Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is A Strategist, episode 921. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, how's it going? I
Carter
0:10
feel electric, Zain. Absolutely electric. It is an electric evening. I'm thrilled.
Corey
0:16
So what listeners don't know, because of our savvy editing skills here, is that Carter's microphone breaks intermittently whenever he touches it, whenever he moves in his seat. We are going to start a Kickstarter to buy Carter another $30 microphone, anything to help him get back on his feet. Or
Zain
0:35
Or a new house. That's the stretch goal, the new house. That's the stretch goal.
Zain
0:39
So either a $30 microphone or the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment and a significant down payment. So, I mean, really. I'll
Carter
0:47
I'll get a new house. Yeah. Yeah.
Zain
0:49
Yeah. So regardless, fix your fucking problem, Carter. What's going on? I'm
Carter
0:54
I'm standing here barefoot on a rubber mat trying not to have any static electricity. That this is your solution.
Corey
1:01
That this is your solution instead of buying a new microphone after months of this is just utterly beyond
Carter
1:08
beyond me. It's not just this microphone. Now on Zoom calls when I'm not even using this microphone. This is my headphones. There's like enough electricity that people can hear me. Oh,
Carter
1:16
that's good. Zipping and zapping. This
Zain
1:17
This is really good. Let's spend the front half of the show just teasing out the whole problem. No, I love this. Really, really good. Good energy, Carter. It's electric.
Zain
1:26
No, I know. Thank you, Carter. You're
Carter
1:28
You're welcome. I used the same joke twice. That's
Carter
1:33
The third one is going to kill. Oh,
Zain
1:34
yeah. The third one is going to kill.
Zain
1:36
36 minutes in. I'm just going to be really excited for it. Corey, how's it going? It's okay. Yeah?
Corey
1:43
Yeah, I saw some good TikToks. I saw Jeremy Farkas, a mayoral candidate in Calgary,
Corey
1:48
Calgary, doing his best dancing. It was really good.
Zain
1:51
Yeah. Yeah, no, the arthritic knee bounce, which is actually the technical term of the dance he was doing. Yeah, lovely. Lovely. It
Carter
2:00
pretty amazing. Hey, you're not allowed to have comments.
Corey
2:02
comments. You're in this mayoral race. This is just for me and Zane right now. You're out.
Carter
2:07
Come on, can't I make
Carter
2:10
make an ageist comment? Like, I've never seen someone that young look that old. Can't do that? No, can't do that. Get
Zain
2:16
Get out of here. The lack of electricity is what Carter means to say. he would have been fine. In fact,
Carter
2:21
fact, you know what? For the rest of it, I'm going to dance like it.
Zain
2:24
That's good to hear this little bop. Carter, anything to talk about? Of course, this is our episode pre-scheduled. Actually, we scheduled it. People don't know this. We schedule these episodes two years in advance because it's very hard to book me. So we schedule these episodes two years in advance. We also schedule the subject matter in advance, which is what makes for the uneven nature of this podcast. So Carter, I'm just looking on our schedule and this is weird. the vaccine episode we're doing a vaccine episode i
Carter
2:54
don't know why listen you guys laugh but i got announced i'm in the group now i get to i get to be vaccinated i'm pretty excited i
Carter
3:02
i get to make the phone what are you drinking by the way what is that the world's smallest cup we have a strategist cup express it doesn't come in
Zain
3:10
in this size it
Carter
3:11
it does not literally
Zain
3:11
literally come in the the thimble like quantities i drink my my liquids in uh cory uh you you excited your your lack of commentary is getting me worried well
Corey
3:21
well the i'll make you a deal this is the new deal for vaccines okay you can have five minutes an episode i'm going to start the timer on my phone and
Corey
3:29
and i'm going to shout and
Corey
3:31
and uh and basically make it unlistenable for all of you the minute that five minute mark gets hit oh that's great how do you feel about that okay
Zain
3:37
okay you started at second one last time so i appreciate the five minute grace period no that's good that's good i will i'm counting this
Corey
3:45
this by the way we're starting at four minutes because of this nonsense so you keep going well
Zain
3:49
well yeah i'm going to take over the rollover minutes on this let's move it on to our headlines cory stop the clock we're going to headlines but you may want to keep it going because it's your other favorite topic this headline comes to us from the canadian press we charity had multiple opening ceremonies
Zain
4:10
for a kenya school i
Zain
4:11
i i have been waiting for a week to talk about this oh
Carter
4:15
oh this is so good yeah
Zain
4:16
yeah he's he's keeping it on he's so angry
Carter
4:19
he's so angry calm
Carter
4:20
calm down yeah uh
Zain
4:22
carter do you want to jump in on this first so we charity back in the news uh this is a a donor reed cowan an american journalist uh television news celebrity documentary filmmaker uh now you know uh testifying to a parliament committee that that we charity had done a lot of dubious shit uh multiple velcro plaques that they would rip off and put back on to open the same school multiple times as he was describing uh steven carter your your broad thoughts well
Carter
4:51
well i mean i don't
Carter
4:52
don't understand how they could do this first of all i mean why
Carter
4:57
wouldn't you just co-brand it or something like that like to to take two sets of money and two two different sets of branding um it just strikes It strikes me that they were either overselling the benefit to the donor, which is probably what they were doing, right? They'd build something for $200,000 that they took a donation for $100,000, just making up numbers completely, in
Carter
5:16
in which case they felt like they needed to do this, or they were just booking twice as much revenue for the same project. And either
Carter
5:24
either way, I mean, one is kind of unethical. The other is virtually fraudulent. So I'm interested to the continuing series of how the Strategist podcast unpacks the We Charity as we learn more about this rather dubious practice. I just think it was a stupid move. They've been caught. Now they're going to suffer a little bit more. But ultimately, they are going to be the whipping boy for charities for a little while to go.
Zain
5:52
Corey, do you want to make it insufferable off the get or do you want to chime in on this?
Corey
5:57
well i what really amazes me about this story is the velcro names plaque detail which as you were talking i actually googled because i didn't know if you were exaggerating that i wasn't
Corey
6:06
wasn't i don't think i am no you're not that's that's actually what was quoted the fact that you have systematized multiple donors to the point where you have
Corey
6:14
like you've got a plan for that you're going to put your name plaques on velcro so you can pull them down and put them back up that's really pretty next level stuff there we did
Carter
6:22
did that at theater calgary when i was at theater calgary because no but seriously because we
Carter
6:27
shows so you'd have different uh your sponsors would change for each show and each people would have different levels and things like that so that was a fairly common situation now we sold it that way you didn't get a year-long sponsorship and it's like hey are the guys from trans canada coming today because we're gonna have to change the the sponsor wall if they're coming like you didn't you didn't do that you you sold them a package and then you uh delivered the benefits for that package i'm i'm really surprised i've not i've not heard of this in uh in other charitable circles well
Corey
6:58
well my point i guess is that's one of those details that's going to stick with people and
Corey
7:02
and it's the kind of detail that even if there's a good reason for it like honestly even if they just started with plaques that by default have velcro that's that's the kind of thing that just reeks of malfeasance uh i i'm not going to go as far as carter did there i can i can see a lot of different reasons why you might end up with a couple of different donors on the same project The scope could change, for example, of the project. You all of a sudden need more money. The school doubles in size. I don't know. This is one person's side of the story, and the brothers for the We Charity are refusing to give their side. They've basically said they're not going to testify in front of the House committee. So can't really say, but
Corey
7:36
but pretty brutal, pretty damning detail.
