Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is a strategist episode 931. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter.
Zain
0:09
Guys, what's so funny? What's so funny, Carter? Hey, guys. Hey,
Corey
0:12
Hey, hey, hey, I just came
Corey
0:13
came in from my jog.
Corey
0:15
Okay, just came in from my jog. Just tallying myself off. Don't worry too much about it. Yeah,
Zain
0:18
Yeah, okay. No, perfect. I'm not gonna make of anything. I usually don't look on the screen anyway. So it's totally fine. Carter, Corey went outside. Should should this be a lesson to never go outside? Let
Carter
0:29
me tell you something. I went outside today, went inside in my wife's car and got pulled over by the police because
Carter
0:35
because apparently we forgot to do the registration renewal and I forgot my license and we didn't put the insurance up in the glove box. So my day is going great. My day is going fantastic. And
Zain
0:49
And can I just say, you're still alive. Let
Zain
0:51
To be white. There
Carter
0:53
There was a moment of recognition that I may have a degree of privilege. You had like 19 different
Carter
1:00
things you didn't do.
Carter
1:02
And you're casually recording a podcast that evening. I should be in jail. I really should. I opened
Carter
1:10
with humor. But I see my privilege. I do see it.
Zain
1:15
What else are we talking about, Corey? What else is going on? But what else are we playing grab ass about for the first 10 minutes? Huh? Twitter user? Court Packer?
Corey
1:29
retiring from the NBA because he had an irregular heartbeat, which is pretty crazy stuff. I want to know more about this because the cynic in me says, was this just like one night he had a weird heartbeat and the next day he decided to retire? Like, I couldn't really tell from his statement. But either way, huge. Just shocks the league. It kind of breaks up this super team. He
Carter
1:51
doesn't owe you an explanation, is what I'm saying. No,
Corey
1:54
No, he totally doesn't. You're right. It's medical information, but it came out of nowhere. This is not something anybody was ever saying, oh, there's concerns with Aldridge's heartbeat or anything like that. It's just one day, randomly in April, you wake up and you find out that he's leaving the league.
Carter
2:13
I was as shocked as Richmond taking the crap out of St. Kilda Saints yesterday. No one knows what you're
Zain
2:19
talking about, Carter. That's
Corey
2:20
That's an accessible metaphor. Yeah. Thank you for taking the sport that we watch that not everybody watches and making it less scrutable. Yeah.
Carter
2:27
Yeah. I really appreciate that. What I'm trying to drive home is that no one cares. That's what I'm trying to drive home.
Corey
2:34
Aldridge babushka doll here.
Corey
2:36
nice. Who's inside it? Is
Carter
2:38
Is it really a babushka doll or is it called the- It's a matryoshka
Carter
2:41
is what it's called.
Carter
2:42
Miller. I was going
Zain
2:43
going to say. Then we got DeJounte Murray. murray oh that's good mano genoble and then the small one is uh you
Carter
2:49
you know i'm really enjoying the visual sir the small one is who danny
Corey
2:53
danny green oh that makes sense although i think genoble being the small guy would have been okay for me too it's pretty good this
Carter
2:59
is a visual thing that you guys are doing it's really nice
Zain
3:02
this is the best best three minutes you guys
Corey
3:08
really internalize that eh you random twitter
Corey
3:11
twitter user really gotten under your skin here You
Carter
3:15
know we can't stand any criticism. Not at all. Yeah.
Zain
3:19
And this is the only way to deflect it, which is to make it part of the show. Let's move it on to our headlines, guys. Are you ready to jump in? It is Thursday. Let me put on some underpants
Zain
3:31
Hang on a second. I'm
Carter
3:32
I'm taking my pants off. One second.
Zain
3:34
Are you ready for the headlines? I know you live for very few things in this world, and the headlines certainly seems to be one of them. It's
Carter
3:40
It's the only way I stay in touch with the world, Zane. The only way.
Zain
3:44
This is how he gets his news. This
Carter
3:46
This is it right now. This
Zain
3:47
This is the only thing you surround yourself with, which are the headlines. Formulate your worldview. Well, let's start here. Let's start with Variety's headline that the BBC sets up a complaint line for too much coverage of the Duke's death. That's right. The BBC has set up a dedicated complaints page for viewers fed up by the blanket coverage of the death of Prince Philip. Hold
Zain
4:14
Pretty good. I like it, Carter. Nicely done.
Zain
4:17
Were you a theater
Carter
4:18
theater major? I was a theater... Did you see the look on my face when I did the feigned shock? That was fantastic. Very
Zain
4:23
Very prime ministerial of you. Quote, we're receiving complaints about too much coverage of the death of the prince... death of Prince Philip, Duke of... Now, Corey, is it Edinburgh or Edinburgh? Because, let me tell you something, I'm not an English major.
Zain
4:40
Read the statement. You're so upsetting. Read the statement. On the BBC's Complains page, which invites disgruntled viewers to submit their email address to register a complaint. So not just register a complaint, but a data harvesting strategy to register a complaint. Stephen Carter, your thoughts outside of outside of clearly the shock and now the black that I see you're wearing mourning the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
Carter
5:05
I'm just really glad you guys didn't see me change into this outfit. So thank you for not watching the screen. I'm shocked by the death. And obviously, but I'm not shocked by the BBC getting email addresses. That's something that I think is going to become more of the practice. I mean, I can make a joke about it and turning it into money. Or I can point out that I think that, you know, complaints are just flying
Carter
5:29
flying in fast and furious on the Internet. And forcing people to do certain little data pieces, I think, will constrain the numbers and force people to maybe stand by their words or be maybe a little bit less vitriolic when they're posting or leaving their comments.
Corey
5:52
The wall-to-wall coverage seems to be almost increasing rather than decreasing. But I don't understand why. It's not like they have different angles now of how he died. And so, you know, it is part of the British obsession with celebrity and the crown. And the idea that they would be using email addresses to capture this, I think, is probably less about data harvesting and more exactly what Stephen said. It's like, well, if you're going to write something totally off the wall, let's at least put your digital name to it.
Zain
6:22
Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us locally here in Canada from CTV News. Okay, I'm going to go slowly because I want to make sure everyone captures this. Kelowna Fitness Studio trying to ban vaccinated members isn't supposed to be open, city says. The city
Zain
6:40
city of Kelowna says a fitness studio coming under fire for trying to ban members who have received the COVID-19 vaccine has been operating without a business license. since steps are now being taken to potentially shut it down. Flow Academy, which markets itself as a studio for activities including Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and yoga, has talked on the company's website about not accepting any applications for membership for anyone who's received the COVID-19 vaccine. Stephen Carter, the
Zain
7:11
the anti-vax gym in Kelowna does not operate with a business license. Is this a surprise to you? Having
Carter
7:18
Having been to Kelowna, having
Carter
7:19
having spent time in Kelowna, this does not surprise me at all. You know, to our three listeners in Kelowna, I apologize, but your city is this city. So, no, I'm not surprised. I mean, it's
Carter
7:31
it's an interesting business model. I mean, trying to tap into the crazy nut bars. I mean, you got to figure that you can scrape a little extra cash out of them as well. So probably not a bad business strategy. But ultimately, bringing attention to yourself when you don't have a business license, not a long-term success, not going to be a long-term success.
Corey
7:50
Corey? Well, very few people know that business licenses have trace amounts of mercury that can make you very sick, cause
Corey
7:59
cause autistic customers. So I think they're just trying to be responsible here. No, I mean this is crazy bullshit. shit uh and it's funny and it it kind of fills
Corey
8:10
fills out a view of whoever this individual is because like imagine the shithead who's not even like i don't think you should take the vaccine but i will not serve you if you get the vaccine like what are you worried you're going to catch vaccine from these people it's just the craziest notion ever i unlike carter really like colonna so people of colonna i'm with you i'll cape for you carter it's like you've never had any fun in your life It's the most entertaining city in the interior.
