Episode 820: Trial balloon by fire

SPEAKER_02 0:01

This is The Strategist, episode 820. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what is up?

Carter 0:09

Sunday night. This is a big night. It's Sunday. I'm very excited. You know, long weekend and you still managed to make it, Zain. Only 12 minutes late.

Corey 0:18

This is kind of the dog days of fall, I guess. Summer still. I don't know. There's both lots going on and nothing going on. And it's a really dismal day weather-wise in Calgary. So small talk is going to be even better than usual, I think.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Well, here's what makes it better than usual is that, Corey, how long did your mustache last? 18 days? 19 days? And why is it now gone? Not a long time.

Corey 0:42

It didn't have a constituency back in it. And so I found that it couldn't survive a confidence vote. I

Corey 0:49

I didn't want to risk it.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

And you didn't know that from the initial polling that was offered to you? Not even taken, but politely and gently and then aggressively offered to you?

Corey 0:59

I felt that if I just stayed the course, you know, did it early in my term, that my wife would ultimately just get used to it before it came up to an election. That was my big hope. It didn't happen that way. Even

Carter 1:12

Even I predicted that thing wasn't going to make it.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

That is excellent. Corey making the novice mistake as hope as a strategy and just falling flat on his face. Of course he would. Of course he would. Okay, let's move it on to our first segment. Guys, it's a goodie. It's an oldie. Our first segment is Fine, Fabulous, or Fucked? Oh, my God.

Corey 1:40

God. It's been years. It

SPEAKER_02 1:42

It has been a very long time, and we're bringing it back. For those of you new to the show, first of all, where the fuck were you? Secondly, welcome. Here's what this segment usually entails. I go through a list of items that are currently in the political zeitgeist, decisions that political parties or politicians have made, and Stephen and Corey tell me whether that strategy is fine, fabulous, or fucked. Fine is meh, fabulous is excellent, and fucked is very fucked. So that's what we're going to do.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

And we'll start with you, Corey, because your enthusiasm seems sky high from what seemed to be a very lukewarm start from you. You are now just, I could just see the energy on your face. It seems like you're ready to go. And we're going to start

Carter 2:30

start with this. You can see his face. It's a step forward. This

SPEAKER_02 2:32

This is true. This is true. Corey, the first one for you. Fine, fabulous, or fucked. Conservatives. Are federal conservatives requesting another ethics probe into Katie Telford and the PMO? What do you think of that political strategy in what you've called the dog days of summer, early days of fall? Fine? Fabulous? Fucked?

Corey 2:51

I think it's fine. When we were talking about the initial – so this is in particular, just to give a bit of background on it, this is Telford's husband, Rob Silver, reaching out to people in the PMO and PMO adjacent, being sent to the finance uh ministry to to argue his case for changes to serve i believe it's servers sues i don't i don't know which one of these but uh one

Corey 3:20

one of the acronyms that would have benefited uh mcap and ultimately he was unsuccessful but there is a um there

Corey 3:29

there is all sorts of questions as to whether that conversation should have happened at all uh whether they would have even even entertained it were he not a friend of the PMO, so to speak. Why I think this strategy is fine and why I think it is fundamentally different from the conversation we had previously is that previously there was a media report that isn't

Corey 3:50

isn't his employment suspicious. And there were all sorts of details like the ethics commissioner had been approached

Corey 3:57

approached ahead of time. They created additional walls, additional screens, even beyond what the ethics commissioner required. And so what what the hell is the story here?

Corey 4:06

This is different. This is now actually pointing to a concrete example of somebody using their influence, allegedly, in order to get something to their benefit. And it might not be okay, what he did. There's not enough details. And there's a lot of ambiguity about who was in the job, when were they a PMO staffer or not. And, and so, you know, let's see where the details fall on this. But it is by no means clear cut that this is not a a problem, shall we say. So I think it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Corey, you know, I'll follow up with you very quickly before going to Carter. We talked previously about some of the items against the liberals that the conservatives were waging as diluting the story on we. Is this fundamentally different? Is we still the focal point this much time elapsing? Or are you okay now focusing on different issues to try to generate a pattern? I wanted to kind of try to see if we could square those two thoughts that we've had in previous episodes well

Corey 5:00

well let's be really clear here that that still is good advice you've got to keep focused on the real scandal and not have fake scandals but if you have two real scandals that both fundamentally tell the same story which is the prime minister's office is going to go out of its way to help its friends then you don't actually have a distraction you have something that reinforces that story and builds a stronger narrative, to your point.

Corey 5:24

And that could be quite helpful to the conservatives, because it's not just a question of we at that point, it's a question of multiple actions in a very short window of time here. And by the way, they share some commonalities, like this was just money flying out the door, COVID response, it was going to the Prime Minister's friends, the Prime Minister's friends were the first who were able to have the conversation in order to see if that money was available for them. That is fundamentally the same story. What is not the same story is when you start digging

Corey 5:54

digging around to anybody who has ever gone to a WE charity event, or frankly, anybody whose spouse has a different job, right? So that is the fundamental difference here. But this could be

Corey 6:07

be compounding. However, it

Corey 6:09

it could also not be compounding when all of the facts come out, which is why I'm not going to say it's fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Carter, same question to you. Corey, you did a great job of contextualizing the story appreciate that as well fine fabulous or fuck the conservatives asking for an additional ethics probe into katie telford and the pmo well

Carter 6:25

well it's fucked i mean cory may have done a fine job contextualizing it but he's again missed the forest for the trees um the problem with this is that they're going to the ethics commissioner they've already gone to the lobbying commissioner which is where they should go because ultimately this is a uh lobbying breach potentially by Rob Silver, not an ethics breach by Katie Telford. By jumping in and now getting a clean sheet of paper for Katie Telford, they're undermining their own story. This is essentially the conservatives being the hammer that they are, searching for a nail and running to the ethics commissioner. This is the equivalent of my youngest brother running to my mom and dad every time I got in trouble. You know, Stephen's done something wrong. Stephen's done something wrong you know sometimes they're just not going to care after it you know just shut the fuck up and that's how i'm feeling right now about the conservatives in the law and the and the ethics commissioner you went to the right place you went to the to the lobbying commissioner wait for that report because that report could be significant now you've undermined it by going to two commissioners who are going to look at the same thing from different points of view with totally different mandates and the result is going to be one of them is going to go oh i don't like this and the other The other one's going to go, my office has nothing to say. And who's the liberals going to pick up? And they're going to wave it to the Canadian public. Oh, we have nothing to say, nothing to say at all. And it's going to undermine the Conservatives' own actions.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Carter, I don't know if you've realized, but Corey and I running around giddily and screaming, Stephen's done something wrong. It was pretty much the entire premise of this podcast. Yeah, I know. I'm

Carter 8:07

angry about it, Jane. I'm angry. angry the entire

SPEAKER_02 8:09

entire advertising strategy this podcast is based simply on that uh and i use advertising as a loose concept uh carter i'm sticking with you on this one and then cory i'll go to uh for for this for this next one fine fabulous or fuck trudeau telegraphing uh to the public and to the media in these dog days of summer that he doesn't want another election what do you think of that strategy fine fabulous fucked i

Carter 8:33

think it's fine i mean i think that if he were the one who was he should be dragged to an election kicking and screaming. The idea that he's going to go

Carter 8:41

and vote, you know, vote down or allow a confidence motion to fail or something to get to an election. He shouldn't. He's the government and he's got enough seats that he can govern as a majority. We've talked about that incessantly. He should not be trying to get to an election. And if he does get to an election, he wants to be appearing like he's reluctant even if he's skipping all the way through the garden um because this is a uh for him this is a a

Carter 9:10

problem um you know if he looks like he's calling the election early and he wanted the election early uh the canadian public tends to to punish us uh when we call elections outside of the normal uh the normal quad cycle so if if he does find himself in a fall or spring election election, he should be dragged there kicking and screaming.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Corey, same question to you.

Corey 9:33

It would be fine if those were his only comments, but they're not. He follows it up with additional comments like, hey, look, I'm, you know, and we'll see. And it's a huge dramatic change. And we got to see if Parliament supports us. And if not, I guess there's, you know, and in that sense, I think it's kind of fucked. I mean, he's essentially telegraphing that he's willing to go to the polls in such a big way that I do feel that he risks a backlash. He's got to to moderate it a bit and unfortunately for him this is a box he put himself in when he prorogued it you

Corey 10:01

you know i think in no

Corey 10:03

small part because of the we scandal so the um the challenge now is that you've got to make it seem as though a throne speech is justified which means this is a big deal without making it seem as though uh this is a prep to go to the polls and that's that's a weird tightrope to walk here uh i i think that the liberals are fundamentally in a in

Corey 10:23

in a in a broken spoken position here.