Zain
7:39
It's a detail that will stick with people, as Corey said, and then they might be able to Velcro it off. Next headline to us by Slate. CPAC organizer vehemently denies stage was designed to look like a Nazi symbol.
Zain
7:53
Good. You know, this is where we've got Godwin's Law about this, right? First person to talk about Hitler or the Holocaust loses. We've also got Velji's Principle, which is anytime you have to say, Corey, you know Velji's Principle very well. Anytime you have to say,
Zain
8:14
it's never, it's never. Oh, we're off-week. We're off-week. Don't worry.
Carter
8:17
Okay, good to know. Thank
Zain
8:19
Thank you, Tiber. We're on to the Holocaust, so it's fine. It's okay. Velji's principle, of course, being any time you have to say, I've always been a friend of the Jewish people, you are losing. In this case, they had to say something similar. But, Corey, your initial take on this, you have seen this image, this overhead shot of this stage. What do you think? Yeah,
Corey
8:40
Yeah, I mean, for the benefit of our listeners, it's not a swastika. It's a different symbol that the Nazis apparently used. And yeah, I mean, it looks identical to it, but it's also possible,
Corey
8:51
possible, if not likely, that it's a coincidence. I don't know. I have a hard time believing somebody thought, hey, we're gonna put
Corey
8:57
put a Nazi symbol there and we're gonna see if anybody notices. That'll be fucking cool. I just don't, I don't know. I mean, even for that bunch of yahoos, that would be a bit outrageous. outrageous godwin's law by the way is not that you lose the minute the nazis come up that's a concept
Corey
9:11
it's that as an online discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison involving nazis or hitler approaches one like that is going to happen in an online conversation and uh and people tend to look at it and say like well because that's inevitable you know that's when it's jumped the shark sometimes
Corey
9:27
sometimes a conversation about nazis just a conversation about nazis It doesn't mean you've lost anything. I think the problem CPAC has is that there were so many people willing to believe that this was a possibility because the
Corey
9:39
right has gotten just way too cozy with the far right. So the kernel of truth that's causing them so much trouble in here is really the fundamental challenge they have, right? When you have the president of the United States at the time saying that fascists who have their tiki torches and are saying Jews will not replace us are very fine people in the streets of Charlotte. charlottesville
Corey
10:01
charlottesville charlottetown charlotte not charlottetown one of those charlottesville
Corey
10:07
um i've already started to put the true or the trump years out of my mind i guess that's what you should
Corey
10:13
as one should uh when you have a total unwillingness to disassociate with these these far-right elements like the proud boys and worse yeah of course people are going to see things and say maybe they're maybe they're too cozy with nazis you put a nazi symbol up and and you hang out with Nazis, people are going to think you're Nazis.
Carter
10:35
Sometimes a tiki torch is just a tiki torch. Thanks. But not this time. You know, like, I do think that this is probably more likely an accident, but they've attracted so many racists and so many Trumpists that it's very difficult to separate accident by cause. So, unfortunately, this type of thing will stick to it. Well, fortunately, this type of thing will stick to them because, you know, these guys have gone too far to the far right. And, you know, I thought, frankly, it was enough to have the golden bust of Trump. But now they have the golden bust of Trump and Nazi symbols. So that's a pretty great conference. And I'm a little sad that we weren't there.
Corey
11:18
I mean, there was literally a golden idol that people were praying around. That was pretty amazing. How
Carter
11:22
How are we not there doing our podcast live? live we've done our podcast from from dc before we
Corey
11:28
we have yeah you
Carter
11:29
you know we could do it again i
Zain
11:31
think we've gotten out
Zain
11:32
out of there yeah
Zain
11:33
yeah i don't think so let's just say one of us wouldn't have gotten out there let's go to our let's
Zain
11:38
let's go to yeah yeah you would have you would have fit right in you would have been their leader by the end of it let's go to our let's
Zain
11:47
let's go to our next headline our next headline comes to us from the toronto star guys election silly season is well on its its way so we have to cover hard-hitting headlines like this one somebody stole jagmeet singh's bike
Zain
12:01
that's it that's the entire headline that's the headline uh in a in a press conference editor i believe editorial board with susan delacorte of the toronto star jagmeet singh mentioned that someone stole his bike so the toronto star has written a four minute piece on someone stealing stealing Jagmeet Singh's bike. Well, that sucks, man. Nobody
Zain
12:20
Nobody wants to have their bike stolen.
Zain
12:22
But it is a lesson for brown people who want to do activities outdoors. So I just want to make sure that people understand that there is a cost to be paid. Stephen Carter.
Carter
12:32
I've had my bike stolen. I've experienced this. But are we sure it wasn't just an elaborate TikTok that gone wrong?
Zain
12:39
We don't know. Corey.
Corey
12:42
I've had a few bikes stolen too. And it's like, it's the biggest drag in the world because inevitably when you're going to get on your bike it's to go somewhere and you get out there and you're like ah fuck
Corey
12:53
right this is way this is way more sympathy than i expected for me i have never a lot of felt closer to jagmeet singh than i do i
Carter
12:59
i might change my vote i
Zain
13:02
would have voted for him but he's going outdoors and i don't like that yeah no i don't like that one bit i don't like that one bit our next headline comes to us from the bbc this is a headline that i know these words but i have never seen them put together in this sentence japan asks china to stop taking anal swab tests on their citizens
Zain
13:29
on yeah yeah so so so the explanation here of course the anal swab test that china is doing on covet 19 as as a as a as a test and japan has asked them to stop what
Zain
13:41
what so that's the headline carter thank you but
Corey
13:45
i need some clarity here do
Corey
13:47
do you though is china is is japan being singled out for anal swabs is this something they are only doing for certain nationalities is it everybody who's getting the anal swab i
Zain
13:56
i i think it is and japan is the first to speak up why
Carter
14:00
why isn't canada speaking up but don't we have an issue with china already like this feels like it's the next biggest thing i
Zain
14:05
i think you've answered i think you've answered answer the question within your question which is we've already got enough going on with china we don't need the two michaels and anal swabs as the third thing to the list carter uh but okay any other reaction are we good have we have we gotten it out of our system yeah
Carter
14:21
yeah i've passed my anal swab are they better so
Corey
14:25
zane you you don't have children but one of the things when you have young children is the anal thermometer is the most accurate so i'm wondering is this
Corey
14:32
this swab is this this kind of the similar territory should we
Zain
14:35
we all assume it's an
Zain
14:36
extent assuming it's an extension the same logic i you know like i said we read the headlines and we comment without context on the headlines that's
Zain
14:44
that's a good point
Zain
14:44
yeah i'm not here
Corey
14:45
here i'm not here for
Zain
14:48
let's go to our final headline i want to spend a little bit of time discussing this this one comes to us from deadline governor gavin newsom wants californians to wear two masks to avoid terrible mistakes being made by Texas.