Carter
8:35
In the interior? Is it really? I've never been there. So you had to add quite a constraint there to get to the most entertaining. You
Zain
8:40
You know, I have been to Kelowna, and it was quite nice. There you go. Yeah, it's got a
Corey
8:43
a lake. You guys went to the lake. There's a university there. You
Carter
8:46
You did not go to Kelowna. You went to
Carter
8:48
lake. There's hills all
Corey
8:48
all around. There's wineries.
Corey
8:50
wineries. It's just great.
Corey
8:53
This is an airport.
Corey
8:56
Airports are good. Yeah, man. Airports are good. This is good. Yeah.
Zain
8:59
Yeah. Let's move it on to...
Zain
9:01
This is compelling stuff, Corey. This is
Corey
9:03
stuff. We're just listing
Zain
9:04
listing amenities of Kelowna.
Zain
9:07
Let's move on to our next headline, Ferber Reuters. New poll shows 46% would support Dwayne The Rock Johnson's presidential bid. Corey Hogan, do we need another celebrity? And does America need Dwayne The Rock Johnson as their next president?
Zain
9:26
Carter, do you also agree? great are you giving this the hundred percent strategist approval mine for me just putting it on the on the docket of headlines you know i approve of this well we don't consider you
Corey
9:36
you a strategist yeah
Zain
9:37
yeah i mean really there so this is yeah it doesn't matter are you giving are you giving it a hundred percent we we've decided this is the podcast between this
Carter
9:44
this is this this proves to me that 46 of americans haven't learned a fucking thing um and i suspect it's actually higher so it
Corey
9:52
it It proves to me 54% of Americans aren't cool.
Carter
9:57
It's true, though. I do like The Rock, and frankly, I would prefer him over Trump. You
Corey
10:02
You know, The Rock played in the CFL. He played for the Calgary Stampeders. We
Carter
10:06
We are aware of that. It's actually on the citizenry test of Calgary, and I'm shocked that you haven't had to take it.
Zain
10:13
Yeah, what's wrong with you? A-Rod also played for the Cannons.
Carter
10:16
when I worked for the Cannons, A-Rod played for the Cannons.
Zain
10:19
Cannons. Did you ever meet A-Rod? I had no
Carter
10:21
was that old. He's very, very old.
Carter
10:23
old. Are you being a smartass now? Are
Carter
10:24
Are you? Okay, fine. That's fine.
Zain
10:26
So we go from a 46% approval for Dwayne Johnson's presidential bid to a headline that I'm sure 100% of people will agree with. This one comes to us from the Australian Daily News. Trinity College and Perth bans mullet haircuts, labeling them unacceptable.
Corey
10:43
That's like anti-Canadian violence. I don't approve of that. What
Zain
10:46
What are you talking about? What's anti-Canadian about a mullet? What's going on? What am I missing? first of all what else was on the citizenship test that i did what's
Carter
10:55
what's what's up here in
Carter
10:57
in in canada it's a moulet in in uh in
Carter
11:01
perth it is a mullet and it is the official haircut of the australian rules football league so when you look oh my god why no the and
Carter
11:11
the west coast eagles
Carter
11:14
so we have to we have to put our foot down and not let this happen to us.
Carter
11:20
I'm saying right now.
Zain
11:21
Great. Thank you for your continued inaccessible content on the podcast, Carter. I'm just
Corey
11:25
just going to bleep all of that out.
Zain
11:30
that'd be excellent. I really appreciate that. Corey, how is this a hate crime to our country?
Corey
11:36
You know, as a guy who's a well known aficionado of jean jackets, it's like you don't know anything else about the 80s in this country i
Zain
11:42
i i stop at you start and stop at jean jackets it's
Corey
11:46
it's uh it's hockey hair it's it's considered like a canadian rite of passage you know men in the 1980s in this country
Corey
11:53
rocked that hairstyle and it still means something i know it's part of our heritage but uh it's kind of like um it's something that you celebrate on on the first of july i'm
Carter
12:02
i'm gonna pull up one of my photographs from high school and send it to you too good
Zain
12:06
good i'm just gonna tell you cory what i said to carter um about 10 minutes ago oh to be white uh now can i can i ask you about there's a headlight i don't have here but you brought it up uh team canada's official wardrobe for the tokyo olympics has been revealed uh and they include a a jean jacket with uh i don't know if it's like bedazzled bedazzled like
Corey
12:29
like faux spray paint yeah faux
Zain
12:30
faux spray paint and bedazzled uh uh
Zain
12:33
uh i don't know
Zain
12:34
Gems of sort. Carter, are you in or out? You're a big Olympics guy. Are you always keenly aware of the wardrobe? And in this case, are you in or out on the wardrobe that you're seeing this year? I'm
Carter
12:45
I'm out. I'm out on the jean jacket. First of all, I blame you for popularizing the jean
Carter
12:50
jean jacket. You showed up on every newscast in the last two years wearing a fucking jean jacket. And this is what happens. People go, ooh, Zane Velji's wearing it. We should put it into our design for the Olympics. It looks terrible. terrible it looks terrible and it looked terrible on you on all of those appearances uh on all those newscasts you
Zain
13:09
you know we can have this conversation without being live you're doing on recording it you don't need to tell me this now but i appreciate
Carter
13:16
no it's terrible are you like the t-shirts yeah i
Zain
13:20
i don't think anyone noticed the t-shirts because everyone was very stuck on the jean jacket to be honest cory uh in or out on
Corey
13:25
on the jean jacket i
Corey
13:27
think i'm in i don't think i could pull it off myself but i kind of like it very
Zain
13:30
very few of us can very few of us can and
Corey
13:33
many people online have noted the the awesome contrast between our uh our jacket and the american wardrobe which looks like you're like in in like a villain in some sort of 80s movie where you're like the prep who's being really mean to the person wearing the jean jacket you know john hughes wherever he is right now just just popped a boner because this is the most exciting kind of conflict that i've ever seen
Carter
13:55
was that the the american outfit i thought that was in sync i'm so confused okay no
Zain
14:01
no that was the american outfit i'm
Carter
14:02
i'm so confused in
Carter
14:04
great band you should listen it's
Corey
14:09
also like a 25 year old band at this point but
Zain
14:11
but that was the point oh man carter okay our next headline comes to us from the canadian press liberal mp got stark naked during house House of Commons video conference. Do I need to add the substantiating lines? I'll just add it for those that might have missed this. A Liberal MP was caught wearing his birthday suit in the virtual House of Commons. William Amos, who has represented the Quebec riding of Pontiac since 2015, appeared on the screens versus fellow members of Parliament completely naked. On Wednesday, a screenshot that was obtained by the Canadian press shows him standing behind a desk between the Quebec and Canadian flags. Corey, there's many angles to this story. There's obviously the initial jerk reaction. Every word I say could be seen in that light. I said knee-jerk reaction, just so people are clear, was about the picture. Now we're kind of getting into the second part of the story, which is there's now a call to have a, I believe it's like some sort of review by Pablo Rodriguez's house leader saying, you know, who on the conservative side leaked this picture to the Canadian press, etc. et cetera. When you initially saw it, and when you kind of heard about it in the hours and the days later, what are your thoughts about this particular story?
Corey
15:27
Did you know, you remember the Pontiac car brand?
Carter
15:31
Really good stuff. Yeah.
Corey
15:32
Yeah. So in the 80s, their slogans were, we are driving excitement and designed for action. And that's the first thing I thought about. So, like, that's pretty funny.
