Episode 814: All the Finance Committee's a stage

SPEAKER_00 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 814. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? Happy long weekend, Zain. Happy long weekend. Oh, let's just get started with the show, Corey. Do you want to talk at all? Huh? Do you just want to go right into the show?

Carter 0:18

times have I had to say it's the kibitzing. This is why people tune in. They want to know about us. They want to know about our lives.

Corey 0:25

Oh, I bet they do. I've

Carter 0:26

I've got sweat in uncomfortable places. That's all I have to say. That's everything in my life.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

What a mistake. What a mistake, this one.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

What's going on, guys? How's your long weekend? Corey, you did a podcast finally, and you did well. Congratulations on appearing on West of Center on CBC. Congratulations.

Corey 0:44

Congratulations. Yeah, I, unlike you two, actually managed to get a plug-in for this podcast, so good for me.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, no, that was something that Stephen and I failed. I mean, we saw the big lights of the CBC and we just couldn't, we didn't know what to do. We were, our knees were jelly.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

We had no idea how to make it happen. And Steven, of course, you had a big moment this week. You got into a passive aggressive fight with Jesse Brown on Twitter. So, I mean, it's really the strategist's playbook.

Carter 1:12

Is it passive aggressive when Jesse just admits that no one listens to or reads his stuff? Is that, I don't understand. Like, no

Carter 1:19

no one read it, Jesse. No one reads your stuff. Yes, that is the truth. Sorry.

Corey 1:26

Well, this is accessible. This

SPEAKER_00 1:27

This is good. This is good. They're here for this, Corey. The people want this. This is what they're here for. Steven, of course, adding more fuel to the fire to our ongoing rivalry with Canada Land. Of course, they know about us. I just want to put that out there. They know who we are. They know who we are. They pretend not to.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

They pretend not to. It's a thing he does. But they know who we are. Certainly. Corey, you look uncomfortable. uncomfortable you are not enjoying this always

Carter 1:53

always looks uncomfortable this is this this is what happens you and i chat cory looks uncomfortable then when he say he signals us by taking off his hat and when he takes off his hat and rubs his forehead we know that we've gone too far we're not quite there yet just a couple more minutes yeah

SPEAKER_00 2:09

yeah we'll just watch him uncomfortably you know what i'm actually gonna save us from that and let's move it on to our first segment okay we

SPEAKER_00 2:16

we We have no choice. Stephen Carter, we have to do it. We have to go. I know. I know. It's so bad. We have to do it. But do not worry. There are games. Our first segment is Testimony Thermometer. Now, of course, we play this every time our head of state testifies to the finance committee. And we've played it before back in the 1800s. I don't know, the 1900s at some point. Corey will find out for us. Of course, Chester was hosting the show back then.

Corey 2:44

Prime Ministers have spoken to committees quite a few times in the past. It's not the rarest thing in the world. I don't know if it was the Finance Committee in all those times. You know, his dad spoke to committees four years in a row. So it's a Trudeau thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Nerd alert. Okay, Corey, thank you. I just expected a, oh, this is the year it happened. But thank you for the entire history on committees and Prime Ministers showing up to them. Here's what we're doing. We're doing testimony thermometer. thermometer. I am going to go through individually with all the testimony we've heard. We're going to go through the Kielberger brothers. Of course, do them together. They've been joined at the hip since they were teenagers. We'll do them together. We'll go through Trudeau. We'll go through Telford. And here's what you need to do. You need to give me a response from minus 10 on the thermometer, which means very shitty, all the way to plus 10, which means in normal summer terms, not great weather, but the highest that this thermometer goes. It's a very cheap thermometer. So between Between minus 10 and plus 10, and please, answer the fucking questions. I cannot have you go lightning round on me on these. We're going to use it. No, this one I'm paying

SPEAKER_00 3:48

You're going to pay attention. I was listening the

Carter 3:49

the whole time. I was. I was really paying

SPEAKER_00 3:51

paying attention. Yeah, okay. This is not going to go well for us. Okay, let's start here with Corey first and the Kielberger brothers. We go with minus 10 to plus 10. Where do you put them? And then tell us why.

Corey 4:04

guess I put them at about a minus five because nothing is going particularly well for them, but they've been in a bad spot for so long. I don't know that things got materially worse for them, but that committee performance of theirs certainly didn't move them any far forward. So they have a problem. They have funders who are fleeing from them, because one of the reasons why big corporations fund an organization like WE is that they can pat themselves on the back and talk about all the social good they do. If there's no PR bump to funding WE, then, my God, you'd only actually be doing about it because you actually care about the charity. And let's be real, corporations are far too cynical for that. And, and

Corey 4:45

then if you look even a little bit beyond that, they continue to get pulled deeper and deeper into all of these quarrels with all of these different people. Most recently, of course, we saw that they've been spending money on political consultants in the United States. I don't think that shocks any of us on this podcast. We've all done work like that for clients in the past, you'd be surprised the kinds of people who want to have political advice provided to them. And there's all sorts of legitimate reasons for it. But it just continues to paint a picture of a charity run amok, rightly or wrongly, and they just can't get out of it. They're in rough at this point, and it's going to be tough for them to pull both their personal reputations and their charity's reputation out of this ditch. Carter,

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Carter, before I go to you on the Kuhlberger brothers, Corey, you know, you've said on this podcast numerous times that the audience that they're primarily playing for leading up to this testimony that they gave was the corporate boardroom, was their sponsors and funders. Would you say that they were a minus five on that scale, too, or were they worse as it relates to to perhaps how their message and perhaps their message in the form of how they presented as well resonated with corporate boardrooms?

Corey 5:55

Well, maybe worse. I don't know if I can parse it out like that. They certainly played badly with the public as a whole, but that is why they played badly with the corporations. And I think those who were watching quite closely, quite intently, were probably a little bit alarmed

Corey 6:10

alarmed by some of their answers to the committee. It seemed like

Corey 6:15

like they were dodging. It seemed a little bit smarmy. The coziness that they were accused of was on full display. I think it was really bad advice whoever suggested to them kind

Corey 6:25

kind of telling Charlie Angus, hey, yeah, your kids participate in this charity. I have no idea why they thought that was going to play at all, at all, and it just created this sense of entitlement on full display, very evasive, would

Corey 6:44

would not answer questions about whether they were essentially using PIs to tail a media. I mean, it was not a good performance, and I think the closer you look, the worse a performance it was.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Carter, over to you. What do you give him on the minus 10 to plus 10 scale? gail i

Carter 6:58

give them about a minus eight and you're welcome um but the the they

Carter 7:03

they were pretty horrible the

SPEAKER_00 7:04

the accomplishment of just giving a number yeah

Carter 7:07

yeah they were they were pretty horrible and and part of the reason that they're horrible is and i'm going to go back to my theater career um for me they're stage actors you put them up on the big stage in front of 20 000 people and they play to the room right they're they're big personalities they can play to the entire room well this is a a tv actor world uh when you're when you're testifying to that committee and the the tv um the tv model uh was they're too big for it they filled the screens too much i mean the fact you know they're side by side it's just filling the screen and they're filling the screen with the wrong information um from