Corey 10:26

I do. I think the combination of saying that this is a big deal and this is not a big deal and we're not trying to do something that would predicate a trip to the polls is not going to pass muster in the long run. Now, the NDP may just capitulate and support this throne speech and then no problem. But if there is a reason to go to the polls as a result of this throne speech, I don't think the liberals come out of this clean. I think a lot of people will be able to point and say, they

Corey 10:50

they fucking orchestrated this thing. We're going to the polls during COVID, Perhaps even during wave two, we are now all back at school and work and all of these places in a way we weren't even two weeks ago.

Corey 11:01

Could be really fucked.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah, Corey, keep that thought in mind. I want to talk later on about this concept of Trudeau potentially juicing the package that they have heading to this throne speech. So as for that particular political strategy. So we'll keep that thought in mind. Corey, I'm going to stick with you for our third one. And we're moving to the United States. So on the heels of the article by The Atlantic where Donald Trump was quoted saying that anyone who's served with the U.S. military were suckers and losers and a very extensively detailed article damning the president and his views on military personnel and those who've served the United States, now Trump's surrogates are coming out and saying that the only thing we need is we need to ensure that the sources are named. We can't have a story so big being a Comey-like thing that distracts from the election. We now need to compel the sources to be named. What do you think of that political strategy? Fine? Fabulous? Fucked? It's fucked.

Corey 12:05

Let's just play this decision trio. Let's just talk about the various scenarios that are here. Let's say, one, the Atlantic violates the source there and says it. And let's just say it's John Kelly. Is that better for

Carter 12:18

for Donald Trump? Right,

Corey 12:20

right. uh iraq war not a big fan of either um okay

Corey 12:52

okay so that's that's one scenario that's not good for donald trump that his chief of staff is the one who's the source let's say that they don't hold the source and and they say no we're we're absolutely going to refuse to do that um all

Corey 13:05

all he's done is he's made people talk about it for another round and so now it becomes a conversation of well who could the source be who were the people who were there let's speculate you know No, it seems like an awful lot of people have said things that are similar to this. And that's not good for Donald Trump. I understand what he's trying to do, which is sort of so this idea that maybe it's bullshit. But there's just there's too much smoke for there not to be fire. And he's just drawing attention to these comments. It's a crazy idea. And I don't know what they're thinking.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Corey, I just want to before I move on to you, Carter, I just want to make mention you had a Freudian slip where you called Donald Trump David. David is, of course, short for Dave. And Dave was president in our favorite movie. I

SPEAKER_02 13:47

I just want you to know that

SPEAKER_02 13:49

that there is some psychology subconsciously buried behind that comment. Carter, same question to

Corey 13:55

to you. The more alarming psychology is that that's also my father's name. Oh, that's going

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah. Carter, same question to you. What do you think of this Trump strategy or Trump campaign surrogate strategy of trying to unearth sources and claim that that needs to be the next step in this story?

Carter 14:14

I am loving watching Donald Trump turn into Hillary Clinton, where

Carter 14:18

where all of a sudden she has to, you know, he's pushing back on everything. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has just released a video refuting this story. It's, you know, it's hilarious to me. This is fantastic. This is Donald Trump, you know, trying to push back on every accusation that's made about him in the exact same fashion that Hillary Clinton tried to do the same, you know, four years ago. And it failed four years ago. It's going to fail now because we're on to the next cycle. He's kept the cycle going. Is this believable? Yes. How do I know? I've read his tweets. I've listened to him. I've watched his videos. I mean, this is not exactly outside of the scope of his language. This feels exactly true. And therefore, it doesn't matter if it's true. If it feels true, then the population just runs with it. You know, for example, a pizzeria with child sex slaves, you

Carter 15:18

you know, felt true,

Corey 15:19

true, felt true. Does he think people who went to Vietnam are suckers? Probably. He dodged the draft, right? Exactly. It goes forever. I

Corey 15:28

I mean, it's just it's crazy that he would be wanting to talk about this more. It

SPEAKER_02 15:31

It is. The irony is interesting that you make mention of Carter, right? That the the same political strategy that Trump has employed to get into office, where if it feels close to the truth, right, if it feels like it could be true, then it probably is. And it's been what his supporters have accepted. It's now I'm not saying that his supporters are turning against it, but it's the same notion that the believability factor doesn't need to be at 100 percent. It's as long as it's in the range. People like, yeah, that sounds about right. That's that that that reconciles with the man that we know or the man that he projects himself to be. Carter, I'm going to actually stick with you on this one for our next one, which is about the conservatives. Our federal conservatives here under the new leadership of Aaron O'Toole have said, just like the liberals, that they're going to stop taking the wage subsidy going forward. But unlike the liberals have said, they're going to pay it back. So I'm curious to hear what you think of that strategy. Fine. Fabulous. Fucked.

Carter 16:25

Oh, I think I think it's fine. I don't think it's going to have much in the way of long term impact. I think that just signals that Aaron O'Toole is going to be able to turn the fundraising machine on. The fundraising machine for the conservatives has been turned off.

Carter 16:40

when did Scheer become elected? You know, so this is an opportunity. They'll turn it back on. You know, Peter McKay is going to disappear. The other two are going to stick around for whatever reason. um but you know the fundraising machine is going to turn right back on again and otul will be able to pay back the money there's just no long-term impact it's it's kind of like i'm going to pay back i don't know how much it is let's let's just say for shits and giggles it's two hundred thousand dollars i'm going to pay back two hundred thousand dollars for a one-day headline you

Carter 17:10

you know it's probably the right thing to do he bought himself a headline and and he can probably run a few emails asking for money to pay it back. But it doesn't change, like it's not going to change his electoral success. It was buying one day's headline, and maybe $200,000 is a reasonable price to pay for, you know, to win a news cycle. I

Carter 17:33

I don't think it is, but maybe it is.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Interesting. Corey, same question to you. What do you think of that O'Toole strategy, right? Under new leadership saying, you know, over time, right, not immediately, But over time, we're going to pay this back, perhaps trying to define an element of what type of leader you may get with Aaron O'Toole, perhaps even trying to draw a contrast from his predecessor. But same question to you. Fine, fabulous, fucked? What do you think?

Corey 17:54

I could argue all three. I could argue that it's fucked because nobody

Corey 17:59

nobody might care and you've just spent a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is. I could argue it's fine because it

Corey 18:06

seems like the kind of thing that people will look at and say, yeah, for every reason that Steven said. But I'm going to argue it's fabulous, and

Corey 18:13

and it's because it's about the party, not the public. The public will look at that and say, yeah, that's pretty good. But what he is really doing is he's signaling there's a new sheriff in town, and the

Corey 18:21

the sheer era where his kids are going to private school and conservatives are going to take government handouts, that's over. And this true blue conservative that he framed himself as throughout his election campaign, this is his way of getting

Corey 18:35

getting you to believe that the car you just bought was the best car ever. And that's a Dave reference for those of you keeping track at home.

Corey 18:44

real advantage here for him is just that he looks like he means business and it will give him credibility with the right of his party as he is looking to start moving towards an election.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

So unlike Carter, do you feel like it might be worth that dollar amount that they have taken in to pay it back over time in terms of solidifying some of the potential fracturing? uh yeah

Corey 19:07

yeah if i were him i'd go further i'd say with interest right we're paying it back with interest because um you you want to say it's just this is not what the conservative party represents we don't take money from the government to manage our things out we believe that political parties should have uh you know the independence and the ability to stand on their own two feet and really what you're doing is you're signifying to everybody in your party that you're not putting up with that shit anymore and this idea that you're going to get cozy with government no

Corey 19:35

no no, this is a conservative party that looks a little bit more like the conservative party that came storming into Ottawa in 2006 before it became the establishment. And I think there's a value beyond $200,000 in that.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Interesting. Okay, Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one. Back to Trudeau saying that he will not be firing Julie Payette, praising her as an excellent governor general. We've discussed the trials and tribulations and the ups and downs, mainly downs that she's had on this podcast before. What do you think of that from a strategy point for Trudeau? Fine, fabulous, fucked. What are you sensing with that political strategy by Trudeau?