Corey
15:42
The second thing I thought about was what is he doing in his office? I think it was his office, right? Just kind of stark naked like that. And you're right, Zane. Like, the first reaction was, what the F? Why is this guy totally stark naked with his camera on? And then the follow-on reaction has been, wait a minute, how do we have this picture? Because
Corey
16:02
required somebody to take that picture and then leak it to somebody. And that is pretty awful. Like that's a pretty egregious abuse of somebody's privacy in order – putting naked pictures of them out there that
Corey
16:12
that were not really in a public setting, quasi-public, weird. It would be like – I guess the example would be if you were at work and the door to the bathroom swung open and you saw Stephen Carter buck naked in there and you snapped a photo because he wasn't supposed to be naked in there and then you handed it to somebody who posted it online. Like that wouldn't be cool. No workplace would that be allowed to be the
Carter
16:34
No, but that's not the analogy. right
Carter
16:37
right he he was in a meeting the
Carter
16:39
the meeting was being brought it is not a private setting any longer his office is no longer a private space it is a set and on that set he was naked and that broadcast out to other people this is no longer a privacy issue this is someone broadcasting the fact that they are buck naked we don't know what his motivation was he's told us that he you know was terribly embarrassed that he didn't mean to do it well i take him at his word but other people might say maybe he thought that was a pretty fun thing to do but we don't need
Corey
17:12
need no no no but we don't need the picture the picture added nothing to it it's not like anybody was disputing that he was naked the
Zain
17:19
the picture was really car don't you think this could this is going to turn sour very quickly like
Zain
17:24
like in the sense of you don't think this is going to be a privacy thing there's
Carter
17:27
there's a whole private you're broadcasting your office via a computer where you know you know you're online you know you're talking to other people and if i was to stand up right now and take my pants off you guys couldn't be like well maybe carter didn't know he took his pants off i know i take my pants off i know i'm talking to you because i'm in this conference
Carter
17:54
private is if i'm upstairs in my bedroom and cory bursts in with a camera and takes my picture i don't think he should post that so
Zain
18:02
so so tell me tell me this from the political standpoint from the political standpoint do you think there's a world of hurt coming for for whoever leaked this or no you think it's it's fine i can
Carter
18:10
can figure out who it is i'm sure that there'll be there'll be there'll be many
Carter
18:13
many welts on their back but i just i don't think that the i
Carter
18:18
don't think this is a good situation for anybody i don't think this is a great situation for the guy taking his clothes off i don't think this is a great situation for the person taking the picture um
Carter
18:25
um but we all shared it well i didn't share it but it was shared broadly um this thing went viral and uh to me this isn't jennifer lawrence's iphone being hacked this
Carter
18:38
this is a guy standing in a meeting taking with his clothes off it's a totally different thing yeah
Corey
18:43
yeah okay but there There are shades of gray between iPhone being hacked and standing in a public meeting. Like, I disagree with you in the sense that—
Carter
18:50
that— Did he not know that his camera—did he not know that he was in a meeting?
Corey
18:55
Apparently not. You know, I mean, like, when you read the statements, take them at their word
Carter
18:58
word or not, but— He was in a meeting. He knew he was in a meeting.
Corey
19:02
still didn't mean it needed to be shared. Still didn't mean it needed to be shared. And I think it's unfortunate that it was. Bleeding
Corey
19:08
it first went around, by the
Corey
19:10
I actually thought that this was probably something that anybody in the public could have seen. Like
Zain
19:13
Like a public, yeah. Yeah, if they were just watching online. Exactly.
Corey
19:15
Exactly. And so I wasn't offended by the fact that these pictures had made the rounds. It was really embarrassing for him. But when I realized that somebody actually just snapped this pic and released it from a relatively small group of people, that's a different thing. So, you know, the thing
Corey
19:32
thing that Amos got that kind of almost goes in his favor now is that in many ways he is the victim. him and the moment that um the
Corey
19:43
that occurred like we're in a different paradigm now you don't get to put pictures like that out and um and
Corey
19:49
and the moment that occurred i think the conversation fundamentally flipped on this matter grossing
Carter
19:54
grossing me out let's
Zain
19:56
let's move it on to our next headline our next headline comes to us from the cbc we're gonna spend some time on this guys regina resident who thought she'd been given pfizer vaccine shocked after being told she'd had been given AstraZeneca. An individual made an appointment online for vaccinations for her and her husband in Regina, which based on the Saskatchewan Health Authority information, she believed she was going to receive the Pfizer shot. But when she got the shot, she was offered the AstraZeneca vaccine instead. Quote, it was a complete surprise to both of us, she said. And then she added some additional comments around it being a dictatorship and adding freedom of choice. I want to spend less time on the particular article, but more time on this, because this is starting to become a real live wire communications, I
Zain
20:41
I shouldn't say controversy, but certainly issue in our country, Carter, where AstraZeneca is now being offered in many provinces to only a small band of individuals at 55 to 64. There's been the ongoing, even
Zain
20:54
even prior to the blood clot situation, the conversation on its efficacy, which largely misinterpreted, has put it in a categorization of its own as being the least desirable of the vaccines in many people's minds, and I am doing air quotes there if people can't see that.
Zain
21:10
What is the root of this, Carter? And how big of a problem do you feel like this is? If you're in the government right now, and we're seeing anecdotes all across the country, like Edmonton's a great example, right, where they've set up a mass vaccination site, offering several thousand vaccine appointments a day and only getting several hundred uh they're now trying to open that up to walk in come anytime this vaccine's great like how big of a problem do you feel like this is i know it's a very generalized question if you're going to answer across the country around the narrative and the story of the astrazeneca vaccine this
Carter
21:44
is a nightmare and it's not just astrazeneca now now johnson and johnson's been uh held back in the in the united states question for you guys do we have j and j here i don't i don't know we don't we don't okay
Carter
21:56
sorry go ahead carter
Carter
21:57
carter i'm just adding this us in is color because what happens is the um we
Carter
22:02
aren't great with facts we aren't great with understanding risk um to me this feels like uh it's completely blown out of proportion both astrazeneca as well as johnson and johnson uh just because of the relative infrequency of it now i'm
Carter
22:17
i'm sure that when these were approved they were approved within certain parameters and when those parameters were breached there had to be some sort of a pullback right because they they skipped skipped significant steps aren't in skip they they moved much faster than the norm uh in terms of their approval processes but this just to me shows us how we don't respond well to extra information um when you go and get the chickenpox vaccination you don't ask well which chickenbox vaccination is this who made this you don't go and get the flu vaccination and say i understand there's several different flu vaccines out there i'd like this one that's done by Pfizer that is is a level of information that we just simply don't have available to us because of the way that these vaccinations have rolled out across north america we now have turned simple brand
Carter
23:02
brand names into an additional fact that we now have to weigh and we're terrible at it i
Carter
23:09
i mean we we just simply can't weigh multiple multiple variables in a way that is it is good for us unless we are are experts in the field and virtually none of us are experts in the field in vaccination um the
Carter
23:23
the the problem that i am having with with the astrazeneca uh exclusions is there's so many people who you know like it's still still such a tight group of people who are able to get vaccinated across the country and now you've got a supply of vaccine that's available that may have some issues with certain subsets but certainly doesn't have issues with other subsets so um i'm I'm, you know, I'm frustrated because the vaccine, the
Carter
23:51
the damage done by the vaccine seems
Carter
23:54
seems to be, and I'm just throwing it out there, given the numbers out of Ontario over the last few days, out of the numbers out of Alberta the last few days, numbers out of British Columbia, the projections that are coming out, the vaccine risks seem to be about the least, the least important risks that we're faced with right now. We are faced with two significant risks or two risks, right? right? A significant risk with COVID that is known and understood, and we are tracking towards that risk, or a modest risk with a couple of vaccines. And I think that people should be able to, you
Carter
24:26
know, I think that we are blowing the risk horn far too loudly. And this is part of my challenge with allowing, this again boils down to how medical professionals communicate versus how professional communicators communicate. I
Zain
24:39
I want to talk about that in a second, Carter. Carter, you also mentioned this risk, like just to substantiate that a bit more, the story coming out by CBC this afternoon saying Ontario could see over 18,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by the end of May. They're planning some new substantial and significant restrictions in that province. Corey, I want to ask the same question I asked to Carter, directing it towards you. How big of a deal is this, this AstraZeneca situation? Carter added the J&J situation to to substantiate that point. If you're sitting in the government's chair right now or a decision maker's chair in government, how concerned are you by the narrative and the mis- slash disinformation around this?
Corey
25:21
Yeah, it's a huge communications problem. It's a huge narrative problem. But Carter's right. It's probably not a huge medical problem.