Zain
15:02
Let's talk about this. So we have got Governor Greg Abbott in Texas lifting the mask mandatory mask mandate. We've we've got him saying earlier this week that Texas, I believe his quote was 100% open, that that all businesses, you know, can can resume opening Mississippi has followed suit. In response, Gavin Newsom has tweeted and is now kind of, you know, using Texas as a punching bag. Joe Biden has said this is Neanderthal thinking. I want to just start here just getting your initial reaction with what's going on in Texas. And then let's talk a little bit more about it. Spend a few more minutes on this than the other headlines.
Zain
15:38
Because there's a few things to discuss here. So Carter, maybe I'll start with you. What do you think of what's happening in Texas here?
Carter
15:44
Well, I mean, Texas is suffering immeasurably. I mean, having gone through the deep freeze that they went through, and the number of people who've had
Carter
15:52
had extensive damage to their homes and businesses. I think that the governor was thinking, you know, and I hesitate to pretend to think like him, but I'm sure he was thinking, if we keep the businesses closed, it's only going to get worse. And I don't think he has any path forward that
Carter
16:11
enables it to get worse because he's not going to do the things that you might see Governor Newsom do in California, large large government spending initiatives, you know, bailing out people. The federal government has stepped in and said that they will cover off uninsured losses for those with home damage and business damage. That's part of the national response, but that's not part of his response because the governor of Texas ain't noted for jumping in and doing helping hand type stuff. We covered that off in a couple of podcasts ago. So, I mean, I think that this, I
Carter
16:46
I don't want to say he had no choice. obviously had choices but given his predilections for uh ideological response this was this is his type of ideological response i think it's patently stupid but i also think that governor newsom making this about california when it's just so clearly not like let texas be texas and you be california doubling down on your mask use while it is being recommended by the cdc that that's not That's not making things better nationally. Just focus on your own situation there, Governor, or maybe offer some help to Texas, you smartass.
Zain
17:23
Newsom is indeed in a much more difficult political situation there. It's not easy sailing for him as he heads towards – as he comes out of some scandals of his own, including some hypocrisy that we'd mentioned on earlier episodes of this podcast and You the People. Corey, your initial take when you when you heard this news from from Texas.
Corey
17:46
In 1972, researchers at Stanford did an experiment where they would have a child in a room and
Corey
17:52
they would say, here's a marshmallow. And they would then leave the room, but tell the child if they went 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow, they could have two marshmallows. Very famous Stanford marshmallow experiment, it's called. Well, this is exactly like that, except instead of marshmallows, it's alive people. And I don't understand what the fuck Texas is doing. They are so close. America is so close. All they have to do is wait a couple more months and everybody will be vaccinated. The fact that they are deciding to call the game in the middle of the third quarter is absolutely nuts to me. It's crazy. Now, I agree with everything Carter said about California. I also don't think you need two masks when you have two states. Arizona and New Mexico should be protection enough from Texas.
Corey
18:33
But, you know, it does seem to be Newsom taking what is advice that medical researchers are giving, which is you should probably wear two masks, right? Trying to pick on Texas. It's just way too political. What he's doing, the marriage of actual medical advice and sniping at Republicans is not helpful. It is not remotely helpful.
Zain
18:53
Is there, what do you make of governors going after each other, Corey? I'll just follow up with that. Is it, it happens, but it doesn't happen all that often. It's kind of interesting to see, like, there does seem to be a bit of Newsom gunning for a national spotlight, which has always been a part of his subtext of the Gavin Newsom story. But do you feel like it's that? Or do you feel like it's just strict opportunism?
Corey
19:13
Yeah, I mean, it happens at different moments. It's just like the Canadian provinces, there's this expectation of collegiality to a certain extent or stay the fuck out of my yard is probably a more accurate way to put it but um when they are looking at the next job if they are looking at national profile if they're looking to be a leader in their party more generally and if you're like both of these governors have a reason to have this fight i think zane is the important thing uh to talk about here um abbott it just got through this terrible ice storm wants to change the story wouldn't mind actually if people are arguing about whether this mask because eliminating the mask uh rules is more popular than his performance during the you know the the blast of winter that texas got meanwhile in california newsom as you've mentioned is facing all sorts of problems he's trying to get the democrats to rally to him as a leader as a democrat in the fight with republicans because in california the opposite is true you will never go wrong as a democrat if you can get all of the democrats behind you fighting with republicans so um it's unusual but it serves both of their purposes and in a way i doubt either of them is that fussed with it which by the way is why we should all be kind of pissed with it yeah
Zain
20:23
carter as if this was a channel change attempt by abbott was it a good one oh
Carter
20:28
oh yeah it's a great one no one's talking about the ice storm they're absolutely pathetic response to it i
Carter
20:33
i mean obviously we're in alberta i mean who
Carter
20:36
knows what's on the ground in uh in in texas but But it
Carter
20:41
it did change the channel. It changed the channel to something that he actually wins on. Corey has pointed out that this is more popular than he is. The mask mandate is, you know, wearing a mask is part of being of your political identity in the United States and, frankly, here in Canada to a lesser extent. So when you can win like this on an issue, it's actually really good politics. And Governor Abbott changed the channel. Didn't help anybody. didn't help anybody. He's going to kill more people. And now I'm worried about the potential of a Texas strain of the coronavirus. The problem with more spread is that there's more variation and more variation could mean something that comes out that's vaccine resistant. Even if it's for a few more months until we get a new variant of the vaccinations, this could be a real problem. problem and you
Carter
21:34
know it's just as frustrating that this is the type of politics that uh the people feel like they have to play you
Zain
21:41
know carter you mentioned something that was very important is that we are we're not on the ground in texas and and i'm announcing here and now that any leftover funds from the stephen carter microphone uh fundraiser and crowdsourcing attempt will be used to hire our first staff uh dedicated singularly to texas so we might come to them him every now and then but we'll pay him full salary full benefits him or her of course job opening will be announced shortly depending on uh our funding uh but i do want a a associate uh based and a correspondent based out in texas carter you're putting your hand up yeah
Carter
22:13
yeah i'm just wondering if that comes after the house or before the house after
Zain
22:16
after the microphone uh before the house okay
Carter
22:19
okay thank you yeah
Zain
22:19
yeah just so you know perfect thank you let's move it on to our next segment our next segment take me out to the bail game get
Zain
22:28
get it because it's good it's
Carter
22:29
it's really good that was the best one ever and you still explained it you
Carter
22:34
you know it's uh it took some of the wind out of your sails it's
Zain
22:38
it's my insecurity it is uh it's it's what makes me the likable one on the show also i should declare we're going to be talking about the airline bailout package now of course we are a little bit conflicted out as you know we are sponsored uh with the 25 year deal with with WestJet for a proud sponsor of this podcast. So I'll just mention that up front, and I'll, of course, be reading some copy later on from our partners at WestJet.
Carter
23:05
One day they're going to hear this. One day they're going to hear,
Carter
23:08
we're going to go... They
Corey
23:08
They are going to send the demand letter to me.