Corey 20:12

It's fine. It's exactly what he has to say. I will note that he also praised Morneau as a fabulous finance minister about 30 seconds before he was sent to the door. So I certainly wouldn't sleep a lot better as the GG being like, oh, the prime minister's got my back. This is great because that's not the way these things work. Usually, when the prime minister has to actually say that they support you, that means that your support is pretty tenuous, because people are asking questions about it. So, you know, he didn't, there's nothing else he could say until the decision is made one way or the other. But it doesn't mean anything. anything

SPEAKER_02 20:48

uh it is of course uh my 101 rule in politics cory as you know uh that i have made famous that anytime you have to come out in public and say i've always been a friend of the jewish people uh your

Corey 20:58

your career's over yeah it's already zane's law that's zane's law uh

SPEAKER_02 21:04

uh and i i proactively say it just to let people know but it is of course uh

SPEAKER_02 21:09

the zane's law i like that carter same question to you uh trudeau saying that she's a fabulous governor general uh excellent choice uh fine fabulous fucked what are you thinking it

Carter 21:20

it doesn't matter what sport every general manager of every league at any time that has to say about his coach that you know he's got my full support 100 not looking at making any changes that guy's done so you know my history and knowledge of sports is deep um and I'm quite confident that uh Julie Payette she won't be remember she's not going to be asked to leave by the by the prime minister when the day comes that she's leaving it'll be her own idea and she'll think it's time for a change um and she's probably going to throw her hat in the ring for I don't know running NASA or something like that um I

Corey 21:56

I hear OECD's looking for a new executive director you

Carter 22:00

you know man that would be fantastic but that's that's what she's He's, you know, that's the way it goes. The prime minister doesn't fire these people. They resign. And when it comes time for her to resign, you

Carter 22:13

know, before Christmas, write

Corey 22:17

Yeah, come on. She'll be here until we're all dead.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

She'll blow past the minimum five-year term. Exactly. She'll just be like, I've got a massive project I'm working on. I'm never going to leave. Carter, I actually want to stick with you on this because you bring up an interesting point, which is, let's say you were engineering for the PMO her leaving. So you get your principal to say what he just said. She's fabulous. She's excellent. I'm never going to take a step back from the choice I've made, right? That's what it's signaling. Like, I made this choice. I'm never going to go back on my words. How are you engineering the rest of it? Is it more like leaks to the media that escalates the story? Is it a conversation in your back channel, as you just mentioned? like what are the options you have and i don't want to spend too much time on this but i think it's interesting that you brought it up to perhaps discuss how you get quit some people as cory would say well

Carter 23:08

well there's two ways of doing it there's the easy way and there's the hard way um

Carter 23:11

um so the easy way is you walk into the governor general's office and you say the prime minister has just indicated he's got uh 100 support for you that was a misstatement uh i'm going to need your resignation and

Carter 23:26

i may or may not have had to do that i was gonna

Carter 23:29

once you're coming from

Carter 23:30

experience yeah and and that is you know that's that's that's the norm right like that's a it's a fairly normal uh model um and and the minister traditionally cory

SPEAKER_02 23:40

cory shaking is that i think it's only normal for the office you read carter yeah i think so um

Carter 23:46

but then there's the hard way of doing it and

Carter 23:49

and the hard way is if if uh there is no legal means for the governor general to be fired by any

Carter 23:56

any of the prime minister's staff and theoretically i

Carter 23:59

mean the prime minister can just say that he no longer has confidence and go to the queen and get a new appointment made but that's not easy in practice either um so this way what you'll see if they're trying to make it if julie paillette has made it hard on the prime minister's office you will start to see the investigations become very, very public. So the letters that have been written, the complaints that have been made, all

Carter 24:23

all of those things will suddenly find their way into media outlets' hands. They'll even find their way into media outlets that aren't particularly friendly to the government. And they will slap this governor general down. And then she will see that she doesn't have the the support with

Carter 24:42

with the end game being it's time for you to move on um and if she doesn't move on then the the

Carter 24:49

the the operation or the the the public's mood will have shifted forcing in quotation marks the prime minister to take action and that's that's what you'll see is is if you're if you're not going to go easily you're going to go hard and it's going to it's going to make me have to take you out in the in the realm of public opinion it's not that it's not that unusual to be honest cory

SPEAKER_02 25:11

cory anything to add on that before you

Corey 25:14

the only other thing i would say is going to the media is one of the options but it's not the only one the other version of this is simply that you um that

Corey 25:23

that you go in and you let her know hey this is all going to hit the media if you don't

Corey 25:28

find yourself to the door so so

Corey 25:30

so there are there are degrees of that but i mean absolutely Absolutely. There are many ways this can be navigated. The full confidence followed up by the, I'm glad I had the prime minister's full confidence, but I was always planning to go do X is probably the most conventional version of this. Right,

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Right, right. And that's how they did it in Dave as well. Corey, we're going to just milk this as much as it's worth. Corey, sticking with you. Last one on Donald Trump. A political article today coming out saying that his focus is now shifting from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris and starting to brand her as the individual who is going to drag Joe Biden to the left. So as you know, he's been trying to paint Joe Biden as the mayor of the civil unrest that we're seeing in our urban centers. But I think the focus of the campaign, according to this article, is now going to be on Kamala Harris as the reason he's starting to make that radical leftist shift. What do you think of that strategy at this moment in time? Not too many weeks left to the election. Fine. Fabulous. Fucked.

Corey 26:37

it's it's telling me that something is fucked i'm that's that's a pretty weird switch it's telling me that their polling says people are not buying joe biden's a radical and so they're looking for how they can make that message stick and they have a unknown commodity in kamala harris that that they feel perhaps they can put some of these more uh you know far left views on and and get the american public to buy it so obviously this is the kind of thing that political parties focus They go out, they test it, but this

Corey 27:06

this is not what they were saying. It wasn't their primary focus two weeks ago. And it tells me that they've had to switch their focus. So something is fucked. Now, as far as a strategy goes, it's fine. It's fine, because I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they've probably done some polling and seen that that will have some sort of resonance with their audience. And if their strategy is not working, it makes sense to change strategy, whether

Corey 27:29

whether we are just a few weeks from the election or not. That is, you know, you don't want to be running around like mad, but you also don't want to just drive

Corey 27:38

You've got to make a turn, even if that turn is not going to happen because you don't have the time for it. So Donald Trump has leaned into

Corey 27:46

into this law and order thing, and

Corey 27:48

and he probably feels that there is a – I hate to say it, but he probably feels there's a racist Trump voter out there who sees a woman of color, and he can say that is the source of all of this because it all ties together in this deep racist worldview I've got. So it's really utterly shitty of him, but it may work.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Carter, same question to you. What do you think of the Trump strategy? Fine, fabulous, fucked?

Carter 28:14

I think it's pretty fucked. I mean, I

Carter 28:17

think back to the, I think there's only two times that a vice presidential attack has actually worked. Just kind of going back through my little memory here. The first two that pop into mind are Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin. And those two vice presidential attacks work pretty well because, again, they fit into, they fit themselves into it. uh dan quayle uh was kind of a gaffe a minute i mean arguably joe biden was a gaffe a minute too as as the vice presidential candidate um

Carter 28:47

sarah palin of course was sarah palin i mean she was utterly ridiculous but both of them were used to undermine the the decision-making powers of the person who is running to be president um this

Carter 29:00

this idea that the the bottom of the ticket is somehow going going to control the top of the ticket. I think that you're asking the the population to go one step too far. The only people who will get there are the people who are already there with you. It is a preachy to the base kind of message to attack Harris. I don't think it moves a lot of support away from the top of the ticket. And especially to Corey's point, you know,

Carter 29:27

they went pretty hard after Joe Biden for the last month or so.

Carter 29:31

If it was working, then keep doing it if it's not working you got to change something um i'm not sure that changing to harris is necessarily the way to go but they're

Carter 29:41

they're grasping at straws the the polling is just tragic for them right now they're not going you

Carter 29:47

you know they're not getting anywhere and watching their ad buys they're reducing their number of states that they're participating in uh markedly and that's that tells me that they

Carter 29:56

they have to change it up they have to change it up in a hurry and And they're looking for a breakthrough in the next two weeks so that they can start to, you know, move from the back foot to the front foot.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

We'll leave that segment there and let's move it on to our next segment. Dude, do you even trial balloon? Guys, I want to talk about, I want to talk about trial balloons and I want to take a little bit of a step back because I think we're seeing something interesting happening in the dog days of summer, both in our home province here in Alberta, where this term trial balloon is being floated recently. And on the heels of prorogation, this concept of a trial balloon by the Trudeau government is being floated. So before we get into these trial balloons and assessing whether they are what they are, let's talk about what a trial balloon is, because I don't think we necessarily have a crystal clear definition, how to define whether one is or not, what some of the rules are, what it actually defines. So maybe Carter, I'll start with you. And I think this is where I can heed your guys' expertise in governments, running offices, running comms for a province. What is a trial balloon, Stephen? And what constitutes it? And what are some of the kind of the scaffolding or the rules that define what a trial balloon in public looks like?

