Episode 821: Paper cut on a gangrene limb

SPEAKER_01 0:01

This is a strategist episode 821. My name is Zain Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is happening?

Corey 0:10

It's been a good day, Zain. I got a lot done. I got an awful lot done today. I got locked out of my garage early on.

Corey 0:16

Got into my garage, learned to open a door with a credit card.

Corey 0:19

So problem solved and learned a valuable life skill.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Money solves all problems,

Corey 0:27

Yeah, I used my credit card to call a locksmith, let me in.

Corey 0:32

No, I mean, look, in

SPEAKER_01 0:33

general. I don't anticipate that's not what you meant.

Corey 0:35

No, since I know how to break into doors and can now access my bolt cutters again, I'm way better set for the apocalypse than I was at 9 a.m., so I feel really good. I feel ready to roll on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Look at that. Carter, what's going on with you?

Carter 0:49

I acquired no skills that will help me in the apocalypse, so I'm pretty upset about it. I

Carter 0:54

thought that I'd be okay but I guess I'm going to be left behind by Corey as always you know left behind I was outside again today though so you know that was good you

Carter 1:04

you guys should try that really you should try outside this

Corey 1:07

this is just really like stale content at this point it

SPEAKER_01 1:10

it does yeah Carter I don't have anything to

Carter 1:12

break into bring some

SPEAKER_01 1:13

some bring some better takes like seriously I watched Mulan and it turns out I was supposed to boycott that in solidarity with my Muslim brethren So, I don't know if I can take that back. I certainly won't get the two hours back, but it turns out I hate Muslims now, which

Corey 1:31

is... Well, I'm guessing you didn't actually pay the $30 for it. So, you know, it was in many ways an act of protest by you.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah. Watching it for free is fine. And no comment regarding if I paid the $30. No

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Also, another major development of the week, as listeners of this show, frequent listeners will recall, Stephen Carter last week made a excellent prediction that Max Fawcett did not have the reach on social media to really justify any trial ballooning. How about reach enough to get Ryan Reynolds to respond, Stephen? How was that? Listen,

Carter 2:07

Listen, he was lifted up by Ryan Reynolds. That's all it was. Max was just lifted. i think that they go back i think they're old friends max heard the podcast and he called his buddy and said uh lift me up lift me up ryan and

Carter 2:22

and how does that make your points

SPEAKER_01 2:24

when yeah i was gonna say like i've reached but it's able to

Corey 2:26

to call yeah right call up ryan reynolds and get him to tweet whatever he wants like that okay

Carter 2:32

okay i may have undermined my own point damn

SPEAKER_01 2:35

damn it yeah okay great well i hopefully that's not a side of things to come after a hot start steven that's Let's get we start

SPEAKER_01 2:44

at this. OK, let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, we're bouncing off of this motherfucker. Guys, the Kielberger brothers, they're leaving the the the final chapter before the final chapter has emerged. Let's talk about we for a bit, because I want to talk about the fact that that one of the largest charities in the country is now leaving Canada. But first, let's start here. Corey, does their departure from Canada change anything as it relates to the investigation or its trajectory? What do you think?

Corey 3:22

I've been wondering about this myself. I don't really know, because in some ways, the

Corey 3:27

fact that they went under as a result of this makes everybody seem a little bit guiltier. And that's not to say they are, but it kind of creates this error of, well, something was wrong. They went out of business as a result of all of this. But on the other hand, it also means that there's no we to be a poster child for malfeasance going forward. So I could go either way. What I will say is they left as weird as they lived, putting a full-page ad to announce that they were done. I've never seen anything like that before. Talk about a strange way to burn your bankroll on the way out the door.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, I do want to get into a discussion of analyzing and strategizing their communications tactics, both from the announcement to the interview to the full page release. But Carter, I'm going to go with the same question that I asked Corey. What do you think in terms of the trajectory of this investigation? Does their departure from Canada change that in your mind?

Carter 4:25

I was shocked. I mean, I think that we had provided, you know, oodles

Carter 4:31

oodles of advice that was ignored. And it almost felt like you have an organization that wants to do a billion dollars worth of charitable work in the country. And then when it doesn't get the billion dollars, it just folds up its tent and goes home. like to me it just it doesn't feel like they were i'm

Carter 4:51

i'm going to say this a true charity right like a true charity uh wants to help and wants to you know has defined a reason uh to help um and these guys you know the reason to help didn't go away the reason why the wee charity uh existed isn't over um so it just struck struck me as weird uh that they would just quickly bail um it made me wonder if some of the investigative journalism that had been done into We that I kind of casually dismissed maybe had some more truth to it than perhaps I was willing to believe.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Carter, you know, you say that tongue-in-cheek that they didn't take our advice, and you were surprised about that, that they didn't take our advice buried at the 37-minute mark of a podcast. But were you genuinely actually surprised that this was their move? I just want to make sure I get that clear, that they actually took their ball and went home versus a paring down or a refocusing, et cetera. And what does that kind of say to you? Like, give me a bit of conjecture. What does it perhaps say to you that they decided on their own terms to perhaps shock the system and get out?

Carter 6:03

Well, why do businesses go out of business? I mean, and let us move the idea that they're a charity aside just for a moment, because charities are ultimately just businesses that don't

SPEAKER_01 6:12

don't pay tax. Kind of like how

SPEAKER_01 6:14

they had for a while, but with the fact that they're a charity.

Carter 6:17

But they're a business, right? And so businesses are formed to serve a need in the community, and people make money at them, and that's how they pay their own bills, right? So most businesses don't go under just on a whim. Most businesses disappear because the founders can't keep it going any longer. There's all kinds of, you know, there's financial pressures, there's a loss in revenue.

Carter 6:46

That doesn't appear to be the case with WE, right? WE is not an insolvent charity. It just decided that it couldn't handle the unknown, frankly, reputation damage that has been brought upon it through trying to help at COVID. And I still don't think that it necessarily had to be a huge reputation damage. I do think that they made it worse at almost every step. So, yes, I am surprised because most of the time, not a lot of charities go out of business. Most charities are handed down generation to generation and they continue on or they, you know, they fold up when the last dollar has been handed out the door. This is not this is

Carter 7:25

is not the regular trajectory for a charity to go out in a blaze of glory, nor is it a regular trajectory for a business. Oh, we didn't get the one billion dollar contract. We're out of here. that's generally speaking not how how uh

Carter 7:40

things unfold in the world of business so i i am surprised i'm surprised by the action um

Carter 7:47

i'm surprised by the full page ad i'm surprised by the interviews i'm surprised by basically everything that they've done over the last uh two or three months we'll

SPEAKER_01 7:56

we'll park your surprise on their tactics for a second cory same question to you surprised that they that they left in one fell swoop uh or did you think of uh of this i mean we won't know know the actual reasons, but I just want to kind of get your gun instinct or analysis per se on that.

Corey 8:11

Well, look, I'll say this. In many ways, I think this was the smart move.

Corey 8:17

And maybe I'm a little bit surprised that they didn't just hemorrhage to death, but said, okay, no, this ain't happening. We're trending the wrong way on donors. COVID's already put us in a bad place. Rather than carrying, I

Corey 8:27

I think they have, what, 120 staff for the next couple of months to try to make a go of it when we know we cannot make a go of it, especially as this issue continues. continues let's let's cut let's just go let's put it into a bunch of endowments let's continue the work where it makes sense let's continue work in jurisdictions where we haven't become a political football and let's bounce let's just get out of here now because it's not going to get any better and it takes it takes a lot it takes a lot to say that when you've built it up from scratch right i don't see this as pick up your ball and go home i actually see this as um

Corey 9:00

as surprisingly mature for a group of or for two brothers who have not shown a ton of maturity throughout this entire thing when you think about their time at the finance committee you know how they tried to act so schmoozy and you think even about some of the decisions in the background that led to this but ultimately if whatever

Corey 9:17

must be done eventually must be done immediately is an adage in business that more people should follow and they made the calculation that we was not going to work anymore and so they took the money they put it towards good And

Corey 9:30

And so if I'm surprised, it's that they have not shown that kind of acumen

Corey 9:35

acumen throughout their dealings and that they did it so quickly and so smartly is pretty impressive. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Corey, you know, on that point regarding their message, one of the elements that they highlighted in their release as to their departure was that they just weren't tooled or prepared for the fact that they were to become this proverbial political football. Are you buying that, that a group so sophisticated in terms of its dealings with officials who've courted government contracts in the past didn't necessarily have the tools or the infrastructure or the resources, bandwidth, etc., whatever is required to kind of deal with a fallout in the political world?

