Transcript
Corey
0:03
This is The Strategists, episode 831.
Zain
0:18
to steal to steal good hard-paying work from myself uh what's going on guys happy sunday oh you know it's
Zain
0:38
it's going zing it's going carter how you doing how's your how's your only fans account my
Carter
0:43
my only fans is going really well i'm a little bit surprised that we have actually gone over the number of subscribers that the strategist has so i'm a little bit taken aback by it but but you would not believe what they asked me to do on that channel.
Zain
0:58
don't want to know. I really don't want to know. Most of it is just Corey trolling you, but that's fine. That's excellent. Yeah, that's not trolling.
Zain
1:07
Corey, are we going to talk about the thing everyone wants to talk about before we talk about what we're supposed to talk about?
Zain
1:14
Let's talk about it. I think we have to talk about it. Is Fred Van Vliet worth that much money? And the answer is no. Okay.
Corey
1:20
No, Fred Van Vliet is not worth that much money. I
Corey
1:24
saw that and I immediately thought to myself, you are definitely getting a home team premium. People love Van Vliet, for sure. But there's just no way that you're paying this guy $20 million a year. That's crazy.
Carter
1:38
I'd pay him $15 just for the beard alone.
Carter
1:43
$15 million just for the beard.
Zain
1:44
It's not bad. It's a pretty good beard.
Carter
1:45
It's a great beard.
Zain
1:47
It's an excellent beard. Not worth the money. if anyone thinks he is uh they're
Zain
1:53
they're just they're just stupid i
Zain
1:55
mean i i'm supposed to be the nice one on the podcast but they're fucking stupid people out there and they need to know that
Zain
2:02
benfleet is not worth that much money guys we have got a a hell of an episode and let's just jump right into it to our first segment don't be jason waterfalls get it chasing waterfalls chase oh
Carter
2:14
oh that's really good that's really fun you know
Carter
2:16
know my favorite ones are when you have to explain to us what you mean, right? No, no, no. I don't
Zain
2:20
don't explain them. I add further. You literally
Carter
2:23
literally explain them. It's really good. Those are my favorites.
Zain
2:27
Oh, you're welcome, Carter. Corey, we've got a lot to talk about. You know, Canada's on pace to perhaps quadruple the number of COVID cases we have. This is a scary situation. And we've been talking about COVID as, of course, is part of our politics and policy and kind of life that we've been putting out every single week on our episode. But I want to spend the entirety of today's episode on this. And I will start with the inside out, so to speak. Talk about our home province as move out to the federal side of things. And I mean, there is no, I
Zain
3:01
I think, more obvious and specific way to kind of start than to talk about where Jason Kenney is, because that is starting to become the storyline here in Alberta. There are storylines about COVID, don't get me wrong. We don't have a province-wide mask mandate. We have record number of cases here. Kenney's approval has gone from 68% in March on his handling of COVID down to 37%. We're seeing no real decisive action in parallel with our other provincial counterparts. But maybe let's start with the question that I asked the front, which is, where is Jason Kenney? It's been nine days since we've seen him. This is a moment of leadership, regardless of who you voted for, that you expect your premier to be out there. And what maybe compounds that and what surprises me is that we often talk about it. And one of the most, you know, primal insights of politics is that you don't let any crisis go to waste. And you kind of, you know, have leaders that are made in crisis moments, yet we haven't seen our premier. So So I want to start with the specific of that as to what you think might be happening, a little bit of reckless speculation, and then let's kind of broaden that point around what leadership looks like or perhaps doesn't look like in a time of crisis.
Corey
4:17
well, listen, there's a lot of reasons why somebody could not show up for a bit in politics here, and I'm
Corey
4:25
I'm not saying any of these are the reasons why Jason Kenney's not around right now, but let's start with Occam's razor. or let's start with the most obvious if you if you're going out to talk to people it's because it's a big deal and if it's a big deal what the fuck are you doing and if the answer is nothing what the fuck are you doing right so uh it's quite possible that it's as simple as that it's why in the world would i stand up and announce nothing next to dina hinshaw as we have the the largest covet numbers not just that alberta's ever had but now the largest in the country where we have more cases of covet today as we're recording 1538 than they do in ontario than they do in in quebec that like that's not adjusted for population that's just the largest number raw number yeah
Corey
5:07
raw numbers so it's it's quite possible it's as simple as that the next reason you might not want to go up there is um plausible deniability so if you are actually planning something big if you are planning to have a dramatic lockdown and you know this on tuesday but you're not doing it until sunday or monday you're probably going to avoid the media in between because there is no more dangerous a situation in communications this is not just a political rule is a communications rule when you know things that you are not allowed to say when there's kind of this this additional information that you cannot share with the world because you may slip that out and uh and then all of your planning is done so better to send other people out better to have people who don't actually know what the plan is go and say i don't know because because they don't know, and they can't accidentally release that plan.
Corey
5:56
And the third one is, you know, just maybe you don't want to deal with it.
Corey
6:03
Is this troubling times for everybody? I think people forget that premiers are people too, and people sometimes avoid difficult situations. Sometimes it's as simple as that.
Zain
6:13
Carter, what do you think of kind of Corey's lay of the land, the three scenarios that he put out there? Do you want to respond to them? I'd be curious to get your response to them more specifically. And is there anything else you want to add considering your time in political office and seeing how political leaders and, frankly, leaders react to scenarios?
Carter
6:32
me offer a fourth, and the fourth goes something along the following. Jason Kenney has deeply held ideological beliefs. He believes strongly in less government. He believes strongly that in the power of the individual, that individual responsibility is a cornerstone for our society, society in general. This
Carter
6:54
This is who he is at his core. And this
Carter
6:58
this is not the time for that. This is not the time when that is actually working. So maybe Jason Kenney is just literally trying to wrap his head around something that's not just a new idea, but something that is shaking his ideological core. Something that's shaking him to the center of who he has defined himself for the last 50 plus years. I mean, this is who he is. This is how he was raised. This is what he believes strongly. And now he's finally in a position where he can do something and have a government that reflects his individualism, his rugged self-determination, his everybody can lift themselves up by their own bootstraps type of mentality. And it is failing. It is failing him at his at his greatest hour of need, because he honestly said when he when he started off by saying to Albertans, I trust you exercise personal responsibility. I don't have to knock you down. I trust who you are. He actually believed that.
Carter
7:58
And it takes a little bit of time to come around to bringing in a new policy that contradicts that which who you are at your core. so that's that's a fourth one and i think that you know there's probably
Carter
8:12
i can see that one being interlaced with a couple of of cory's other uh ideas but for me this is something that has shaken the man to his core otherwise we would have seen him i mean i get the whole you can't you know on tuesday you decide you're going to lock down next monday i get that that makes sense to me but this
Carter
8:31
this isn't a tuesday to monday decision making cycle cycle this
Carter
8:35
this isn't a nine-day decision-making cycle that says we're not going to lock down tomorrow if we hadn't seen him today and they locked down tomorrow but we'd seen him on friday then i could say you know i can make that case but this is a this is a much shorter window this is um this is holy shit we went over a thousand cases locked the down lock it down this is what we really have been asking for from the beginning is tell me what the rules are tell me what the you know when x happens y will happen you know if we get over a thousand cases a day in alberta we will lock down okay then everybody knows we got to pull back we got to make sure we haven't had any of that so i'm not sure this is a case of he has a plan that he's just afraid to accidentally let slip i think that he
Carter
9:18
he is more likely in his uh in cory's first or third scenarios uh with maybe a health healthy dose of uh i don't want to do this this is against who i am uh layered in there there just to add some flavor.