Carter 31:09

A trial balloon in public is simply testing the waters and testing out whether or not an idea is going to be palatable to the general population. So one of the things we try to do is poll on something. So we poll on something and we determine whether or not an idea is successful or not. But the problem with that is that a lot of ideas don't mature until they're out into the public and the public is talking about them. So that maturation is what we're looking for in a trial balloon, because something may be completely unpalatable

Carter 31:41

unpalatable or unthought of until such time as it's actually floated. And once it's floated as an idea, the population, the opinion leaders, the media, then get to take the idea and craft how it's presented to the general public. public then

Carter 31:57

then after the trial balloon has been floated and the idea has been batted

Carter 32:00

batted around by the general population for a little while then you can do a poll to

Carter 32:06

to see how it actually works in the wild so that the idea isn't just dead on arrival you floated it perhaps

Carter 32:13

perhaps with the context that it requires in order for it to be fully understood so the trial balloon and and it takes many different forms it can be made by a senior member of the government it can be made by by a bureaucrat at a senior level, or it can be made by an opinion leader, let's say. So the opinion leader would put out the literal opinion, and then people would evaluate that against that. The important thing about a trial balloon is it has to be big enough that people know it, and it has an impact within the general population, but not so big that it, you know, kind of forces the government's hand. You're not trying to put yourself into a corner. You're You're trying to figure out whether or not doing something is right or wrong. You want to have both options available to you. So you choose the medium for the trial balloon very carefully to ensure that you get the proper

Carter 33:11

proper testing of the idea.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

That's a fantastic explanation. Corey, same question to you. Is it this exercise of threading a needle, so to speak, per Carter's last point there?

Corey 33:22

Yeah. So the phrase comes from how we used to test which way the wind blows. Quite literally, you put up a balloon and you see which way the wind

Corey 33:29

wind takes the balloon at different altitudes, right? And that is the basic concept here. And the reason why you can't just poll on these things or focus group on these things and say,

Corey 33:38

say, okay, that's good enough, we're going to move forward, is we

Corey 33:41

we talked about this when we talked about polling, but there's this concept in polling, it's beware of novel concepts. If you ask somebody something that they've never thought about it before, they're

Corey 33:51

they're gonna be like, sure,

Corey 33:52

sure, or no, I don't think so. And that particular opinion may be knocked out of their head with maybe five seconds of work with a counter message, right? So the benefit of a trial balloon is it allows the conversation to become more fleshed out. It's all of a sudden out there and you can see which way the winds will blow once the conversation begins. Are people going to be looking

Corey 34:14

looking at it from this angle or that angle? Are they going to love it or are they going to hate it? Who's going to love it? Who's going to hate it? What are the opinion leaders saying about that?

Corey 34:22

And Stephen's right. You don't want it to become so big that the government is committed to it. But the idea is it's got to be large enough that you can then measure the

Corey 34:31

right? Imagine just to continue the metaphor of the trial balloon in the most literal sense. It was so tiny, you couldn't see it on the horizon. You don't know which way the wind's blowing.

Corey 34:38

You got to have it big enough.

Corey 34:41

the real trick here is picking the avenue. And then, you know, if it's too small, then you didn't actually learn anything because you might not get enough people in it. It's too big. You might be screwed if you try to walk it back. So that's the challenge. I

SPEAKER_02 34:55

I want to talk about your guys' particular expertise. Corey, you just brought up this concept of it's designed to measure the wind, see how opinion leaders respond, see how folks respond. How have you guys, when you've been in government, looked at trial balloons? What are some of the indicators on the inside that you've measured or benchmarked? What are the KPIs, so to speak, from a consulting standpoint that you've been like, this is what I'm looking for tactically to come out of this? I'd be really curious. And I don't know if our audience has a good understanding. And I'd say I don't myself have a great understanding of what some of these KPIs that a government or the bureaucracy may look for once they float with some of these things. So either of you, whoever wants to jump in on that. Yeah.

Corey 35:36

So in a government communications plan, there is a section that is called foreshadowing the issue. And it says, how have you tried to actually put this thing out to see how people will react to this? Like where, if at all, right? Has this gone out? Have people talked about this? And generally speaking, it will be about, is this an issue at all? Has the government talked about this needing to be addressed? So both the issue and then the solution. Has the solution been discussed at all? Has the solution been addressed at all? And

Corey 36:02

And what has been the reaction to that? And so when you're building a comms plan, part of what you're trying to do is saying, do we need to understand that before we move any further? Is there any gating that occurs where we essentially need the

Corey 36:15

the minister to drop it in a speech and see how they react at the chamber? Or to have an op-ed go out by a friendly party that says – and you've got to keep in mind when you're the government, you're not necessarily going around to a million different people. You play it a little bit straighter, right? It's more, have we dropped it into a speech? Have we talked to the media about it in this context?

Corey 36:35

But that is something that public service communicators are considering in communications plans. The trial balloon that people are more familiar with, like the big policy shift, or let's put out the idea of getting rid of the GG, or something like that, that

Corey 36:49

that tends to happen at the political side. The chief of staff, the principal secretary, the comms director calls a minister or calls the media and plants this thing, puts it out there. and uh and then the rest of us in the public service just react to it so probably a good place where i can hand it over to political staff uh

Corey 37:04

uh you know ex-political staff member stephen carter to fill that in but you know it is something that is thought of very intentionally it's not just a one-off it's literally in the comms plan that's fascinating

SPEAKER_02 37:14

like built into it and this is every comms plan for for everything you and you said it's like this foreshadowing yeah it's

Corey 37:19

literally in the temple interesting

Corey 37:21

interesting it's like you know it can include more than just trial balloons but foreshadowing the issue is something that you're supposed to consider for every comms plan carter

SPEAKER_02 37:29

carter is it that formalized in the political side of things or is it more of a rough shot sort of like general sentiment how are you guys kind of calculating uh the the political side of trial balloons oh

Carter 37:40

oh you there it's absolutely formalized you cannot solve a problem that people don't know that there is right so you have to explain the problem and preset the problem. And oftentimes government doesn't want to be leading the charge to the solution. We want to be dragged to the solution, right? We want people to be out front of us and saying, this is where the solution needs to go. And then we just miraculously arrive to the same place. Because whenever we're being, you know, Ed Stelmack's government used to be like this. They would often solve a problem that no one knew that we had. And so you'd be like, what the hell was that why were we solving this problem what is it um and and people would be trying to catch up and at the risk of sounding modestly repetitive our 0.05 legislation was exactly that we did not what mad think

Corey 38:27

think of that legislation

Carter 38:28

legislation mad loved it they were in my office but

Carter 38:33

no one else knew that there was a problem no one else and we we came from we had to struggle to get the population to understand that alberta had and will still has the highest drunk you know incidence of drunk driving, highest number of charges, the highest number of deaths. We are really bad at this and we need to solve it. But because we hadn't gotten out front, we hadn't put out the trial balloon, when we did propose the solution, we were immediately behind the eight ball. We were no longer able to explain why we were doing it because we were just trying to push back

Carter 39:08

back on all of the criticism that was coming. If we'd done a proper trial balloon, if we'd done a proper proper communication strategy of foreshadowing, like Corey has described. And especially with validators, we had firefighters lined up, we had police lined up, we had, you know, tons of validators, but they

Carter 39:28

they hadn't told everybody what the problem was. So they were they also they joined us just behind the eight ball. So everybody's

SPEAKER_02 39:35

everybody's there to celebrate the solution, but not necessarily there to, to telegraph, so to speak, why you were you were going in with this, with the solution? Well,

Carter 39:43

Well, I mean, even something as simple as like a premier's residence. So our, you know, Sky Palace, our premier wanted to have a residence. Right. So we can have a residence if we tell the population why we need a residence and we tell them what other provinces have a residence. If you do all of that work in advance and get the population on your side, then maybe you can have a residence. If you trial balloon it and it performs horribly, then you can walk away from the residence and you don't wind up with your Sky Palace plans being leaked to the media. So that that type of foreshadowing

Carter 40:22

foreshadowing can save you a ton of pain. And it also makes it when you do do the action a lot less painful.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Corey, you were going to jump in.

Corey 40:31

Yeah, Stephen talked about validators, and I think that's a really important thing to talk about when we talk about foreshadowing an issue. So we talk about trial balloons. The other thing you'll sometimes hear it referred to as running up the flagpole, right? And the full sentence is run up the flagpole to see who salutes. And the idea of putting something up, the flagpole and trial ballooning this issue, whatever, just to mix my metaphors here is you

Corey 40:55

you sometimes don't know whether different groups will be in favor or opposed, stand with you or stand against you until it's at least out in the public realm

Corey 41:03

realm and you can pin them down on it then, right? Do you like this idea that Danielle Smith just wrote about or no? No.

