibly hard. They do things you don't see. You only see their Twitter accounts. You're not seeing all of the other stuff. But kind of that next layer, the

Corey 40:32

the political gang have a really hard time of filling with, in my opinion, people who have the qualifications you would expect for that job. And there's a real delineation here, which is tough to see in real real time but you sort of see over time is this the best job you're ever going to have or not and if the answer is yes you

Corey 40:49

you should really be thinking about whether you're paying those people too much because then you are paying over market just to sort of continue my metaphor but um the

Corey 40:58

the reality is there are there are people who could be doing things getting paid way way more but they've decided to take a 220 000 job and that's a lot of money and nobody should plead poverty But we should also not kid ourselves that

Corey 41:11

that that that is sort of commiserate with their or commensurate with their their skills.

Carter 41:17

Carter, any final thoughts?

Carter 41:18

Well, the top end in corporate Canada is millions of dollars.

Carter 41:22

The top end in politics is 260.

Carter 41:27

I mean, it's just they're not even close in the scale. I

Carter 41:30

I will concede that 260 is higher than, you know, a lot of people will make any

Carter 41:35

any in any given year in their lifetime. time but um

Carter 41:38

um politics is also not a closed shop you

Carter 41:40

you want to get into politics pick up the phone get involved it's

SPEAKER_02 41:45

will leave it there for that one i'm sure there's many more deep dives to go into of course steven will be putting his book on tape uh on the deep dive of allison redford's cabinet it's a 19 cassette uh series uh he will ship it to you uh on foot door to door uh three Three copies available.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Stephen, looking forward to receiving mine.

Carter 42:09

There are three cassettes on Jonathan Dennis alone.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

It's a blast from the past. Okay, let's move it on to our final segment, the over, under, and the lightning round. Guys, are you ready?

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Corey, let's start with you.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

Let's start with you. On a scale of one to 10, give us the ranking of our big city mayors here in Alberta. Nahid Nenshi and Don Iveson, as they've been handling this pandemic. Do you have any questions, concerns, scale of 1 to 10, what do you think of our big city mayors so far?

Corey 42:38

I'd give them a B+. I think that there's nothing that really offends me about it, but I also can't think of any standout performance.

Carter 42:47

I'm more of a 50

Carter 42:50

50-50 type of guy. I think that one of

Carter 42:54

of the challenges for mayors in this particular crisis versus, for example, the flooding crisis or

Carter 42:59

or the fire crisis in Fort McMurray,

Carter 43:02

there's not a lot that the mayors can do this is really a outside of their capacity they're trying to use their moral authority to remind us to wear masks and things like that but i think in some ways they're muddying the waters and half

Carter 43:18

half of me just doesn't want to see them on this particular issue at all cory

SPEAKER_02 43:21

cory gives it a b plus carter gives it a 50 50 whatever the hell that is uh as they score uh our next one okay you

Carter 43:30

you can be more clear in what you're asking us to grade on i mean yeah

Carter 43:33

yeah their performance during

Carter 43:35

the pandemic yeah no

Corey 43:38

b plus out of 10 what's hard to understand about that i got yours

SPEAKER_02 43:41

yours yours makes total sense because we understand how b plus works out of 10 but 50 50 anyways i'm not gonna fight with you guys on this cory

SPEAKER_02 43:49

cory back to you uh if you are team joe biden are you currently in or out on the strategy of having amy klobuchar Klobuchar floated as being your VP pick. So for people just to catch you up, it seems like Team Joe has floated out that Klobuchar is being vetted. It's of course been a polarizing conversation in the US, at least for those looking at who his running mate will be. Corey, how do you rank, sorry, in or out on this strategy?

Corey 44:13

Well, look, floating, you do that when you want to see what the reaction is, right? You dip your toe in the water without committing entirely, or you're trying to create buzz. Why not? I mean, it's a lot better to see what's going to happen now than And just there's no real lasting benefit in surprising people with the VP picks. So you might as well tease a couple of them out there. Certainly Elizabeth Warren's had her time in the print. Klobuchar, people will talk about a few ones. He'll make his decision if he hasn't already, but I'm sure he's doing a bit of a gut check if he has made the decision. And if he hasn't, it's a great way to sort of see what the reaction will be from the left of his party, from the Midwest, whether he gets anything at all.