Corey
25:29
Lots of stats online about this in the sense that birth control has higher risk of blood clots, smoking. You know, I think this is a great example of exactly what Stephen said. We are not good with probabilities and determining kind of risk factors and also chances. It's the same reason people buy lottery tickets. You know, we're not good at math once
Corey
25:49
once we hit a certain level. And this is a perfect example of that. You know, hearing a risk is one in a million.
Corey
25:54
Well, don't think too much about your risk of just any day you walk out of your house, the odds that you're not going to come home. It's higher than one in a million by a fair bit because of all of the various risks we face in our life. So that's
Corey
26:07
that's a challenge. And of course, because it's now taken off, and it's become this narrative, and there's this suggestion, and it builds on suggestion that the AstraZeneca vaccine is somehow inferior to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. scenes. And you start getting people being choosy about these things.
Corey
26:23
Problematic, but I think the opportunity here is for governments to not try to force it and just say, okay, well, if we're confident in the science, if we think it's safe for these age groups, and we're willing to do that, maybe it's time to sort of extend that to other groups, at least on a trial basis. If people start to kick up too much fuss, say, okay,
Corey
26:43
okay, well, you can't have it both ways. I mean, maybe there's an opportunity to play with exactly that scarcity argument that Carter's always talking about. You don't want it? Fine. But then there's no vaccine for you until a bit later and see if people really truly feel that way.
Zain
26:58
Carter, Corey's thrown something onto the table. Let's do this in like a traditional
Zain
27:03
traditional whiteboard session. You said this is part of a broader issue, and I'm paraphrasing your point, of having maybe doctors or health professionals communicate rather than communicators communicate. Okay, we've got some communicators that we talk. That's the nature of the show. You're thrown into this. Let's say the government hires you. Let's say that you're hired by a provincial jurisdiction saying, Stephen Corey, we've got this problem. What are your principles for reversing?
Zain
27:28
Maybe that's too big of a lip, reversing the tide on AstraZeneca or the narrative that's been set. But what is some of the ground principles the two of you are collaborating on to perhaps start the narrative shift, the narrative, you know, redistribution of what people's perception is currently around AstraZeneca? Some principles, Carter, to help us out here.
Carter
27:52
Well, number one, you've got to define something worse, right?
Carter
27:55
right? So people don't
Carter
27:57
don't like—like, talking to someone about risk is very tricky. tricky. They will do risky things under kind of two circumstances. They will do a risky thing if there is something more risky for, you know, that is coming, or they will do risky things once they've been normalized. So the normalization option is really not there. We're facing a wall of, you know, potential challenges coming from our COVID problem right now, the third wave as we've characterized it um so we've got to get people uh vaccinated as quickly as possible what i would probably do is define a group for whom astrazeneca is going to work well and appropriately for and and try and uh recreate the model of delivery for those people um so there's you know i
Carter
28:49
i don't i'm not an expert in the problem but it seems to me from my reading that it seems Seems to be more of an issue for women than it does for men. So carve it out for men, you
Carter
29:00
you know, to ask men if you're if you're driving to the clinic, then you're taking more risk driving than you will be when you get there. So men step
Carter
29:09
step up and take this vaccine so that women can be focused towards the Pfizer and Moderna vaccinations. vaccinations um men can you help your wives your daughters your mothers by taking the astrazeneca vaccination so that we have more vaccines available for women who could be at risk from this so can you step forward and be the hero essentially create a brand new hero narrative um you know the these men have the opportunity to step in and and not face the same risks but more importantly open open up the opportunity for women to jump in and get the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations, which may be more appropriate for them. And I'd start to change the rules. Like right now, they're changing the rules and saying walk-ins for 55 to 64s. I
Carter
29:55
don't think that's the right play. I think you should be, you know, still trying to take as many reservations as possible, but do the reservations so that a couple can come in and the husband can get but AstraZeneca and the wife can get Moderna or Pfizer.
Zain
30:13
Corey, anything to add to the comms principles or the narrative resetting that you would add to the table?
Corey
30:21
If you're the government, I think you say this is a safe vaccine. You contextualize that risk. You say it's safer than X. You say it's safer than Y. You say it's certainly safer than COVID, and maybe it's even safer.
Corey
30:32
I'd be interested. I threw out some numbers. I should stress those are on social media graphics. I'm not a doctor. I don't know if those are accurate. I do know that physicians are saying that COVID carries a much higher risk of providing, you know, providing you blood clots than the vaccine does. But you have to say, like, your risk from blood clots from COVID is higher than your risk from blood clots from this. If you don't want it, that's fine because you don't want people to say it's forced. But I think that the next part of that is, but then you got to wait. then you're going to
Corey
31:04
wait in line until the system kind of comes back around to you on these vaccines and that's that's sort of got to be the deal right i think it's actually in some ways totally incredible a
Corey
31:14
a vaccine multiple vaccines were created in a year yeah
Corey
31:18
and it's uh it's like that old louis ck bit where he's talking about being on an airplane and
Corey
31:25
announced the flight has internet and then they announced the flights internet's not working and the guy next next to him is like oh are you kidding me you know this brand new thing that he never had before and now he's pissed that it doesn't work properly and it's sort of like that like do we take them for granted so quickly that now this total miracle that we have this incredibly effective vaccine that was rolled out in a year now
Corey
31:46
now we just expected to have absolutely no side effects and be a hundred percent perfect and always no
Corey
31:52
no vaccine is i mean there are always going to be when you go get the flu vaccine you have to do that thing where they say oh you know there's this risk that's why they make you sit there with the cookie for 20 minutes after to make sure there's not crazy side effects that happen we've got to sort of recalibrate everything
Corey
32:07
everything here i mean i i actually think uh it's ultimately a bit to get back to your headline a bit i
Corey
32:14
think they should have let her know what the vaccine was because i just think that
Corey
32:17
kind of information breeds trust and if she didn't want to do it fine then she can go and not get her vaccine that day but ultimately this
Corey
32:25
this this level of of entitlement of like,
Corey
32:28
like, oh, I want the good vaccine. They're all good vaccines. We are in the middle of a pandemic. I would very much like to get a vaccine. If I could get AstraZeneca today, I would go today. I would do it. And I think many people are like that. So if you are lucky enough to be in an age group that's being called right now, and it's not luck, it's because it's higher risk, right? Or if there are other reasons that you are being offered the vaccine, you
Corey
32:53
you should take it.
Corey
32:54
And if you won't, I'll
Zain
32:59
So, Corey, let's spend one more round on this before we move on. Because part of this is the blood clot part of it. The other part of it, though, is that this kind of affirms the narrative for people that there is a gradient amongst the vaccines. They see the 90-some percent for the Moderna and the Pfizer. They see the, I don't know what it was, 60, 70-some percent around the AstraZeneca, right? Like I said, largely largely misinterpreted stats, but this just verifies that if I'm being given, and we sit here in Alberta, we're, you know, making an appointment at a pharmacy, if you're in the 2B or 2C category, pretty easy. You could just choose not to get this one, right? And I think that's what's happening here in many places where, you know, people aren't being wrapped around on the line. They're saying, well, if this is doing AstraZeneca, I'm just going to go wait another three days and get my Pfizer shot. Like, that just makes more sense. And I feel like that's part of the the narrative issue here so maybe if we'd like double click on our province in particular would there be advice that you'd have given the particular um maybe behaviors that people are are making around this vaccine blood clots being one factor but not the only factor uh that they're perhaps considering well
Corey
34:06
well again i'm i
Corey
34:08
can only repeat what the health officials have said right which is that all of these vaccines are very effective at stopping severe severe cases of COVID-19. And ultimately, that's what we're primarily worried about. We're worried about hospitalizations, we're worried about death, we're worried about long term side effects for all of these things. And people
Corey
34:26
people have got to kind of keep their eyes on the prize there. If there is this desire to shop around, and certainly here we are in Alberta, our premier has said you can have your choice of vaccine, right?