Zain
23:13
Can they send a demand letter for, like, free advertising on a podcast that gets pretty good sponsorship? Yeah, actually, they
Carter
23:20
they can do that. okay
Zain
23:22
okay that's good we
Carter
23:23
we don't have to listen we're
Zain
23:24
we've got i'm glad we've got a lawyer in the budget cory that's good i
Carter
23:27
i think he took the lsat one it's the closest thing to the lawyer that's good who's
Zain
23:33
who's got who's got an advanced degree it's only cory that's great that's a that's how west jet works and that actually was a copy i took
Corey
23:38
took the lsat i have an advanced degree
Corey
23:41
i'm good oh you're way ahead of
Corey
23:44
uh like the yada yada yada of
Zain
23:47
that scripted banter was brought to you by west jet in fact we just read lines there there. I don't know if you know that.
Zain
23:54
has become too meta for its own good. Carter, let's talk about this. The federal government is in the final stages of talks with the airlines on what could turn out to be between a $7 to $9 billion package for the airline industry.
Zain
24:07
Where do I start with this? Why is this happening so late? Maybe let's start here. Because we have Jerry Diaz of Unifor who's saying that $7 billion is now the floor on this thing because of how tenuous and tough the negotiations have been with the government. I'll add further context. It being other countries across the world have already, I should say, dealt with their airline industry by forking over some money. In your estimation, why did this take so long in the sense of, and I'm not saying right or wrong, we'll discuss right or wrong on strategy, but why do you think we're perhaps an outlier in that scheme of things? Over
Carter
24:43
Over $1 billion has been paid to the airlines already in wage subsidies. So to pretend like this is taking a long time and that the airlines are in some sort of challenge,
Carter
24:54
challenge, I mean, I think that part of it is waiting to see what the size of the problem is. You know, will we be backflying this summer? Will we be backflying next fall? I mean, there's many, many questions about how long it's going to take for the airline industry to resume something vaguely resembling normalcy. I don't think the federal government knows that. I don't think Unifor knows that. I don't think WestJet and Air Canada know that. So understanding the depth of the problem is probably one of the reasons that it's taking so long. And the other is the solution started almost on day one when the federal government stepped in with wage subsidies to keep the airlines whole and keep their employees actually getting paid. You know, over a billion dollars being put into wage subsidies basically for two companies is not insignificant. And it should be noted, unfortunately, Unifor has decided to make that a negative for the government. But I think that this is actually a positive. They could have gotten a much smaller bailout six months ago. But we'd be right back in the exact same problem that we're in right now.
Zain
25:57
Corey, do you agree with that assessment that this is, you
Zain
26:00
you know, that this hasn't taken long per se, considering the SEWS in place and the other programs that the government has offered in place? And maybe I'll ask also to tag on the broader question of, if not, why do you think it took so long?
Corey
26:14
I generally agree that this is not actually a long period of time. This is COVID time. It's lost all meaning. But the reality is a bailout of this size to be negotiated even in a year is quite remarkable.
Corey
26:26
remarkable. And Carter is right. There were protections that were put in place. Nobody knew how long all of this was going to be. We do see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. We've got more clarity. The reality is, you know, they're talking about $7 to $9 billion at 1% interest over 10 years.
Corey
26:43
What would we have done? What kind of blank check deal would we have had as Canadians? If this deal had been struck six months ago in a more crisis moment without the notion of before vaccines were approved, as taxpayers, we may have been really over a barrel because obviously we do need to have Air Canada. We do need to have WestJet. They're it. That's all we've got as far as domestic travel, and this is a big country. So the 1% interest, deal of that size, perhaps getting equity in return, that's all pretty reasonable to me. And I would worry that six months ago, we would have been
Corey
27:17
been in a desperate, unreasonable place with a deal. So I don't think it took too long. I actually think we may have timed this pretty well.
Zain
27:24
Carter, I want to ask you an item that Corey just brought up here, which was equity. Let's just jump to the heart of the deal. Because we've brought up the concept of equity. In fact, if I recall correctly, you brought up the concept of equity with another project. It was funded not by the federal government per se with a tranche of money, but it was was funded by a provincial government here in Alberta. And you argued that Alberta should have taken equity in a pipeline project headed to the United States, One Keystone XL. Well,
Corey
27:53
did. He was saying that they should have taken equity in the company that owns
Zain
27:56
owns- Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, correct, correct. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. That's right. You should have taken equity in the actual firm.
Zain
28:03
That is something that the federal government has said they're open to. If I'm asking you the question, Carter, Carter, if you're on the government side on this, are you pursuing that as a non-negotiable or how are you framing this both from a PR and perhaps a bit on the structure strategy to make this palatable to, frankly, voters and to citizens at large?
Carter
28:24
Right now, Air Canada and WestJet can't be worth an awful lot of money, right? So we see there's two examples on this. The first example is Stephen Harper bailing out the automobile industry. You
Carter
28:35
You know, the bailout included an equity portion. There was buyback elements that the automobile
Carter
28:41
automobile industry was able to buy themselves back out of these deals. The taxpayer remained actually relatively whole in the entire deal because the auto industry bounced back faster than anybody could have reasonably hoped for because they got the support that they needed. and the taxpayers got the deal that we needed. Jason
Carter
29:00
Jason Kenney entered into a much different deal with KXL. He took a fake equity in
Carter
29:05
in a project that if it went away, the equity would go away.
Carter
29:09
So that's a lesson to the federal government. Do not allow yourself to get a fake equity or a bond or a new company, some sort of new corporate structure. This has to be equity in Air Canada and WestJet, right? Right. Onyx has to give up some of its position in WestJet for the recovery or they don't get the money that that has to be part of the of the structure. Now, there's many ways of doing that. You can issue more capital there. You can take bonds that turn into equity. There's many different ways of doing that structure. But at the end of the day, the people of Canada should be I don't think we need to be made whole because Corey mentioned the importance of the airline industry. industry. And this pandemic may require action that doesn't say pay us back every nickel. But if we're going to be investing $7 billion into a single industry, then we have to get something back for the good people of Canada.
Zain
30:07
Corey Hogan, Chief Counsel for the strategists, MBA, what do you think of the equity question?
Corey
30:14
Equity is tricky for governments, because then we own part of an airline that we privatized, I don't know. I mean, that's an interesting policy decision.
Corey
30:24
Let's step back a bit and talk about what's really on the table here, which is that 1% interest on $9 billion of loans. Well, there's a cost to that. I don't know what Air Canada and WestJet can borrow at on the open market right now. But let's just say for fun, it's 4%, which would be pretty good, I think, given all of the challenges they have. Yeah. So we're giving them 3% lower. To put that in real dollar terms, that's saving them almost $300 million a year at the full size of the loan. And then obviously, if they're paying it off over time, it's less. If it's a bullet loan, it's over $3 billion when it's all said and done.
Corey
31:05
My point here is there is a quantifiable amount of money at play. And we can talk about how we get made whole in the long run. We can talk about stretching those interest terms rather than taking an equity stake, which I think is awkward for all sorts of reasons. I'm just not wild about the government of Canada owning equity in multiple competing airlines. That to
Carter
31:27
to me seems like a very weird thing to
Carter
31:29
We had no problem owning equity in multiple competing automobile companies.
Carter
31:32
Yeah. And you know what?
Corey
31:33
That wasn't great, and we sold it all in a rather rapid order. If
Carter
31:37
If the plan is to sell the equity in a year...