Corey 10:14

that that's incredibly self-aware. They acted, they thought that they had the tools to deal with this. That's how you saw them take the stances they did prior to this moment, right? But we were the first to jump on them and say, what the hell are they doing here? Like, this is not particularly savvy. And they may even have realized post facto that

Corey 10:35

that their actions dealing with the cabinet and dealing with Mornozov as the PMO, whoever it was, right, right, were

Corey 10:44

And they were very dumb with the benefit of hindsight. And probably a more, a

Corey 10:48

a droid operator in the moment would have realized that the risk it exposed them to was too big. So, well, I can't really knock them for being so smart. Now, the question is, do they really believe those words? Or was this just a nice way to wrap it up? And that to me is less clear. They may have thought that they were unfairly targeted, that this was just bullshit. it uh it wasn't going to work for them so it was time to leave now to regroup and think about their next moves as individuals i mean now not as well uh not as a charity not as we the charity but um

Corey 11:21

yeah i mean they

Corey 11:23

they they didn't have the chops for this so they made the right move you

SPEAKER_01 11:27

you know i think it was you cory that said on a previous episode uh when we were analyzing their testimony that getting criticized for being schmoozy with government while at your testimony trying to to be schmoozy with the people questioning you makes the point right and and it was exactly you know they're they're sort of friendly like uh like we're just pals sort of approach i

Corey 11:47

i know your kids i know your kids too we're all

SPEAKER_01 11:50

remember when you talked to us at our thing last time and you're from a different party so like that helps make our case i think i remember you saying that that actually was was the opposite which is to say that they're too familiar with with some of the players uh regardless of this color of their jersey that that those players wore in the political arena. Carter, maybe this kind of is the transition then to talk about some of the tactics on the way out. Because I think while we can speculate about the strategy of why they left, we can certainly start strategizing about their communications exit. And let's first analyze before we strategize, which is to say, there's two big prongs to it, or three, I should say. A release, a two-on-one interview with Lisa Laflamme, an exclusive, and then a Globe and Mail ad that said, we're shutting down doors, is turning it into a bit of an endowment for some future work.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Of those suite of tactics, give me your analysis. What did you think of those as the tools and perhaps the message that kind of came with those tactics as well?

Carter 12:48

Well, as you know, Zane, and I've said this before, I'm very old. So I need to ask you, you're young, right?

Carter 12:55

Yeah, yeah, let's go with it. You know, the We Charity was targeted towards young people?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I believe so, yes. Yeah.

Carter 13:02

Yeah. Do any of those communication tactics reach young people?

Carter 13:06

yeah no not one of those communication tactics is actually targeted towards the people that they were serving or working with i'm pretty sure that the globe and mail is a partner of we charities um i would be willing to bet that they were just using up their inventory of uh donated ads uh when they put their their ad in

Carter 13:26

in in the globe mail um i believe ctv is owned by the same parent company uh as the globe mail am i right on that or am i wrong uh but they also Also, I could be a corporate partner.

Carter 13:38

I'd be willing to bet a nickel. You know, so what they did is they went to their corporate partners and said, let us explain what we're doing on your airwaves

Carter 13:47

airwaves and on your pages. And they just exited on that. You know, like it was not designed to actually communicate to the people they said they were going to serve. And this is probably the biggest criticism of the We Charity. Did it actually exist for the people that it was serving or did it more exist for the the kielburgers and there's a case to be made of the latter especially on the exit if all of your communication tactics are

Carter 14:13

are targeted towards an audience that isn't your primary audience then i have to ask what the hell's the point were you even in it for the younger population at all i mean i saw some tweets online you know online about how sad people are going to be that the the WE events are over. But realistically,

Carter 14:31

realistically, this didn't feel like it's a significant loss the way that you would see the Cancer Society or any number of large, significant charities that do really good work within our communities.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Carter, I'm going to come to you in a bit about what you would have suggested, but you make a very interesting point, right? To go through Lisa Laflamme to talk about the loss that this meant for youth rather than going directly to the youth on a platform that they would be on and saying here's what the loss is and here's why we're sorry it's two very different things so i think it's a very astute point cory same thing same thing to you give me an analysis of the suite of tactics that they used on their way out and uh kind of what's your take well

Corey 15:14

they wanted to write their own eulogy and they wanted it to be read by people who matter for their future and you know carter's point about maybe those ads were donated is a is a really good one they may may have had a credit that they wanted to burn through and when are you going to use it if not at the very end um ctv by the way is not owned uh by the same company as owns globe and mail anymore uh that got reversed

Corey 15:35

reversed about 10 years ago but it was true at one point and there

Carter 15:38

there are still back when i was young yeah that's

Corey 15:41

that's well as you've noted you're very old so very

Corey 15:47

uh the uh the tactics are um are not towards a but you got to keep in mind one thing like well well young canadians and youth may have been an audience for things like we day the overall we charity uh it had you know its target markets were corporations the c-suite people who were were donating to them they were doing an awful lot of work in africa uh across uh asia as well at certain points although i think they had kind of narrowed down to africa in a large part that my point being i

Corey 16:20

don't think that they needed to let the youths know that they were rolling up they needed um they needed bay street to know and so the globe and mail is not a crazy choice for that but um but on on top of that just to be deeply cynical if i'm the kielbergers if i'm anyone involved with the we charity i don't want my demise frankly even if i'm just a line employee at we i think if i am let's just say that i'm kielberger and i am totally altruistic on my way out the door if i am not going out in such a way that i can't even afford to do it the fact that he can try to frame the demise of we not being about malfeasance is doing a good for the people who work there and the people who are involved in the we charity so i i mean it's not a crazy easy thing that he would do this now the cynical part of me says that

Corey 17:07

was probably a side effect the benefit was probably as much as anything to the people who ran we that

Corey 17:11

they were able to frame

Corey 17:12

frame their own exit so to speak uh in a way that you can only really do with owned media because the newspapers are going to write what the newspapers are going to write carter

SPEAKER_01 17:20

carter you get a phone call from the keelburger brothers uh early last week and they say listen this is what we have in the hopper we're going to do a news release we're going to do an interview with lisa laflamme we're going to do the Globe and Mail thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

We just want to get a gut check if that's the right thing. We heard you gave out some free advice on a podcast. We don't know how to use a podcast. The only one we listen to is with Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. We hear it's great. So what do we do, Carter? What would you suggest that we do? What would your suggestion have been to them?