Carter 7:43

from the beginning i've been saying for for the this charity it had to get back to why they did what they did what they were really doing the good that they gave to society society and of course the the testimony was instead about um you know things

Carter 7:58

are you know financial arrangements that they did that they made to make the the charity more financially robust well what does a charity need to be financially robust for like the point of the exercise is take the money in put the money out this charity has a weird structure for a simple charity now that's

Carter 8:16

that's their structure they explained it but

Carter 8:18

but they're explaining the wrong things and And they're explaining the wrong things with their theater personalities. And that really, I think, undermined their testimony. Because keep in mind, from my point of view, a

Carter 8:30

a large part of what is said doesn't really matter. It's how it's said. And those two guys, the moment they open their mouths, you know, you just kind of go, oh, you know, it's slimy. And it's the same way you react to a lounge lizard at a bar, right? Right. Like, you know, they're a lounge lizard from the moment they walk up to you. And that's what the Kielburgers felt like from the moment they entered the committee.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Right. So that's a very interesting point, Carter, that that they were the wrong actors for the screen that they were on, that they're they're they're like they're concert hall performers in your mind. I think that's a very fascinating analogy. Corey, do you agree with that?

Corey 9:08

Yeah, I love that metaphor. for. And you think about stage acting and kind of the over the topness of it, this idea that you want to create a sense of intimacy with everybody in your audience. And that is the wrong, wrong play for that particular stage. I think that it was a combination. They really didn't know who they were and where they were, is what I felt. So totally agree with everything Carter just said there. The other comment that really stunned me for its inelegance for that moment was when they they said they thought of themselves primarily as entrepreneurs. You can say that being an entrepreneur or a social entrepreneur is a means to an end, but you

Corey 9:44

you should be thinking of yourself primarily as people trying to do good in the world, people trying to run a charity. You are a charity first and foremost. Everything else you do is in service of that mission. And the problem is they seem to have confused the means and the end there. And that is going to cause them even more problems going forward.

Carter 10:01

That's why you're seeing so much flight from the the organization you know the flight from the organization is

Carter 10:06

is is in part because they're under the spotlight other organizations have been in the spotlight and they get out of it and they continue to do their work i mean snc lavalin still there still doing work you know i mean geez talk about continuing despite all of the bad press uh in the whole world um but these guys this is a social enterprise that they're treating as a um as

Carter 10:29

as an entrepreneurial profit-driven venture and it's giving off the wrong taste. The

Carter 10:35

The challenge for them is there

Carter 10:37

there are a hundred charities for every one good deed, right? Like any sector, you can find another charity that's doing similar work that will get you the same PR bump. And these guys were first and foremost experts at PR. That's what they did. That's what they did better. But they developed a public relations strategy that was, like I say, it was designed for the 20,000 person venue. It was, you know, they, they needed to bring a model, the model of them sitting down with Oprah, right? Like there was no, you know, like when, when a celebrity sits down with, with Oprah and they're going to do their, their apology tour, right? Lance Armstrong sits down with Oprah and he bears his soul and he says how sore he is. You

Carter 11:20

You know, the Kill Burger should have watched that first, you know, if they'd done that and then they could have bared their soul. I mean, still, it would have rung hollow for some people, but at least it would have been saying the right words with the right performance elements. This wasn't the right words. It wasn't the right performance elements. And it totally failed.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Carter, I want to go back to you for a second. You know, in the past, you've had this theory. You've called it the theory of celebrity, the arc of celebrity. And you've used it on politicians in the past. And I think I've stolen it from you. In fact, I think I was telling the Toronto Star where recently I was quoted. I don't know if you guys know that. Were you

Carter 11:51

you in the Toronto Star?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, I was in Toronto Star. It's that paper of record for one of those. One

SPEAKER_00 11:55

One day we'll get to the

Carter 11:56

the Globe and Mail. That'll be a big day for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, that's great. Corey's hat is off, by the way. I think he's annoyed by the fact that I was in the Toronto Star. So, Carter, you've used this concept of the arc of celebrity, and I want to see if it applies here. And maybe I'll let you explain it, because it's fascinating when you are on this arc. You talk about the rise and the fall. Do you feel like it applies here? And maybe explain to our listeners what it is.

Carter 12:19

It's a great analogy. I mean, we used it a lot with the Nenji campaign. It also worked with the Alison Redford campaign, but it also applies to Trump. And it applies to all kinds of different people who are in politics or in celebrity life. And the arc of a celebrity is that people build you up way faster than you have earned it. So you go way up very quickly. And that is essentially the light of celebrity. That's the spotlight on you. on you and it goes up very quickly but the thing is you get to the top and you immediately drop and we've seen uh very few stars are able to kind of sustain their celebrity for for years and years like um taylor swift might be one that right now everybody's got you know she's still at the top of her her zenith whereas if you look at the kardashians for example their entire life is the roller coaster of up and down with celebrity so the problem with celebrity politicians politicians or in the case of the kill burgers is that they

Carter 13:19

they can't when they come back down the crash is massive and they don't have the tools or the infrastructure to allow themselves to build back up and this particular celebrity fall i mean this was this charity has been built by celebrity means that's the public relations element that i was referring to before they built it as celebrities they made themselves the star of the show and

Carter 13:40

and when you make yourself the star of the show then when When you fall and you collapse, it takes everything down with you. And it takes a very special type of celebrity to be able to rebound from that collapse. You know, Branson maybe can do that where he's got some negative things that follow him around. But, you know, some of these other guys, you know, Jeffrey Epstein doesn't recover, right? Does not recover because his whole world and it is the celebrity downfall is so massive. um the you know mel gibson can can come back and still direct films but you know that's it like there's just once you go down you're down you're out cory

Corey 14:19

cory you've got a lot of that

Carter 14:21

cory loves the whole analogy i mean

Corey 14:23

mean just the epstein thing just hit me in the face like

SPEAKER_00 14:26

like we were so close we were so close to getting him to sponsor this podcast you know last time anyways well

Corey 14:32

the thing about about the celebrity arc is that it's often not an arc it's often a polynomial right like you're high you crash down and you get your redemption tale so i do think that there's an opportunity even when you've come down

Corey 14:46

down that celebrity arc to rebuild and recreate and people love the comeback story so the redemption story yeah look i'll tell you like the kill burgers do have a path here you know it is the i i traveled the world for a year i reconnected with myself and i've learned and i'm I'm coming back bigger and better than ever, and this is We 2.0. Yeah,

Corey 15:05

Absolutely possible. Get thee

Carter 15:06

thee to the core values, right? This is the same advice that's now being given. Is this the fifth week, Zane, that we've covered this? Fifth or fourth? I mean, it's been a long time.