Corey
34:37
It's like so much in the Canadian healthcare system. We don't charge for it but if we don't charge for it we
Corey
34:43
we ration other ways right yeah you got
Corey
34:45
got to wait and and so why
Corey
34:47
why not make that the deal um yes you can pick but if you're going to pick this is the slow line if you're willing to take whatever we got here's the fast line carter
Zain
34:55
carter same questions for you based here domestically in alberta regionally here in alberta any
Zain
35:01
any thoughts given any additional thoughts to to what's uh what you've added already yeah
Carter
35:06
yeah i mean i just keep coming back to what we what we would do in another situation i mean most of us aren't doing brand name drugs most of us aren't way you know weighing the various pieces if we're offered a generic if a generic drug is given to us um you know it's it's a little less expensive we take it um these these the
Carter
35:26
the idea that we are medical experts that can discern between different brands of vaccinations the vaccine is approved go get it uh and and anybody listening i mean one of the other things things I wanted to mention.
Carter
35:39
People who are, you know, going and picking up leftover vaccinations and getting them put in their arms, those people are heroes too. What we do not want is a single dose of these vaccines to be left on the, you know, to be thrown away. So let's not shame those that are going and getting the, this isn't queue jumping. This is taking advantage of the opportunities to get these things done and get more vaccines in people's arms. It's the only way that we're going to get through this.
Zain
36:06
Corey finishes off here.
Corey
36:08
Yeah. First of all, I think heroes is a bit strong, but I agree with Carter. Uh, if you're, if you're following the rules and you're making sure there's less wastage good on you. Um, but final note to our audience here, get your medical advice from doctors. Don't take it from a bunch of idiots on a political strategy podcast that said me, right?
Corey
36:26
Well, sure. Except for you. Uh, you know, the expert consensus is pretty strong go get your vaccine when it's offered let's
Zain
36:33
let's move it on to our next segment our next segment anything you can do i can do differently but the same guys let's talk about the conservatives newly released hot off the press climate
Zain
36:45
climate plan conservative party leader aaron o'toole unveiled a climate plan which will put a price on carbon for consumers but instead of the liberal carbon tax and rebate system o'toole is proposing to charge a levy on fuel purchases and use the money to fund personalized savings accounts, which Canadians can use for environmentally friendly purchases. So, you know, a savings account, which is limited in terms of what you can ultimately do with it. Under O'Toole's plan, Canadians would pay a carbon levy initially amounted to $20 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions every time they buy hydrocarbon-based fuels such as gasoline. But instead of channeling that money into direct direct rebates, as is the case currently. The Conservatives would divert it into, quote, a personal low-carbon savings account. Consumers could then draw those accounts for things that help them live a, quote-unquote, greener life, Stephen. The document says that could include buying a bike or a bicycle or a transit pass, sorry, or saving up to putting that money towards a new energy-efficient furnace or an electric vehicle. All right, guys, that was a mouthful, but I believe important context. Corey, let me start with you on this. When you heard Aaron O'Toole release this plan, we'll get into the politics in a second. What were your first thoughts when you saw him stand at that podium or when you read this thereafter and read the details of this plan? Your initial sort of take when you consume this, knowing the political dynamic of, I'm now going to, you know, our party needs to change, I'm going to put together a serious plan that the Conservatives can be proud of, that Canadians can be proud of. Did Aaron O'Toole hit that bar for you today, Corey?
Corey
38:28
So let me tell you a story.
Corey
38:30
got to go back to about 2008, I think it was. Maybe it was even 2007. And Stéphane Dion had announced the Green Shift. I can't remember where, but wherever it was, he was in Calgary days later, within a week. And I worked for the Liberal Party of Canada at the time.
Corey
38:49
And he went to an event in Calgary. And after the event, there was a there was kind of like a, you know, just just political people talking afterwards. A few of us went to the, you know, the balcony at Daryl Raymaker's house, a bit of a legend in Calgary liberal circles here. And it was it was very casual. We were talking to Stefan about what
Corey
39:11
what what this plan was and what it meant. And this was, of course, before tax on everything, and it was before any of the big vicious attacks from the conservatives, any of that stuff. It was just – it was too new. And there's a moment I will never forget, and it's a moment that has kind of formed my thoughts of so many things in politics here. Daryl says to Stefan, he says, so
Corey
39:31
so Stefan, tell us about this green shift. What does it mean for – and
Corey
39:36
and I can't remember what he said, but it was something pretty basic, like what does this mean for diesel fuels, right? right?
Corey
39:41
And Stéphane Dion, the man who wrote The Green Shift, then said, well, let
Corey
39:46
And he went into this very thick book that he created, and he leafed through pages for about 30 seconds, and he found it, and he said, oh, it means this, right?
Corey
39:55
And at that moment, I remember thinking, holy shit, we are well and truly fucked, because it is so complicated that nobody is
Corey
40:02
is going to be able to get it, and it will be so open to parody, and it's just too confusing for Canadians.
Corey
40:09
And I Policies don't land well with Canadians. And this is a pretty confusing policy. And my first reaction was, this
Corey
40:16
this is too confusing for a climate policy. My big knock against the existing climate policy is I think Canadians have trouble following the ball and saying, okay,
Corey
40:24
okay, I'm doing this. How does this work? How is this actually reducing carbon?
Corey
40:28
But to say, we're
Corey
40:30
we're going to take your money, but we're not actually taking your money. A private corporation is going to hold on to your money. And then you can spend your money in these certain ways as long as it's good for you. I mean it's just – it's a lot to ask of people to say, OK,
Corey
40:42
OK, this works for me. A couple of things that I do like – now as it landed and I started thinking about it, there are a couple of things I like about it. One is one
Corey
40:51
one of the things that people have always been confused about in the liberal plan, although I think that confusion is abating with time, is how
Corey
40:58
how is this actually supposed to help the climate? Like if you're taking my money but just giving it back to me in a rebate, economists can answer that question much more artfully than me. But the simple answer is you still have an incentive to produce carbon because I'm giving you the money either way. But if you cut your carbon, it goes back. The conservative one doesn't have that. It's like out of – I think somebody online described it out of one pocket into another pocket. But it's your money and then you get your money back. So where's your incentive to cut, right?
Corey
41:27
That's the challenge with the plan. But the benefit is it's
Corey
41:30
it's forcing you to spend your own money on things that do green the economy. Yeah.
Corey
41:34
that, I think, is in some ways an easier-to-follow ball, right? It's more of a through line. So my first reaction is this is too complicated. My second reaction is, well,
Corey
41:44
well, maybe this will sort of work. And obviously the headline is on the carbon pricing, but there are other parts of the plan too, the zero-emission vehicles, the industrial emissions, renewable gas standards, and fuel standards, right? Right.
Corey
41:59
And all in all, people tend to think this is actually a legitimate, serious climate plan. You know, the economists who have looked at it say, yeah, this this sort of looks like it would work to hit Canada's targets. So that
Corey
42:13
that sort of leaves us with the politics. Yeah.
Corey
42:15
Which I'll just sort of stop here. But yeah, my first reaction was this
Corey
42:20
this is really complicated.
Zain
42:21
Carter, Corey says first reaction really complicated. I'll ask you the same question and a half that I asked him. Tim, your first reaction, and does this, in your mind, meet the bar for seriousness that O'Toole promised with his climate plan, I should say?
Carter
42:37
Let me answer the second one first. Yes, it is serious. Serious people are looking at it and doing an evaluation and coming up with serious conclusions about how it will impact the environment and those types of things. But, of course, I'm not here to do the environmental analysis. I'm here to do the political analysis. And my political analysis is somewhat different than Corey's because I just keep imagining that I'm working with a conservative candidate and
Carter
43:05
I've got to go to the
Carter
43:08
And I go to the doors and I knock on the door and I say, would
Carter
43:11
would you vote for the Conservative Party? And the person says, well, I don't know. I don't like that carbon tax. And now I say, well, yeah, I mean, we've got a carbon tax now, too. You're doing a carbon tax? Yeah, but ours is like way less. Oh, OK. okay, well, but I kind of did like the money back part. Am I still going to get money back?
Carter
43:29
Yeah, you're going to get money back, but it's going to be like a coupon or a loyalty card. So I'll tell you how you're able to spend that money back. Oh, so the money back that came back from the liberals, I don't get to keep that money? No, you're not going to get a check. You're going to get like a coupon that you'll be able to spend the money on.