Zain
9:32
Corey, I want to pick up on two things. You know, there is two items that Carter mentioned here that I think are important, only two in that nine-minute monologue. Number one was,
Zain
9:42
Kenny has not telegraphed any sort of metric or bar to say that we're going to act at a certain point, right? So when we communally or collectively, personal responsibility does not work, at a certain point, a communal trigger or restriction a regulation will happen. So that's point number one. The point number two is the broader point Carter brought up, and I want to get your take. Do you feel like, you know, in the specific of this particular premier, but also in the more general, that this reconciliation of where one's ideological compass is, and then seeing it not bear out, you know, is perhaps what might be happening? And maybe I'll add a layer to it, because what confuses me is that, you know, as we've discussed many times on this show, regardless
Zain
10:26
regardless of what you think about Jason Kenney, he's a very pragmatic, you know, engaged, politically savvy politician. And so for him to not act, for him to know that these poll numbers are going down, that these case numbers are going up, it almost seems out of step and out of character from what he's seen. So I just want to get you to react to anything
Zain
10:45
anything I've kind of mentioned there and what Carter may have mentioned in in his comments there as well yeah
Corey
10:53
like there's a lot to respond to there and i started it by throwing out like three things right off the start but it's fine you're both right it it doesn't make a ton of sense uh
Corey
11:02
uh that he would be having something and not wanting to risk saying it for starters you would expect him to be able to deal with those things i can tell you premiers keep secrets they have to some of them are um of a political nature but many more or of a policy nature, or you name it. These are important jobs, and you get exposed to an awful lot of information that you cannot blurt out your mouth. So that compartmentalization is an important part of the job. The other point is exactly what you said, Zane. There hasn't really been conditioning on this point. If you knew on Tuesday you were, say, locking down on Monday, which may still happen. It may just be that people feel backed into it, or maybe there's internal triggers on it, but they're hoping that they will not be hit, and they don't want to have to walk it back. But you would expect a certain amount of conditioning.
Corey
11:46
You would expect people to be saying things like, well,
Corey
11:49
well, listen, if we get over 1,300 cases for two days in a row, we're going to have to revisit this. There'd be some version of that, and we haven't seen a version of that in Alberta.
Corey
11:57
Baffling in its own right, shall we say.
Corey
12:00
say um but there's also a couple of other options here uh which i just i'll throw out for completeness and by no means does this make it a perfect set but you know maybe he's sick that's that's one of the rumors out there i don't think that's likely because i don't know why they would keep that from people or maybe he's dealing with something bigger and uh maybe bigger is not the right word maybe he's just dealing with something different maybe uh this is a caucus management issue perhaps he is trying to line things up perhaps the reason he can't say anything right now is because there There are serious divides within the UCP as to what the proper approach is. And so it's not so much that you are trying to avoid the microphone because you might say something like it's an accident. You may not know yet. You might be trying to settle these pieces behind the scenes. You might be hoping this thing resolves itself one way or the other, and then you don't have that problem. There's no shortage of reasons why you might not see Jason Kenney.
Corey
12:52
But they are ultimately all excuses. I think you're right that people do want to see their leader at this point, Right. No matter how painful or how difficult or how complex that makes it, when you have COVID numbers like we have, people want to know there's a plan, even if the plan is my previous plan is working. Here's the eight reasons why you don't have to worry yet.
Zain
13:12
know, I want to before I make you guys put your strategist hat on, I do want to address one issue in a more general sense, not maybe specifically to Jason Kenney, which is to get your guys's insight. Having been political staffers, campaign managers, etc., having dealt with leaders who perhaps, you know, haven't made decisions or refuse to make decisions or refuse to kind of accept that they need to be present, their voice is important and needs to be heard, that they're the ones that need to steward a particular message. Carter, and what has been your experience with elected officials or those running for office around kind of their refusal to take a stand? And do you feel like, I guess what's embedded in my question is, do you feel like there's people around the premier kind of looking and tracking day to day as we're seeing the poll numbers go down, the calls for him to show up, go up, the case numbers go up saying, Mr. Premier, you need to show up? What do you kind of think might be happening with the internal machinery right now? And maybe if you've had any insight with dealing with leaders in a similar situation?
Carter
14:10
Well, yeah. I mean, it's no secret that Alison Redwood would struggle with certain pieces of being the premier and wouldn't necessarily want to tackle difficult issues head on. I think that's a natural part of the job. It is really hard sometimes to put yourself out there when you don't have a particularly good solution. So, there could be a fire, there could be a flood, there can be a natural disaster, but
Carter
14:37
any staffer that's around a premier or any leader reminds the leader of what you said early at the beginning, Zane,
Carter
14:44
Zane, and that is that every crisis is an opportunity. opportunity uh so you know when there's the floods and hadenchi uh rises
Carter
14:52
rises up in that opportunity he's defined in part by that moment uh you know allison redford came out for a few days and then flew off to jasper um so she didn't stick around for the for the cleanup if you will um and that haunted her so making the wrong decision in these moments haunts you this is not uh something that you can easily walk away from. This is bigger than the flood. This is bigger than the Slave Lake fires. This is bigger than the Fort McMurray fires. This is province wide. Everybody's impacted and it's impacting our economy and it's impacting our ability.
Carter
15:30
ability. You know, people
Carter
15:32
people people are dying. I mean, this is this is the biggest issue we've seen. And Jason Kenney is nowhere to be found. So I suspect that
Carter
15:41
that there's a lot going on. I suspect that part of it is you don't want to stand up until you have an answer. However, sometimes standing up when you don't have the answer is part of the answer. It is a process. Corey mentioned this earlier, the ability
Carter
15:56
ability to kind of season us and get us ready for what's coming, you know, telling us what may be happening. If we'd known over the last six days, seven days, what was going to happen at certain points, either from the health minister or from the premier, then maybe we'd be in a position where we would have a lot more comfort. Instead, we've been watching what's happened in other provinces, and the beats that they're taking bear
Carter
16:20
bear little to no resemblance to the beats that we're taking, and we're left just wondering why.
Zain
16:27
Gory, what do you think in terms of leaders and their decision-making and their refusal to step up for moments like this?