Corey 41:10

And if you get that understanding, that allows you to inform your communications going forward, allows you to build those validator lists, and allows you to have a more robust rollout when these things happen. Because then the government can come and make the announcement and point the media to the 14 people they already know are going to say nice things because they've made comments about it because it's already been out there in public discourse. course. I

SPEAKER_02 41:31

I want to talk about the two live wires that we have in Alberta and then across the country with with the Trudeau government, with prorogation of the upcoming throne speech, which have been classified, at least in our political chatter as trial balloons. But before getting to that, there's one final thing, Carter, you tweaked on, which I want to talk about, which is voices. Who do you get to put this out there? And I'd love to kind of hear some of the consideration from you, Stephen, as to, you know, you were in government at that moment in time, But you also have experience with this, with how oppositions work. How do you kind of strategize which which voices put this out there, whether it's a minister, whether it's a friendly op ed? What are some of the calculus that goes behind who puts it out there and who puts out trial balloons? I'd love to kind of hear some of your thoughts on that. Well,

Carter 42:15

Well, I mean, let's let's pick apart the idea of a PST, because we certainly were looking at trial ballooning it in the past. And we had a minister who'd put forward, you know, that we needed to have a PST.

Carter 42:28

Doug Griffiths, I think, was the minister who did that. And, you know, he survived. But you have to find someone who honestly looks like they could be saying it, right? You don't want to put up a trial balloon by someone who looks like they've been dragged to a hanging. You need to put that person out there who actually looks like they'd be legitimate. Like a genuine

SPEAKER_02 42:51

genuine voice on this issue. It's consistent with their beliefs and values. Absolutely.

Carter 42:54

Absolutely. And every government has a multitude of ministers. Now, the problem is, if you use a minister, you're using political capital from your own bank account. So sometimes that's really well, that's really worth it. Like if we'd done the .05 legislation properly, we would have done that from our own bank account. We knew we were going to follow through on it. We would have been trial ballooning it, you know, expecting

Carter 43:17

expecting it to go in a certain direction. So our justice minister probably would have trial ballooned a piece of legislation that was forthcoming.

Carter 43:26

Outside of that, you might want to go to a chamber of commerce. So the chambers of commerce were very, very useful. Alberta has a chamber of commerce. Every city has a chamber of commerce. They all have policy wings. Who's been talking about it in the past? Who's going to be talking about it in the future? And would it help, for example, if a minister showed up for a lunch that day? and at that event when we've dragged all the media there all of a sudden the head of the chamber of commerce throws out a trial balloon uh that gets a ton of coverage um and

Carter 43:57

and the minister says in his or her speech well that's an interesting idea i never thought of it but

Carter 44:01

but but it's it's about somebody who pre-exists as a validator or

Carter 44:05

or as a as an opinion leader who it's not the

Carter 44:09

the voices that you see on twitter right

Carter 44:11

right it's not the voices that you just see on twitter it's someone who already has a pre-established platform they need to be able to speak to tens of thousands of people and get other people predominantly the media to pay attention so you know i'll pick on our good friend max faucet who's been talking about a lot of really good ideas in his various publications uh throughout

Carter 44:34

throughout you know western canada and canada put out a lot of great ideas none of them are trial balloons not one of the ideas that he's put forward is something that that the government is trial ballooning because he just doesn't have a big enough audience. He doesn't have a big enough impact. Government needs it to be a big impact. They need the discussion to be big. Otherwise, it's not a trial balloon. It's just, you know, a discussion.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Coy, perhaps getting your thoughts on voices, which voices you select, riffing off what you heard from Carter, and maybe let's get into our live wire of what's happening here in Alberta, because I think it's a natural transition to the voice we're seeing here, year, which is former Wild Rose leader Danielle Smith coming out with her three-step solution for what Alberta needs to do for its fiscal woes. The reason people are calling it a trial balloon, well, at least why us internally feel like it's a trial balloon, is because it's got a lot of the number five in it, which is, if you go back to our special episode in the poll that Corey got, also had a lot of number fives in it. This is a little bit different, but Corey, maybe let's get your general thoughts on voices and then let's get into the Alberta-specific conversation. I can contextualize that a bit more at that point.

Corey 45:42

yeah uh so former wild rose leader former progressive conservative mla lest we forget because that's an interesting component of it uh would be an example of somebody who you would trial balloon through i disagree with steven that a fellow like max faucet is is would be somebody you travel in through i think a guy like max is exactly who you trial balloon through because um he has a big following on twitter he will spur a conversation on twitter you will get people siding

Corey 46:10

siding you know i'm in favor i'm opposed you know who likes it and who doesn't can be quite

Corey 46:15

quite telling not everything is a pst not everything is so massive that you absolutely need or would expect a large conversation sometimes issues are pretty small and um and if you can get an opinion leader to to bring it forward even if you're just seeing then how the conversation plays out what is the immediate critique what is the immediate reason to support it and who are those people that there's a lot of value in that steven's

Corey 46:39

steven's also right that it does need to look like they could be saying it or else it's very clear it's a trial balloon so um your example of doug griffiths is spot on so the uh for our non-alberta listeners doug griffiths was this um was a cabinet minister in alberta who who definitely talked a lot about very practical reasons like we've got to consider these solutions and in fact had run for leader of the pcs on that So he'd obviously already put on the record that he was, you

Corey 47:09

you know, supportive of at least exploring these areas. So when he comes out and floats something in this area, it looks like it's just Doug being Doug. It doesn't look like it's Doug being told by the premier's office to go float something. Because that's the other thing about a trial balloon we haven't really talked about. Inherent in them is a certain deniability.

Corey 47:26

oh, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. We weren't planning to do that. Like, no government ever says, yeah, no, we threw up a trial balloon. We wanted to see if you'd like it or not, and we realized that we couldn't control it, so we're out, right? Because that uses capital

SPEAKER_02 47:38

capital in its own right. Exactly right.

Corey 47:42

Yeah, so it's a lot easier to say, like, oh, no, no, no, that may be Doug's opinion, but this government's not going to do it. Or interesting words by Daniel Smith, but that's not something this government is interested in. And

Corey 47:55

so there has to be a sort of ability to burn it at the end of it and say, no, that wasn't us. We weren't really thinking about that. We were never really thinking about that.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

So let's talk about what's happening here in Alberta then. And Carter, I'll go to you because we have Daniel Smith putting out a op-ed, which has three steps to it. Number one, to liquidate the Heritage Fund here in Alberta to pay off our COVID deficit. Number two, to establish a sovereign wealth fund where every dollar of resource revenue goes into that until we can reach $100 billion and then comfortably generate $5 billion in interest-based income from it. And then finally, balance the budget by increasing taxes, which is almost a political no-go for someone like Danielle Smith until now, and reducing spending in equal measure. $5 billion a pop. So yes, a provincial sales tax, and yes, reductions in health and education. So using some of the assessments and the rules that we've just laid out, A, do you think this is a trial balloon? And B, do you think they used the right voice if it was?

Carter 48:59

Well, yeah, I mean, I do think it's a trial balloon. And yes, I think they used the right voice because they've taken somebody who has been seen as a right winger, who currently hosts a, you know a radio show that is is possibly the the most right wing in in alberta which is saying something well you know that is a a fairly significant uh hurdle

Carter 49:20

hurdle to get over and she's talking about taxes uh and not as though all taxes are evil and we should not have any taxes anymore so this is outside of her norm so i think that this is a trial balloon um the

Carter 49:34

the weakness of it is that she's never really talked about taxes she's never really talked about pst um even in my private conversations with her i don't recall ever having a conversation about you know what we really need you know um so that that struck me as uh a bit weird to see her jumping out with this we

Corey 49:53

we we should mention too you worked i did

Corey 49:56

work for daniel yeah you were her chief for staff i

Carter 49:59

had a choice of who i could make premier it

Carter 50:01

it was fun um

Carter 50:02

um and uh but anyways i mean danielle danielle and to be clear i love danielle i think she's great i think that she's got right wing radio itis right now which is something that happens to radio hosts that host right wing radio shows they turn into crazy people um but other than that i mean i think that using

Carter 50:22

using her seems to to make sense like this is an interesting idea it also it it feels like it's too big a coincidence and let's be clear as

Carter 50:32

as we said last week jason kenney's super smart he's

Carter 50:36

he's not he knows that he is any structural deficit and the idea now that he's just going to be rescued by oil and oil and gas surging in prices even if he is rescued um on

Carter 50:49

on the employment side he's not going to be rescued on the revenue side. He knows that. And I think that he needs some help. And going to his good friend, Danielle, seems to make some sense to me.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Corey, do you think this is a trial balloon? And I will add that, you know, our friend Max Fawcett, who we've been discussing on the show, very quickly on the heels of Danielle Smith, putting it out there, suggesting that she might be right in her assessment for what Alberta needs. So I, you know, I'm just adding that as additional context. But same question to you. Is this a trial balloon in your mind from the government? through Danielle Smith? And B, if so, do you think she was the right voice for it?