Carter 15:17

This is the same advice. Get yourself back to the values that you choose, that you tell everybody that you want to live. And if the Kielburgers decide to do that, they certainly didn't do that in the testimony to the Finance Committee.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

OK, so I want to move on. But before I do, Corey, over to you. Let's play a little bit of Monday morning quarterback now that we've seen them testify for four hours. What would you have advised them to do differently when you saw that what their output was from that testimony on Monday? Yeah,

Corey 15:46

Yeah, they went in there and they basically tried to look like they were comfortable

Corey 15:49

comfortable and even cozy with people and no big deal. And we're all pals here. And that was absolutely the wrong approach to take. They actually should have looked concerned,

Corey 15:58

gravely concerned, and they should have limited their answers and in many ways tried to present themselves less as just your pals just happening to be dragged in front of a commons committee and more like

Corey 16:09

like citizens who are doing

Corey 16:10

doing charitable work, who are deeply concerned and maybe even a little terrified that they're at a committee like that. That would have been the proper tone and approach to take, because I think that would have engendered some sympathy, as people would have said, oh, hey, look, yeah, I mean, why the hell is this happening to them? And that would have played as kind of a foil to the questioning that they were getting, too, from folks like Pierre Polyev, right? If they had just kept it a little narrower and less over

Corey 16:35

over the top. I mean, I guess over the top is the way I would describe their testimony. It wasn't right for the moment, and it just looked, as

Corey 16:44

as Carter said, kind of sleazy, kind of like a lounge lizard.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Carter, same question to you. What advice, now that you saw what they did, would

SPEAKER_00 16:51

would you have given them heading into that?

Carter 16:53

I mean, I think that Corey's exactly right. I mean, the relationship thing where they knew everybody and they're all their buddies, and that was that was not that's not right i mean you can't

Carter 17:05

the insiders um when

Carter 17:07

when you're being accused of being so inside i mean i guess maybe they were thinking i'll show everybody how inside we are with everybody here um but that's

SPEAKER_00 17:15

that's pretty much what the strategy was every party we've got someone who's shown up to our thing that seemed to be that's not better that's

Carter 17:21

that's i have no idea why they thought that was better that that's lunacy i mean but you know know again this

Carter 17:27

is so maddening because it has happened it has played out in slow motion over the course of a month we've watched this thing just play out and and the whole time we've been basically screaming certain things that i want to change some stuff i want to be able to say you know what i don't go back to basics don't talk about you know the work that you do in africa you

Carter 17:47

those are the things that are foundational and they didn't do any of them well That's the stuff that ultimately will kill them. And that's the advice I would have given them. I like, you know, more

Carter 17:59

more deferential, more out of, you know, completely out of their element. They walk into every room like they own it. And I guess that that's part of their success. It probably is 90% of their success. But in this particular case, it is the reason that they will fail.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

That's a great, great piece of analysis, you guys. Okay, let's move it on to our next individual on the list. Prime Minister. So on the testimony thermometer, Corey, from minus 10 to plus 10, where would you rank Justin Trudeau?

Corey 18:28

I'm putting it right at the middle. I think it's a zero. It actually played, in my opinion, very close to what I predicted it would be last week, which is panned by critics, you know, just generally panned by the pundit class. But I think he did what he needed to do with the public on the whole. There's very few new components that come out of that. And when When you were trying to explain to the public why you should be concerned because a pre-cabinet brief had a certain item on the agenda. We're getting way too deep into the world of procedural operations in a privy council for most people to care. So I don't actually think he's worse off this week than he was last week. And in that sense, he might even be better off because he made it through that committee appearance.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Interesting. I did not expect you to say that. Carter, what's your rate on the thermometer here?

Carter 19:15

I would probably give him about a two out of, you know, kind of right in the middle, but edging towards better. And the reason is, I mean, I didn't like the back and forth about what the rules are. You know, the

Carter 19:30

rules are the rules, but the perception is the rule. And that perception created all of the problems. And him arguing that, you

Carter 19:38

you know, he didn't feel like this was a conflict of interest. You're the prime minister, man. like a

Carter 19:43

higher standard must must prevail and if you're going to to fall back onto uh the

Carter 19:48

the written rules i mean especially given that you've you've you've apologized you said you're in there in the wrong why why take the pain of i'm in the wrong i'm sorry um but here's why i wasn't in the wrong because here's how i read the rules i mean it

Carter 20:03

didn't matter though i mean ultimately the reason reason i give him a two uh overall is that he he survived he got through it and no one's paying contention uh everybody i've talked to this week is talking about the heat no one is talking about uh trudeau at all and you can even bring it up and they're like what i mean sure

Carter 20:22

sure the media have lost their mind but cory's point about the pundits i mean they are all over this but they were all over you know snc lavalin they were all over uh the the you know the wrong clothes in india um you know these are the things that they get all excited about you know the aga khan general

Carter 20:40

general population we move through this unbelievably quick and the ultimate proof of it is is trump i mean you

Carter 20:46

you know if we were trump about this trudeau would have unleashed another crisis already like four times over that's what's so maddening about this is it's so slow motion i think he survived well i think he's going to survive well in the next week um that's

Carter 21:01

two out of two out of your weird ass thermometer scale what's

SPEAKER_00 21:05

what's weird about a thermometer carter well you know i mean it's

Carter 21:08

it's first of all thermometers go all the way up and all the way down like where's this arbitrary two and ten degree yeah i'm so angry okay

SPEAKER_00 21:18

okay clearly uh cory you mentioned the fact that this this may cabinet meeting was the one where he first saw the brief if he pulled it. He did nothing to recuse himself between that and when they officially kind of passed this. Do you feel like, I take your point that that might be in the weeds for the general public to absorb, but do you feel like that that is now going to extend the news cycle on this story with that new piece of information given by the Prime Minister? What do you think of that?

Corey 21:44

Not if they're not stupid. Now, you have a lot of people calling for releasing documents that would otherwise be under cabinet confidence so that they can have a full airing of this issue there's

Corey 21:55

there's not really good reason for the government to do that it just resists those calls I think tactically is the play there but in some ways so let me be clear like I think he got out I am part of that pundit class who is really panning his performance I don't like what I learned in it and it does reinforce that there were so many gates that this should have failed at to me so I don't know how the day-to-day operations of the pco are i can tell you though that a premier's office essentially anything that gets to cabinet goes to a pre-cabinet brief pre-brief and

Corey 22:28

and um the fact that it came he sent it back it

Corey 22:32

it came again is actually more alarming because it means at some point somebody did raise a flag and they decided to ignore that flag right so it's not a process fail it becomes a judgment fail and um and he should he should be held to account i just don't think he will be held to And I don't think that those details are accessible enough for the public actually to look at it and say, okay, there's a bigger problem here. I think on the whole, you're just like, it came, he had questions, he sent it back, that seems reasonable, and people will move on. And that's maybe not how it should be, but that's how I suspect it will play out. You

SPEAKER_00 23:06

You know, Carter, one of the things I noticed was that he seemed to avoid some of the novice political bear traps that the conservatives and NDP were setting out for him. He didn't repeat the dollar amount, for example. He didn't do some of those things that could, of course, be used in a future video or a clip for, you know, a future campaign mailer down the road. but if you were advising him right with hindsight now to your benefit what would you have done differently how would you have structured his 90 minutes differently uh both from tone message perhaps even optics uh what was what would have gotten that number higher for you on that scale