Corey
16:35
Yeah, and I don't know that we can say with any certainty. In fact, I don't think it's the case that it's Jason Kenney not stepping up right now he might not be doing the thing we like he might be believing philosophically that it's not the right approach to to go out there and talk about it every day he's taking his own approach we can all judge it it's it's not necessarily working for me i suspect it's not working for others but i'm not going to pin it to a cowardice let's put it that way but look can i be honest i mean most of the time government runs itself absolutely like it's you know politicians change things and then they change them back and you know they take around around the edges and they update based on moving realities but everybody
Corey
17:13
disappears for four years things
Zain
17:15
things would probably be fine yeah
Corey
17:16
yeah but for these moments we need leaders for these moments they clarify they catalyze they counsel and they console they bring us together and they help us find the path forward because everybody is running around saying what the hell do we do and um we we need our premier and and so hopefully we get our premier tomorrow uh whether you vote for them or not, whether you love them or whether you hate them, there is a big vacuum right now that is being filled with all sorts of anxiety and misinformation as a result of us not seeing Jason Kenney at this time. Let's
Zain
17:48
Let's talk about that vacuum, because I'm glad you brought this up. That vacuum is starting to be filled with misinformation, yes, but also some of, you know, the deputies within the UCP government, right? Just today, we had UCP Associate Minister Jason LeJuan talk about how, you know, we We are going to act once we kind of see the stress test on hospitals and ICUs. We've also seen, you know, in certain cases, the health minister step up, but none of them being the premier in certain cases. So I want to talk about that vacuum a bit. But Carter, I also want to put a clarifying point on something, which is him showing up, the premier, showing up is one thing, but inaction is another, right? Like him showing up and doing the things Corey's foresees there, which I loved, you know, is one part of the job. But I don't think that's an excuse for the inaction we've also seen, right? There's almost two things that have kind of come together. Him talking you through what his strategy is one thing, him disappearing and also not having strategies is two separate things. So I want to kind of get your take on why haven't we seen the action, right? Right. So let's put aside the fact that the premier isn't here. Where do you think the fact is that we haven't, you know, done the province wide mask mandate? We haven't actually increased the regulations. Do you feel like it goes back to a personal sort of belief to your point? Or do you think there's something more at play? You know, we've heard some of the speculative reasons that there's, you know, the rural caucus can't can't go along to get along because the case counts there are lower. That ideology is part of it. You know, where do you kind of draw the line on where the inaction might be coming from, regardless of the presence of the premier? premier?
Carter
19:20
I honestly don't know, Zane. I've been trying to wrap my head around this. I've been chatting with people who, you know, trying to find out what they think. You know, tell me why. Why would a premier in this situation not act? Why would he not do a mandatory mask mandate? Now, that's the simplest thing. I think we're well past a mandatory mask mandate. I think that that was a three week ago solution. And I think that when you go over 1500 cases in a day, I suspect that we're looking at something a lot stronger um i don't know why he hasn't acted i don't know why this hasn't been his predominant piece one of the things that i also don't know and going back to your uh
Carter
20:00
uh comment about jason lawan and and and the like i mean jason lawan has since walked those comments back yep he has um so there was a direction from someone there was a direction from someone that he had to walk that back who you
Carter
20:14
you know nicholas millican is out tweeting today about how he's uh you know don't worry we're not really selling alberta parks jason kenny himself was tweeting uh last week about how edmonton's economic resurgence is doing and how albert you know calgary's investing in tech some 70 plus million dollars of investment in tech i
Carter
20:33
i don't know what the hell's going on because it's it's it's worse than just sticking your head into the sand and pretending that nothing is happening because you're you're at least pretending to to be interested in other things. So, you know, who is speaking on behalf of this government? Is it Jason LeJuan? Obviously not. He had to walk his comments back. Is it Miranda Rosen, who said that the worst of the pandemic is behind us? No, obviously not. She's having to walk her comments back. Who's forcing them to walk their comments back? Who's in charge? Why isn't something happening? Because Jason Kenney isn't
Carter
21:07
isn't having something happen. I don't know what he wants to make his next step to be a rational human being would say you're at the very least going to see a mandatory mask mandate and you're most likely going to see some some form of a lockdown
Carter
21:21
or or maybe call it something else a a forced economic uh reset i don't know what the hell they call it but we need to do something um but i honest to god have no clue and you know why going back to cory's point 10 minutes ago when cory said that we have no signals you know we've We've had nothing to precondition us to whatever the action is going to be. So if there is a speech from the premier tomorrow, that speech goes completely without any pre
Carter
21:49
pre-notice, without any setting the stage. How often does that happen, Corey? How often do we actually see something like that happen where major announcements made?
Zain
21:59
And this is a good point, because I think in some level we're expecting something tomorrow. I think it's fair to say that we've all heard rumors of certain sort of measures that might be taken. But, Corey, I want to go to Carter's point here. You know, let's put on the strategist's hat. You know this premier has to take some action. What are you advising him in terms of his public appearance going forward? The public is lacking context, lacking signals, perhaps not understanding the inaction of the past two weeks at least, not understanding the directionality that this government may take. What does his next public appearance need to look like? And I'm not saying park ideology, but maybe incorporate his ideology as part of it, but maybe with the tools of, like, you know, comms that he needs to ensure his message lands with the vacuum that he's left.
Corey
22:51
Well, it really depends on what they decide to do, if anything, because the first thing you might need is an excuse. If there is a lockdown tomorrow, where the hell has he been will be a pretty obvious question, right? Why are we just hearing from you now? Why weren't we given any kind of fore-notice that this may happen? And he's going to have to say something like, well, look, I've been working out behind the scenes. We were watching the numbers closely, obviously.
Corey
23:16
We prepared for the worst, but we were hoping for the better. And I didn't want to put Alberta through more uncertainty by moving us in one direction. I'm going to have to move back if things ended up getting better. That's not the situation we're in. I am here now. We
Corey
23:27
We are going into this economic pause or whatever the hell. We can come up with some fun brand, I'm sure, by the end of this episode. But we're all going to take a breath. We're going to return after Christmas, and Alberta will be better for it. Whatever it is he says, right? He's going to have to start with where he's been if there's something more aggressive.
Corey
23:48
from that point on, like that's your reset. From that point on, you have to make the daily presser, especially if the province is being shut down in any real fashion. You're going to have to stand up there. You're going to have to give the updates yourself, or at least in part from yourself. It can't be a, I'm going to show up once a week sort of thing. It's going to have to be more regular because at that point, it's impossible to deny that the province is in crisis. We are right back where we were, but worse. And we can't have this situation where, you know, the Luan comments, really bad, really damning, and people ran with them pretty far, but they, of course, they're going to when that's the only information. The Miranda Rosen, you know, text on a mailer, really
Corey
24:30
really unfortunate, I would say, kind of amateur hour by her staff. Shame on them, right? Because these mailers take time, and by the time they hit your mailbox, as we've seen, things can be very, very different. Perhaps this was drafted in September when there were as many cases in September, all September, as there were today. Today, yeah. So, you know, that's really unfortunate. But again, when that is the only thing you've got to
Corey
24:55
to hang on to and say, what
Corey
24:56
what does this government think about COVID-19?
Corey
25:00
Oh, they don't even think it's an effing problem. Oh, they're going to wait for ICUs to fill up.
Corey
25:04
These are not authoritative sources. But that's all we got right now. That's all we got right now. So of course, it's going to be a problem. Carter? Carter?
Carter
25:12
Well, I think that one of the big things that's missing in this particular government is that normally what you do is you tell us what you're going to do.
Carter
25:20
You tell us what you're doing and you tell us why you did it.
Carter
25:23
And it's kind of an ongoing repeat of the cycle. Here's what I'm going to do.
Carter
25:26
Here's why I'm doing it. Here's what the expected outcome is. We have none of that with COVID. We have all of that with the economy, right? He tells us what he's going to do with the economy. He tells me why he's doing it. He tells us what's going to happen with it. We're We're going to get back the oil sands. He's invested $30 million a year in the Canadian Energy Centre in order to give us back our economic engine. He's told us what he's going to do. He's told us why he's doing it. And he's told us how it's going to impact us. That has happened in any issue that he cares about, any issue that he cares about. Even the parks issue, which arguably has been a train wreck for him. They've done town halls. They're countering it. You know, they've got people out there whose job it is to counter the messaging of defend our Alberta's parks. Right. They're defending it. Where the hell is it? Is any of those three steps, any of those three steps need to be done in any good communication? We have none of those steps with COVID. Not one of those steps has been taken. And it's
Carter
26:30
it's it's it's really unbelievable. I mean, one could imagine that they're sitting in a meeting. This lasted nine
Carter
26:36
nine days to try and figure out what the next step is, because it's a hard question. Right. I'm not sure you can point to one jurisdiction and say this is the this is the answer that we should do. Look what New York did. New York figured this thing right out. Well,
Carter
26:51
Well, I'll tell you something. There are solutions. Those solutions exist in Europe. They exist in Asia. It's just we don't like those solutions.