Carter 17:50

I think I would have suggested that they do a one last event, you know, a virtual event to bring together all the people across Canada in some fashion that have been with them in the past. um, replay highlights, put together highlight packages, uh, do something that says, look at all the things that we've done together. We're folding up the, we charity, but the you charity continues the work that you do in our community will go on for decades. Um, this is, you know, we were, we were very pleased to play a small role in the start of you and

Carter 18:25

and that, Oh, I'm loving in this we started you um and

Carter 18:29

and and i think that if you did that are you just making this up on the spot yeah

SPEAKER_01 18:34

that's very impressive like

Carter 18:36

like that would be an amazing exit right like we started you off you go and now you're going to make it your difference in the world and we'll be proud of you and everything that you do oh

Carter 18:46

oh i'm loving that oh

Carter 18:47

oh yeah let's do it yes

SPEAKER_01 18:49

yes every once in a while steven you hit a home run i actually really like that now cory please rip it apart

SPEAKER_01 18:56

tell me what i'm missing and why it's so shitty well

Corey 19:02

he started talking about doing an event i'm like yeah that's

SPEAKER_01 19:04

that's that was my reaction too yeah no one would show up who wants to tie their boat to this shit yeah

Corey 19:09

yeah but like exactly but i'll tell you that's that's what he's done let me do kind of a yes and to that yeah please it's not necessarily where i would have gotten to but now Now that he's pitched it, I'm like, hmm,

Corey 19:21

all right. Well, that's interesting. They did – as part of their wrap-up, they said, I believe, that they were going to make all of their tools digitally available for free on the internet, on the tubes.

Corey 19:34

Like you could have made that a bigger deal then. You could say, OK, well, over

Corey 19:40

Here you go. We are making all of this available. It's open source. We want you to take it and grow it and flourish a

Corey 19:45

a thousand ways. We'll use Carter's language. which it's a lot nicer, but it could have been an opportunity to end

Corey 19:54

end on a deeply altruistic note and say the work never ends. You know, it's the old Ted Kennedy, the dream never dies speech.

Corey 20:04

And, you know, they didn't kill a woman in Chappaquiddick, so they can hold their heads a little higher than he could.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

That, of course, I remember that because there was also a plot twist in Dave dave that yeah

Carter 20:18

yeah well i think that that's where he got

SPEAKER_01 20:20

got that yeah that's true that's where that's where kennedy got it from yeah yeah yeah the original version of dave oh man that was such very few people know

Corey 20:27

know dave was a remake yeah

Corey 20:30

it was a capra film uh

SPEAKER_01 20:31

uh carter hold on to both of you but i'll start with you carter would you have would you have thumbs up thumbs down their initial tranche strategies would you have said yes to the release the interview and the ad i

Carter 20:43

i mean i think you're going to include them i think you're you know i i if if we go with my hypothesis that that's donated ad space in the global mail why not use it if you're paying for it you're just pissing money down the drain uh the interview with lisa laflamme was interesting like why choose that outlet um you know like who are you again who are you trying to speak to right like uh pull

Carter 21:05

pull together i mean there there might have been different options um i would have loved to have written them down on a whiteboard and tried to figure out which ones were better. But those would have only been a piece of it. I just feel like it missed the mark because everything was targeted towards their next lives, and nothing was targeted towards the next lives of the people that they were supposed to serve.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Hold on to that thought for a second, Carter. I like that one. Corey, same question to you. Would you have greenlit their existing tranche strategies?

Corey 21:35

I mean, it really depends. What are your goals? What are your commitments? What are you actually guilty of? What are you and everybody at WeDoing next? And that will drive your strategy going forward obviously you are a charity and you need to act in a charitable fashion but within that bandwidth there's there's an awful lot of room so i you know it really really depends a communication strategy we pick them apart from the outside all of the time but but this one i have less sense of their motivations and what's going on in the background to truly tell you i don't think that anything they did was guaranteed dumb nor do i think anything they did was guaranteed smart it really depends on on those things i was just talking about carter jumping well

Carter 22:16

well i just something that cory said earlier has just been gnawing at me and that's the idea that they were trying to hide you know like they were trying to just have it come out on the on the high note that they were trying to make it look like there was no wrongdoing um i think if anything this strategy made it look like there was more wrongdoing um

Carter 22:32

um you know the immediate shutdown uh we aren't able to manage this i mean it just

Carter 22:38

just feels like we're

Carter 22:40

we're getting the hell out of the way of this because there's there are other things and if we just shut it down uh then we don't have to deal with those other things and so i think that you know if i was advising them if there was no wrongdoing i'd say you can't just shut the doors it's gonna the where

Carter 22:55

where there's smoke there's fire and you just lit off a gigantic smoke bomb smoke bomb you know what

SPEAKER_01 22:59

what do you think of that yeah well

Corey 23:01

well i think if there's an enormous fucking fire then a giant smoke bomb looks pretty good so

Carter 23:06

so i agree with you on that yeah if there's if they did something wrong but they're not hiding fighting anything by doing this action. They're just, what they're doing is making it so that the impact is going to be less. I mean, arguably, they did break the lobbying laws, and those laws have impact. So, you

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Carter, you know, as an extension to the conversation they have with you on the phone, they're also asking you, okay, so you've, you know, given this advice to do the You Charity. We love it. We're not going to listen, but we love it. Give us some advice for what our future trajectory looks like. And so part strategy, part sort of hypothesizing, what do you think happens to the Kielberger brothers as it relates to their foray into Canadian life? Do you think they have to take a cooling off period? Would you advise that before they ever reenter? Does it have to be another banner? Does it have to be another area of interest? And it does not have to be philanthropy? I'm kind of curious to get your sense as to if those questions are asked, what you would think about as a comms and a strategist?

Carter 24:06

Well, let's go back to Corey's an earlier point that said that the audience for these tactics were Bay Street. Let's accept that as the primary audience for this hypothetical that you're asking me. Because if their audience was Bay Street, as Corey has theorized, then they're aiming for something in Bay Street. I mean, these two guys seem to be real strong dealmakers. They seem to be people who want to put things together and make things happen. So why wouldn't they go to Bay Street and and try their luck in some sort of deals. Apparently, they're big in real estate. So why wouldn't they?

Carter 24:46

Why wouldn't they go give their hands, you know, give that a shot? And I don't think that they come back as a charity. I think that, you know, if you're going to come back, come back as a corporation without all of the constraints that the charitable organization has,

Carter 25:03

and put together large deals And, you know, they've been successful to this point. There's nothing that indicates that they're not going to be successful moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Corey, same question to you. Advice for their future. What would you have said to them if they asked you?

Corey 25:20

Well, it's not like they're going to move right out of this particular moment and become the chief sustainability officer or, you know, something like that at some random corporation in downtown Toronto. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me. So there does need to be that inter, you

Corey 25:33

you know, interstitial period where they are perhaps, don't forget, we are still operating in the UK, in the United States, me to we, their corporate side is still there, although I question how long that's going to look appealing in Canada. and um and and maybe you've got to focus in on those things there and you've got to do a bit of a rinse and repeat so maybe it's a question of going and um

Corey 25:57

um with all of that money becoming a bit more on the you know there's an endowment now like let's see how that money gets sent or spent and i actually don't know how they set that up but let's let's get involved in being charitable out there let's build some goodwill let's go to africa and let's work on some of those projects let's let's kind of do that redemptive uh celebrity arc that steven's always talking about here where you can say okay i'm down i lost everything we told them to do a few weeks ago a few months ago at this point i think it's still good advice it's yeah

Corey 26:28

i lost focus on what really matters i i went to africa i reminded myself of like you got to keep in mind like craig kilberger was a kid like barely a teenager i think when he first went to india to look at some of these projects i

Corey 26:42

i went back and i reconnected with my roots i got wrapped up in the infrastructure i can't believe i said things like we think of ourselves as a you know as like an enterprise first or whatever it was there like he can he can remind people of what made him so special in the first place get back to that charity work uh really be on the ground doing those things and then come back in a bit and

Corey 27:05

and still be relevant and with with a bit of a cooling off depending on how this shakes out just say yeah

Corey 27:12

yeah i lost my way i lost my way when i thought the way way to do good was to, to just try to back channel the Canadian government to get a project for Canadian students like that. I still think that was a good project. But I lost my way. Like there is an arc there that is available to I

SPEAKER_01 27:27

like it. Carter, I want to do a very quick rapid fire on the political side of this with the liberals and the conservatives. If you're the liberals right now, you're being blamed for the exit of this charity that your political scandal and drama drove them out. Are you saying anything? Are you strategizing? Are you keeping shut? What are you trying to do for the Liberals right now?