Carter 23:41

honestly think there was only the one thing that he did wrong and that was the arguing i think it was charlie angus that he was arguing about the rules um you know i wouldn't have done done that i mean maybe that was a calculated risk that they took in order to eat some time um because you know time matters in these types of interrogations um you know they're not unlimited but i don't know i i i think that overall the performance was good i mean i was really worried about him coming across sounding like he'd been over rehearsed and he was going to be um his his usual drama teacher self i didn't think he was i thought overall you know so i i think

Carter 24:19

god you know it's hard to tell him to do something different when he's when he's exited about as well as you could expect politically given from what a nightmare he was going into

SPEAKER_00 24:29

cory what do you think what would you have told him to do differently yeah

Corey 24:32

yeah i mean why eat some time and then give an extra 30 minutes he was only scheduled for 60 so i don't know i think um

Corey 24:40

i think that time management could have been handled a bit differently there i know there there was a lot of chaos with people losing power and all of that. But there were some unhelpful detours. The rules one is probably top of mind for me as well. So I think you could have been narrower on that point.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Okay, so I want to move on to the next person. And the next person on the list, I'm very interested to get your take on. It's Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff. Now, both of you have been in government, kind of know the responsibilities of a senior senior level bureaucrat, a political staffer. So I'm curious to get your take from that knowledge in mind, what you thought Katie Telford's performance mapped to on the testimony thermometer. And Carter, I'll go to you first.

Carter 25:23

Well, I think Katie was good. I mean, I really like Katie. My problem is that she put herself in this spot. You know, you're the chief of staff. The last thing you want to be doing is testifying in front of a House committee. um that's not your job that's not what you want to be doing um i thought she was fine i i didn't think that she um made any particular mistakes and you know if we go back to your thermometer i mean she

Carter 25:51

she to me is an absolute zero because no one's really talking i mean yes there were some people talking about her i saw her being defended by um some liberal pundits and and those types of things But I just thought that she did

Carter 26:05

did fine. She got out of it. She went in, she got out, she moved on, and she didn't make it worse, which is probably all

Carter 26:14

all you can do in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Corey, what do you think of Katie on that thermometer?

Corey 26:20

Yeah, honestly, it just didn't register good or bad. And I think in that sense, it was good. So I give her pretty good marks. Five is what I'll say, just because I don't think you can give anyone a 10 in a situation like this. But, you know, I, unlike Carter, come from a school of thought that political staff and, you know, senior officials should be neither seen nor heard, right? They should be in the background. Carter disagrees. Carter likes to be in the foreground. He's Carter. It's what he does. Well,

Carter 26:47

Well, it's because there's different times for different roles, you monkey.

Corey 26:52

she did a good job of blending into the background and not being part of this story more than she had to. I can only think of a couple of exchanges that I could actually even pull for you right now. One of them was with Elizabeth May saying, why

Corey 27:05

hell did you know about this before? And, you

Corey 27:09

you know, the answer is simply it's a big government, you know, like it's not going to stick. I just remember the exchange because it's heat. and then um the other one was cooper i think it was who who thought that he had her in some sort of trap about a trip related

Corey 27:24

related to something and he didn't like she

SPEAKER_00 27:27

she didn't go she was not there she didn't

Corey 27:28

didn't go and she and she had some sort of response after like he did a follow-up after and then her response was like yes still wasn't on that trip and that was kind of funny and that's it that's the only two moments i really remember from her testimony when so i say good good for her Anything

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Anything you guys would have done differently if you were prepping Katie, providing external counsel for her heading into this testimony?

Corey 27:53

maybe I would – the

Corey 27:55

the prime minister did a pretty good job of, I

Corey 27:57

I think for the most part, not looking totally peeved by the questioning. I think Katie did less of a job of that. I think she just looked really pissed off by the questioning a lot. But, you know, I'm sure she was. So, you know, I'm nitpicking at this point.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah, you know, what's interesting about the political staffer side, which is why I wanted to get your guys' expertise without belaboring the point here, is anything you do wrong kind of wears on your boss, does it not? So if she were to kind of, you know, go down a rabbit hole where either on the content or perhaps even on the tone, it would wear on Justin Trudeau, which is why I think it's a very interesting proxy. You have him for 90 minutes and her for another couple of hours. Carter, anything related to that that you found interesting? Or Corey, you want to jump in?

Corey 28:39

Well, I just I also want to say it's really tough when you are staff and you are not used to being on camera all of the time to all of a sudden be on. I'm the worst for this. When I am at committee appearance, I'm just scowling the whole time, no matter what's going on, because I'm just not used to being on camera perpetually for an hour and a half. And and

Corey 28:56

so, yeah, it's just tough.

Corey 28:59

That's all I'll say. And I think she did a great job.

Corey 29:01

Carter, anything to add before I move on?

Carter 29:03

No, I mean, I think actually she she was a TV actor. I mean, if you were to say that the Kahlbergers were stage performers, she was small. I mean, sure, we can quibble about her facial expressions, but, you know, her looking angry because she is angry, I don't have a problem with. But it was all small screen. Like, it was all small screen. There was no giant emotive moments. That's

Corey 29:26

That's true. It was all in the micro

Carter 29:29

movements. Minuscule facial expressions. Lovely. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

I before before we end this segment, I want to talk about a few other groups. And let's start with the conservatives, Corey, you know, for them on the committee, you got Pierre Parlier, you got Nathan Cooper, I think you have, I think that was it, if I'm not mistaken. But how did they perform? Of course, they are the principal political enemy, they are the official opposition. How do you think they performed on the testimony thermometer minus 10 to 10? Given the fact they had time with Katie Telfer, Justin Trudeau, and the Kielberger brothers i think six hours plus in total with these folks give me your your your thermometer ranking i'm

Corey 30:03

i'm a four and i'll tell you why uh well i think that trudeau narrowed uh he got a zero from me and katie got a five but she got a five for not dramatically changing the terrain and the kielburgers did badly right and so on the whole they drew blood from the kielburgers they drew the prime minister to a draw and um and telfer just became not part of the story which was a win for her but it was not a loss for the conservatives that she was not part of the story so i you know generally speaking they played their part they did exactly what they needed to pierre polyev

Corey 30:33

made some you know kind of funny dickish moves throughout the time and it was yeah good theater so it's fine they they're doing what you need to do when you're in opposition without a leader

SPEAKER_00 30:44

carter you seem to be losing yourself what do you give them on the thermometer Well,

Carter 30:48

Well, I mean, as always, Corey's exactly wrong. It's a minus four.

Carter 30:53

I'll tell you why. It's because they continue to look swarmy. I mean, we talked about the Kielburgers and their lack of understanding of how they look on camera. These guys don't look good on camera. Whether it's Cooper asking Telford questions about a trip that she's not on, so they haven't done their homework properly, or if it's Pierre being Pierre. Pierre comes across as an asshole. And it's only, let's be clear, it's only because he is an asshole. It's true.

Corey 31:24

true. Pot, meat, kettle. I'm delightful.