Carter
31:39
Which we should do. I don't we should do but at the same time we need to get something we need to have we need to have something beyond just holding the bond just beyond holding the debt because we need to be able to direct these companies these companies don't necessarily behave in the best interests of Canadians they're they're you know even Air Canada part of this deal is Air Canada has to refund the tickets that have been COVID cancelled I
Carter
32:02
mean that's because they're being forced to behave in the interest of Canadians.
Carter
32:07
That's what we need to have. We need to have a hammer that forces the airlines to actually behave in the interest of those who are bailing them out.
Zain
32:15
Carter, I have a question on framing for you. We're using, we're almost seeing two words show up interchangeably, bailout and recovery plan, recovery program, recovery plan. Which one is better for the government? I think I have an idea, but I'm curious what your take is. Is there a certain frame blame that helps this makes this pill easier to swallow for the for the general public knowing that you know yes airlines need help but they're maybe not the most sympathetic of industries so to speak overall yeah
Carter
32:43
yeah i mean i don't know i think i would prefer actually to use the word bailout um because you you would
Zain
32:48
would as government yeah
Carter
32:49
yeah i mean i think that this is something that we are doing for you and i don't want it to be lost in the language of economic recovery and those types of things this industry is special right we
Carter
33:01
we can we can pretend that this industry is like every other industry in canada this isn't greyhound deciding to stop driving uh their buses between all the destinations in western canada um that was unfortunate losing airlines in canada would be tragic um it would set our economy back uh well i don't even know how we'd recover um so you know this this whether we're spending nine billion dollars or loaning nine billion dollars or spending $7 billion.
Carter
33:29
We're going to be spending billions and billions of dollars to make sure that we still have an airline industry. So bailing these guys out might be the best language and it's language that Canadians understand what it means.
Zain
33:40
Corey, before I let you substantiate your thoughts on this as well, this isn't a bailout. I would argue this is a loan to the industry based on the time that has gone on and added the complexity to the negotiations. I suggest $7 billion is now the floor, not the ceiling. Close quote by Jerry Diaz of Unifor. So he's arguing against the concept of bailout. You also suggested that the government should be framing this as a bailout.
Corey
34:05
think it should be a bailout because the implication is if you don't do it, the business will fail. That's what's inherent in a bailout. A recovery program suggests, like, we just want to get back on our feet faster. The economy needs to spin a little bit faster. And that's where I think as a government you get into trouble with people lacking sympathy for airlines. It's like, yeah, great. Help them back on their feet faster instead of me. fuck you but if you start talking in terms of well we need to be able to travel across this enormous country of ours without going through chicago then i then you know the situation becomes a little more real for people i think and so that's why if i'm the government i'm talking about it in terms of bailout because the implication is i don't have a choice right this is what i've got to do and um i i can understand why deus would say that but i actually don't think it's helpful to get what he wants if anything i would be trying to raise the stakes on I understand why Air Canada would not want to raise the stakes on this. I think their union should be thinking about this a bit more. The reason the union doesn't want to, I suspect, Zane, is because if
Corey
35:04
if you are in such dire straits that a bailout is necessary, yeah,
Corey
35:07
yeah, then layoffs and restructuring is probably necessary too. And really, that's part of everybody's game on the language here. But the government's got to consider their interest in this as well. So
Zain
35:17
I appreciate you guys teasing that out. That's I think that's very, very insightful. Let's move on to the final elements of this, which I think is this broader conversation, all distorted, 100
Zain
35:27
100% understood because of COVID, but this broader conversation on corporate welfare. And Carter, does this fall into that? It seems to, but does this fall into the bucket of corporate welfare? And do governments pay a price on something like this? Normal times, perhaps a different answer, but do governments in COVID periods pay a price for what will be seen, regardless of perhaps terminology, at least by some, as corporate welfare.
Carter
35:52
I don't think that this does. I think that this is different. I mean, obviously,
Carter
35:57
obviously, I'm electric, but the overall push on this— Wait,
Zain
36:02
Wait, wait. Minute 36. Minute 36.
Zain
36:05
Okay. Wow. That's why his comments had been so mediocre and uninsightful
Carter
36:11
uninsightful up to the point he was waiting
Zain
36:12
waiting for the 36th minute. Perfect. No.
Carter
36:15
Land the dive. That's very nice. That's perfect. Right on the 36 minute mark. Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. We don't actually know how this all plays out. All we can look at is the recessions of the past. And in general, governments have been punished more for not taking action than they have been punished for taking action. so my thinking is that more action is better um i think that in general that has worked over the last year and i don't see that changing um now that might be like obviously every industry is going to run up to the government after this right we need to bail out too yeah right um but
Carter
36:52
you know the government's going to pick and choose and there's going to be winners and there's going to be losers i don't think that if cap was to run to uh the canadian association of petroleum petroleum producers, if they were to run to the government and say, listen, we're really hurting, we need to bail out too, I don't think you're going to get the same response. Because I think that, you
Carter
37:09
you know, the government may say, I think you're valuable, I think you're essential, but I don't see you in the same situation. And I don't see you surviving the same way that we need you to survive in the future. So I think that this action and the other actions that are undoubtedly coming, are required by the government. And it's a benefit, not a bug.
Zain
37:32
Corey, same question to you. Does this lean into the conversation of corporate welfare? And perhaps as an extension to that, do you think it has particular harm to governments that engage in it?
Corey
37:44
Well, yeah, I do. I mean, this is a complicated one. One of the questions that, of course, should come up when we have conversations like this about, my God, what would we do without the airlines is, okay,
Corey
37:54
okay, well, why are they in private hands to begin with, if they're so vitally important for the interests of this nation? And while we've been served pretty well during some pretty good times, it's undeniable how much the cost of air travel has gone down in my lifetime, for example, you start to see a bit of the downside of that if everybody is running their efficiencies that tightly, and then all of it and putting all of the money back to the shareholders and, and not pocketing it away and not building any kind of cushion because they're and deep competition well
Corey
38:21
well every now and then the government's going to have to jump in and give you a one percent loan for nine billion dollars i mean and if that's the case we need to think about this in a more systematic sense like what are we going to do about these major utilities uh and airlines are not generally considered a utility but these these things that we cannot we
Corey
38:41
cannot let them go go away. And so I think
Corey
38:45
think we have to think about that as kind of a people, not to sound too broad about it, but we
Corey
38:52
we need a better system to deal with the collapse of these absolutely essential businesses that is not so ramshackle, not so ad hoc, not all negotiation based in the moment of crisis.
Zain
39:02
Carter, when Corey was saying they're not a utility, you jumped in and said they are.
Carter
39:07
saying they are a utility. I think they are a utility. I think that this is one of the the challenges of of kind of um the
Carter
39:15
the the privatization movement right one of the challenges i mean we saw that the downside of of uh some sorts of of utility privatization in texas um you know the the utility the point of the utility was that it served a public good that required everybody to be a partner in it in some fashion and then we divested of them all right we we we sold them to to private enterprise cory has pointed out that in the case of airlines that That has been undoubtedly successful. But keep in mind, undoubtedly subsidized. For example, you don't get to land your airplane at an airport in Canada that isn't constructed and owned and operated by the federal government of Canada. Even if it is handed off by the federal government to a non-profit society as it has been in Calgary and in other markets around Canada.