Carter 27:47

Well, I think that, you know, the world's biggest channel changers

Carter 27:50

changers coming in the throne speech, I would just keep my mouth shut, get through the throne speech and hope that it carries me forward. It should carry us, you know, the Liberals forward, it shouldn't be a big issue. So I would advise them that there's only pain going back. They get to write their own future moving forward. word.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Corey, the liberals have been, especially on this file, masters of poor issues management. What do they do right now?

Corey 28:17

completely agree with Stephen. You gain nothing talking about this. What are you going to do? You're going to protest and blame, it's your fault, conservatives and NDP? They're going to say, no, it's your fault for breaking the lobbying rules, you dumb idiots. If you say, oh, well, they were always destined to go down. That's part of why we created this program. Wait,

Corey 28:33

Wait, so you created a program just to let your buddy's charity stay available? I mean, Like, there is no good line here at this point. So just

Corey 28:40

just shut up and say, look forward to my throne speech coming soon. Do a theater near you. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Corey, on the conservatives, since the last time we was in the headlines in this sort of way, Aaron O'Toole has now become leader of the party. So do you say anything as a conservative? Do you let your leader speak on this? If so, do you let Pierre Pallier, who's kind of been the champion on the file, continue the barbs and the knife twisting? thing what do you do if you're the conservatives no

Corey 29:08

no this isn't well look maybe you use uh polyev for a bit in in a moment of ambiguity but this is very quickly got to become o'toole's issue and and it's no this is not over uh this is part of a deeper deeper

Corey 29:23

trend with the liberals where they they help their friends they're just far too cozy they're they're

Corey 29:28

they're thinking about the

Corey 29:29

the you know they're getting together with a bunch of elites in a room and imagining

Corey 29:33

imagining a future that doesn't work for the rest of us and you see that with we you see that with how you know telford's husband was uh able to get special or start asking special favors for mcap and you see that when they bring things like the carbon tax forward they are you know what you do is you start tying it now to those ballot box issues and you make it part of a bigger look

Corey 29:52

look at this detached liberal cronies corrupt out of touch you know this this is the bigger story you now need to tell as aaron o'toole about the liberal party so uh yeah i mean you can let the nuts and bolts of we stay with polyev but the big issue this is now this is so tools right this is his opportunity to say we're going to get to the bottom of this this isn't over we don't let him throw his friends under the bus and make them wrap up their charity that's not going to stop us from finding out what exactly happened here and

Corey 30:23

and try to make a big show of the fact that they they ran away looking a little you

Corey 30:28

you know they look guilty because they ran away so they ran away looking a little guilty carter

SPEAKER_01 30:32

carter last question to you same one as i asked cory what are you doing if you're the conservatives

Carter 30:37

yeah i mean i was i was prepared to just say it's time to walk away from this but cory's made some good points and that bothers me um so um i think that this can be wrapped up in a bigger package right this is about ethics this is about uh uh you know the the reports are going to come back from the various commissioners on this particular problem. So when those reports come back, you can start to see a pattern, and that pattern is what O'Toole should be grabbing onto. The specifics of this particular case don't matter that much. What you're looking for is a pattern that starts to brand your opposition. And if you can brand the Liberals as corrupt,

Carter 31:19

most of your audience is prepared to believe it anyways. So all you really need to do is just kind of keep pushing on that button and

Carter 31:26

and it'll work. And there are other examples now of the liberals being corrupt that start to really push the pattern.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Let's move it on to our next segment, our next segment, retreating for progress. Guys, I want to talk about the upcoming liberal cabinet retreat starting tomorrow, which would be Monday. And I want to start with some of the generalities as to what goes into a cabinet retreat before we get into specifics. So maybe, Corey, I'll start with you with a very simple question. Cabinet retreats, why?

Corey 32:01

Well, there's a couple of reasons why. The main one is really to get everybody on the same page as you move forward, whatever

Corey 32:07

whatever that may be, whether it be for a session or getting prepared for an election or sometimes both, as may be the case here. And there

Corey 32:15

there is usually a bit of, okay, let's everybody decide here. But for the most part, the PMO or the minister's or premier's office will already know what the outcomes of most of these discussions are. And it's about alignment.

Corey 32:28

alignment. So, generally speaking, a cabinet retreat, at least provincially,

Corey 32:34

provincially, I can't say that I am familiar with what goes on in a federal cabinet retreat. I've never been invited to one. But on the provincial side, you will usually have a day that's all about politics, and you will usually then follow that up with a day that's about government. So you bring in the public servants. What you're looking for there is really clear alignment between political plans and government plans, so like public service plans. And usually after a cabinet retreat, you'll follow it up with some sort of caucus retreat so that you make everybody on the same page going forward. And really, it's about alignment, Zane. It's about alignment and being one team going forward. Carter,

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Carter, same question to you. Anything to add to what Corey has mentioned regarding the why of the cabinet retreat? treat well

Carter 33:18

well let me let me say start by just saying what it's not okay because what it's not is this giant opportunity for everybody to bring all of their grievances and and

Carter 33:27

and discussions and desires to the table no

Carter 33:30

no one's bringing a you know a binder full of options you know these are the things that we'd like to achieve there's

Carter 33:36

there's a plan the plan is being discussed there there can be amendments to the plan there can be shifting around what the plan is is designed to achieve but it's not this giant free-for-all in the same fashion that it's not a giant free-for-all when the ceo brings together a corporate retreat of their senior executives there are pushes and pulls but the direction that the ceo is setting is what the the the primary objective or the primary outcome has there is no ceo that goes into a corporate retreat and

Carter 34:08

and comes out and says well we're

Carter 34:10

we're totally going a a different direction than i thought we'd go right like this is this is not a uh opportunity for the for the cabinet ministers to get

Carter 34:19

get a different agenda it is about them fitting into the

Carter 34:23

the agenda that the prime minister is bringing uh

Carter 34:25

uh to the table and

Carter 34:27

and the smart cabinet ministers figure out what the agenda was before

Carter 34:30

before they get there and

Carter 34:31

and then when it when they're there they're

Carter 34:33

they're able to put their priorities into that into that overarching plan carter

SPEAKER_01 34:38

carter i appreciate that answer i want to to get very granular here in a second to talk about you know how that agenda is set what work is done where but before that cory you wanted to respond uh to carter's point well

Corey 34:51

well look cabinet retreats without strong agendas are bad effing retreats but they do sometimes happen some uh you know if it's a retreat of i don't know what to do next let's figure it out together you're gonna have a bad time you're gonna have a really bad time because your your gang is gonna get in there and they're going to have a bun fight over what should be the next thing that they do. And so I do want to say what Stephen very emphatically said doesn't happen at a cabinet retreat, I would probably say shouldn't happen at a cabinet retreat, right?

Corey 35:19

right? A good cabinet retreat, there will be some options, but those options are vetted. So it's like, do you want steak or do you want hamburger shaped into the form of a steak, right? Like it's not, you don't have a vegetarian option there. Like those are your choices. And

Corey 35:33

And the options are all okay with the boss. Everything's been okay ahead of time. And insofar as there's movement, in my experience, it's usually around prioritization. Like, is this going to be planned? Like, are we going to do this piece of legislation first, second, third, or fourth sort of stuff? Not, are

Corey 35:49

are we going to do it at all? Or is this a good idea? you.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Carter, you were the chief of staff to a premier. I want to get your take. How is the agenda set for a cabinet retreat? Because as you know, there's this interesting tension between the premier's office or the leader's office or the principal's office in this case, and the ministers who also think they're powerful, but then also this dynamic of the staff, right? People like the chief of staff, the principal secretary, who we've discussed on the show, actually wield a lot of power. So give me both from the agenda setting and power angle, Who actually retains power to set the agenda and drive the conversation?