Corey 51:26

I don't think it was a trial balloon. I worry that two things are happening here. One is we might be drinking our own bathwater. We start talking 5-5-5 and then, you know, then people are talking about it. And I'm not going to say we take credit for that in the zeitgeist, but you know, a lot of conversation in Twitter spurred as a result of all of this. The other thing is there's components of her plan that I just can't imagine the government being remotely interested in first and foremost is the liquidation of the heritage fund that's not easy you know investments of that size and scale you don't just say to your banker like hey okay i just want that all in cash like just make the check out to cash for that 20 billion dollar you know sovereign wealth fund that that doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me as well what is the point of taking all of that money out just to start putting all of that money back in because Because you are then talking about building up essentially the Heritage Fund again to $100 billion. Why not start one-fifth of the way there? Especially where interest rates are on borrowing versus what we're getting from the stock market, which is phenomenal returns still. There's probably a stronger argument to be made to borrow as much as possible and invest it in the stock market, frankly. Not suggesting that. That would expose the government to a lot of risk. But it's

Corey 52:38

it's why I just don't think it makes an awful lot of sense from the Heritage Fund point of view. and then like the balancing the budget with taxes and spending an equal measure that's

Corey 52:47

that's where i think that that's a legitimate thing i think the government is probably thinking of here but um i don't know i just i it doesn't strike me as because of the other two things something that the government is floating out there unless somebody

Corey 53:02

somebody because the other thing we didn't really talk about with these trial balloons is you never call and say like hey we want a trial balloon it's like we're thinking about this idea what do you think off the record of course right and

Corey 53:11

and then Then they might go with it in their own direction, and you don't always get to launch the balloon you want to launch. Sometimes they don't

Corey 53:18

don't take good notes. Sometimes they write it in a different direction, and I mean that is possible for sure, but

Corey 53:24

but I can't imagine those first two things are on. And five and five in that sense seems weird. But

Carter 53:29

But let's – you're not necessarily going to float the fully formed trial balloon either. Like you're not going to take Daniel Smith's – Aren't you supposed to push

SPEAKER_02 53:36

push the limits too? Sorry, Carter. I'm interrupting.

Carter 53:38

interrupting. Yeah, I mean, but you're going to put in some red herrings into it because you don't want to be then beholden to

Carter 53:44

to Danielle Smith that we're just implementing her policy. You've put out a piece of an opinion piece that has two or three good ideas that the government could take and two or three ideas that are just non-starters. You want that mixing. You don't want to have to then pick her specific idea and say, this is actually what we're going to do. Thank God we've got Danielle Smith. Um, you know, what a shame that he's not still a member of the Legislative Assembly.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Corey, do you feel like, you know, let's, let's drink a little bit more of our bathwater for a second. But do you feel like the, the poll that you got and perhaps something like this, both testing the branding and language of fives could be one of the same thing. So it's not saying one led into the other, but the two parallel tracks of testing messaging that's perhaps analogous bundled in that marketing speak.

Corey 54:37

no i don't think so i think it's a coincidence look that i i can understand why like we the poll i got talked about uh

Corey 54:45

uh you know reductions maybe five percent reduction to the public service salaries maybe a five percent pst and a

SPEAKER_02 54:52

a five-year plan for uh and a five-year

Corey 54:53

-year plan was sort of implicit with it like do you think it needs to be done within five years that wasn't part of the bundle they tested but it was a question they asked earlier um Um, but

Corey 55:02

but $5 billion from a sovereign wealth fund, $5 billion reduction, $5 billion tax hike, that to me seems more coincidental than anything else.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

Let's leave this bracket

Corey 55:11

bracket open. It'd be a different 5-5-5.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just partially what I'm trying to say is perhaps if there's two parallel tracks of message testing, so to speak. But let's leave this bracket open for a second and open up the federal bracket, because I want to close both of them at the same time. On the federal side, we are now seeing the prime minister, his ministers out there telegraphing greening of jobs, child care, basic income, guaranteed federal income, housing. These big social programs have been touted and telegraphed in multiple publications. And we're now starting to see what I guess is a political class responding, right? A couple of op-eds today in the last couple of days saying, well, Trudeau needs to be careful about his activist agenda. Here's the opportunity for the conservatives. So we're starting to see some response on this. So same question. With the rules that we just talked about, do you feel like what's happening on the federal side is the government testing their appetite or their ability to actually go big with an activist agenda? And Carter, I'll start with you first on this.

Carter 56:11

Well, there's trial balloons and then there's just

Carter 56:13

just simple foreshadowing. And I think that this is more foreshadowing. This is not a trial balloon necessarily. The liberals are going to do some stuff. stuff um they're going to you don't think

SPEAKER_02 56:26

think this is a test of the degree of runway that they have on some of these things no

Carter 56:31

no not really because we're not seeing it in such a fashion that you can actually get a test of the ideas this is being leaked out is in in a foreshadowed model um and it may sound like we're talking about the exact same thing what's the difference between a leak and a and a trial balloon well

Carter 56:46

well everything you know a trial balloon puts it out into the zeitgeist for for us to establish

Carter 56:50

establish what it looks like. A leak is, this is coming. And

Carter 56:54

And they both happen in a well-constructed cycle.

Carter 57:00

they're different, and they're done at different phases and different stages. I'm seeing this as leaks, or leaks, they're being said. Like, it's not a leak in the traditional way. But these are things that are being communicated because this government is going to do some shit, and they're saying, we're going to do some shit. And they're using COVID as their cover to implement a bunch of stuff.

Carter 57:26

Too much, in my opinion. I think they're all over the place. I think that people are, like, struggling to keep up with everything. But whatever, I'm not in charge. We'll wait and see how this all unfolds. So,

SPEAKER_02 57:37

So, Carter, just to clarify, you think this is fundamentally different than the case we're seeing in Alberta. Analogous in some ways, but fundamentally different. Yeah,

Carter 57:44

Yeah, think of this as step one and step two, right? right? Or maybe even step one and step three. Step one was we put out the trial. Step two is we pulled on it. Step three, we're now going to tell people what we're going to do. And then step four is we start to do what we said we're going to do. But you need all of those previous steps in order to, when you get to doing it, the

Carter 58:06

the full liftoff that you're looking for from your population.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Coy, your thoughts on what you just heard from Carter and whether you agree with that?

Corey 58:13

I 100% agree. And I'm, you know, this is one of those questions where I'm sad you didn't go to me first because i wanted to say the exact same thing um

Corey 58:20

there there is a difference be you know there between a trial balloon and softening the ground right with a trial balloon you still have optionality you are you are going to maybe do something maybe not do something maybe reconstruct it based on the reaction with softening the ground um you are essentially just making it seem less shocking when it occurs because people have had some time to think about it it's not going to to strike them as such a big thing because they've been hearing about it for a couple of weeks beforehand tactically

Corey 58:50

same implementation carter cory or is slightly different it's no i mean when you're softening the ground um

Corey 58:57

um you're a little closer it's it's not necessarily the the reporter who's doing it can be still yeah but they'll probably say things like i hear the government is thinking about doing this right it's no longer their idea it's no longer just floating a concept it's

Corey 59:11

it's rumor is government's going to be doing this stay tuned

Corey 59:14

tuned and that's different stay tuned

Carter 59:15

tuned stay tuned uh you're going to be wanting to watch this space for more information it's it's it is a uh the word foreshadow does work for me better you know like so now it's actually going to happen um you know when you're when you're doing the trial balloon you you can still move either way right like this is not going to happen that was lunacy you know daniel smith that was lunacy never going to do that um but alternatively you know like this is this is where they're going and you can tell the difference um you can definitely tell the difference i can i feel that one of the pieces that needs to be there is this kind of cover when in a trial balloon you'll be looking for the cover that allows the government to walk away from it not seeing a lot of cover out of the out of the liberals right now seeing a lot of this shit it's going to happen. This is going down.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

Corey, let's wrap up both of these examples with the question around, what do you do if you're the opposition in either of these cases? Like, what are some of the rules of responding to trial balloons? Do you? Do you not? Like, you know, even through the conversation we're having, there is a bit of nuance to understanding what is a trial balloon versus what's foreshadowing. So what are some of the general rules you have as to responding to trial balloons? Or do you just wait until this is in the public? How are you kind of navigating that if you're sitting either in Alberta here as the provincial NDP, or if you're the federal conservatives, to your guys's point, hearing some of this ground softening happening by the liberals? What is your strategic value

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

value and take there?