Carter
26:59
So we're not bringing those solutions to the table. So he's looking for a new solution that doesn't exist. And because, you know, if they are sitting in a nine-day meeting trying to figure out what the answer is going to be, because we haven't seen Shandro for, I think, the exact same amount of time, where
Carter
27:17
where are they? What are they deciding? Why are they deciding it? And when are they going to start foreshadowing it for us so that we have some sort of— I mean, wouldn't it be the biggest shock in the world? Wouldn't it be the biggest shock in the world if tomorrow they came out and told us that we had at least a two week lockdown?
Carter
27:35
Like we've had nothing. How
Zain
27:37
How do you think that would go down, Carter? Like, and perhaps to an extension to what you're saying, you know, you're called in for pinch hitting advice. What would you tell them, right? They say, Stephen, we're going out tomorrow morning. It might be three weeks. It might be four weeks. It might be two weeks, but we're going to have to do this. Would you tell them, hey, you are going to get hit really hard. if you do it from like a palatability side from like the the digestive system side of people not being able to understand and comprehend what's going on like do you think they'll sow more chaos into it like what advice would you give them this is what i'm really curious rather than looking in the rear view mirror of what they should have done you know if if action is on its way what's the best way to communicate that action to the public okay
Carter
28:18
okay i'm going to answer it in two different ways okay so the first way is you're you're
Carter
28:22
you're inviting me in tonight and the announcement's going to be tomorrow.
Carter
28:26
I'm leaking it right now.
Carter
28:27
Like I've got Don Braid on speed dial. But then the problem with that is that all I've done is just preset that little bit, right? This is what we're going to do. I haven't told you why it's important yet.
Carter
28:39
So if you were to bring me in a week ago, then what I would be telling you is we're going to leak it two days in advance. But before we even leak it, what we're going to do is we're going to be starting to set the table for why a reset is so important and how we can keep the economy going. So I'm going to have Andrew Leach on my side. I'm going to have all, you know, I'm going to get all the economists to tell us why or how we can keep the economy moving through Christmas, which is one of the most important retail cycles, period, right? We have to keep the retailers open and whole. So here's how we're going to do that.
Carter
29:16
And that has to be part of any lockdown, by the way. You can't just lock down and hope for the best with retail. You have to have a plan because you can't lock down before Christmas without having a retail in Alberta plan.
Carter
29:28
Then we're going to have a series of health experts talking about why resets work, right? And we're going to start talking about that again, three or four days before we're going to do it, or if we're going to do it really quick, we're going to start talking about it two days before we do it so
Carter
29:44
so that we're setting the table. We're bringing in enough flavor so that people understand why it is happening. And then we announce it and
Carter
29:54
we announce it with measures
Carter
29:56
measures of how things we, what we expect to change, right? So we expect to immediately reduce our, our infection numbers.
Carter
30:05
That's going to take, it's
Carter
30:07
it's going to take a week, right? Then we're going to start to see our hospitalization decrease. And when we start to see our hospitalization decrease and our infection numbers decrease, When they reach this level, we can reopen. And I have to set all of that up in advance so that people know exactly what's going to happen to avoid panic. Because if I don't, and I just announced tomorrow that we're going into a lockdown, I'm
Carter
30:29
I'm going to panic because we're, you know, if I own a small business that relies on retail sales, I'm going to lose my business this month. This is the only month that I get to make my year's sales. And it's been a shit year. And if you close me now, I may as well hand over my business to my landlord. Yeah,
Zain
30:48
yeah. So, Carter, I think that was incredibly articulate. Doing the what without the why can, you know, sow this sort of panic and further enhance the chaos. You know, so where there was a vacuum of information prior to, there perhaps is an overwhelming of information and more speculation as to the why. Corey, do you agree with that? And is that similar advice that you would give on a practical front? They call you right now, you know, we're at like nine o'clock when we're recording this podcast saying, hey, Corey, we think about tomorrow morning. What do you think? Are you pretty much on the Carter train?
Corey
31:24
Well, he's made excellent points and I just want to build on them. There's things I quibble with, but let's not futz around the edges here. There's two other things.
Corey
31:33
Well, let me just sort of build on, I agree with him that people are going to lose their effing minds. it's not just shopkeepers i also think as parents i'm a parent i've got school-aged children um
Corey
31:44
i haven't conditioned my kids if tomorrow afternoon all of a sudden there's no school for the rest of the year my daughter will be devastated that's so
Corey
31:53
i haven't done anything to be like you know honey maybe this isn't going to happen anything along those lines like the next order conditioning that has to occur for something like this is pretty substantial and And I, you know, it's for some of these reasons that in a way, like, you know, I want this lockdown to happen, this circuit breaker people have talked about, because I think it's right policy. But I'm, I'm somewhat skeptical, because we're looking at all of, I guess, let's, let me tell you this way, we're looking at this and saying, well, they've really blown it, if they do this, because they haven't done this conditioning. But that makes me think maybe, maybe they're not going to do it. The other group that they need to think about conditioning is their base. You know, for many months, they've been saying this is unnecessary. This is too much pain. You know, this is a we've got to sort of ride this out reasonably. We can't destroy the economy. Because this only kills people with comorbidities over the age of X, right?
Corey
32:44
And now you're going to have to do a bit of an about face here, you're going to have to explain why this isn't a lockdown, why this isn't a reversal, why this isn't your fault.
Corey
32:52
And you know that why you were not wrong in all of those previous times, you said that. and you've you've armed them with the messaging that they are now going to throw back in your effing face yeah
Corey
33:02
and and that's a really tough situation to be in because your own words will come back to haunt you uh in this scenario there
Corey
33:09
there is a bit of that
Zain
33:09
that political pretzel that they've they've put themselves in and let's talk politics because this is where you left off cory um
Zain
33:16
political upside political downside do you feel like this is irreparably harming to the ucp this this last two weeks plus for the premier in action, do you feel like this is something people are going to remember in the short term and long term? Like, let's hope we get through this, right? Like, I really, you know, hate me for it or hate us for it. I really do believe your comments about, you know, even if you didn't vote for Jason Kenney, he is your premier and you need him tomorrow, right? Because he's got power and authority and ability, right? In that position in that seat but on the strict politics of it is this is this reparable damage or do you feel like this is going to be a black mark on the ucp term that voters will remember it's
Corey
33:57
it's so tough because we're we're kind of being speculative about speculation we don't know what's now i don't know what's going to come out of jason kenney's mouth on
Corey
34:05
on the question of who people ultimately blame let's not get too hung up in the moment like this is a really charged time and the reality is people are pretty good at writing stories that meet their worldview after the fact. They may post lockdown, forget about the fact that we were rushed into a health emergency by arguably inaction. And they may blame, quote
Corey
34:27
quote unquote, small L liberals, you know, for forcing us into a lockdown and wrecking their business. They may not see it as it got really bad because the premier didn't act. They may see it as those
Corey
34:37
those jackasses on the left forced us to shut down because they'll forget they'll forget the anxiety of this moment we're all going to forget the anxiety of this moment to an extent and it's a long way to 2023 still so you know i'm very hesitant to say that this is a definite black mark that will never get moved past i do think realistically though something like this does have resonance this will hang this will hurt and um we had seen about what a month month and a half ago now polls
Corey
35:03
polls that showed the ucp trailing or tied with the ndp The hell is a poll going to say now? So he's also got to watch what
Corey
35:11
what happens if there's a poll in December in the middle of this. What are Jason Kenney's personal numbers going to be? What is cabinet going to be like? What is caucus management going to be like? You know, the UCP is a marriage of the PC party and the Wild Rose party, neither of which were known for just kind of taking it easy on leaders. Yeah, like eating
Corey
35:32
like they make Hamlet look like a very orderly, you know, above board story of governance. It's like they're always trying to stab a knife in somebody's back. And Jason
Corey
35:43
Jason Kenney has always trailed his party in popularity. But you know, it's been fine as long as the party's popularity has been enough. off when
Corey
35:51
when that scenario changes i i
Corey
35:53
i mean things could get really interesting in a hurry here i mean there was a time in alberta not too long ago we didn't go i
Corey
36:00
i i think for what carter five years there was not a single session that there wasn't a floor crossing yeah i mean this is just what happens in this province so carter
Zain
36:09
carter same question to you the political price that the ucp will pay the resonance to cory's point will it hang uh and and maybe i'll layer on a different one which is right now in the moment, if you are the NDP, are you just keeping quiet and letting the lack of information from the UCP just drive it? Or are you looking at some political angles yourself?