Carter 36:27

agenda was set for us when we went to Vaughn's. And us was chief of staff, two deputy chiefs of staff, premier, deputy minister of executive council, and a couple of key advisors within executive council. I don't think we had any other

Carter 36:46

other ministers. We didn't have any staff from any minister's office, and we had a robust debate about what we would put onto the agenda, what we were prepared politically to pay for.

Carter 36:59

So, for example, we had a robust discussion in our office about taxation policies. policies. We had brought back progressive taxes, but we could have gone a lot further with the top end taxes than we'd ultimately done. We were recommending that we bring

Carter 37:19

bring back those top level taxes, make them a little bit more progressive, if you will, and balance

Carter 37:27

That ultimately was decided not to be put onto the cabinet agenda. Instead, we put onto the the cabinet agenda um kind of a more holding the line type of of agenda we weren't going to green light any major projects we weren't going to um introduce any new taxes we were going to do a very small initiative um so that that corporate you know the cabinet retreat the agenda was decided by i

Carter 37:55

i don't know maybe 11 people and

SPEAKER_01 37:57

i'm not hearing ministers of anything thing as part of that, at least in this case. No,

Carter 38:01

No, just the first minister, the, you know, the premier herself in our case. Yeah. Corey,

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Corey, jump in. Same question, both on agenda setting and perhaps what might surprise some people where the power in the room really stands at a cabinet retreat, so to speak.

Corey 38:17

Oh, yeah. I mean, it starts with the premier or the prime minister saying, I think we should have a cabinet retreat. And that is the decider from that point forward. But But at

Corey 38:29

at least in Alberta, what happens is generally and by convention, I suspect it was the same in your day, Stephen, because a lot of the trains on tracks part of a cabinet retreat are managed by the public service and the public services, you know, we like to do things a certain way and then we do those things the same way regardless of who's in power. But effectively, what happens is there's, you know, there's two parts of the cabinet agenda. There's the part that is euphemistically termed executive discussion, right? Right. And that's that's when all of the public servants are not in the room and there'll be at least at least half a day, but probably a whole day of that where people will talk about political priorities. And that's when you're going to get those political presentations, the the idea of, OK, this is how we're going to stick it to the opposition. This is how we're going to prepare ourselves for the next election. Here's you know, they'll they'll probably have snuck through the side door. Or, you know, here's the executive director of the party who's going to give us an update on, you know, how prepared we are for the next election. All of those things happen on one day with no public servants in the room.

Corey 39:31

The other part of the cabinet agenda, and all of these are dictated by the premier fundamentally, but like on the first part, the

Corey 39:36

the senior staff, probably the chief of staff and a couple of people there are going to set something up and the premier is going to say yay or nay and it's going to happen. And the

Corey 39:42

the second part is being developed kind

Corey 39:44

kind of in parallel. And that's being managed largely by the public service, still certainly overseen by the chief of staff and senior political staff. But, you know, it's going to be things like, okay, if it's the start of a session, we know we need legislation. So what needs to happen and, you know, the head of policy coordination for, you know, we'll run through all of those things. And what's this going to look like? And what's that going to look like? And hey, why don't we just put a nice thing on where everybody feels good about themselves, where it's this highlight reel of everything they did as a minister? Because you can get the

Corey 40:14

the public service to do that because it's in their role as minister. And that agenda is often at least proposed and refined and executed by the public service. But again, it's all at the behest of the boss. It occurs because the boss says so. And then

Corey 40:35

then it's done. And then it's done. It's sometimes, but almost never in my experience, an actual cabinet meeting where people do things like let's sign OCs and all of that. It's really just about what's to come, not what's happening that day. Carter,

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Carter, tell me about the role of cabinet ministers, right? In the external public, they hold these titles that they're overseeing massive portfolios in our, you know, whether the provincial or federal governments. At the end of the day, though, do you see this as being an exercise, at least in your experience, that has been dominant by the first minister and his or her staff, and that cabinet is really there to agree and come out with a cheering and, you know, sort of tone out of it? Talk to me about that element of the power dynamics, especially when you're being downloaded something as a minister, rather than actually saying, this is my idea, I'm incubating it from my ministry, and we're going to go do it. So maybe get your thoughts from that.

Carter 41:33

Well, let's be clear right off the bat that not all cabinet ministers are created equal.

Carter 41:38

So some cabinet ministers are able to bring certain things to the table and are more drivers of ideas. is, you know, always pending the approval of the first minister. But more cabinet ministers are taking their mandate letters. And if it isn't written in their mandate letter, they're not doing it. So the

Carter 42:04

the way I always looked at it is that if a decision can be made and it's like 70-30, so it's a relatively easy decision to make, it's 70% one way and 30% the other, then the minister makes that decision um and the minister usually will make that even

Carter 42:20

even a 70 30 decision they don't make it unilaterally they bring it to the cabinet meeting or they bring it to the to the premier's office just to say i'm about to do this thing and i want to make sure that we're not going to get shit on afterwards and the the usually the the chief of staff principal secretary premier says get the fuck out of my office don't bring this shit to me just

Carter 42:40

just make this happen you

SPEAKER_01 42:42

you make it you You make it sound like a cabinet minister has like is on the one yard line and it's got only we give it to them only on the one yard line and only when they have four chances to score. And

Carter 42:50

And only if they check with us when they call the play.

Carter 42:54

But if it gets closer to 50-50 or worse yet, if it is 60-40 the other way, those decisions are primarily coming out of the premier's office and sometimes within kind of a decision-making committee. So you might see an operations committee. They can be titled all kinds of different things, but a smaller subset of ministers who are weighing out the political cost of all the decisions. We had a political committee. We had an operations committee. Those committees would sometimes hash out some of the more challenging issues. issues so it's not quite a dictatorship i don't mean it to sound like every decision is made entirely by the premier but it has dictatorial elements to it and it is hard for some cabinet ministers to bring any decisions to the table some things

Carter 43:51

things it's just just go do your job don't bring anything to us and if you don't have a like and never bring us a problem good god man never bring bring us a problem, bring us a solution, right? That was my, I would beg our cabinet ministers. They're the ones who are supposed to be the experts on their file. So they're supposed to actually bring a

Carter 44:11

a solution to you. Because most of these problems are really tough, you know, like, and

Carter 44:17

and when they come to you, you're like, well, what are we, what are we supposed to do? You know, people die, people die in these ministries, you know, as a result of decisions decisions that are made by ministers

Carter 44:27

ministers and by the government, and you're responding to that, they

Carter 44:31

they better be bringing a solution. Even if it's not the solution that is ultimately selected, you have to have some starting place. That's the role, in my mind, of the cabinet minister, not necessarily to bring the solution and call their own number. You definitely don't want them doing that.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Corey, round us out here before we move on to the specifics of what might be going going on at the Liberal Cabinet retreat starting on Monday?

Corey 44:58

Well, you know, I'm glad Carter said ministers have things to do because they do. The first minister is the boss, but ministers are involved. Finance minister will probably give a fiscal update supported by the department. Ministers of major initiatives will likely have presentations, especially if they're chairing cabinet committees and they're almost doing reportings for the cabinet retreat. And ministers put things forward. Sometimes the first minister asks for them. Sometimes they are not what the first minister asked for, but the first minister is willing to entertain the conversation. And the first minister picks which one's in the priority within, you know, there's a band of conversation that they're willing to entertain.