Corey 44:52

I guess I would say B plus Zane. yeah

SPEAKER_02 44:54

yeah i've expected that from you nothing else carter are you in or out on this strategy for team joe um

Carter 45:00

um i'm out on this particular strategy i just don't think that it makes much sense to me to uh float this uh at this particular moment in time and if i was to float it i probably would float a couple just to see what

Carter 45:14

what the hell is going on um i wondered where it came from you know i I guess obviously someone had to verify

Carter 45:22

verify it, but it doesn't strike me as a particularly controlled, you

Carter 45:27

know, leak. And it made me wonder if maybe Klobuchar was trying to get ahead of the game in some fashion and show Team Joe that she, you

Carter 45:37

you know, they're vetting more than one person. That is for certain.

Carter 45:43

And the fact that only one name came out makes me wonder if Team Klobuchar Bashar is

Carter 45:49

either being sabotaged or sabotaged herself.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Corey, sticking with US politics, scale of one to 10, one being absolutely horrible, 10 being a masterstroke. There was an interview that came out where Elizabeth Warren has been softening her stance on Medicare for all, presumably to get herself into the race for VP. She ultimately said that all we need to make is progress on healthcare. She's been less Less committal than she was full-throatedly on the campaign trail during the primary, but Medicare for all. What do you think of her strategy on a scale of 1 to 10 right now? Do you think she gains more or does she lose more in terms of that enthusiastic base that she'd built around her candidacy?

Corey 46:29

Well, it's hard to know without knowing what her conversations have been with the Biden camp. And if she's hearing either directly or through channels that they think that she's too exposed on this issue, look, this is her last shot. I mean, they're all getting up there in the years. This septuagenarian parade we've got of political candidates in the United States is wild, but she's not going to get another run at the presidency here. That to me seems unfathomable. So why not position yourself for the vice presidency, try to do good? I don't think she's ever been driven by the healthcare issue. I'm sure many people will jump on and tell me why I'm wrong on that front. but to me it's always been for her wall street the economy overall the need to to you know trust bust and those things that's what she cares about she has made the decision herself that she's willing to let go of the health care thing which was always kind of maybe a priority but a lesser priority so i i think that's fine i think that makes sense like i said it's her last shot you know there's

Corey 47:25

there's a whole musical about not throwing away your shot zayn i'll send it to you someday It's very obscure.

Corey 47:30

I may have heard of it. Another B plus by Corey Carter.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

do you give it, Elizabeth Ward, for this for this political political strategy?

Carter 47:39

You know what? I mean, she's seeing that there is only one train leaving the station. She's going to be on it. And I actually admire that. I think that politicians should recognize. I mean, I like politicians to reflect back what their people want. uh but in this particular case um it elizabeth

Carter 47:58

elizabeth warren sees that joe biden's going to be the guy joe biden wants to talk about expanding health care coverage not medicare for all she's going to talk about expanding health care coverage she's on the team she's a team player

Carter 48:10

that's all that matters carter

SPEAKER_02 48:12

carter i'm going back to you for the second last question the 2018 clip of prime minister stephen harper has been recirculating this week of him talking, I believe, and you guys can correct me, on the Ben Shapiro podcast. Is that what it was? Him talking about how the media in Canada ultimately led to him no longer being prime minister. The clip has been combated by several editors at newspapers and several people running newsrooms across this country. Carter, on a scale of one to 10, one being this is going to badly damage his legacy, and actually 10 being he's going to badly damage it, one being not so so much what do you what do you kind of make of it i'm

Carter 48:51

i'm gonna i mean i i think that this is one of those situations where um

Carter 48:57

no one gives a fuck what stephen harper has to say about his legacy anymore anyways um he has not the not enough time has passed for him to be viewed in the rearview mirror i think we're just on uh you know mulrooney at this stage um you

Carter 49:11

you know so we're not reinventing his legacy at this point and

Carter 49:15

and to stand up i

Carter 49:17

mean realistically if the media had covered him less he would have done better every

Carter 49:22

every decision that he made in that campaign seemed designed to cost him votes in quebec and ontario and uh cost him votes it did so i'm