Carter
40:01
Canada. The non-profit society was gifted the
Carter
40:05
the land. They were gifted the
Carter
40:07
the airport itself. They created
Carter
40:10
their business plans from that spot. But when you're starting from a place
Carter
40:15
place of ownership of a tremendous asset, it's a lot easier.
Carter
40:20
You know, there is no way that the car industry exists without the infrastructure of roads. There's no way that the airline industry exists without the infrastructure of airports. And that symbiotic relationship that exists between these industries and the general
Carter
40:38
general public, I guess, is tricky because the way that General
Carter
40:44
General Motors went around and bought up all the streetcars across North America so that people would buy more
Carter
40:49
more cars. You know, the mix of private enterprise with public good has, in some cases, worked very
Carter
40:58
very well. In other cases, it's been perverted.
Carter
41:00
And don't shake your head at me, Mr. Hogan. You know it to be true. You know it to be true. The
Corey
41:06
The streetcar thing, that's, I mean, it's a bit of an exaggeration. Everybody was switching to buses. It wasn't just GM. People who still owned the utilities switched to buses from streetcars, too. That's one of those stories people like to tell because it's such a great conspiracy. But the truth is a little more nuanced than that. Not
Zain
41:22
We're going to move it on. Carter, good points on public and private. Of course, as some of our early listeners know, our podcast was considered a public utility in the early days. We were actually an extension of the government. We didn't say much. We couldn't say much. We were pretty much praising the government of the day, the strategists talking about how excellent the strategy was reinforcing. And then we went private, and look what's happened. Look
Zain
41:43
what's happened, Stephen Carter. Terrible
Zain
41:45
His chest is a great gift to us, yeah. He was excellent. He was excellent. And I was an avid fan and listener. Let's move it on to our next segment.
Zain
41:53
Line it up. Stephen Carter. In November, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered Line 5 to be shut down by May, accusing Calgary-based Enbridge of violating the terms of the deal that allowed the line to traverse the Straits in Michigan there. The federal government today said they won't let Michigan shut down the Line 5 pipeline. Seamus O'Regan, the Minister of Natural Resources, dismissed opposition comparisons to the thwarted Keystone XL project. Carter, simple and straightforward question for you first. Is
Zain
42:25
Is this the right strategy by the federal government? I
Carter
42:28
I think so. I don't think we can be. I mean, it is one thing when any national government opposes another national government and imposes some sort of economic sanction. That is, of course, problematic enough. We were musing about the challenges of dealing with China in our last episode. That's challenging. It could be challenging to deal with an American first recovery plan. That's challenging. But to deal with 50 individual states that are going to take out their economic desires or their desires
Carter
42:58
desires on another national government, that's not on.
Carter
43:01
We can't allow that. And the federal government, not only for the sake of Line 9, but for the sake of the lumber industry or the automobile industry or any industry in Canada that exports more than they import, the mascot industry. You can't have individual states making up individual rules of engagement of international trade. That's the nation-state responsibility. We have international government relations to do that, and we have to protect those rights that we have earned and negotiated from the federal government in the United States.
Zain
43:44
Corey, is this the right strategy? Seamus O'Regan standing up saying, nope, this is not Keystone XL. We will fight for this thing. It's not against the U.S. It's against the governor in Michigan. What do you think of that strategy?
Corey
43:55
Yeah, so I find this is a very fascinating one because the story is in many ways identical to the conversation about the Trans Mountain Pipeline going through British Columbia, the same basic concerns, you know, the environmental jurisdiction residing where it does. And isn't it the right of the premier or the governor to say, hey, this doesn't meet the standards that we have? And then, you know, the national government in the case of Trans Mountain and likely the national government in the case down in Michigan, too, say, no, sorry, this is crossing some boundaries. This is not your responsibility. We got this. Your responsibility is
Corey
44:30
is not like, yeah, you can do your environmental tests and checks and all of that. and you can hold them to a standard but you can't it's what we would call the doctrine of color ability right where just because you have environmental power does not mean you can then turn it into regulatory power over international pipelines and um and that's really what's at play here like michigan is trying to use a power they do have to seize a power that they do not have and so it's not just the canadian government that should be up in arms about this it will be the u.s government because governments don't tend to like to cede that kind of authority to other governments and set those kinds of precedents um the big difference between transmountain and this one uh line five is line five exists line five was built in 1953 it's been transporting over half a million barrels per day of petroleum products for a long long time and um and
Corey
45:19
and transmountain was at least new so you know there was a different that was the slightly different argument there if this is where the puck is going though in these pipeline conversations if all of a sudden operating pipelines are facing the same pressures that proposed pipelines were. I mean, holy cow. I mean, it's been a wild enough ride just on the proposed pipelines. It's going to get a bit weird. And 500,000 barrels a day, over 500,000, that's a lot of barrels a day. To give some context to people, Alberta's production is, what, Stephen, about 4 million barrels per day of of oil i
Carter
45:56
think we're up closer than five
Carter
45:58
five this year i think it's it's big
Corey
46:00
well no i think it was 3.8 under under curtailment which was kind of the limits that we had uh for export and so i think um yeah
Corey
46:10
yeah i like this is this is a big chunk i guess of of oil kxl was 800 000 these are some big chunks that are being taken off the table um and it's it's going to move economies This is a pretty big issue. And I'm fairly confident that the federal government in Canada and the federal government in the United States are going to work this out. I would be floored if the governor of Michigan had their way on this one because of the ramifications to the economy, to political power within the United States, to diplomacy between the United States and Canada. It would be quite something if the governor was successful here. But you never know. You never know what the courts are going to say. Well,
Zain
46:46
Well, you know, that's an interesting point you make, Corey, because the message by both Minister Reagan as well as Canada's ambassador to the US was very much that we hope Michigan and Enbridge can figure out a solution here.
Zain
46:59
Do you feel like that's the right message, perhaps? Or do you feel like, because there's an escalation point to maybe getting to where you are, which is the two federal governments having to figure this out and hash it out. But do you think that's the right message?
Corey
47:12
Yeah, like you're looking for a negotiated settlement is always best because there's certainty in it. Both sides know exactly what they get. And failing that, then they're going to have to go, you
Corey
47:22
you know, the political route, the diplomatic route, the legal route, and there are risks with all of those, right? You may find that all of a sudden Biden might
Corey
47:31
might – the other thing I will stress to people is these are rarely binaries, right? So if Joe Biden has to weigh in and he'll say like, no, no, no, the governor of Michigan cannot do that, but I can do that, and I'm telling them they've got to restrict their flows over the Great Lakes. Like that's a possibility. People need to appreciate that those are the things that happen when people start trying to shore up their positions like that. And so it would be much better off if Enbridge and Michigan can come to an accord on this, and everybody can walk away with their heads held high.