Corey 45:36

I think a lot of people also are just really unclear as to the governance of cabinet. And it's probably, you know, we just jumped right over it, but there aren't votes at cabinet, right? Right. The

Corey 45:46

The first minister reads the room, articulates the consensus or fabricates the consensus in their favor if that's what they choose to do that day. And then it gets minted as cabinet decided.

Corey 45:57

The first minister decided. Right. Only, you know, in my time with government, I think I saw maybe two

Corey 46:04

two cabinet votes and I almost fell out of my fucking chair the first time I saw one where, you know, it was, you know, the first minister was just like, yeah, well,

Corey 46:13

you know what? I could go either way on this. What do people think? Let's have a vote. You know, they are not, it's not normal to have votes in cabinet. So, you know, like, ministers

Corey 46:22

ministers don't feel particularly

Corey 46:24

particularly disempowered at a retreat where the shots are being called by the premier, because that's just how it rolls, man. That's how cabinet rolls.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

I think that puts us in a really good headspace, Carter, to talk about what's going to happen over the course of the next 48 hours with the liberal cabinet retreat. So tell me, from everything you have heard and all the rules and considerations we just talked about more generally, who do you think has kind of set this agenda for this retreat? And what sort of flex and what do you think we might be seeing coming out of it, considering all the trial ballooning and ground softening, which we covered last week, that's been going on as to what the liberals have been telegraphing about what to expect from this throne speech? speech

Carter 47:07

if i'm honest i'm a little bit i mean there's no question who's setting the agenda that's the prime minister's office that that agenda will be set there and and it will be carried out from there what i'm shocked by is this the sheer number of of potential things uh that could be the centerpiece of the throne speech um you know like there's a good four or five things that are like let's quickly list

SPEAKER_01 47:27

list them like child care pharma care uh the guaranteed income housing long-term care uh what else am i missing there's a couple of

Carter 47:36

of other things that's five yeah

Carter 47:38

okay there you have five right there i mean and so those are the things that are being floated um and those five things are each one like that's one session like forget about it like you can't do all of these things first of all we don't have the money to do them all um it would be my uh my take um now you know maybe there's some sort of tax initiative or some sort of we don't give a shit about deficits plan that's also going to be there. But this floating of five big ideas is relatively unusual. I'm surprised by that because it now puts the prime minister's office in a place where they're saying no to, let's just say half, like let's just say they say no to three. So you've got proponents of three really big ideas who are now pissed off even though you did two massive So I'm surprised by it. I suspect that we will see some tightening of the ideas in the next couple of days, some strategic leaks out of the cabinet discussions that start to put the framework on the direction that the Liberal government is going to take this

Carter 48:45

this fall. And if they're not putting that framework in place and they're not starting to foreshadow, they're really missing a tremendous opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 48:55

Cori, same question to you. What are you kind of expecting to come out of this, both from an agenda setting and outcomes perspective? Maybe I'll go one step further is do you feel like we might even get some further sort of anonymous sources telling us what's going to happen even before the conclusion on Tuesday of this week?

Corey 49:16

Well, you better not unless the prime minister wants them to be out there as a bit of a ground softening like we talked about last week. But listen, I think that we could overstate this pretty quickly. No surprises cuts both ways. If you're the minister of, I

Corey 49:30

I don't even know, let's just say the minister of sport, you're not going to have something sprung upon you or

Corey 49:35

or not sprung upon you. The prime minister is going to take you aside and say, hey, I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking about not doing this or somebody in the prime minister's office in more likelihood because federal cabinets are pretty effing big. That's a lot of people to manage. So look, you're going to go in there as a – just as the first minister is going in with like a range they are willing to entertain, you

Corey 49:57

you are going in there as a minister knowing roughly what that range of entertainment is and you're going to sit there and you're going to argue. If you're a smart minister, you're going to argue within that range. You're not going to argue outside of that range because that's a waste of time unless you're going for an out-and-out mutiny. But I don't think anybody thinks that's on the cards or on the table for this particular cabinet retreat. So it

Corey 50:18

is a chance for them to air their anxieties and talk about where they think plans need to be shored up. I'm sure some ministers will say, I am very worried about this plan, if some ministers are very worried about the plan. But fundamentally, people

Corey 50:31

people don't get to be ministers most of the time unless they are willing to, you know, read the room and play the game. and and they'll know if they're in the minority and they'll they'll probably frame their anxieties not as we're

Corey 50:45

we're all going down and this is the worst effing thing ever but like you know i just want to say i'm a little concerned about x over here you know i'm not me but some people could say that this could result in right so like it'll be a chance for conversations like that particularly about a grand throne speech like we're talking about here but don't expect a lot of fireworks works. You definitely don't expect leaks. I would go through the fucking roof if there was a leak from a cabinet retreat that I did not have sanctioned. Because that would be, you know, even in the world of cabinet confidences, that would be really bad. You would not expect to see something like that in a retreat.

Corey 51:21

So I don't expect much to answer your questions, Zane.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Carter, same questions for you. What do you kind of expect? And maybe I'll phrase it this way. You know, suppose we talked about the five or six things, and the sixth one, which they're walking back now is this whole greening concept. Let us not forget that as what was floated. But let's say you're a cabinet minister that would be possibly responsible for one of these big policy areas or these massive policy shifts. Are you in that room on the defensive? Are you on the offensive? What is a smart sort of strategy, if I can say, in a cabinet retreat for a minister who is responsible for one of these files, so to speak?

Carter 52:02

Well, I think that the ministers have a lot more information than we already have, right? I think the minister, like, keeping in mind that today, we're 10 days away from the throne speech. So there are drafts of the throne speech already being floated around. And

Carter 52:15

And do you feel like

SPEAKER_01 52:15

like they're going to play from a draft? Like, that's probably what this retreat's about? Like, here's what

Carter 52:19

what we have right now? You've

Carter 52:20

You've had to gather the information from the ministries. Like, you're not just putting out a, let's just go with the pharmacare program. You're not just putting out a pharmacare program without having spoken to the health department. department and

Carter 52:30

you're not speaking to the health department around your health minister a

Carter 52:33

a health minister a deputy minister are in the room they're the ones who are providing the information uh to the to

Carter 52:39

to the prime minister's office to the people who are researching and writing the speech um

Carter 52:45

you know creating this agenda if you will uh so all of this information like the health minister is not going in going oh i wonder if my pharmacare is going to be a part of this the health minister knows all the information that's been gathered to this point and is prepared to make

Carter 53:01

make a case from someone who may oppose the the pharma care who's got questions about pharma care the health minister is now in a position to be an ally to the prime minister and there is no greater thing than to be the ally uh to the first minister because that gives you uh power um in the the overall, you know, four

Carter 53:22

four-year dictatorships that we call our parliamentary system.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

So there's a difference. That's a good point, Carter. You're trying to be an ally, but it doesn't mean that you're just a loud, unfettered champion of your ministry just because something is floated in your domain. Is that correct? Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Carter 53:38

Yeah, I mean, you're going to bring, you should be bringing all the different conflicts, all the different issues that could arise from this particular issue. There is no one policy that exists without significant trade-offs and other issues that arise. So, you know, pharmacare, how is that going to impact the other ministries? Well, you know, what's it doing with seniors, you know, where we already cover a large number of drugs? What are we doing with other departments? Where are we drawing lines? How is this impacting young people? How is this impacting older people? What's this going to do for the revenue situation? All of these trade-offs need to be discussed, and you have to be a

Carter 54:16

a willing participant in those discussions.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Corey, I know this is taking on a very granular approach, but I like it because I think we're unearthing a lot of interesting things from it, which is same question to you again, if you've got anything to add around the strategy for a cabinet minister whose file might show up as being on the hot seat for some of the things that the first minister might be considering.