Carter
36:31
First of all, never get in the way of your opposition killing themselves, right? This is them shooting themselves in the foot. Just let them do that. So the opposition, Rachel Notley, if you're listening to this, just shush, shush, just stay off to the side and let Jason Kenney do what he's doing because he's doing it for you but let's also address cory's point and cory's point was you know i don't know exactly how this is going to play because we're caught in the emotion of it i'm emotional about this i am angry about this right now but here's what's going to lock this in in a different way than if i was angry about this in july i'm angry about this as we near christmas i'm angry about this as we're bringing together my family as we're bringing together, you know, my parents have already canceled Christmas. You know, we have never canceled Christmas in the Carter family. That's not something that happens. It has been canceled because we know it's not going to work this year.
Carter
37:28
That's something that now we're going to remember for some time. The emotion attached to that cancellation, that emotion attached to Corey describing what happens with his oldest when he says to her, I'm sorry, we can't go to school tomorrow. That emotion stays with you, that emotional connection of what is happening. And then the person who loses their business isn't going to forget tomorrow why they lost their business or how it happened. All
Carter
37:52
All of these things are happening together.
Carter
37:55
And that merging of everything happening together is creating an emotional soup that is going to stay with us. Who that emotional soup gets blamed on, you
Carter
38:04
you know, to Corey's point, let us not speculate. We can we can rationalize. We could assign odds. Generally speaking, we have a tendency to blame the person before us. Right. The premier who's in charge. It was not rational to blame Rachel Notley for the economic downturn of 2014 after she was elected in 2015. It did not matter what was rational. Right. Right. It was in front of us and it was that emotional soup that mixed around us and that economic uncertainty that we pinned upon her.
Carter
38:37
I have a feeling that
Carter
38:39
that Jason Kenney is basically
Carter
38:41
basically just trying to figure out how to blame this on someone else, because if it doesn't get blamed on Justin Trudeau, if
Carter
38:47
if it doesn't get blamed on Donald Trump,
Carter
38:50
it is going to be blamed on him. him.
Carter
38:52
And that is going to be worn
Carter
38:54
worn by someone by by likely by him for
Carter
38:57
for ever, because you don't get to walk away from you were the premier when this happened.
Zain
39:03
Corey, I want to give you the final word on the Alberta segment on the two fronts. Number one, react to what you heard from Carter around this emotional soup concept and then like pivoting on blame. And then secondly, asking you the question as well, should the NDP do something right now? Do they do they hold back? Do they they strategically try to make a precision shot of some kind, what advice would you give to them?
Corey
39:24
Well, Carter's right about the psychology there. There are studies. There's one I'm familiar with from Edinburgh University. I can't remember the researcher's name, but they've found that attention-grabbing experiences
Corey
39:36
help with memory forming, right? Like adrenaline makes you more likely to remember. Big emotional moments make you more likely to remember. And there's not much more emotional than losing your job or not seeing your family, and God forbid, maybe it's the last Christmas for some people, right? Let's not forget the backdrop here is people are dying. You know, the mortality rate is what, around 2% in Canada right now? You just sort of take the raw numbers. So there's that. There's the reality of that.
Corey
40:05
Now, on what the NDP should be doing,
Corey
40:08
they should be trying to help as much as, I mean, we're at such a moment and it's, you know, this is one of those things, and we've We've talked about it in different episodes where I think gamesmanship will be too evident, and I think people are a little too raw for that. I think they'll be a little too pissed off if it looks too, like, political, frankly. Now,
Corey
40:27
that doesn't mean there's not a need to kind of have calming and talking and saying, listen, regardless of what happens, as Albertans, maybe we'll get through this. Maybe it's the time to –
Corey
40:36
– you know, Rachel Notley was premier. She knows how to be premier. She's great in these moments, and I think Albertans wouldn't mind hearing from her. But she's got to make sure she's not doing it in a way that is crass and political and undermines public safety and public confidence. Let's
Zain
40:50
Let's move it on to the federal scene. I know we've done a tight 40, as we say, on Alberta. But I think importantly, we haven't covered this in this detail. So I'm actually totally happy. I hope people have not dropped off. But let's talk about the federal scene, because I think it's also very interesting what we saw from Trudeau this past week. Using the bully pulpit, right? Telling Canadians, to Stephen's point, that Christmas will be different this year, right? That we have passed that window of Christmas normalcy. Now, different provinces trying different things around Christmas. Quebec most, I guess, notably having their quarantine pre and post to be able to attend Christmas time with family. family. I guess the question I have, Carter, for you is twofold on the federal side of things. Number one, what did you make of the Trudeau use of the bully pulpit? And number two, do you feel like the blame that we've been talking about might rest at his feet right now for what we might be seeing across the country? I've skipped over all the other provinces. They've got, you know, their cocktail of restrictions, regulations, you know, BC installing their mandatory mask mandate and having a more targeted shutdown. Ontario, as of tomorrow, going for 28 days, and then all in between for the other provinces. But what do you kind of make of Trudeau's use of the bully pulpit? And secondly, what do you kind of think of the political price he might be paying with the second wave emerging?
Carter
42:18
I think he's managing much better than the premiers are. I think he's managing and coming out ahead of this because he's doing, you know, for For the last two episodes, we've been talking about how he hasn't done anything.
Carter
42:31
And that really hasn't changed. I mean, he did kind of revamp the rental thing. So now you can apply directly for the business subsidies, which is good. That's kind of what I suggested a couple of weeks ago. But
Carter
42:43
he's not having to do anything. He's just showing up to
Carter
42:48
to the job. He's showing us what leadership looks like. He's reassuring us. He's bringing us, for lack of a better term, thoughts and prayers from the leadership.