Zain
48:02
Carter, you know, politics, as we've said on this show and elsewhere often is just about pattern, developing patterns, showcasing patterns. The conservatives have hit on the fact that this is no different than Keystone XL. This is no different than Justin Trudeau having no power or leverage with the new president of the United States, that he has no skill in this domain, no ability in this domain. Conservative MP Strahl noted that the federal government has failed to prevent the U.S. president from canceling Keystone XL and says that this is no different, quote unquote. Is that the right calm strategy for the conservatives here? Is that what you'd be trying to do? Link this to Keystone XL? Or do you have perhaps a different take that they should be considering to make the most potent attack out of this current situation for the government? Well,
Carter
48:51
Well, I'm not going to even get close to trying to pretend that I'm an expert in international trade. I mean, especially given that we've changed the NAFTA arrangement to the
Carter
49:03
Yeah. So the new one is challenging. So I'm not going to pretend to understand what is in that new one. I must confess that I boycotted understanding it due to the fact that it was negotiated with Trump. But we do have international relationships. The problem was that the international relationships that we were trying to – we didn't have an existing international trade relationship with the KXL pipeline. That
Carter
49:28
was a new permit that needed to be issued and could be vetoed
Carter
49:31
vetoed essentially by the federal government in the United States, the executive branch. So this
Carter
49:38
this is something that exists. Corey pointed this out earlier. This is trade that is happening. There are mechanisms in these international trade agreements to rectify these types of disputes. So to say if you're Chuck Straughan, you're saying this, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe this is a problem. But maybe the federal government of Canada, as signaled today, is prepared to use every every lever that they can to try and protect this this trade relationship. And we have many trade relationship levers that we can pull on for an existing pipeline. pipeline. So this is a very different situation. I think that recognizing
Carter
50:20
recognizing that, or trying to equate the two is something that's being done at the folly and the potential misfortune of the Conservative Party.
Zain
50:30
Corey, just pick up on Carter's response there. Is this being done at the folly and the misfortune of the Conservatives?
Corey
50:35
Yeah, okay. Like, I think you can believe this project is in our interest and not believe that a fight is in our interest. And that's, that's certainly a position that I will take here.
Corey
50:45
Just because it's an important project, just because it's a national priority does not mean that you need to pick a political fight over it. We've already talked about how that may cause different, you've got some uncertainty with that avenue, right? If it becomes a big drawn out political fight, if everybody draws lines, if the governor feels like them backing down is a defeat, then you've got a real problem here. I do think that that the government of Canada needs to signal, yes, we have other avenues here. This will not be concluded there because that's a good way to pressure people to the table. That's a good way to get that conclusion that we're looking for here. But to just go like full ham on Michigan and go absolutely nuts on the U.S. government or start picking that fight, well, that's going to do nothing but make people in increasingly empty towers in downtown Calgary feel good. It
Corey
51:33
It will not solve our problems. problems uh we've got to take a little bit more of a safe cracker touch to this here we've got to be a little more thoughtful and um and just being as loud as possible showing up on fox news talking about how it's destroying canada u.s relationships will only invite a response and then it's in the world of politics in the united states and we have seen how fucking weird that world can get so i do think we have to be a bit cautious here and we are definitely not at the moment where we We need to pull the
Corey
52:01
the alarm cord that hard. We've got Regan throwing these things out. That's great. These are things we could do. There are trade agreements that are available to us about the free flow. You don't even need to look at Cosmo. You can look at some of the other deals that predate it by a long time.
Corey
52:18
not lose our heads, right? Let's all be a bunch of cool little Fonzies here, right?
Corey
52:24
Our wallets are the ones that say, bad motherfucker.
Corey
52:27
Take that and walk away. Well,
Carter
52:28
Well, it actually does say that. I'm just going to find it.
Zain
52:31
Don't move. You're going to short
Carter
52:32
short circuit the whole podcast,
Zain
52:35
Corey, I have to ask you this. You say it
Zain
52:39
it doesn't help to go on Fox News and start belittling the Americans, etc. Hypothetically. Yeah, hypothetically.
Zain
52:46
Let's talk about Jason Kenney. Is there anything he can do in this situation that would be politically advantageous to him? Yeah,
Corey
52:52
Yeah, I mean, so let's be clear. There is a difference between politically advantageous and kind of in the interest of the province. You know, they are often the same. They are not always the same. And I do think that Jason Kenney taking
Corey
53:06
taking a wiffle ball bat to the federal government will be politically advantageous to him in the province of Alberta. I think Albertans by and large will like that. All of the polling I've ever seen on this matter suggests that Canadians think the federal government doesn't do enough, that the provincial government has got it right. And while that is not kind of the monolith it was in years past, the reality is the economic interests of this province are so closely tied up, there's probably not enough that the federal government could do. So, yeah, he may find that that's a great thing to argue on and fight on, but it might be a Pyrrhic victory because in 2023, if not only do we not have KXL, but Line 5 is shut down, well, I mean, that's just fucked. And so sometimes it's like, you know, it's the winning the battle, losing the war kind of thing here, Zane.
Corey
53:50
I do think that this moment that we are in does not call for this kind of fight, and it is a long way to 2023, and not everything needs to be a full-out assault on the federal government. This might be a moment to just breathe sharp and wait to see how this all plays out.
Zain
54:04
Carter, same question to you. And that is Corey's distinction, which I really like. Politically advantageous versus advantageous for the province.
Zain
54:12
Jason Kenney, what do you think? What should he do? What should he consider?
Carter
54:15
I actually think that in this particular case, politically advantageous and in the best interest of the province are far more closely linked. If you lost Line 5 in May, the economic impact on Alberta would be so immediately politically politically disadvantaged or disadvantageous, it would be political
Carter
54:32
political suicide. So it
Carter
54:35
it would be one thing if the federal government had indicated they are not going to take up this fight, then
Carter
54:41
then Jason Kenney has to carry it.
Carter
54:43
But they have indicated they're going to take up this fight. His best bet is to sit down and say, my staff or your staff, let me know how we can help. I'm on your side, Prime Minister.
Carter
54:55
Anything you need us to do, we're going to do. And then if If anything goes off the rails, you also get to blame them.
Carter
55:01
And he's really good at that blame game. So, you know, this is a win-win opportunity for him if he just sits down and lets this flow without him being a central character in it.
Zain
55:14
We'll leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready? I
Zain
55:23
Fourth time is not the charm. Still
Corey
55:25
Still not working. No,
Corey
55:26
fourth was so unnoticeable that you just, you failed to even register it, Zane.
Zain
55:31
This is, well, I'm glad someone did.
Zain
55:34
Yeah, go ahead. Unnoticeable?
Zain
55:36
Yeah, okay. Stephen Carter, overrated, underrated. I was going to say the
Zain
55:42
word electric, but I'm not. Bailout language, is it overrated or underrated?
Carter
55:47
Underrated. I think you have to choose your language very carefully in politics. And, you know, you can choose language that means something to people or you can choose language that doesn't. And if you choose language that doesn't mean anything, then you don't get any political benefit.
Zain
56:02
Corey, same question to you. Bailout language, overrated or underrated in your mind?
Corey
56:06
Yeah, underrated. Words carry charge. And you can choose your charge by choosing your words. So by calling it a bailout, you are saying things to people. You are reminding them of previous bailouts, such as the auto bailout. And there is a lot of power in that. that.