Corey 54:38

Well, you don't want to be defensive because people will, you know, That's showing a certain weakness. You certainly don't want to be offensive and say, no, we're just going to effing do it this way because when you're a minister and not the first minister, you have to keep in mind that you are in a group of

Corey 54:54

and where things can really grind to a halt in government at the cabinet level is when a minister says, well,

Corey 55:00

well, that touches my area and I haven't been consulted because

Corey 55:03

then it becomes like, oh, I don't know about this. Is this ready to go forward? And it implies a certain sort of tearing that, well, we all know there were ministers in the no and ministers not. It's a bad look, right? And it's embarrassing for the first minister as well. So you've got to walk a bit of a line here. And if you know, for example, in Carter's Pharmacare example, seniors hasn't been talked to about universal pharmacare, you've

Corey 55:29

you've got to say things like, now, I know there's a lot of details to work out in particular with, say, our seniors programs over here. But this is our current stance. And if you come in guns blazing, this is going to fucking happen, you're going to make enemies. And by the way, if you're a minister who has ambitions to be more than a minister, that's

Corey 55:43

that's also pretty dumb, because you're also trying to show that you've got a command of files here. So let's use Pharmacare as an example to go a little bit further here.

Corey 55:52

Right? If you come in and you say, universal Pharmacare is going to look like this, and then the Minister of Veterans Affairs walks up and says, well, you

Corey 55:59

you know, veterans get better Pharmacare than that. Like, how are we going to, how are we going to frame, how's this going to work?

Corey 56:06

That's where you probably run into trouble, and you probably have not gotten the okay from the prime minister to talk about your universal pharmacare with the minister of veterans affairs. It's just reality. They're not somebody who's in there. So you've got to, in the moment, sort of be able to adapt to new information that's going to be coming in, in a way that parking lots it where appropriate, but doesn't get it killed. Because that's when the first minister is going to look at you and say, what

Corey 56:33

the hell, man? I had you carrying pharmacare and there were so many ambiguities that I, as first minister, felt I had to say, well,

Corey 56:41

well, I guess we're not doing that. I guess we're going to have to put that off for

Carter 56:43

for a bit, right?

Corey 56:44

right? Right. So your your expectation, the expectation of the first minister is you deal with that stuff, both in the way you present it ahead of time and how you deal with those things as they're coming forward in a way that doesn't wreck his agenda. So that's that's the real challenge for you as a minister who's been given one of these hot potatoes. I

SPEAKER_01 57:02

I love it. The meta politics within it. Carter, let's let's let's go here, which is what ends this thing? Is it a prescriptive? Here's what we're going to do. Consensus. Do you take this back to the PMO and say, OK, thank you for your consideration. We'll hammer this out from here. That core that came up with the agenda now gets to take your feedback in. What does a good cabinet retreat look like? And let's play with the live wire of a throne speech coming up. What do you think a good cabinet retreat would look like from process as it relates to saying, OK, this is where we end it and this is how we end it? Is it hardcore prescriptive and now you go talk about this or what does it kind of look like in your mind?

Carter 57:41

The plan is written, the plan is agreed to, and everybody understands their role in executing the plan. In

Carter 57:48

In the room. Because this plan has been written before, right? We're now presenting the plan. We're getting their buy-in on the plan, and we're telling them how they're going to be used moving forward. Maybe not expressly. It could be little teams you've put together. We're going to put seniors, veterans, and health together to deal with the Farmer Care Initiative. Those three ministers are now going to form a – I'm just going to use the words tiger team, and I'm going to be embarrassed doing so. But

Carter 58:15

But they're going to form a little tiger team, and they're going to be the ones responsible for the pharma care initiative. We're going to put another group together, the finance minister, the revenue minister, and treasury board president. They're going to be in charge of the budgeting structures and the budgeting reporting to make sure that the deficits that we're going to be running in the future are contextualized. um you know those

Carter 58:38

those plans are going to be agreed to the the the tactics of them the tactics and the specifics of the tactics are still going to unfold you know over the next week over the next month over the next year because that's the way government rolls that you know government doesn't have a tactical plan that articulates six months in advance this is exactly how things are going to work that

Carter 58:59

that tactical plan isn't worth the paper it's written on um but you you've got a strategic strategic plan that says, well, this is what we're going to try and achieve before we present our next budget in March of 2021. And that's probably the longest view that you're going to be able to take out of this particular cabinet meeting.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Carter, I'm pretty sure Tiger Team is racist, and he can't say that. I just I don't know how, but it sounds racist.

Carter 59:27

Everything else is. What are

SPEAKER_01 59:29

are you going to do next, Carter? Watch Mulan?

Carter 59:32

You know what? I just read Harry Potter. I feel horrible.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Yeah. Corey, same question to you to finish us off on this segment. What is the end of a cabinet retreat look like? Do you want to react to what Carter said here, which is the plan is finalized, solidified, discussed, and entrenched in the room? Or is it more nuanced than that, in your opinion?

Corey 59:54

Well, I guess we're all just going to breeze past the fact that Carter was talking about having just read Harry Potter, and we're going to talk about the podcast a bit more. we're fine i guess um

Corey 1:00:04

i think that what steven said sounds pretty good for hey we're going into the third or fourth session uh we're we're in coasty but the reality is you're very unlikely to have all of the details ready uh for a retreat like this because you're talking about big things that if

Corey 1:00:22

if they were ready for prime time like if all of the details were worked out that would mean too many people knew frankly going into it so i think that's going to be tough what What it would probably look like is conceptually we're all on the same page. We know where

Corey 1:00:34

where the big landmines are. We know we're going to do it anyways.

Corey 1:00:38

And so I, as first minister, will say, okay, that's great. So I'm looking, I'm hearing that, is cabinet comfortable looking for nods here? Give us permission to hammer out the details with my staff and the relevant ministers. Looks good. Let's move on. And so you're probably trying,

Corey 1:00:53

trying, look, you're going to go and you're going to do it through your staff, but you want to give the impression that you're going to bring in the experts, anybody who had those concerns and yeah we'll take it offline with the minister of veterans affairs try to figure out this thing uh you know it's a sense that details will be tbd by the uh staff and that's the prime minister's way of saying without saying you

Corey 1:01:13

you ain't ever going to see this again you're going to read about it in the newspapers and it'll be done right and so it's it's letting people know through the subtleties of cabinet language that that's what's going to happen next because you don't want ministers thinking it's coming back or anything like that It's going

Corey 1:01:29

going to happen now.

Corey 1:01:30

And that's what you're looking for at the end of a retreat like this. Okay,

SPEAKER_01 1:01:33

Okay, we'll leave that there. We'll check in next week on the heels of the cabinet retreat heading into that throne speech. But we'll leave that segment there. And on to our next segment, tied 2-2 in the third. Guys, I want to talk about the new Brunswick election happening tomorrow. It is tied, as we see in the public opinion polls, between the PCs and the liberals, between Blaine Higgs and Kevin Vickers. Corey, over to you first. First, what are you thinking of what's happening in Canada's most bilingual province, is what I've heard. I know that's what I've heard as a stat that I can use for New Brunswick. What do you think of what we're seeing right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

Okay, let's move it on to our next segment, our over, under, and our lightning round.

Corey 1:02:19

We're sorry, New Brunswick. Do

Corey 1:02:20

Do better next election.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

feel like I laid down some good knowledge. But Zane,

Corey 1:02:25

Zane, thank you. From your question, I learned an awful lot about the New Brunswick Collection. Thank

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Thank you. I appreciate it. Let's move it on to our over, under, and on lightning round. Carter, I'm going to start with you. Over, under, on three. Over, under, on three. Bill Morneau, you're hearing that name again, breaching the elections law. Over, under, on three on how significant this is to the Liberals. Does it leave a mark?