Carter
43:00
And it's working for us. I don't feel, and maybe I'm a bad focus group here, but I don't feel any particular anger towards Jason Kenney. I was out on the chairlift today going up and down chairs with my friends, and people
Carter
43:15
people were fine with Justin Trudeau. They're not fine with Jason Kenney. They know who they want to blame at this particular moment, and it's not going all the way up to the prime minister. It's going to their local representatives and specifically the premier of the province. It's not landing on Nenshi's desk for the most part. You know, the only people mad at Nenshi are the ones who are mad about the mask mandate. Well, you know what? They weren't voting for him anyways. They can fuck off, right? The people marching up and down Calgary streets yesterday can go fuck themselves. I don't care who they are. And, you know, that that's fine. Fine. Be angry. Be angry. But I think that Justin
Carter
43:57
Justin Trudeau has done his job. He stood up and he's and he's taken the heat and he stood in front of the people and he said, here's how we're going to get through this. And to a lesser extent, Doug Ford has done that as well. well. Horgan has done that. What we have not seen, and we've tried to see Brian Pallister kind of do it a little bit, but he's done it badly. And Jason Kenney hasn't done it at all. So the people who aren't standing up and being leaders are taking the biggest hits on all of this.
Zain
44:26
Corey, same question for you. Your kind of analysis on Trudeau's use of the bully pulpit and what you might see in terms of political price he might either pay or political upside that he might either get for his leadership in this second wave.
Corey
44:42
No, I mean, I generally agree with Carter. And it's remarkable to me that when you compare and contrast with the United States, where there's an expectation, the president do something here, there's kind of this sense, well, the prime minister is doing what the prime minister can do. And maybe I'm a bad focus group, too. But I just don't see the antipathy towards Justin Trudeau, that
Corey
45:00
that I am seeing towards just the premiers more generally, and certainly polling bears that out to a large extent, right? People People are not upset with the federal government's response to COVID-19, in part because they haven't seen the bill yet, I think, in many ways. But the federal government has basically paid for everything that they could pay for, whether it be vaccines or supports for employment income
Corey
45:23
income or employers or rent or you name it. The Canadian government has basically unloaded all barrels on this problem. And again, we're spending more than basically anyone. But what
Corey
45:35
what could you really want him to do besides that? And so he's
Corey
45:39
he's in a fine spot right now. And as long as he's doing everything that it looks like he can do,
Corey
45:47
him to be that comforter in chief, to take on those roles that we talked about earlier, who can console us in kind of his Gen X way of saying like, yeah,
Corey
45:56
yeah, it sucks, right? Right. Like this is going to be a shitty Christmas. My words, not his. But it sucks is not. Those are his words. And and we get that and we can sort of sympathize with it and we can understand that that he's doing what he can. But at the end of the day, the thing that he's doing beyond the legislative stuff is just sort of being there for us, which is more than, you know, some some premiers have been. So it's a weird one. Right. It feels very touchy feely. It feels very like getting on the couch, but that's an important role for leaders. Leaders need to be there and be accessible and look human about this. This is an emotional issue. People are losing their livelihoods. People are losing their lives. And we want to know that our leaders give a damn. And Justin Trudeau is now turned to being give a damn in chief again with his press conferences outside of Rodeo Cottage. And that's great. That's exactly what he should be doing. Carter,
Zain
46:53
Carter, I want to talk about a point Corey mentioned, which is the antipathy against Justin Trudeau. You know, certainly, it seems like from our sense of the polling and our sense of just anecdotal experience, that there isn't an outrage, even in Alberta, Justin Trudeau is polling higher on his COVID response than Jason Kenney is. But one person that's trying to make hay with it is Aaron O'Toole, leader of the Conservatives. Just today, he put out this graphic that said Trudeau has had 11 months to manage the a pandemic, but Canadians are worse off than in the spring, and then an image of a woman in a mask. Do you feel like strategically, A, that attack is strategically sound, part A to that question? And B, do you feel like there's perhaps some danger for the O'Toole side, for the O'Toole camp to try to make hay of something that I think Canadians understand, at least a large There are swaths of Canadians understand that the prime minister is trying to do what he can with the cards that have been dealt to him and every other leader across the globe. So I'll go to you first on this, Carter. Corey, I want to get your reaction thereafter.
Carter
47:56
I'm not sure I would have done it like that. I'm not sure I would have done it like the health impact is in some fashion Trudeau's fault. I think I might have done something along the lines of we have the greatest deficit and we have the greatest spending and the least to show for it. Right. You certainly aren't feeling like you're safe. You're certainly not feeling like your economic future isn't in some fashion safe or secure. So what the hell? All we've done is spent all the money and have nothing to show for it, which is the typical liberal move. The typical liberal is there to spend as much as he possibly can and to get as little as he possibly can. And so Justin Trudeau is following the mold.
Carter
48:37
if there if there had been a conservative government we would have seen something like what happened in 2009 where
Carter
48:44
where we spent appropriately we got out of it and then we got right back on track you
Carter
48:48
know that that was the recession of 2009 and that was stephen harper and he got us through it and i would have employed that leadership where we didn't spend every penny we could we spent every penny that was required that's
Carter
49:02
that's probably how i would have gone for it rather than going after the health outcomes implicitly
Zain
49:06
implicitly in in your answer you're you're answering to me that attacking the prime minister on the covid response is kosher but the but the the message and the line of attack is not is where you would have uh differed right because i i also wanted to get the answer to that to the top line question which is like is is is the is attacking the prime minister on covid a third rail like is that dangerous and what i'm hearing from you is no you should be able to go down that road it's just the messaging would have been different Yeah,
Carter
49:34
Yeah, I think that attacking the prime minister on COVID is fine. I don't think the prime minister is running any health systems. I don't think that he's the one who we're looking at to sell to solve this particular health problem. I think he's in charge of the economic response. And the
Carter
49:49
the prime the premiers, the ones that were all in the photo shoot with Andrew Scheer, are the ones that are running the health
Carter
49:57
health response. And they're the ones who are struggling. struggling um
Carter
50:00
plus also all you know i ask people what is your brand what
Carter
50:05
what is it you're supposed to own and
Carter
50:06
and the thing that conservatives say that they own is the economy now we could dispute that i'm sure that we've taken it up a couple of times on the podcast how you know the economy isn't necessarily a conservative strength it's certainly not a republican strength in the united states but nonetheless here they are right so if the if the economy is your brand promise if economic economic certainty is your brand promise then promise me economic certainty talk to me about economic certainty it's not it's you know it's like hertz coming to me and instead of talking to me about renting a car all of a sudden they're talking to me about flying planes like i
Carter
50:40
don't know what the fuck they're doing like talk to me about your central brand promise that's what i need from the conservatives cory
Zain
50:46
cory uh two questions so you say when i asked carter strategically sound to attack on covet if you're a tool and what did you think of this line of attack that they've waged on on the prime minister today i
Corey
50:58
didn't love the line of attack like carter it felt
Corey
51:01
well i mean it just didn't sort of pass that that basic reasonable person test i think if you don't like justin trudeau the attack is probably fine but i mean worse off than in the spring after 11 months well you don't say no shit it's been going on for 11 months of course we're worse off now than we were 11 months ago our reserve funds are gone our businesses that were on life support are are now buried of course it's fucking worse now than it was 11 months ago the numbers are worse now than they were 11 months ago and it's true everywhere like i like that was sort of my reaction to it also i am informed that the woman was wearing the mask upside down in the picture which is never a good look but i don't know if that's true or apocryphal i just heard that yeah i'm
Zain
51:42
i'm looking at the picture now it's hard to say it's either a a mask that sags a lot at the the bottom. And it's one of those. Either she's using the nose clip for her chin, or it's futuristic. I can't tell.