Zain
56:19
Corey, I'm going to ask you this one a little bit more specifically, equity in the airline bailout overrated or underrated in this particular overrated,
Corey
56:28
overrated, we're not trying to create a diversified, federally owned portfolio of various stocks here. It's all just money at the end of the day, we want to get out of it anyways, it complicates our lives to be an owner of these airlines. Lest we forget there are international airlines as well. And if all of a sudden they feel that the federal government is giving advantageous landing terms beyond what they normally would do, because they own a stake in the... It's just complicated. It's messy. It's dumb. Let's just take money. Let's take a benefit to the good people of Canada. Let's stay out of equity.
Zain
56:57
Carter, equity in the airlines as part of the bailout package, overrated or underrated?
Carter
57:02
Underrated. You buy, you take the equity, you sell it out later. You try and you show everybody that you're doing and acting economically responsibly. You don't worry about little details like what Corey's talking about.
Carter
57:14
Instead, you go for the big broad stroke messaging. and that's what i like big
Carter
57:18
big broad strokes carter
Zain
57:19
carter i'm sticking with you on this over under on five sometimes we power through on this show many
Carter
57:25
many times we power
Carter
57:26
have to the fourth
Zain
57:27
fourth electric and that as well uh over under on five the conservative response on line five trying to tie it to this can't to the um prevention of of uh canceling keystone xl what do you think over under on five i
Carter
57:39
i think it's under i don't think it'll raise them any money and i don't think it'll last very long.
Zain
57:44
Corey, over or under on five, the federal conservative response on the line five thus far?
Corey
57:50
I think it's under. I think if you just look at the moment, it's a political winner with their base. I think even Canadians writ large will say, yeah, this is actually starting to feel like maybe we're not getting any of these pipelines. And when you poll Canadians as a whole, Canadians
Corey
58:02
Canadians are still supportive of pipelines, right? It's a bit of a myth that this country is wholesale sale turned against them, or
Corey
58:08
or development in oil and gas for that matter. However, the downside, like the potential downside is so huge. Why you would want to tie Line 5, an existing pipeline that's been running safely for almost 70 years, to KXL, which was a big political dust up and knockout down in the United States that we have lost, and we have lost unequivocally, it's just beyond me. Why you would want to conflate those two issues and invite the kind of response that is possible when those two issues are conflated is it's sheer madness it is sheer madness and uh if we are all very lucky it will not register at all in the united states and everything will move on but if this gets dragged into the fight like i i mean i can like the people at enbridge in the c-suite must be just pulling out their hair i'm sure they want this about as much as they want another six more weeks of winter it's just well actually enbridge might might want six more weeks of winter they sell natural gas but you get my point like this is this is not helpful to the situation as a whole cory
Zain
59:08
cory i'm sticking with you for a prediction once we have our airline bailout package as a country will the taxpayer as in us be an equity owner in either air canada or west jet yeah
Corey
59:21
yeah i think probably i
Zain
59:23
think we will steven carter will we be an equity owner in air canada or west jet of course just reminding our listeners this is the magician, the magic eight ball, Stephen Carter, giving us a prediction. Will we be equity owners in Air Canada or WestJet?
Carter
59:38
Not only will we be equity owners, we'll also be getting... I'd like to change
Carter
59:42
We're also going to get coupons
Carter
59:46
to start traveling sooner than later.
Corey
59:49
We will not be equity owners.
Carter
59:51
And we'll be equity owners.
Zain
59:54
Corey, I need to know the answer on the coupons. Will we be just this random Carter's couponing program? Who's getting coupons? Who's getting coupons? I actually know I'm moving on. I'm moving on. Stephen Carter, I'm ending the show with you. Yes or no. Will we receive our vaccines ahead of schedule?
Zain
1:00:09
Perfect. And now, Carter, let's do a quick 20 minutes on what that means.
Zain
1:00:14
We'll leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 921 of The Strategist. My name is Zaid Balji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.
Zain
1:00:29
is a big deal right carter oh
Carter
1:00:31
oh yeah i mean the vaccination rollout like even just we were talking about this two weeks ago right like if if they missed their numbers in february and they couldn't carry their numbers into march i mean the federal government was really facing a difficult challenge but they've been they've been starting to swing up and more importantly the optimism that people are feeling now like the feeling of people the number of people who I see on my my Twitter feed or in my Facebook feed that are saying how happy they are because they got their mother or father vaccinated. This is a significant attitudinal shift that is being associated with the federal Liberal Party that is changing their fortunes. I can't wait to see a poll in three weeks that tells us how the the Canadian
Carter
1:01:15
Canadian public is actually looking at at um the
Carter
1:01:19
the the vaccination issue you
Zain
1:01:22
you know what i like about this story is that like you know those who've got the skill are able to kind of see how it changes week to week how it's dynamic how it's a story that has you know a changing landscape and changing terrain it's not the same thing over and over uh you know and and i feel like that's where where you and i can really chat about this is is there's so much that has changed uh based on these new predictions don't you think oh
Carter
1:01:43
oh every day every Every day there's something new. I mean, in the last three days, I kept asking, you know, could we do an emergency podcast? Could we do an emergency podcast? Because this has fundamentally shifted. And I think that you and I saw it.
Carter
1:01:54
You and I saw it and others haven't been able to see how impactful this situation is, even with a looming federal election, even with, you know, the provinces dragging their feet. I mean, this is perhaps the political story of a decade.
Zain
1:02:08
Yeah. And I mean, listen, for the Trudeau liberals, they've been on this roller coaster ride, you know. So where does this recent news, the minister saying that she's confident the vaccine timeline will accelerate, is this the halo effect they need right now? And do they start thinking about this spring election even more seriously than they did last week?
Carter
1:02:30
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've already circled May the 3rd on my calendar. I mean, I think that that's when the writ gets dropped. I think that on June the 14th, we're going to the polls. But this is, you know, I'd love to talk to Corey about it, but he's just decided that he doesn't care. But the rest of us care. The rest of Canadians care. Canadians want to know how the election is going to be impacted. Canadians want to know how soon they're going to get vaccinated. Even in Alberta, they're predicting that everybody who wants a vaccination will have it by the end of June. June, whereas, you know, the end of September, we're moving from the third quarter to the second quarter of 2021. And this is this is massive.
Zain
1:03:13
And this is why we'll continue doing this. This is why you and I will keep having this discussion. You know, we don't we don't let our listeners down just because one of us doesn't see the the meat on the bone of an issue and the strategic insights that are available to be dispensed to the broader public. Normally, it's you. Are
Corey
1:03:32
Are you guys wrapping up? Because you chuckle fucks couldn't even fill three minutes of this conversation without me.
Zain
1:03:38
No, let me tell you something. We could have filled
Zain
1:03:40
several minutes. We have
Zain
1:03:42
We could have filled several minutes. Let me tell you about one other thing. Yeah.
Carter
1:03:48
Yeah, we will. We will, Mr. Hogan.
Zain
1:03:50
Carter, the AstraZeneca refrigeration. Now, let's talk about that a bit more. they don't need to be refrigerated at the same temperature that seems interesting to me it's
Carter
1:04:00
it's interesting because that is actually the one that I'm targeted for they say that there's the different
Carter
1:04:08
different types of vaccinations it doesn't matter which one you get just get the one that you're offered that's
Corey
1:04:12
that's the one that's being offered