Carter 1:02:49

One day, Bill Morneau decided to write a check for over $40,000 to Wee's charity. I think the $300 fine is going to be okay. That is literally his pocket change. This act, I mean, we could do a whole segment on my feelings about various election acts across Canada. I think these are poorly written laws that are being applied poorly. So, you know, and it's not like Pierre Palliev hasn't been caught breaking the exact same act. So, you know what, you know, this is the way the world works. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, it's a non-issue.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

I'm surprised you're not giving Pierre Poirier the pet name you usually have reserved for him. But maybe I'll give you another chance.

Carter 1:03:35

chance. I thought I'd name him today because he's actually broken the act.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

Corey, over on round three, does this leave a mark for the Trudeau government?

Corey 1:03:42

I mean, it's like getting

Corey 1:03:45

getting a paper cut on a gangrene limb. I mean, it doesn't matter.

Corey 1:03:51

think we have an episode title there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Corey, I'm going to stick with you. Over, under on seven on the same calculation, if it leaves a political mark.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

You're in Alberta, Jason Kenney floating the idea of cutting AISH and then reversing course on it. How much does that leave a mark on this government here in Alberta and the UCP?

Corey 1:04:11

I don't know that they actually reversed course on it. I think if you look at the language used by the minister very carefully about how the money spent on AISH will not be reduced, that leaves an awful lot of wiggle room for an awful lot of interpretations. So the one thing I would say, and it's a caution that I'm sure Stephen will reinforce in a minute, holy

Corey 1:04:30

holy cow. How? I mean, AISH more than almost anything else is the third rail of Alberta politics. Supports for the most disadvantaged in Alberta is

Corey 1:04:41

the issue so often. And the public has shown absolutely no tolerance for any reduction in benefits at any way, shape or form in the past. So the UCP should be very careful about this. Carter,

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

Carter, same question to you, over-under on seven, if this leaves a political mark for Kenny and the UCP government.

Carter 1:05:02

Well, the minister was very clear in what she said, was she wasn't going to be cutting recipients' benefits, but it was shrouded in opaque statements about what she was going to do. Obviously, they're looking at AISH. This history around AISH, I'm very close to. We want a leadership by promising to bring AISH payments into a livable state. um and they were indexed in 2018 um which was very important to make sure that uh people in alberta was who can't work with severe handicaps are able uh to survive uh so anytime you you mess with this you have to understand that most every individual in this category has about seven to ten people who care for them and care about them and so you're not dealing with 45 000 people who receive H. You're dealing with half a million people who are going to be pissed. So this is playing with the third rail, as Corey has said.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

All righty, Corey, I'm going to you on this one. Give me a scale on 1 to 10, 1 to 10, on what you think of the first few weeks of Aaron O'Toole's leadership. You know, he came out this week with a very interesting strategy that tried to go after big corporations, but also try to, you know, support workers, taking a pretty interesting shift. Globe and Mail writing that, you know, Aaron O'Toole's pitching himself as an ethical government in waiting. How do you think the first couple of weeks have gone on a scale of 1 to 10 for Aaron O'Toole?

Corey 1:06:32

You know, I think the pundit class probably gives him a 5 or so. I give him an 8. I really think that he's, on anything that matters, he's done particularly well. Yeah, Yeah, you can complain about this

Corey 1:06:42

this language sounds like it's Trump. And sure, people on my Twitter feed have done so. You can look at it and you can say, oh, my God, I can't believe this guy is sort of just betraying market economics with his approaches to Canada first. And sure enough, people on my Twitter feed have done that. But let's just step the hell back for a minute here. I mean, he's come off as a sensible adult. He is shaking up the political calculus big time by talking about working Canadians. And don't kid yourself, there's going to be a ton of resonance for the kind of message that Aaron O'Toole is talking about. And he's going to leave the Liberals in a deeply uncomfortable place of defending free

Corey 1:07:21

free trade. I mean, the Liberal coalition these days is a weird coalition.

Corey 1:07:26

And it's much more left-wing than it was in the 90s. And I just don't know that their coalition can take that. So I think that Aaron O'Toole has made some brilliant moves. And even though some of his individual responses

Corey 1:07:38

responses on things have trended almost towards gaffe on minor stuff, I think for anything that matters, he's done a great job of setting himself up for future success.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

Carter, same question to you. First couple of weeks on the job for Aaron O'Toole, what's your grade between 1 to 10?

Carter 1:07:56

I mean, I think that he's absolutely doing a satisfactory job. I'm not going to give him the accolades that Corey's going to give him, but I haven't seen any major problems. And I think that he's making this party much easier to vote for, for a lot of people. Some may think that the Trump-esque Canada First model is

Carter 1:08:19

is hard to swallow. Sure, if you're an economist on Twitter. But, you know, that's a small subset of the population. Most people want a government that puts us first. You know, and forget about the details. The details are irrelevant. So I think that O'Toole is doing a better job. I think that he's brought in a better staff. And overall, the entire Conservative Party seems to be working better. And that should be a giant red flag for the liberals, and especially any liberals who are thinking, you know what, this could be the time to do a snap election. Those liberals are nuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this for our final question. You know, we haven't discussed a lot of American politics here, which, by the way, people can find on You the People, our other podcast where we discuss all things America. But I want to leave it on this one, which is, are you in or out on this strategy by the Trump campaign? They've come out today and have started to en masse say, don't worry, Donald Trump will trail in the polls until he wins on Election Day. And they're going en masse about this particular strategy. Are you in or out on that strategy for the Trump campaign?

Carter 1:09:24

I have to be in. Is there another strategy? Are the polls suddenly going to shift? Are we going to start to see something? First of all, again, it plays to what people are inclined to believe. His supporters believe that the polls were all wrong before. And frankly, I think a couple of us, I don't know, maybe me, I was burned by buying the polls. Right. But I

Carter 1:09:45

I seem to recall the three of us texting on election night in 2016, surprised,

Carter 1:09:50

surprised, disappointed, concerned, because

Carter 1:09:54

because we believe the polls. We believe the New York Times needle when we started the night at an 80 percent plus probability and watched as it ticked slowly back to 50-50 and ultimately towards 100 percent, you know, towards the Trump victory.

Carter 1:10:13

believable. We should all be scared shitless of these polls. And

Carter 1:10:16

And I think that this is the only play that the Trump campaign

Carter 1:10:21

campaign had. And they were absolutely right to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

Corey, close us off. are you in or out on the Trump strategy that he will trail until he doesn't, and then he will win?

Corey 1:10:31

Well, I think it's not even a bad strategy for him if he doesn't win, right? Because he's going to say the polls are wrong, the polls are wrong, the polls are wrong, I lost. Well, that's crazy. I was always going to win because the polls were wrong. I mean, like what he's doing is essentially creating an environment where you can trust none of your senses, or at least if you're one of his supporters. And so you don't have that to fall back on and say like, well, well, the polls said he was going to lose and then he lost. You're like, well, we

Corey 1:10:58

we all knew he was going to win because polls are bullshit anyways, and then he didn't win. And that's very suspicious to me. I mean, I know it sounds like a big leap, but

Corey 1:11:05

but people wrap themselves into these contortions all of the time. And the example I'll give you is here in Alberta in 2015, the poll or the election that Rachel Notley won. People talk about the 2015 election as Rachel Notley winning and it being a big surprise and a big polling miss well the conservatives the progressive conservatives at the time didn't lead in a single public poll all election and rachel notley's ndp didn't trail in a single public poll for the last two weeks of the election they were leading in every single one of those polls but people still look back and say well we can't trust polling because in 2015 rachel notley won and we didn't see it coming and the polls didn't see it forgetting they just ignored the polls so there's like a human psychology thing here that trump benefits from if he can just get his voters to discount the polls writ large, even if he loses.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

We will leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 821 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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