Carter 31:28

delightful. People always write on the Twitter about how great I am. You should see my personal feed. It's amazing. Once

Carter 31:35

block everybody who says you're an asshole, it becomes really easy to read.

Carter 31:39

But I just think that he doesn't do any, I

Carter 31:44

mean, obviously he doesn't do anything for me. He just rubs me the wrong way. And I can't watch the guy without getting angry. And I think that there are lots of people, lots of Canadians that are like that. And where he winds up after

Carter 31:58

after this leadership for the Conservatives, will

Carter 32:01

will he be the

Carter 32:02

the next leader's lead

Carter 32:05

right-hand person in some of these attacks? That will be interesting to see. me

SPEAKER_00 32:11

cory anything you would have told them to do different no

Corey 32:14

no um i they were playing for their base and they did a good job and pierre polyev is very popular with the base of the conservative party i well look i'll say i give pierre pretty

Corey 32:24

pretty good marks cooper

Corey 32:25

cooper was a ding dong like he had so little uh and they should probably be thinking about his committee assignments yeah

SPEAKER_00 32:31

yeah he is a ding dong he

SPEAKER_00 32:33

he had the tone correct but it was just indignation without the content um carter let's Let's move it on to the liberal members of the committee. I want to round up here because their job was to ensure, especially with Trudeau and Telford, that they gave them some breathing room, that gave the witnesses some breathing room. They gave them time to reinforce and justify their decisions. How did you feel about how they performed in the sense of doing those two things? And perhaps if there was other roles that they had to fulfill on that committee. But I'm kind of curious where you'd put them on the thermometer. You

Carter 33:04

You know, I think that the liberals rules is to is to give the the principles the opportunity to hit the ball out of the park, right, to give the the exact right summation, you know, the

Carter 33:16

the set question with the set answer that doesn't look set that doesn't, you know, on either front. And I don't think they actually succeeded. I don't think that they gave them the opportunity to hit the ball out of the park on how the process was on, you know, was done. I saw a far more cogent

Carter 33:35

cogent explanation of things by Amanda Alvaro on power and politics than I saw from the people being questioned by the

Carter 33:45

the liberal members of parliament. So I don't think that the hand was fitted into the glove quite the way you'd want it to if you're really going to hit the ball out of the park. Is that a really bad mixed metaphor? Yes, it is. I'm going to go with it anyways. ways um but i just don't think that and

Carter 34:03

and again i do i just think that most of the time these committees don't serve any real political purpose visually

Carter 34:09

visually like they don't fill the visual space like we're so much used to more used to the scrum uh like our standard visual uh

Carter 34:16

uh for political interaction is the scrum right the politician surrounded by 26 angry reporters all screaming questions at them that's our standard political visual it's terrible visual but we don't have that That history of the committees like in the United States where the committee is gaveled

Carter 34:33

gaveled into session by the chair and

Carter 34:35

and they're going to take down the

Carter 34:37

the political operatives and, you know, Watergate's unfolding or the Iran-Contra scandal.

Carter 34:44

Our committees, you know, don't have that theater built into them. And so the liberals and the conservatives, the members, don't really know how to do it in the Canadian context. So they're cribbing notes from the American context and trying to figure out how to make it visually an entertaining piece.

Carter 35:05

piece. And you'll always hear me talk about politics this way. Politics is theater, right? Like if you can't present it into the nightly news properly, if you can't put it on a podcast properly, if you can't put it into Twitter and TikTok now properly, then it's not going to resonate because these are the ways – this is our cultural interface. face no one's watching the damn committee like that's not how it's consumed so

Carter 35:28

so you have to be able to put it into these other mediums and that's where the liberal members i think failed and

SPEAKER_00 35:35

sorry what would you what would you give the liberal members on that thermometer minus 10 to plus 10 i

Corey 35:39

i they were in the background and that's where they needed to be they

Corey 35:44

they certainly didn't need to look like they were caping for the prime minister they needed the prime minister to the person standing on his own two feet there so i think they were just fine They may have been a bit underwhelming in the sense that they didn't summarize and synthesize the way that you would hope them to, but they were never going to be the soundbites. Those soundbites were for the prime minister. You cannot imagine a world where CTV News comes on and you're getting some liberal backbencher as the voice of this particular scandal. So I'm not so fussed with that. It is interesting to talk about the theater element that Stephen was mentioning, and how high the bar is for the conservatives right now and the NDP. You know, there's multiple opposition parties, of course, in the age of Zoom, right?

Corey 36:27

right? Every single person in the committee has the ability to set their own background, you know, you can make it look like Oliver North, if you are Cooper, right, with all of your flags and your random books and shit, and just this very serious looking room. Pierre Polly have the same or you can make it the prime minister's which has books but had more of like a cluttered home office feel you know the the setting yeah the

Corey 36:50

the setting did not make it look like he was being hauled in front of a court and um and and he had full control over that and I'm sure there was some thought about where he should call in from and what it should look like so uh this was uh this was a really interesting um case study in in the difficulties you have managing political theater in a moment like this.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

We will leave it right there, Stephen, for you. That's the last time we're going to be talking about we. Until next week. Yes, that is right. Okay, the games continue because let's move it on to our next segment. You guys will remember this. Bold, brilliant, or boneheaded? Oh, yes. Wow, it's been a while. It has

SPEAKER_00 37:29

has been a while. Okay, so here's what it's going to... If you're new to the show, well, welcome. Thank you for coming from Canada Land. We know you're going to find good refuge here. So here is what bold, brilliant or boneheaded is. I'm going to run through about half a dozen things that have happened this week. And you guys are going to give me either the fact that the strategy was bold, was brilliant or was boneheaded. Now, hopefully we have some agreement, but hopefully also have some disagreement as to what happened. And then give us your quick justification. So we want to run through a half a dozen of these. And Corey, I'll start with you. The first one, Trump this week attacking the American Postal Service, and then going after the election date saying, shouldn't we delay it? Bold, brilliant, boneheaded?

Corey 38:09

Bold. Republicans were very quick to jump on and say, no, no, no, that's never going to happen. Right. We're not going to move the election. But he

Corey 38:18

he has moved the conversation and he had to do it around this time. He couldn't wait multiple months in order for this to roll out. If his strategy really is one to sow doubt about whether the election should be occurring at that moment or not, anyhow, he's got us talking about it now. And the fact that he has voting by mail looking very suspect because the mail system is looking very suspect, I mean, it's awful, and it is, in my opinion, criminal. But it was a bold tactic, and certainly I don't think it hits either brilliant or boneheaded. Carter,

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Carter, what do you think?

Carter 38:58

I mean, I want to say boneheaded, but I think I have to go to bold because, you know, Corey's not wrong. This is, you know, the strategy of undermining the election and maybe the only strategy that Trump has left. I mean, he's not going to be able to fix COVID. He's not going to be able to fix the economy. He's not going to be able to fix his personal popularity. And he's not going to be able to run against an incumbent or against a candidate like Hillary Clinton, who, for whatever reason, was not able to resonate with more than a small percentage or not a large enough percentage of the population. Yeah,

Corey 39:37

imagine if you are Trump and you are saying in October, let's just delay this thing. We now know we're about to have a vaccine. We'll be able to distribute it in a year. I got you that vaccine, by the way. You're welcome. The mail service is in total shambles. And you all know that voting is not going to work right now. So why rush it when we know that in a year it will be safe to vote?