Carter
43:48
Oh, well, that's fine. But will this work?
Carter
43:50
Well, we don't know. I mean, it probably won't work as well as the liberal climate plan, but, you know, you're going to get a coupon, right?
Carter
43:59
right? It just, to me, like, yeah, sure, it's complicated, but it also seems to lose on every front that the liberals can do. The liberals get to say, we're going to give you cash, real cash money that you can spend on whatever the hell you want. And the conservatives are going to give you a coupon.
Carter
44:16
And they're bringing in a carbon tax. And they can call it whatever the hell they want, but it's going to be called the carbon tax, because that's what it is. It's the exact same model. It's $20 a ton instead of $40 a ton. No one cares. Carbon taxes are carbon taxes. Money is money, and it's coming out of my pocket. it cory
Corey
44:33
well that's that's almost what i mean right like you're going to be the conservative candidate at the door and you're going to explain no but here's how actually you're better off still like there's an argument to be made there if you read the document they put out they they put it out and they say well you get to keep your money and this is this is a logic you can do things that make sense for you and it's tied to your activity not just sort of aggregate numbers but it's too complicated um and in many ways i think the communications challenge in front of them now is and it's actually a communications challenge that should have been behind them they should have definitely figured this out before the launch is how do you simplify this you need to be a bit of a it's like um it's
Corey
45:11
it's like painting versus sculpting right there's some things you paint which you're adding layers all the time you're adding details and those details fill in the picture but when you're sculpting a policy you're taking chunks out you're taking out everything that's not supposed to be there until you get what is supposed to be there and uh they needed to approach this more like a sculptor or maybe an engineer is an example like you're always trying to simplify down to its core you know elements here i don't get the sense that they did um
Corey
45:37
even some of the details like you can see the internal politics that drove some of these details like it's it's not the government taking your money it's
Corey
45:46
it's consortium of private businesses right aaron o'toole is so desperate to have the talking point that the government is not going to take the money they've created this insane like almost obamacare style we're just going to get the private companies to do the thing the government should be doing. Like holding it and then giving
Zain
46:01
giving it back. And yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Carter
46:02
Yeah, but like- It's really nuts. Like the way that the money thing works, it's just kind of crazy. And
Zain
46:07
And he's done that for, I'm assuming to Corey's point, from the comms benefit, right? To be able to say- He wants to
Corey
46:12
to say the government is not going to do it, but that's not going to work, right?
Corey
46:15
right? Like you've added so much complexity to
Corey
46:17
plan and I don't actually think you've gotten anything back for it.
Zain
46:20
it. Corey, let's talk about, you said elemental and that's a good word because I want to talk about some of the elemental pieces pieces from a communications and politics perspective. To both of you, the term personal savings account, winner
Zain
46:32
winner in the grand scheme of things? Could it be a focal point in the sense of personal savings, perhaps two conservative words, right? Freedom and personal individual, that concept of saving. Do you feel like there's a winner there? And Carter, maybe I'll start with you before I go to Corey on this. Oh,
Carter
46:48
Oh, I would have gone with climate savings account. I mean, we're familiar with the idea of a health savings account. It's actually very popular in the the right wing uh where you can you you can buy certain you
Carter
46:58
you know you can put your money aside to buy certain things that you would would need from the health in health care uh
Carter
47:03
uh kind of as an ad it's it's like an insurance program but it's a health savings account um personal savings account here's what i can do with a personal savings account i put my money in i take my money out i can spend it on whatever the hell i want to this
Carter
47:15
this isn't that right so you know we when you're defining something so when we define for example the family care clinics with alice and redford we put the words in a specific order for a specific reason family who goes families care what do i get care clinic clinic is where i go i go to a doctor's office or a clinic right right now we've got primary care networks well what the hell is a primary care network the same thing with a personal savings account i know what a personal savings account is it's not this so i can't replace language that already exists and expect the people to be able to pick up on what this new language means because it doesn't work that way.
Zain
47:55
Unless, of course, you're like Corey and your personal savings account is all exclusively Earl's gift cards. Corey, over to you on the verbiage of personal savings account. And I'm just trying to see if that's exactly what they call it. I feel like that's what I residually caught was the term. But this concept of personal and saving an account together, a winner for them? Or do you buy into Carter's, this is already a predefined term, very hard to redefine. yeah
Corey
48:19
yeah um it's a low carbon saving account is the term they're using so we've followed it i agree with steven his point remains like i have a savings account and the money and that i can spend on whatever i want right
Corey
48:30
it's not limited to certain shoppers or whatnot so ultimately this goes back to his point of how is this better than the liberals who are giving you cash you're offering me uh gift certificates and they're offering me cash and i can spend cash anywhere just
Corey
48:44
just think about christmas you open a card from that aunt you don't really know you got cash great awesome fantastic you get like a gift card dispensers and you're like what the fuck is this you don't know me at all and i i am a little concerned for the conservatives that that that this is effectively what they have done right
Corey
49:02
this is the problem like um uh
Corey
49:04
uh you know in some ways their best case scenario is the things you can buy are so broad you have no trouble spending the account yeah
Corey
49:11
but then what the hell are we doing here right exactly and and so i just i i think um i think that's one of the challenges of this particular um particular approach now
Corey
49:21
i i will say one of the things that i kind of like about this from uh i
Corey
49:26
i don't even know if public policy is the right word to put it but i like that they're being creative i like that we've stepped outside of this box that canadian politics has been in on carbon taxes for so
Corey
49:37
long and And they're providing different approaches to that. I think, though, that in their desire to hit a home run, they would have been better off with solid singles and doubles here and aiming for something inside the park. Because this is the same. I'll go back to the problem with Stéphane Dion's plan was it was so new, people didn't know how to react to it. It wasn't something they'd ever thought about before. Carter,
Zain
50:00
Carter, help me sell it. You said it's serious. You think it's serious. Economists think it's serious. if O'Toole's saying, okay, Carter, I should have called you earlier, but I'm calling you now, right? I know you sold a bunch of stock in me two weeks ago, and I know Corey bought up a lot of the rest. I'm going to check in with him if he still wants to keep it this week. But, you know, you sold a bunch of stock in me, but help me out here. You know, I should have come to you earlier. What am I doing? How am I selling this? And, you know, I'm getting criticized that this is exactly what Trudeau's doing, except I'm giving you gift cards and he's giving you cash to use Corey's metaphor.
Zain
50:37
Help me sell this thing.
Carter
50:39
Cash doesn't save the environment. Cash
Carter
50:41
Cash doesn't save the country. What does save the country is actual behavior change. And
Carter
50:45
And every nickel of the dollars that we're collecting through this process are going into behavior change, real, honest to God behavior change. People can upgrade their furnaces. People can fix their roofs. People can buy bikes. These are things that people can actually do that will make an impact next year, next week, you know, as soon as they implement them. At some point down the road, Justin Trudeau's plan is going to work. Maybe, maybe not. My plan will work from day one, as soon as you get the money back in your account. And you're able to buy the things that are going to change your behavior. Because that's how we defeat climate change, ladies and gentlemen. That's what Greenpeace has been saying. That's what Ecojustice has been saying. That's what everybody's been saying. But the only people who are actually taking action are today's Conservative Party of Canada. of that.
Zain
51:30
Corey, same question for you. You get a similar call, right? You're on the line with Carter. Carter makes that statement to the leader of the conservatives. What are you adding to help them sell this thing? We've talked about a few, let's call them quote-unquote assets that this plan has, right? There's this account that's personalized. We've had a discussion on that a bit. There's this fact that the government isn't keeping your money. That's perhaps a selling feature in some ways. And Carter just talked about the behavioral change element here, right? This is actually to drive behavioral change. What other selling features or what other positioning suggestions or recommendations are you giving Aaron O'Toole?
Corey
52:05
Carter did a stellar job of framing out exactly how they're going to have to sell this. But fundamentally, I would say as well, liberal plan just shuffles money around, crosses its fingers, it'll all work out. I would attack the known confusion around the liberal plan. Money in, money out, what changes? is the conservatives trust you to take climate action that's right for you, creates a pot of money that you can then spend on the things that are right for you and your family. In opposition of this liberal plan where they choose their their wacky green priorities, whatever they see fit.