Corey 1:00:47

So let's talk trial balloons first, because it's a little different when we get to the foreshadowing. The same reason the government doesn't want to be tied to the trial balloon, at least not concretely and directly, and this is definitely something the government's doing, is the same reason why smart oppositions don't jump on them either, right? It's almost by definition a new issue that people are reacting to the first time.

Corey 1:01:09

And why would you go out on a limb when you can just see the conversation unfold for a bit? And when somebody comes to you and says, hey, Danielle Smith wrote this comment,

Corey 1:01:19

well, people don't do that for starters. Like one reporter doesn't go and

Corey 1:01:22

say, hey, this other reporter wrote this thing. What do you think of that? That doesn't really happen. And even if Danielle Smith were to say that, you'd say, well, Danielle, that's

Corey 1:01:30

that's interesting. And you'd kind of just, you

Corey 1:01:32

you know, give a non-answer there. You want to actually let this thing unfold to inform your own strategy and response. You don't want to jump on it too quickly and maybe expose

Corey 1:01:42

expose yourself in a way that is not particularly helpful from a strategic or tactical point of view. Now, if it's just something that's going to happen, and the

Corey 1:01:51

the throne speech, I suspect there's still the ability to change components of it, but it feels directionally set, right,

Corey 1:01:58

right, from all of the reporting that's going on here.

Corey 1:02:02

this is where you want to make sure that ground is as hard for them as possible. They're trying to soften it. You're trying to harden it. And this is where you try to raise the stakes for the government. You make it more complicated for the government.

Corey 1:02:14

And depending on the issue, there's a lot of ways that can be done. And I think this federal throne speech is kind of the perfect illustrative

Corey 1:02:22

If you are the NDP, you're saying more, more, more. No, this will not be sufficient unless there's more. If you are the conservatives, you are saying this

Corey 1:02:30

this is nuts. What are we doing here? here and and by the way this

Corey 1:02:35

this is a really quite a risky strategy for the liberals here to go out on this big remaking of society at a time where we are all so bloody fatigued do

Corey 1:02:44

do we want something new or do we just want to go back to normal like that to me if that's the ballot question i think the liberals could be in an awful lot of trouble uh come a fall election and um and you know this is pretty bold but if you're the conservatives you're starting to seed conversations like that that out there that like just as they're trying to soften you're trying to harden carter

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

carter same question to you cory that was a fantastic answer uh what are the rules for responding to trial balloons and and and foreshadowing what uh what would you add to what you heard cory say well

Carter 1:03:14

well i think that foreshadowing you've got to start stepping your game up um you know you've really got to dig in and say uh this is bad or this isn't far enough or whatever whatever your messaging is is going to be trial balloons. Listen, you know, just listen. Political parties.

Carter 1:03:34

don't like ideological political parties. I don't like ideological political parties that just say this is there's only one way for us to to do this particular job and we're going to do it this way. I

Carter 1:03:46

I like more pragmatic political parties that look at it and say, oh,

Carter 1:03:50

well, the party, you know, the general population is prepared to do this. Well,

Carter 1:03:53

Well, if the general population is finally prepared to accept a pst it

Carter 1:03:57

doesn't matter if you're conservative or if you're ndp or not like getting the pst isn't essential to

Carter 1:04:03

to alberta's success so in that case i think that you have to um just listen see where see where everything's moving and and allow that movement to happen and then when it's time then you can oppose or support uh as you as you deem required required um one of the things i think opposition parties do too much is just oppose oppose oppose oppose you know what sometimes you can support too uh or say it's not far enough um but there you go cory

Corey 1:04:34

cory finishes off here well

Corey 1:04:36

well unlike steven i like principled political parties i'm not suggesting

Carter 1:04:40

suggesting they should change their views well

Corey 1:04:42

based on trial balloons but look

Corey 1:04:45

look you can always choose your volume and so if a trial balloon comes out and it's an issue that is just not landing with people People talk about something else in your message box, right? Go somewhere else. Don't spend a lot of time on it. It's not just about what you say. It's how much you say it and where you say it. And this is something that I think political parties have a fair bit of sophistication about. And God help me, by the end of my life, we'll make sure that voters have sophistication on that too.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

Okay, let's move it on to our last segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Guys, are you ready?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Carter, I'm going to you first, because I know you're going to have the most vibrant answer on this, or at least I suspect. On a scale of 1 to 10, what did you make of Jason Kenney? What I'm assuming was a forced retirement for his friend Paul Bunner, his speechwriter who got into a lot of hot water earlier this summer for his past comments. Retirement was the exit ramp that they decided to take, as you say, as a party. 1 to 10, what do you think of that political strategy? I

Carter 1:05:46

I was fascinated by it. I think that Mr. Bunner is probably looking for a severance package somewhere along the way. I'm not sure you get the same package when you retire. And I'm not sure that he would have been fully vested into a pension. So this would be a fairly significant financial step for him. But it was a way that Jason Kenney got to ease out a staff member that was causing him nothing but pain. You know, unfortunately, they just slide another one right in. So, you know, the problem is that they just keep putting people like this into positions of power. So one moves out, another one's moved in. And the NDP and the opposition will find another whipping boy here pretty soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

Corey, same question to you. What do you make of the political strategy there by Kenney and his government on what I assume was a forced retirement?

Corey 1:06:43

There's two ways to look at the issue. One of them is from the public point of view. And on that, it's a bit of a fail, right? Because you got the abuse and you've still lost the staff person. You know, you took for multiple months kind of the attacks that you have a racist speechwriter, quote unquote racist speechwriter there, right? And, you know, that hurts. But there is also the staff management and the team element of this, which I think are very easy to discount from the outside. And I didn't know he was almost 65, and that might have changed even my thinking about it when we talked about it a couple of months ago. But you can easily see either him or his chief of staff or somebody saying like, we can't fire Paul. He's three months to retirement age. That would just be so brutal. Can't we let him leave with a little bit of dignity? Doesn't he deserve – I mean, he's been here. He's been a trooper, whatever it is. Like, these are people you work with every day. And so you got to keep in mind, it's not just the question of, should

Corey 1:07:41

should I do this? But it's if I do this, what the hell is everybody else going to think around here, too? It's not just about Paul Bunner's feelings. It's, it's, oh, my God, that was, that was cold. You know, he let him go for a bunch of things he knew about. And he was only three months to retirement, right? Like, it's like this.

Corey 1:07:58

It's like if Murtaugh had the shittiest boss in the world in Lethal Weapon, right? right? Also in Dave.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Dave. You've got to consider those. Also in Dave.

Corey 1:08:07

So I get it, I guess is what I'm going to say. But obviously, from a public point of view, not a win.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Corey, sticking with you, over under on seven, over under on seven on a scale, on hilarity of over under on seven on hilarity, the Trump mega flotilla in Texas. So if you haven't heard of this, this was the parade of boats where I'd say the vast majority of them for some reason whatsoever started to sink. I believe the vast majority.

Corey 1:08:42

What I do love about it is over. Let

Corey 1:08:44

Let me just say over.

Corey 1:08:50

funny. What really makes it over what makes it over to me is the reactions that we saw from the tinfoil hat brigade after. like this was a terrorist act i saw yeah somebody got rid of your like uh your uh ski boat you know the al-qaeda was just sitting in the water just waiting to poke a hole in your ski boat to take it down like all of those other boats got by fine but the terrorists took you like none of it made sense it was the perfect encapsulation of the absurdity of the moment we're in really

Corey 1:09:21

really funny and just like just just kills me some of the visuals there carter

SPEAKER_02 1:09:26

carter same question to you i

Carter 1:09:27

i just was so happy i i i don't i

Carter 1:09:32

don't know if i've ever seen anything so good go so wrong i mean i guess now we just have to wait for the golf carts to catch fire like it's just going to be it's just one thing after another um nothing's going right for the mega uh mega crew and uh i was delighted it's just absolutely delighted carter

SPEAKER_02 1:09:54

carter i'm going to stick with you on this and and I'm going to stick with Trump as the subject matter of discussion. Are you in or out on the Trump strategy where we heard recently he's pulling back a lot of his TV buy? Well, now we've learned where he's invested the majority of it, YouTube. Are you in or out on their strategy to invest a lot of this money on YouTube? They're actually outspending Joe Biden two to one on YouTube. They've been outspending him on Facebook, but they expect to outspend him three to one, if not four to one, according to some of the recent tracking that we're seeing from the digital analytics. What do you think of this? In or out on that strategy for the Trump campaign?