Corey 39:58

And maybe the economy is back. Maybe you have a chance then. Again, this is effing awful, although also we're Canadians. We get to pick when elections are in a band, so we can't get too righteous about this. But yeah, I mean, it's

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Let's move it on. Carter, go ahead. Finish this off.

Carter 40:15

No, I mean, it's just I really want to say boneheaded. I really like every fiber of my being wants this to be a bad strategy. It is the best strategy, and it will ultimately end horribly.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

It's the best strategy to end horribly.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Stephen, we should probably have a chat with you about strategies and how they should end.

Carter 40:36

It's a good strategy for him, but the rest of the world is watching on, my friend. This is horrible for us.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Let's move it on to the Democrats and Joe Biden. You know, this week there was a report that said, leaked from the campaign, that said Joe might just stick it out in his bunker doing live feeds and meeting people virtually up until the Democratic convention. Bold, brilliant, boneheaded. Carter, over to you first.

Carter 41:00

I think it's brilliant. um because number one he's his own worst enemy um every time he speaks uh especially when he's not when he decides to go off the cuff he sounds uh like sleepy joe or you know kind of creates his own uh whirlwind of problems he's doing great why change why change the strategy him

Carter 41:22

him appearing less seems to me making him more popular um trump owns the airwaves anyways let trump continue to screw grew up. It's it's it's actually this really interesting passive aggressive type of strategy that uses Trump's weaknesses against him as strengths like he's so good. Trump gets all the media. And if all you're ever left doing is replying to what Trump has done, that's a bad strategy. So this must be a brilliant strategy because it's the inverse.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Corey, what do you think? Bold, brilliant, boneheaded for Biden and his team?

Corey 41:56

I think it's boneheaded. I'll tell you why. It is the classic frontrunner mistake. You're trying to sit on a lead. You think you can just run out the clock and you'll get to be president of the United States. But the reality is there is kind of a normalizing that occurs during an election in the lead up to it where polls tighten and people start looking at this decision very differently. And if Trump is out there every day, trying

Corey 42:18

trying to run Joe Biden into the mud, and Joe Biden is just keeping his mouth shut, I don't know, like a 10 point lead sounds like a lot, but maybe it's not. And I, you know, we talked about this months ago, it's tough to look like a leader when you're in a bunker. And I still believe that's true. And ultimately, if he has a VP pick, and that VP pick is even remotely contentious, and so on, and so on, and so on, like the definition of Joe Biden will just continue. Now, I

Corey 42:46

I think that there is a fundamental problem with Joe Biden, the candidate, which is that when he opens his mouth, it can be pretty bad for him.

Corey 42:52

But that's a mistake that Democrats have already made. And I don't think that just hiding him from the world, let's

Corey 43:00

let's put it this way, in those few moments where he can't hide, he's going to get up on stage, he's going to do a Joe Biden gaffe, and the world will not be normalized to it. He will be in an October debate, and he'll say something fucking stupid, and because it's the first time Americans have seen him in four months, it will be devastating. Just as we have gotten used to Trump's shitheel ways, we need to get used to Joe Biden's sleepy, you know, dementia grandfather ways now. And so they've got to get him out there, and they've got to get Americans comfortable with him now.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Fiery response. I love it, Hogan. Okay, next one over to you. So in the midst of the current Wee scandal for the liberals, the conservatives and NDP MPs alongside Duff Conacher and Democracy Watch are asking for an ethics probe on John McCallum and for his work with the Chinese immigration company. Now, you may not even have heard of the story, but why does that even matter? For you, Corey, bold,

SPEAKER_00 43:53

bold, brilliant or boneheaded for the conservatives and NDP trying to issue another ethics probe and investigation during the Wee scandal? handle boneheaded

Corey 44:01

boneheaded like it's just a distraction and uh john mccallum's not even like around like what's the point of this like this is just pointless this is a distraction this is exactly what we warned the conservatives not to do which is to start picking every fight in the world keep it focused on the issue at hand like don't widen this battle to the point where people can say oh they're just being partisans this is just a million things they're throwing at them carter

SPEAKER_00 44:23

carter bold brilliant boneheaded boneheaded

Carter 44:25

boneheaded cory's right makes me sad to say okay

SPEAKER_00 44:28

okay we'll move it to the next Carter, I'm going to go to you on this one. For this one, it is UCP Cabinet Minister Casey Maddow saying he will not fire Joe Magliocca, who's a city councillor here in Calgary, who, of course, had expenses dating back to the last couple of years, which were unaccounted for. Of course, Minister Madu has the ability to fire Joe Magliocca, for those who are not following this, a little bit of a thread. But Carter, bold, brilliant, boneheaded for the UCP minister overlooking municipalities to not fire the councillor.

Carter 45:03

Well, I mean, imagine what would have happened if this was one of the left-leaning councillors. If this was one of the left-leaning councillors, there's no question that this UCP government would have lost their mind. As they have with the, you know, they're out of step with a school board here in Calgary. And they've lost their mind. The problem with governments is when you become a government that gives back to your friends, as the UCP have done, all of their agency boards and commissions appointments have been to their friends, to their buddies. Those appointments are stacked in their favor. And now one of their buddies who was going to run for them, that was always the rumor, Joe Maglioc is going to run for the UCP. I just hoped that we would get him out of city council because he's so useless. And now he's he's Joe Magliocca has committed. You know, this has been referred to the to the Calgary Police Service. This is not just a oh, by the way, you may have have charged a little bit extra on your on your expense forms. He's already paid six thousand dollars back and there's, you know, over ten thousand dollars more. This guy should be kicked out of council. If he's not kicked out of council, who's going to be kicked out of council? Do you wait for the police to come back? I mean, I remind everybody the police are still investigating Jason Kenney's leadership. They're not fast movers on this stuff. So my view is Joe Magliocca should have resigned or should be kicked out by this minister. This is a boneheaded strategy by a partisan minister that's protecting one of his own.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Corey, bold, brilliant, boneheaded. What do you think? I mean, I think it's

Corey 46:44

it's none of the above, but I guess I'll give it brilliant for it's not a complete set. Right. But look, yes, you wait for the police. You know, you do not get yourself involved in this. A, you're a conservative. You believe in local government. And in theory, you don't want to be involved in yourself in these local contests. And B, you're going to have to be starting to do things like this everywhere if you start leaving it just to the point of ethics violations. What I think is really lacking is the tools for council to deal with this appropriately themselves. And so a bold move would have been to say, hey, no, we're not at all interested. And we're not exactly keen on the idea of, of counselors getting to decide who their colleagues are. But maybe this is an opportunity to bring in municipal recall.