Corey
51:56
As far as being critical of the Prime Minister, I think there's ways to do that. And I think that there are conservative ways to do that. Let's be clear, there are certain lines of attack that are not really open to O'Toole. One of them is the Premier should be getting more involved in provincial health matters. He wouldn't put it that way. But you You could imagine it being like, oh, he just wants the premiers to do his dirty work. He has the tools. He needs to take a stand with the federal government's
Corey
52:19
resources. He can't do that because of who he is and what his party is, right? But there are lines of attack that are available to him, and they are along what Stephen was talking about. So obviously the economy, obviously the budget. We need to spend what's necessary, but we need to do more than spend. You can't fix this merely by putting it on Canada's credit card. It takes some thought, some strategy, and I'm not seeing that from this prime minister. he's literally opened up his wallet and he's let every liberal interest come by and pull out a little bit of money right like there is a conservative critique that is available uh perhaps even one that implies uh graft or corruption but um yeah like this notion that he just hasn't done enough is it just sort of or like things haven't gotten better
Corey
53:08
canadians have cnn canadians have bbc we can see what's going on in the rest of the world we know that everybody is in the soup right now and we also know that our premiers have had very disparate responses and those disparate responses have led to disparate numbers so i just don't think that it's going to be a particularly fruitful approach with swing voters uh whatever no tool did today carter
Zain
53:31
carter there's one final thing i want to talk about on the federal side which is is what's been not dominating the conversation, but it's been increasingly getting louder and louder as part of what Trudeau has been talking about on the federal side of things, which is
Zain
53:44
the vaccine that is perhaps coming in 2021, what that looks like. And I know that we haven't really snapped into focus what this looks like. Will it be Moderna? Will it be Pfizer? What will it be? I know last episode, we talked about, you know, the Prime Minister giving him credit for securing and hedging our bets and having the highest per capita vaccine acquisition. But I want to talk about just very quickly here, as we start this conversation, certainly not end it on this episode, which is communications about the vaccine. You know, in a recent press conference this week, Trudeau said it'd be a big sigh of relief when the vaccines this spring will come out. And I also wanted to just, with that line, talk to you guys about your initial thoughts of what advice would you give the prime minister, knowing that, A, we're still speaking in abstractions, B, that there's an expectation setting here that they're going to need to be really careful of, right? These vaccines might land, but the distribution and the logistics are a massive executional operation that is, you know, just fraught with uncertainty. So from a political standpoint, how are you going to, what are some of the lessons and principles you're thinking of of injecting into the PM's, you know, conversations right now, so that there's an expectation setting for the public so that when they, you know, when the vaccine is at the end of 2021 for them, or maybe 2022, that they receive it like that, that he's not there to kind of have the political blame as we've been talking about as squarely at his feet. I know that's a very long question, one that we can't necessarily answer in specificity, but abstraction, but some first principles of what What you would be telling him right now when he addresses vaccines and their upcoming, you know, landing in Canada, so to speak? Carter, you first. Well,
Carter
55:24
Well, I think that the first step is that let's not confuse our distribution models with those of the United States. We have a far more robust distribution of, you know, vaccinations than they do in the U.S. because we have, for example, we've implemented province-wide or really society-wide influenza vaccinations for years. We started doing the chickenpox vaccination years and years ago. We've got vaccinations for our children.
Carter
55:54
Our vaccination systems are actually relatively robust, and they start with our health care system, right? What I'd be talking about is setting people up for the waves waves, because what the prime minister is doing by talking about a single vaccination that's going to start to arrive in the spring, first of all, I don't know what the spring means. I don't know if that's March or if that's May. This is Canada. What is the spring? And secondly, it's not going to come in one wave. It's going to come in a series of waves. And the people who are first going to get that first wave judging from the numbers of vaccinations that are coming we will have more vaccinations for COVID-19 than we traditionally give in Alberta for the influenza vaccination so if that's the case then we're going to have a fairly robust initial wave of vaccination but if it's not the case say that only one of those two vaccinations is able to actually deliver significant numbers to and it's halved or maybe it's quartered then we better be starting to set up with the people who are going to get the vaccinations first are the ones who need it most we're
Carter
57:05
we're going to make sure that the doctors and nurses who are provide our frontline providers
Carter
57:10
going to get those vaccinations and then i would start defining what the hell does it mean to be a frontline provider now part of the problem is he's not necessarily going to be able to define each of those he's handing it off to the provinces and each province is going to go step-by-step to define what each of those waves looks like. I'd probably just start saying the first wave of vaccinations will be available in the first or second quarter of 2021. I'd make it a lot more vague. He's making it a lot more specific. And I think that specificity is going to come back and bite him in the ass.
Zain
57:45
Corey, some first principles on communicating about the vaccine, knowing that we're speaking in largely abstractions right now about what when how etc well
Corey
57:56
well you you manage expectations right off the bat when you talk about first principles we don't know uh what this world looks like we don't actually know that these companies will be able to commit to their their vaccine delivery numbers as well so you don't want to over promise on any of that i think the government has been pretty pretty reasonable and in sort of saying hey we're looking through to have people vaccinated in large numbers by the summer
Corey
58:20
um because we we just don't know now i i don't i i do kind of think that this is
Corey
58:26
and maybe i'm wrong because these rna vaccines require very cold uh storage right two doses
Corey
58:34
but i do think that maybe people have swung a little too far the other way on the logistical complexities of all of this particularly in a country like canada where we have these large hospitals that are that are government run all over the place i feel like we are better equipped to deal with that than our
Corey
58:50
our friends south of the border where a hospital could be an office building in one context or it could be a massive research center in another. It's
Zain
58:59
It's a little different.
Corey
59:01
the problem is probably more that the
Corey
59:06
the logistics only take over once we get handed this vaccine. We don't know what the hell is going to happen. We don't know how much we're going to get. We don't know whether Moderna is going to have the
Corey
59:15
the ability to scale up the way we want them to. Frankly, we don't know that there won't be some crazy-ass shit that goes down in the United States where they just say, no, we're not going to export any of that, right? I mean, that would obviously cause no
Corey
59:28
no shortage of problems. And I think that part of the reason why Justin Trudeau at G20 this weekend was so dramatic about we all have to work together, Canada will share its vaccines, is he's saying, you've
Corey
59:39
you've got to share your vaccines, rest of the world. Like, it's not just that we've got to share, but, you know, implicit in all of that is that you share, too. And that includes with us, because we're not actually producing these vaccines, really, in any large numbers, at least of these first two that have hit. So that's,
Corey
59:54
that's, it's really managing expectations. You talk first principles, it ends there. Begins there, ends there. We don't have a clear view yet of what's going to happen. And we shouldn't act as though we do.
Zain
1:00:05
Carter, I see you scribbling some notes. Do you want to do want to close this off on this segment?