Carter 49:32

i'm afraid i have to uh you

Carter 49:35

you know not be on board i'm out on steven harper cory

SPEAKER_02 49:40

cory what do you think and why was it a b plus

Corey 49:44

look, we're all heroes in our own epic. It's not exactly shocking to me that Stephen Harper would point to external forces for the reason that he lost the election. The reality is more nuanced, of course. People were fatigued. The policy positions that were being put forward were not particularly well digested by the public. Justin Trudeau caught a wave at the end there and um of

Corey 50:08

of course tom mulcair uh got overrun by one a bit of a bit of a crush a blue crush you know this metaphor falls apart because it's like the red party blue crush but grievances about the media are not exactly a shocking development of right-wing politicians either you look at any of the pew research on this you look at what a trusted media outlet is you know small l liberals trust 70 of outlets small c conservatives trust 30 of outlets i'm I'm not shocked. And

Corey 50:36

And this is just such a big nothing burger of a story.

Corey 50:40

Conservative politician loses election, blames media. Like, have we never heard this? Is this what I'm supposed to pretend? B plus.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

Last question back to you, Corey. I'll let you finish it off thereafter. Give me your thoughts. You know, this New York Times cover for today on communication strategy, how solid was this? them going out with a thousand names on their front page cover of those that this COVID crisis has lost in the United States, trying to punctuate that they're hitting the 100,000 mark in the U.S.? Talk me briefly through what you thought of this communication strategy.

Corey 51:17

You know, I thought the print version was really quite striking.

Corey 51:24

I was less impressed with its online implementation, just from a pure tactics point of view.

Corey 51:29

I don't know. I mean, in some ways, I think this is the New York times that it's worst, to be honest, it's, it's just like kind of this saccharine, you

Corey 51:37

you know, over important approach to the news that clearly has an opinion to it. And, and I get it. I mean, I have opinions about COVID too, but it's not really, I

Corey 51:48

don't know what it does. I mean, I guess what it does is it makes a bit of a splash and makes people remember about the New York times. And like we were talking about last week, it's a business. So sure. Great. Right. But otherwise,

Corey 51:58

otherwise, it's not going to have a lot of lasting currency with me. I read through a lot of that list. One of the things that struck me actually was, well,

Corey 52:05

well, I already knew that most of the people who

Corey 52:07

who were dying of COVID-19 were older. You know, you really feel the age on that list. So I wonder if it almost cuts against, in

Corey 52:14

in some ways, the point that The New York Times was trying to make. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 52:16

Carter, what do you think of that strategy?

Carter 52:18

Well, I mean, first of all, as a human being, I was moved

Carter 52:21

moved by the cover. I thought that it it

Carter 52:25

had a message and I liked the message. I was responsive to the message. But I've said before many times on this podcast that I think that voters tend towards selfishness. And if

Carter 52:37

if you don't know a person on that list, that list is meaningless to you. Reading name after name after name, you

Carter 52:45

you know, it's an interesting exercise. sides um but

Carter 52:48

but let's just say it does not have the meaning or the poignancy of like the vietnam war memorial where

Carter 52:53

where you can walk the down and it takes uh

Carter 52:57

uh so long to walk past every one of those names and the you

Carter 53:01

you know you you see the growing you know the growing number of casualties and then it drops off again and and there's a there's

Carter 53:09

there's a poetry to it and that poetry was not in the new york times.

Carter 53:15

the selfishness of the population is

Carter 53:19

is really showing itself. We are seeing

Carter 53:26

knows someone who's been impacted, they

Carter 53:28

they are very unlikely to be moved by the

Carter 53:35

by the facts. And this just

Carter 53:37

just reinforces what we've talked about a million million times on this podcast.

Carter 53:40

Facts aren't going to change anybody's mind.

Carter 53:42

And the New York Times put a thousand facts up on their front page, and it's not going to change anybody's mind.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 803 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji, with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Corey 54:06

we seriously not talk about the fact that jason kenney has a fucking mla running around the province talking about the premier's office being overpaid and under competent

Carter 54:15

yeah yeah we we didn't really touch on that no i

Corey 54:19

i mean what a shitty host i

SPEAKER_02 54:21

mentioned it. You could have picked up on any of the threads I mentioned. Now, here's the thing, right? What it takes to be a good guest on a podcast.

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