Corey 47:32

That would have been bold. Let's

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Let's move it on to our next one, our next one going back to Trump. So Donald Trump with the financial edge that he has in this campaign over Joe Biden still has decided to halt all TV advertising and take a break for a bit to reassess his strategy and then go back out in the field now knowing that he's down in the polls to Biden. Corey, over to you first. Bold, brilliant, boneheaded, less than 100 days away. way

Corey 47:56

it's brilliant they are saving they have not stopped their digital ads and i suspect they are even going to ramp them up this is where they're going to win they have found a way to spend less on television they have not stopped their fall buys but they've decided to reallocate resources in a way that they can justify without looking like they're light on resources and they're reallocating they've already got costed in this notion that the trump campaign has now got to look at things again in fact they need the public to think there's a bit of a reset so they are dropping what is their splashiest advertising but probably their least consequential at this moment so brilliant carter

SPEAKER_00 48:30

carter bold brilliant boneheaded it's

Carter 48:32

it's brilliant um we we've been long having the conversation about the efficacy of digital versus traditional uh especially television traditional which is is amongst the most expensive um you know i mean there's a there's a place and a time for it uh i don't think this is the place or time and you're doing a campaign reset anyways you've You've changed out your campaign manager. There is no question that it's not working. You're not taking any additional reputational hit. Everybody knows it's not working. So why not admit that which everybody knows? And the fact that this new campaign manager has been able to get this through at this time just shows that this is looking like it will be a stronger campaign in the last 100 days of the campaign than it was in the preceding 100 days of Brad Parscale's inept leadership.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Carter, I'm going back to you on this final one for this segment. At the John Lewis funeral, Barack Obama makes a political speech calling the filibuster a Jim Crow relic and then encouraging voter registration, giving a pretty fiery speech about the current administration. Mixed reviews for that part of his speech, but from your political standpoint, from a strategy standpoint, bold, brilliant, boneheaded? I

Carter 49:48

think it was bold. I think I would even go bold and brilliant. I think if there was ever a congressperson who would want his funeral to be used to have a statement made, it is John Lewis. This is a man who made a statement with every action for his entire life. And he the statement that was made, first of all, I

Carter 50:09

I don't think that it's on any level controversial. It may be political, but it shouldn't be controversial. These are these were the principles that John Lewis stood for. You know, if Barack Obama had come in and started to articulate principles that were unrelated to John Lewis, then I think it could have been a bad strategy. But instead, these were about the man himself, and it was about the vision that the Democrats need to carry into the next, ideally into the next year when Biden is the president and there's a small Senate majority for the Democrats, and they continue to have their House majority. Because they need to get shit done and they need to get shit done in a hurry to reestablish these institutions that Trump has just absolutely decimated. So this is the time.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

Corey, same question to you. Bold, brilliant, boneheaded Barack Obama politicizing elements of his eulogy for John Lewis. So

Corey 51:10

So I think that the politicizing component is brilliant for the reasons that Carter already said. John Lewis would want it politicized. I think the actual things he said are not necessarily brilliant. They might even end up being boneheaded, so I'll say bold on those. The idea of, you

Corey 51:28

you know, taking on the filibuster, that's rooted in his experience, right? When he lost the supermajority and ended up with 59 Senate seats and his inability to do effing anything. I'm sure he's saying this is nuts. But I do worry the Democrats are counting their chickens before they hatch, you know? Yes, they are setting the ground to change the world if they do manage to get the two houses and the presidency, right? They'll be able to just run through an awful lot of legislation very quickly and really remake America. But they really are counting their chickens before they hatch here. If it ends up, if somehow Trump maintains the Senate and the presidency, people

Corey 52:04

people are going to say, well, yeah, now let's get rid of the filibuster. It's January. We can change all the Senate rules. No problem here. And they will point back to this speech by Obama, and that will be the justification they will throw in the Democrats' face when they do it. And then God help us all if there's not a filibuster on anything in the Senate. it

SPEAKER_00 52:22

let's move it on to our final segment our over under our lightning round guys are you ready so

Corey 52:27

ready you bet buddy okay

SPEAKER_00 52:29

okay cory i'm going to you first over under on seven and on the political strategy over under on seven on the political strategy because i need to couch it on that what did you make of the ucp cabinet minister the education minister doing a 30 minute facebook live for parents talking about school reopenings not taking any questions not addressing any of the the q a on the facebook live from the political strategy standpoint what did you what would you give her uh

Corey 52:54

uh under i don't i don't know why they made it a facebook live and a facebook live you can see exactly the volume and tenor of the questions that are coming in this absolutely should have been a telephone town hall you could have had more people on you would have called and got a more general audience and you could have just taken a couple of contentious questions but otherwise managed the flow and people would have no idea that you were dodging tough questions Instead, they showed their bare ass to the world, right? They exposed how angry parents were. And that's a real unfortunate own goal.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Carter, what do you think over under on seven?

Carter 53:31

Corey's exactly right. There are a whole bunch of different ways that you can do this where people don't have to see all the angry little faces that are popping up during Facebook Lives and all of the questions that are being ignored. Telephone Town Hall could do it. a zoom could do it there's there's a number of different tools and techniques that you can use so that you can appear to be consulting but

Carter 53:52

but not consult at all facebook

Carter 53:54

facebook live is probably the most transparent of of the the mediums where you can actually see how people are responding to you and people you know pro

Carter 54:04

tip if people are going to be angry don't show the world that the people are angry because it just it harvests more and more anger and that's where they are right now Now, parents

Carter 54:15

parents want to send their kids back to school.

Carter 54:19

So parents want to be on the same side as this government going back to school. But this minister is getting in the way. It's a fail for a political strategy. I

SPEAKER_00 54:29

I want to stick in Alberta, Corey, and I'm going to you again on this one. On a scale of 1 to 10, what do you make of the UCP cancelling the former NDP government's pilot on universal child care, that pilot that they had going forward? from the policy and perhaps even the messaging angle of what they were saying from the instrumentation and how it was targeted. Give us your take on, because we expected this to happen for a while. I think this week we got that official announcement. What do you make from that scale of 1 to 10?

Corey 54:57

Yeah, it's a politically difficult time to roll back a policy like this because every parent I know, and I can even think of my own household, is seized with child care, right? This idea that you have to figure out what you're going to do with your kids come fall, whether they're going to be in school or not and um and you

Corey 55:16

you are really seeing the economic drain of having to to be at home with your kids god we love our kids but um it's tough and uh this this seems like it's in a basket of things that you think why now right it's just this could be done in six months in a year uh with probably less damage and frankly the deficit is so big right now why not pile on a bit more that might not sound particularly responsible but i think it's politically savvy. On the messaging around this,

Corey 55:46

you know, there are some angles you can attack the universal, you know, child care program, if you are so inclined, you know, that I think people

Corey 55:54

people will jump in and say, I mean, why is that? And the universality of it is one of them. Why not have a more means tested program, people will say, there are a lot of good reasons why you don't make it a means tested program. But that is an angle that I think there'd be some sympathy from from Albertans. So the fact that they latched on that, and we're focusing on that, I think is pretty good, because the idea that we are giving money

Corey 56:14

money to millionaires to help them with their childcare is something that people can instinctively say, no, I don't like that. So I actually don't fault their messaging that that much. I think their foundational problem is the policy at this moment.