Zain
52:38
Let's let's let's move it on for a second, not from this topic, but from the liberal response. And I was going to ask the two of you what the liberals should say. But before I do that, Let me read you what the environment minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, has said thus far, the track that he is on, so you get a sense of where the liberal attack on this climate plan is. So he's referred to this plan as unserious, repeatedly referring to it as a carbon tax and comparing it to PetroPoints, a renewable loyalty point system. system. And then he said, quote, if you think about it, you now have to create these separate accounts for every Canadian. You have to track their use of gasoline, natural gas, and propane and find a way to flow back into these accounts the money associated with the price of pollution. This is unserious. We've been for a long time wanting a serious conversation on this, and this doesn't get us there.
Zain
53:28
Carter, I've got a double-barreled question, as I often do. React to what you heard from the liberal or the liberal spokesperson in this case with the environment minister. And what would you do if you're the liberals responding to this plan being introduced today? It comes out. What's your first reaction to do to perhaps torpedo it or perhaps position it? Is unserious and PetroPoints the headlines for you? Or is it something else?
Carter
53:50
No, I wouldn't call it unserious. And I wouldn't do it PetroPoints because I can actually use PetroPoints. There's a whole bunch of places I can use PetroPoints. What I'd say is that this is a gift card from your grandmother that you can only use at consumers distributing, right?
Corey
54:04
store was awesome, man.
Carter
54:06
Yeah, you can have...
Corey
54:07
have... I miss it.
Carter
54:08
I know, right? What's that store
Carter
54:10
store with the... How is it not still around? Because it was legitimate e
Carter
54:13
e-purchasing before we had e-purchasing. How did that go away?
Carter
54:18
Should have been Zellers.
Carter
54:19
Zellers. I should have said Zellers.
Carter
54:20
Zellers. I had two things. Are
Zain
54:22
into one of our eulogy episodes? Or are we eulogizing? Are we eulogizing
Carter
54:25
eulogizing the demon card? Yeah, it was a sad day.
Zain
54:28
Corey will start a complaints line for the eulogy. Go ahead, Carter. I
Carter
54:31
I give you cash. They give you a gift card.
Carter
54:34
give you cash in a place that you can use it and you get to decide. That's crass, isn't it? Fuck yeah. You know what? Simple works. And I would stand up and just say, our plan is predicated on people changing their behavior at the cost side, not on the benefit side. At the benefit side, we know times are tough for Canadians and we're giving them what they need. Money in their pockets to get back to and to enable our economy to get back to where it needs to be.
Zain
55:03
Corey, I'm going to read you a few more quotes. Quote, what the conservatives announced today is no plan at all. It's even weaker than the liberal. It's no plan at all, quote unquote. This is from the New Democrats. Instead of trusting families to make choices that work for them, the conservatives want to sign you up for a savings account you can't even use on emergencies or essentials. That was the extension by the NDP. It's so funny. That almost looks like a conservative line in like years that would be like written by the conservatives being like, you know, the NDP and the liberals don't trust you with your own money. own money. But leave it to us to let you make your own choices. I don't know what sort of parallel universe we're living in. But Corey, I'll let you react to what I primarily want is a Carter question, which is, is unserious and Petro points? We've been looking for a serious conversation, and this doesn't get us there. The attack line that you want on day one, if you're the liberals, or are you looking for something else? And then react, because I see you smiling as well.
Corey
55:56
I think they need to dial it down. The unserious, the Petro points, the liberal pundits and the liberal aligned pundits all jumping on top of this thing in just sort of almost kitchen sink approach of like, how can it be this is not actually going to be able to do anything, but also it's taking your money like there's some of these arguments don't actually line up, right? And I think that's a concern. I do think it is totally baffling to me how this would actually be operationalized, how they're going to charge you for carbon, but you're going to get that money back. And do you need to keep receipts? And like, how bloody complicated is this thing going to get? But, you know, the reason I was smirking is there's some there's an irony here. And it is just it's so rich. And when you talk about like this serious, unserious, all of these conversations, that is that when you get right down to it, participation in
Carter
56:44
in the liberal plan is optional.
Corey
56:46
you can opt you can change nothing about your behavior and you are on net for almost every canadian going to end up the
Corey
56:54
the same or better right because the whole idea is that you have a financial incentive to reduce carbon but if you don't take advantage of it you're still you're net even like that's that's part of the confusion of the liberal plan yeah
Corey
57:07
right yeah yeah the conservative plan is mandatory like you take the money and
Corey
57:12
and you get the money back but you get it it back in a way that you then must spend on reducing climate reductions too like it's it's funny it's funny to me that uh the positions that everybody has taken in this whole bloody argument here yeah and
Corey
57:26
and um and i really am curious to see how
Corey
57:30
how all of this analysis shakes out and how all of these conversations go but if i'm the liberals i am maybe keeping my powder a little dry i worry Worry they doth protest too much, right? Like, it's just like, what? I get it. You got to take a swipe at it. Maybe don't take 12 swipes at it in the same way. I thought that the PetroPoints was actually a bit much. I think I would have gone with the things you want Canadians to feel about that. I wouldn't say it's unserious because in some ways that lets them off the hook and it makes it seem like it's not a real climate plan. It's just wink and their base is not. I would say it's
Corey
58:03
it's confusing. Like, we're going to have to sit down with this. And, like, I think the argument about separate accounts, that was a better argument. It's like, how in the world would this possibly work? Like, this is totally unimplementable. It's probably a better line of attack.
Carter
58:17
Asking specifics like, do I have to carry an extra card? Do I have to add another thing to my wallet? How do I track all the expenses that I made? If my wife makes a purchase— What if I pay cash? Yeah, like, how are we supposed to track all of this? I need to know because I want every dollar that I'm spending on it to actually come back to me.
Zain
58:34
carter one final question one final round for the two of you aaron o'toole has issues within his party no doubt uh around his leadership and this particular file and in specifically related to how his policy convention went and we can talk about you know that convention was stacked it's not a true representation of perhaps where his party is we can be charitable to that fact
Zain
58:55
how does he sell this to his party guys like
Zain
58:57
like what what does he need to do here is this is this just just like, I'm the leader, fuck you, something you should have done maybe four weeks ago with that tone? Or is this a soft shoe in your mind? If you're providing Aaron O'Toole supplemental leadership advice, maybe even beyond this issue of how to frame, position, and own this within the party?
Zain
59:21
Carter, I'll start with you, then go to you, Corey.
Carter
59:23
He's going to have a really hard time because, I mean, the CTF, you know, for as little as I I regard them as certainly out banging on this thing. I don't know that Mr. and Mrs. Donor of the Conservative Party are going to find this particularly enticing. Now, at the end of the day, I suspect that the in-group, out-group pressures will be such that people will stay Conservatives. They're not going to switch over to other things. But people who are in the middle, you know, they're going to be put off by the fact that this is, in fact, a carbon tax. This does not look that much different um at the revenue side um you know and you can talk about not the money not going to the government all you want it's still coming out of my pocket if you make me pay someone else it's still coming out of my pocket uh so i don't care i mean the gst from all for all i can see goes to the gas station not to uh not to the government you know what i mean like it comes out of my pocket at the point of the transaction these
Carter
1:00:17
these are all the same to me so i I don't know how he's going to sell it. I do think at the end of the day, he's the leader. He has to get himself elected. He needs to stand strong. So I think that that's ultimately what he needs to do.
Zain
1:00:30
Corey, any advice you'd have for O'Toole as he tries to either sell this or force this into his Conservative Party of Canada universe? He's not going to sell it. He's not going to talk about it. Can we step out of the strategy of
Corey
1:00:41
of this announcement for a moment and talk about the strategy more broadly?