Carter
1:00:09
Well, I just wanted to, I'm just trying to figure out where we are, you know, with the vaccination structures, with the deaths. I mean, COVID, I'm
Carter
1:00:18
I'm not going to convince anybody listening to this podcast that COVID is more serious than the flu. But, you know, we've invested, we invest a lot of money in the flu vaccinations. I think it was $30 million we invested in the chickenpox vaccination. Like we spend a lot of money on vaccinations to protect our health. This vaccination is going to come, and it's going to be super important. We need to get in line when it's our turn to get in line, and this is the opportunity to stop this. Unfortunately, I don't even think a lockdown is going to stop this. A lockdown is going to simply reset for us, and man, do we need a reset, because that's where we are right now. uh so um
Carter
1:00:59
um i just hope that people listening to our podcast people listening to all the various media understand this
Carter
1:01:06
this is a inflection point and us being at
Carter
1:01:09
at this point is because of who we are as human beings and we as human beings need to be able to take uh the appropriate steps to get out of it
Zain
1:01:19
will leave that segment there and move it on to our final segment our over under and our our lightning round guys are you ready i'm
Zain
1:01:25
i'm so very ready oh
Zain
1:01:27
oh carter you have always been ready which means i am once again starting with cory uh cory first question over under on seven over under on seven the political strategy for trudeau saying that the canada will be providing covet aid to poorer countries joining the g20 pact uh you know this is in normal times this is what a question i wouldn't even ask you but maybe i'll contextualize this when we're at self-preservation mode right now. And a lot of people think about their jobs, their families, their livelihoods, etc. To read this headline, the political strategy here for Trudeau, I think he had to do it, but I'm kind of over under on seven for you to kind of assess.
Corey
1:02:04
Over both in a defensive sense of people saying, look at Canada hoarding all of those bloody vaccines with our 10 doses per per citizen. But also for the reasons I just said, you are you are trying to establish an international norm that the borders stay open to the movement of these things. And it's based on need. Because the last thing you want is producing nations to hold back until they're dealt with before little old Canada gets its vaccine.
Zain
1:02:30
Carter, same question to you over under on seven for the commitment by Trudeau saying that we will be providing COVID-19 aid to poorer countries.
Carter
1:02:40
Over even if he takes a political hit, sometimes it is best just to do that which is right.
Zain
1:02:46
Nicely said, Carter. Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this. On a scale of 1 to 10, the first 100 days of Aaron O'Toole are now in the bag. What score do you give him between 1 to 10 with the first 100 days already completed for Aaron O'Toole? I know, recency bias included, considering we talked about him today. But Carter, what is that score for you?
Carter
1:03:07
Oh, I want to give him like a 7. I want to say that he did a pretty good job, but he's a victim of his time um with covid just dominating our our society over the last you know well
Carter
1:03:18
well months eight months or nine months uh it's hard to give anybody a really good score but when i reflect back on how we've spoken about him over the past number of weeks uh we've been pretty impressed and he's done what we thought he should do um i think he's off track today a little bit on his his COVID messaging. But overall, I think that he's done the right thing. He's just been outshadowed by an enemy that he didn't anticipate. And that's just this virus.
Zain
1:03:50
Corey, same question to you. What do you give Aaron O'Toole on a one in 10 scale for his first 100 days?
Zain
1:03:55
I give him a pass, but not a pass with
Corey
1:03:58
Two thirds of the time that he's had these 100 days, we have been absolutely consumed, not just you, me and Carter, but But North America with the US election, he's just not had the ability to kind of punch above and get out into that conversation. And the time before that, he, you know, he was there and he was doing nice moves, but, you know, recency bias, right? And those first 30 days seem pretty remote at this point. I will say this, though. I do believe that he's made the moves behind the scenes that have allowed him to move forward more aggressively once people start paying attention to the Conservative Party again. People discount him at their peril. I think he's a serious man with very strong political chops, and we're going to see that coming forward. forward. People look at the polls, they laugh about the polls. Those polls are a reaction to the US political moment. We are going to have our own political moment at some point. And Aaron O'Toole is well suited for it.
Zain
1:04:51
Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this. As a collective, as a collective, are you in or out on Canada's mayors, big city mayors for their advocacy across the board over the past couple of weeks trying to encourage their provinces to to push for action, the legislation or the bylaws, I should say, that they've been able to make in their particular jurisdictions? I know it's a catch-all question, but I'm just kind of curious about your sentiment of municipal governments, in or out, on what they've been able to do.
Corey
1:05:21
I guess I'm, I guess I'm, it's very mixed. I'm out in some jurisdictions, and I'm in in other jurisdictions. The mayors that have been successful, in my opinion, are the ones who have of um almost done the conditioning for the provinces and they've they've worked together to a certain extent the mayors where it has not worked particularly well i would say unfortunately here in alberta where it's almost a fight because what you've done is you've raised the political stakes and you haven't necessarily resolved the issue so i
Corey
1:05:50
i don't know i mean like when when nahed nenshi stands up and says this is what we got to do the reality is a
Corey
1:05:57
a lot of people will say well if nahed nenshi says this is what we got to do i'm not necessarily sure i want to do it right Right. He's a polarizing figure in some circles. So I get what he's doing. I support the stances of Mayor Nenshi here in Calgary, but I'm not sure he's made the situation better. I'll just be that blunt.
Zain
1:06:12
Carter, what's your take on the collective that are big city mayors? Feel free to split the difference like Corey, but I'm curious to get your take in or out.
Carter
1:06:20
In general, I'm a big fan of mayors picking a fight with provinces. I think that that's the way to play it. You know, it separates you and it gives you a lot of, you know, it's better than picking fights with your fellow councillors. However, I'm getting really tired of cities trying to be public health experts. You know, cities don't do public health. They shouldn't do public health. They should force the provinces to do the work that needs to be done. And one could argue, especially in Alberta, that these
Carter
1:06:53
mask mandates that have come in from the big city mayors have
Carter
1:06:58
enabled Jason Kennedy to get away without having to put forward his own mask mandate. And he's he's taken the the pussy's way out.
Zain
1:07:06
Carter, I'm going to stick with you for our last question to start us off with. It's your favorite type of question.
Zain
1:07:12
It's a prediction question. Oh, I'm good at these. And the prediction. I know this is you excel. I excel at predictions.
Zain
1:07:17
You excel like no one else has. And it's a very simple question. We're recording on a Sunday evening. Carter, tomorrow is Monday. Will the province of Alberta announce a lockdown? Yes or no?
Carter
1:07:29
You know, when we started this podcast, I was 100% yes. And I am now 100% no.
Zain
1:07:37
What's convinced you? Is it yourself or is it Corey? It's Corey.
Carter
1:07:39
Corey. Corey has convinced me. Because Corey, you know, when we talk, we're reminded of what the base principles of communications are. And what the base principles of political communications. communications he's done nothing nothing to get us ready for a lockdown tomorrow it is not going to happen he's he's he's terrible but he's not this terrible
Corey
1:08:05
cory same question to you this is great it just i mean there's only one choice now there's only one choice i can make i mean i guess it's gonna happen although i agree with everything steven just said which is what you said i'm
Carter
1:08:16
i'm not yeah i mean he convinced me i was 100 certain it was going to lock down tomorrow rumors abound rumors abound everybody's hearing rumors but are these wishful thinking is it wishful thinking rather than actual rumors of anything like do we have any evidence that the cabinet met this weekend do we have evidence do we have any evidence that something is going to leak like
Carter
1:08:39
like you would leak this you would leak this Just set the tone.
Zain
1:08:44
to be leaked. I'm looking right now. We're at 9.50 p.m. on a Sunday night. I see nothing just yet, if there was some sort of leak. But listen, most people will be listening to this on Monday. This question will be dated by then. But of course, this answer will live in infamy regardless, Carter, because it is another Stephen Carter prediction answer. And of course, you hit them out of the park every time, buddy. Just wanted to let you know. Thanks for that. Thanks for going from 100% in one direction to 100% in another direction in a span of 70 minutes. And we'll leave it there. That is a wrap on episode 831 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.