Corey 56:27

You know, and I say this all the time, I in fact said it on West of Center this week, but all problems manifest as communications problems. It's not that their communications are bad in this moment is that the policy at this particular junction is is just the wrong thing to do carter

SPEAKER_00 56:42

carter same question to you one to ten for the them canning this uh former policy put forth by the ndp well

Carter 56:48

well i guess it's a one and a ten because this is exactly what they promised they were going to do i

Carter 56:53

i mean one of my frustrations when when governments are elected they walk away from their promises sometimes this ucb government hasn't walked away from any now they've brought in a a whole bunch of other crap um but this is one of the things that they said they were going to do and they're doing it uh it's at one because it's the absolute wrong thing to do especially at this time scurry said um i mean right now this

Carter 57:15

this pandemic is impacting women more than it's impacting men it's impacting you

Carter 57:19

you know that women

Carter 57:21

women staying home and having to take care of children isn't

Carter 57:25

isn't required it's not a requirement but it seems to be baked in and and that baking in is going to take things like universal child care to unbake.

Carter 57:34

It's like one of the first prerequisites to changing the inherent sexism in our society. So if you're going to change inherent sexism in society, you have to be able to give women the opportunity to put their children into daycare. Otherwise, it retains its male-centric feeling.

Carter 57:56

feeling. I mean, it's still an anomaly to run into a house husband. That is, I don't say that with, you know, any emotional investment, except that to say, I

Carter 58:08

I think that it's time we change these types of societal challenges,

Carter 58:11

challenges, especially around sexism and race. And I

Carter 58:16

I don't think Jason Kenney has ever had that pop into his head ever about policy. And therefore, you

Carter 58:25

know, taking away universal daycare to him isn't an issue of sexism. It's an issue of how much money they can save in the budget. And sometimes that's not the way government should be making their decisions. You make decisions for the betterment of society when you're in government. If you want to make more money, go run Shell.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Carter, I'm going back to you for this question. I've been meaning to ask you guys this one for a while. Over, under, on six, what do you think the impact of the Lincoln Project will be in the U.S. election? election this is the pack that has been started by republicans uh who hate trump george conway being one of them uh trump's former i'm sorry john mccain's former campaign manager uh being another uh they've been putting out these viral videos probably have the best twitter account that's going after trump trolling them uh trolling him incessantly what do you think their impact on this election will be over under on six you

Carter 59:20

you know i really want to say under but But the the because I think Corey, Corey and I have talked about this before when we were talking about one of their ads. And Corey was kind of, you know, I thought the audience of one and Corey kind of downplayed the audience of one. I think now, I mean, their podcast consistently beats the strategists in the rankings for political podcasts. Obviously, that means they're having

Carter 59:44

tremendous impact. No, but they are they are now reaching the population in a way that, you know, five, six, seven weeks ago, I didn't think that they would. They are having impact on their audience. And one of the things I think we sometimes forget is it takes a conservative to speak to a conservative and

Carter 1:00:04

a liberal can speak to a liberal. They have different language. They have different words. They have different values. And liberals can't communicate

Carter 1:00:11

communicate to conservatives. You know, there's different words that kind of get stuck and different values. This is conservatives saying to conservatives, this guy's a fucking loon. And people are saying and they're listening. And I'm not sure that a lot of liberals are listening. I think that it's actually being heard by the intended audience of conservatives. And they are they're shifting votes. So I have to say it's over.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Corey, same question to you over under on six on the impact of the Lincoln Project in this election.

Corey 1:00:41

have a clue. I actually – I

Corey 1:00:45

I can't tell if it is resonating more with conservatives or not. My instinct is that it's not. It's being shared by the

Corey 1:00:52

the intelligentsia who love the cleverness of taking a Reagan ad and throwing it back in Trump's face. But do we really think that the clever wordplay and the reference to a 40

Corey 1:01:02

40-year-old campaign ad or I guess 36-year-old campaign ad, is that moving

Corey 1:01:08

moving votes in Ohio? Ohio. I just, I, I'm not sure it is, but if, if it is, if it is softening support of Republicans in say Congress or, or amongst the political organizer class, I'm not seeing it yet. Now, now that said, like their videos are pretty interesting and certainly they've got everybody talking, but I have not actually seen any results yet. So I, I, yeah, I don't know. I just don't know

SPEAKER_00 1:01:36

we'll leave that one there and for our final question of course given to us by one of our listeners a five-star review from our dental luck who says strategy for podcast reviews though of course they're asking us for our strategy on podcast reviews just so you guys get the preview there uh what would your strategy be for responding to another podcast undermining your valuable reviews see boys in the short pants episode 93 at the 10905 mark they gave the strategist three three stars. Corey, I'll let you go first. I mean, what would our strategy be? Hypothetically, of course, if we were to respond to Boys in the Short Pants, never heard of them, episode 93, where they gave us three stars.

Corey 1:02:15

So are we about to start a two-front war, like with Canada Land and Boys in the Short Pants? Three-front war,

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Lincoln Project, fuck you, we're coming after you as well.

Corey 1:02:28

Well, look, I think that when I look at the number of reviews we have and the number of reviews they have, I think I'd be very careful if they want to want to get into an artillery battle with us. Our fans are crazy. You guys are lunatics and you'll go and you'll give everybody two star reviews at Boys in the Short Pants, I'm sure. And those will probably be full of questions in the spirit of the strategist reviews. But like, who are you and why do you exist? I just think this is going to happen organically because of our true believers here. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

Yeah, we would never encourage it, but of course they just do

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

do their own thing. Carter, what would the official response for the strategists be to Boys in the Short Pants? We've left this a three-star review. Of course, the only reason I ask is one of our listeners is asking us.

Carter 1:03:15

No, I mean, let's be clear.

Carter 1:03:17

I saw that review.

Carter 1:03:19

I went back and I listened to the Boys in the Short Pants and not the whole podcast. that was that was tough but i went to the 109 mark and what happened was they said please give us a five-star review like you whore yourself out for every episode please i've been told

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

told to by the way and

Carter 1:03:36

and if you're going to give a three-star review the

Carter 1:03:39

the podcast name is the strategists so it was actually fairly clever i thought that they did a fine job i'm not picking out i'm not going to start a war with the boys in the short pants not when we have our eyes on the real front which is canada land yeah

Corey 1:03:52

yeah save your two-star reviews for canada canada

Carter 1:03:54

canada land they deserve the two-star reviews and although i will tell you the one that gets the worst reviews and it's not just because cory was recently on it is west of center so we

Carter 1:04:04

we love west of center they keep asking us to come on it we'll keep going on we're trying to bring a higher level of discourse but it seems that some people don't like the cbc it seems it's

Corey 1:04:13

funny that it's funny when you put cbc on a podcast all of a sudden you're a magnet for some one stars yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

yeah more stories on the podcast wars to come uh of course the podcast wars we're gonna get we're all gonna get deplatformed by apple that's what's gonna happen

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 814 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time

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