Corey
1:00:46
He's just trying to neutralize a line of attack on the Conservatives that was incredibly damaging in the last election, which is you do not have a climate plan, right? You do not believe in climate change. You are an unserious political party. This is an issue of great concern for so many Canadians, right? But just because he is trying to shore up a weakness, just because you shore up a weakness doesn't mean that's your new strength, right? So Aaron O'Toole is going to do, you know, in communications of this nature, you communicate to the level necessary and
Corey
1:01:17
and no more, right
Corey
1:01:18
right this is not this is not in his box if we spend the election talking about climate of course the conservatives are going to lose that is not their strong foot that will have all sorts of internal tensions all sorts of difficulties they are going to spend the reason we have this policy launch now and not during an election is he just wants it done with and
Corey
1:01:35
during the election he wants to talk about the economy he wants to talk about whether we can trust justin trudeau whether he has the ethical integrity to lead this nation he does not want to be talking He's not talking about carbon savings accounts. He does not want to be talking about climate change writ large. And
Zain
1:01:50
And so you think, you know, the
Zain
1:01:52
the strategy for O'Toole, right, the overall strategy outside of the announcement, leave this be within the party? Like, this is my deal? Like, this is what we needed? Like, fuck you if you disagree? Because I guess the root of my question is, how does he perhaps prevent some of the dissenting voices that keep chirping and chirping? Is that just part of the cost that he has to pay, perhaps?
Zain
1:02:13
I don't even think it's a cost. I think the
Corey
1:02:15
the fact that there's dissenting voices is helpful for him with middle Canada. It allows it to look like a serious plan and kind of rebut this idea that it's an unserious plan. Because of course, conservatives are upset about there being a carbon tax and it allows him to paint himself more as a moderate. Now, obviously, you can't have your party fall apart in that context. But have
Corey
1:02:34
have a couple of pat answers for the conservative town halls where people stand up and say, this is wrong. You say, no, climate
Corey
1:02:40
climate change is real. It's a serious concern. But we've got a plan that puts you in the driver's seat, that lets you be the person who makes the decisions about this, unlike the liberal plan, which is nothing more than social engineering and moving money around for the benefit of their friends. Oh, by the way, they're
Corey
1:02:53
they're always moving to the benefit of their friends. Let's talk about the ethical failings of Justin Trudeau and bridge yourself to a topic that actually makes sense to you. But you're not talking about – you're not leading with this. You're not creating banners that
Corey
1:03:04
carbon savings account. This is something that allows your partisans to sort of rebut the notion that the conservatives don't give a shit about climate change. But any time you spend here beyond that, which is necessary to defend yourself against a damning charge, is a waste of time. We're
Zain
1:03:19
We're going to leave that there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, you know this is built for you. TaylorMade, the final segment of the show, over, under, and our lightning round. With the political goals he had in mind, Stephen Carter gives Aaron O'Toole a grade from A to F on his newly announced climate plan.
Carter
1:03:37
Six out of 10. I mean, he gets it off the table, as Corey was explaining it, but then it's still a carbon tax, and he's left lots of points of attack, and the Liberals will score quite a few points.
Zain
1:03:50
Corey, same question to you. With his political goals in mind, some of which you just mentioned as we closed off our last segment, give Aaron O'Toole a letter grade from A to F for his climate plan.
Corey
1:04:00
Needs improvement. It's something that they could have launched a lot more elegantly, But ultimately, like
Corey
1:04:06
like I said, this is not the thing.
Corey
1:04:08
thing. This is not the thing the conservatives will be talking about during the election. Corey,
Zain
1:04:12
Corey, last week, or I believe it was Sunday's episode, you had purchased more stock in Aaron O'Toole. In fact, you were perhaps the largest shareholder in Aaron O'Toole, all things considered. You know, and if this was a sports podcast, we'd say you are the king of O'Toole Island. Are you selling any of that stock? If I gave you an option today, right now, to dispense with some of your stock, are you selling or are you still – are you holding or are you buying more O'Toole stock?
Corey
1:04:44
I'm going to hold. I think it would be a bit mad for me to go a little more in on O'Toole. It wasn't a good day for him in terms of policy. But he also did resolve, quote-unquote resolve, nothing is resolved, but he solved a bit of a problem they had. And if this gets down to the liberals saying the details of the conservative climate policy are not good enough, that's a win for Aaron O'Toole, because it says, you know, the words that are in there are the conservatives have a climate policy, right? And so I
Zain
1:05:11
I think... I think the bar was that low. Well, kind
Zain
1:05:14
of, I do, to
Corey
1:05:14
to be frank. Because
Corey
1:05:15
Because again, like, this is not what people are going to be arguing about during the election. I'm sure the liberals will try to argue about it. But if O'Toole is disciplined, he will not be talking about this during the election. Always
Zain
1:05:24
Always reminds me of one of the most notable low-bar Canadian politics moments in the 2015 election when Corey Tanik said if Justin Trudeau showed up with his pants on to the debate, he'd be fine. Which we now know is not a given with Liberal-Lamb Jackson. I set you up for it. You are welcome. Carter, are you doing anything with O'Toole stock? Did anything about today's moment impress you enough to say, you know, if there's some out there, I want to buy some?
Carter
1:05:49
No, but I think he's nearing the bottom. I think he's nearing the bottom. him i think the place to start buying might be in the next week or two let's
Zain
1:05:55
let's stick with otul for a second carter and i'm going to stick with you uh he confirmed earlier this week that he's allowing a free vote on mps on sex selective abort on the abortion bill how big of a deal is this for him like from a scale of one because it doesn't start at zero cory it starts at one to you know ten uh one is this is totally fine ten this is a big deal huge problem i
Carter
1:06:17
i mean this is a an adequate i mean i I think that he has to do that for his party in order to retain the leadership. But, you know, it's a giant fail for where we are as a country and how we feel about abortion. This is not a place that we want the government to weigh in on. Well, not that I want the government to weigh in on.
Zain
1:06:37
Same question to you.
Corey
1:06:40
think that the majority of Canadians, if I'm recalling a poll I saw a while back, are
Corey
1:06:47
opposed or are okay with abortion restrictions in the case of sex-selective abortion. So I don't actually think he loses too much allowing this. And in fact, it may be a bit of a release valve with social conservatives in his party. Corey,
Zain
1:07:00
Corey, I'm going to start with you for our final question. A new report revealed that the Liberals hired consultants and their government spending on consultants increased by $6 billion. The question I have for you, overrated or underrated consultants for government work?
Corey
1:07:19
That's a really broad term. It
Zain
1:07:20
It is. In this case, it was actually I was going to specify for you, but it's explained in the broadest terms. We're looking at legal services, procurement services, marketing and communications, all of it kind of rolled into one, which business management and management consultant services. It's a big bill because it's a big bucket in that way.
Corey
1:07:41
Yeah, I think it's funny because while many people will point it and say, it's also very expensive to run government. And sometimes it makes sense to use consultants for these specialized services. I'll pick on law for a minute here. You will hire lawyers in government, and they will have to deal with things that government does on a regular, ongoing basis. But all of a sudden, an issue comes up, and it's an area of law that you do not have expertise in. It can be absurdly expensive to use the government lawyers, because if you lose, it can cost you tens
Corey
1:08:10
tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. You might be much better off going and paying for that high-priced law firm that has some expertise in it, right? So it's tough to say. Just hearing the number, I'm sure it will give Canadians sticker shock. But I think consultants are fine, and there's a place for them. And unless we want governments to be so staffed that they kind of carry every expertise they may conceivably need, regardless of whether they have enough full-time work to fill somebody's day, you're going to use consultants. consultants
Zain
1:08:38
consultants carter you've run you've run a the premier's office you've probably dealt with you know uh understanding of of consultants of many kinds within government as it stands right now this concept of consultants with the with the trudeau government and the the pain it might cause them overrated underrated uh
Carter
1:08:56
uh underrated and i come at this from uh the point of view that i own a consulting firm and i am getting zero of those six billion dollars so well
Zain
1:09:04
well thank you thank you you so much steven carter with that that insightful broad uh analysis that is never never about his place in the world so i really appreciate that steven we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 931 of the strategist my name is zane belgi with me as always steven carter cory hogan and we'll see you next time