Carter 1:10:30

I'm very in, sadly. The challenge that I have is, and we've had this for a very long time, in Canada, we don't have a lot of money in politics. So years ago, we started to use digital because we couldn't afford television. And it's more effective. It allows us to target better. It allows us to get direct feedback. It allows us to optimize for all kinds of different inputs. Um, that was

Carter 1:10:57

was what Trump understood. The Trump campaign understood more, uh, and we're watching them now say, well, we have limited dollars. Should we be putting, uh, our, our spend into advertising when my mother's learned how to use the DVR and skip over every commercial in her daily program? I'm not sure. And I'm not saying which one it is, but it's, it's horrible. And she watches it every day and she skips over the commercials every day. But when she's figured out how to skip over the commercials, then everybody's figured out how to skip over commercials. That's just where we are in today's broadcast world. Live sports, some news programming, live events. Those are the things that are getting the eyeballs that people don't skip. But I'm pretty sure that I've seen Corey skip the first 20 minutes of a basketball game so

Carter 1:11:49

so he can catch up during the commercials. commercials uh that seems to be important to him i don't understand it because he's just watching the wizards um but uh was watching sorry my raptors oh yeah i can't i forgot anyways

Carter 1:12:04

anyways off to you guys cory

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

cory same question for you in or out on the trump strategy to uh divert resources to youtube uh

Corey 1:12:12

uh i'm in i think in general we've talked about the waiting in the united states and how i I think it's not nearly as digital as is optimal. Necessity is the mother of invention. And the Trump campaign, for all of its faults, has a phenomenal digital campaign. And I'm sure they were looking at its efficacy versus the efficacy of their television ads and print ads and all of the other ads a campaign has and says, screw

Corey 1:12:34

screw it, in for a penny, in for a pound. This is in many ways, it's like in

Corey 1:12:38

in World War II when

Corey 1:12:41

when somebody realized carriers were better than battleships. And

Corey 1:12:45

I worry for the Democrats that they're going to find out that carriers are fucking better than battleships. And this campaign still got a bit of time left. And Donald Trump knows how to do digital.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:56

I'm just looking back on our 2019 election here in Canada, and I feel like there were some significant limitations that didn't allow Google to participate here in Canada for that last federal election. So there is there's like that strategic delta that, Carter, you were talking about, about digital in Canada around some of the regulations, too. I want to leave it on this. And, Corey, I'm going to start with you over under on four. Or there's an update in Alberta's inquiry commissioner regarding our foreign funding against Alberta, against the lifeblood of our province. It now turns out that after getting an extension on timeline, after getting a change in scope, and after getting another million bucks, Steve Allen has yet to decide as to the process of inquiry for his work for whether Alberta is being targeted by eco-terrorist organizations and such. What are your thoughts over, under, on four regarding the damage this does to the Kennedy government?

Corey 1:13:53

Oh, damage. I don't know. I'll say over, but only ever so slightly because I'm not sure how many people are paying attention. Yeah, please. There's a lot to unpack here. I hate handing in things late. It happens all the time in communications. You're waiting for something that doesn't occur. Because the minute it's late, the expectations get higher, right? It's no longer, hey, here's the comms plan. It's here's the world's greatest comms plan is the expectation there. And so I just – that's just sort of human nature. If you ask for an extension, it better be pretty good when you get it because then the understanding is you've had the time to do it right. There is no indication that this is either going to be timely or competently done at this point because they haven't even started is what we've learned here. And this is just a dumpster fire. And every time they extend it, it becomes more of one. Now, so much of this was actually – like the actual inquiry was based on the work of somebody in BC who I will not call a journalist named Vivian Krauss who came up with all of these connections between these large US foundations and environmental activity in Canada. Well, fucking newsflash. Environmentalists spend money on protecting the environment worldwide, right? Right. But, you know, Vivian Krause's theory is that this is a concerted effort by the like the Hewlett's and the Packard's because they've got oil in California still and they're trying to shut down Canadian oil for the benefit of American oil.

Corey 1:15:19

It's nonsense. It's total nonsense. But this inquiry was in no small part based on this. The other thing that happened today that I feel is somewhat related to this is the Minister of Energy in Alberta actually had to go on Twitter and say this rumor that Vivian Krause just put out about who was doing well cleanup in Alberta because there was a suggestion it was SNC-Lavalin is false. So, like, there's just so much drama and poetry in all of this. I'm going to let Stephen take it from there because he's going to do a better job. I

Carter 1:15:48

I don't know that I can. I mean, you've got Vivian

Carter 1:15:51

Vivian Krause being slapped down by Sonya Savage, our Minister of Energy, on one of her crazy ideas, but not on the other. You're exactly right. Environmentalists spend money on the environment. The United States has some of the most charitable giving in the world. Therefore, they spend much of their money around the world. They have tremendous influence worldwide with their charities. It is not unexpected that you would see money from the United States in Canada for

Carter 1:16:24

for whatever they consider to be important.

Carter 1:16:27

Here we go. So

Carter 1:16:28

So this is an inquiry that was started badly because the premise of the inquiry was wrong. It needed an extension in the middle, plus an extra million bucks. I mean, Vivian Krause, as I believe I said on this podcast once before, did all of this work from her dining room table. able uh what is taking steve allen so long why is he unable to put forward a decent report and why is he not able to give in a court document this isn't just him saying on twitter well i'm not going to answer the question right now this is a court document being unable to answer the question of how we're going to let people that are like the organizations named in the report

Carter 1:17:10

i don't know how they're going to respond to it i don't know how they're going to be involved in it this is a farce it's a kangaroo court and if kenny wants

Carter 1:17:19

wants to save himself the pain he should just shut it down or wait until like december 23rd release it on december 23rd that feels like about the right date it should get the attention it deserves cory

Corey 1:17:33

yeah jason kenny's got to watch out because right now this looks like an inquiry that was born ugly raised badly and looking like a failure in adulthood.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:43

Nicely done, Corey. Let's end it with our listener question for the week. Our listener question coming to us from PB&J1983. Thank you for your five-star review and your question. The question is, as such, do you feel the conservatives, federal conservatives, that is, are missing either willfully or otherwise important context when they referred to the last federal election as missing an empty net? And what implications or impacts do you think that mindset might have going forward? So we now have a new leader. You recall that comment, missing an empty net was a Peter McKay line when he criticized Andrew Scheer, saying all he had to do was just score. Of course, irony is that Peter McKay had an empty net in his leadership race and loses that. But the question is really about what mindset do you think that that could have or what impact that could have if that's the current conservative mindset heading into the next federal election, whenever that may be. Carter, maybe I'll start with you.

Carter 1:18:34

Well, I think that, first of all, elections aren't empty nets. No one ever pulls the goalie. You know, there are two sides and they are going to, well, there are more than two sides. There's, you know, multiple parties. Each one's fighting for every inch of opportunity, every seat. There's 338 different ridings where you've got a different campaign being undertaken with all kinds of different pressures. It looked like an empty net if you're in Alberta. But, you know, you're running a, we're running campaigns from across the country. This was not an empty net for the Conservatives by any stretch of the imagination. And by putting that kind of pressure on it, I mean, is

Carter 1:19:13

is the next election going to be an empty net? Like, do you have to win

Carter 1:19:17

win elections in order to be successful? There is no question. But how you lose also should say a lot about the party. And this particular party in that election, was the failure entirely the Conservatives Or was there some opportunism from the Liberals? And I think that for the most part, it was just another Canadian election. And to put this empty net modifier on it is just – it's missing the entire context of the election.

Corey 1:19:52

Parties can't buy their own press. They can't start believing the caricatures they peddle. This notion that Trudeau is an empty suit, utterly incapable, and should have lost that election 10 days out of 10 is not real, right? He is a talented politician. He has a significant amount of charisma, certainly compared to Andrew Scheer. I mean, it wasn't an empty net. There were certainly a number of problems that the liberals had that were unique to that particular moment that made it seem like how in the world does

Corey 1:20:22

does this guy win, right? Right. And of course, the blackface controversy is first and foremost on that list. It's not even a controversy. I mean, everybody agrees it was effing terrible.

Corey 1:20:35

And so I can understand how people say, like, what, how, what the hell happened there? But I don't actually believe the conservatives have fallen into this notion that this is just a gimme. I don't think they think that. Certainly the polls right now don't imply that. If anything, they imply it the other way, that Trudeau is going to coast to a re-election here. And as

Corey 1:20:56

as you said at the top, but it's definitely worth reminding, the

Corey 1:21:00

the guy who said that thought

Corey 1:21:02

thought he had a clear run and he lost. Like that was a McKay line and McKay lost. And I don't think that O'Toole is suffering from the same delusions. We

SPEAKER_02 1:21:11

We will leave it there, PB&J83. Thank you for your question. And that's a wrap on Episode 820 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belchie. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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