Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, Carter, why are you laughing? What
Carter
0:10
What the fuck is going on? Because I just love being here with you guys so much, you know? That's all I care about. 934, my favorite episode. You
Zain
0:20
You do know that the quality of the intro sets the trajectory of the episode, and you've just jinxed that right now.
Carter
0:25
now. We're fucked. We're fucked. Okay, move on. Let's keep going. going cory
Zain
0:28
cory speaking of fucked um no we don't
Corey
0:31
talk about that why don't we want to talk about it we don't want to talk about why don't we
Zain
0:34
we want to talk
Corey
0:34
talk they gave it a good run it's fine we
Corey
0:37
we don't want to talk about it why
Zain
0:38
why don't you not want to talk about it it's
Corey
0:41
it's they made it longer than the spurs i think that's all we need to talk about i
Zain
0:46
i was going to talk about how i'm not verified on twitter but okay yeah
Zain
0:49
way to be way to be self-involved about
Corey
0:54
listen we do need need to talk about that yeah
Zain
0:56
yeah you are not verified
Corey
0:56
verified on twitter and uh okay i'd
Zain
0:59
i'd like to tell you it's i'd
Corey
1:00
i'd like to tell you it's because um of some sort of clerical error or that you're still important but neither of those things is true they took a measure of your soul and they determined that you're kind of a nobody and uh we're welcome you know you're welcome here you
Corey
1:15
you know we've got charity in our hearts but most people wouldn't even spit on you so it's
Corey
1:20
it's not what i was looking looking for. Thank you for the comforting words.
Carter
1:23
That's a little different than I expected from Corey. Carter, I appreciate
Zain
1:28
you? Because your words are very different. Because if I read your tweets today, you were offering to give me your verified checkmark like a white savior.
Carter
1:40
There's still no sarcasm font. I'm very upset. So I should have finished it with a squiggly
Carter
1:45
squiggly line S, right? Corey,
Zain
1:47
Corey, I need to tell you about the sarcasm font. There is a sarcasm font. Yeah,
Zain
1:51
Carter, come on, keep up. What?
Carter
1:55
You know, I've been so busy amassing so many followers, I haven't learned the intricacies.
Zain
1:59
Let's move it on to the headlines, guys. So many headlines to cover, so many stories to cover. Let's start here with the CBC. Justice Minister accidentally tweets that one of his campaign donors will become a judge. That's right. Officially, Justice Minister David Lamedi appointed five new judges across the country this week. On Twitter, however, Lamedi announced three additional appointments, including that of a Montreal lawyer to the Quebec Superior Court. The tweets were subsequently deleted and the minister's office say they were posted by mistake by the civil servants managing the account. Stephen Carter, is this Daniel Urba, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, it's probably French, I'm assuming. Is he ever going to make it on the Quebec Superior Court now that this article has come out?
Carter
2:41
I would be very surprised. uh this is the type of uh thing that just kills kills careers um and i don't you know most of the time these donors aren't giving that much money it just kills me that people think that you know a politician can be bought for 1300 or 1500 bucks i mean give
Carter
3:00
give me an absolute break no one is buying their way onto a onto the bench uh most often by the way a significant pay cut um so that they can can, you know, just,
Carter
3:11
just, you know, oh, let me give you $1,500 every year for five years and you'll put me on the bench. Like, give me a break. There's just no such corruption in Canada. And the fact that journalists continue to imply that politicians can be bought for $1,500 leads me to the conclusion that journalists can be bought for $1,500.
Corey
3:33
Okay, well, that was all very wrong. I mean, he's right about many things, but he's somewhat wrong about this So it is very possible to be acting in a corrupt fashion when you appoint your friends or your supporters. And let's face it, money often comes also with volunteerism and other things like that. Or perhaps it's somebody who's a bag man who is going out and accumulating $1,500 contributions from 10 people, 100 people. These things are all possible. So let's not dismiss the possibility out of hand. And it is a bit outrageous to suggest that corruption does not exist in this country. If this was a call-in show, I would ask Canadians coast to coast to say, hey, tell me your most corrupt story. And you would have Quebec say, no, we're the most corrupt. You should see the corruption we've had in the past. The mob's been involved. And you'd have Saskatchewan say, fuck you, Quebec. Most of our government went to jail once in the 90s. Yeah, you
Carter
4:21
you have to go back 40 years to find that now. 40 years ago. You
Carter
4:24
You really don't. This is – we saw it. We had it. We moved on. Oh,
Corey
4:30
Oh, sure. It's solved. We've solved corruption. That's great. But here's the thing I will say that I somewhat agree with you on is it's not totally outrageous that somebody would be both a donor and a legitimate candidate for these offices. And it's certainly true that going from lawyer to judge is often a step down in pay. It depends on the type of law. It's not always, but it quite often is. And the thing
Corey
4:56
thing is, if you were thinking about these things, let's just say, let's just live in a world of total naivety for a minute, almost as a thought exercise. If you just wanted to appoint judges who were like you, wouldn't you appoint people who were like you? And isn't being a donor somewhat an example of somebody seeing the world in a similar fashion to you? I mean, it's not necessarily a corrupt act, but there's a reason we have these protections in place. What I think is most interesting, though, is that there was a tweet formulated that said, there is this appointment, and
Corey
5:26
and then it didn't happen. So was this a premature ejaculation?
Corey
5:31
ejaculation? In the conventional sense, in the 19th century, I'm talking loudly, I'm ejaculating.
Zain
5:37
Or is this a situation where they
Corey
5:45
were on the list? That
Zain
5:46
That was delayed on my part. Yeah, it was delayed. That was a delayed.
Corey
5:51
That's good. Or was this a situation where they were on the list and they were pulled off the list? Because that happens too. Like there might be a situation where you're going to name these people and during the final vetting, you're like, no, they can't be on. And the irony here is one of the reasons they may have decided the individual could not be on is because they
Corey
6:12
they were a donor and it might look a little bit dodgy. So I'd like to hear the full story. It might be a little more complicated than people think, but it's not a good look, regardless. Corey,
Zain
6:22
Corey, to that point, do you feel like this guy will ever get this post on the Quebec Superior Court?
Corey
6:27
maybe. It's a possibility. I think it's going to take a bit of a cooling off period at this point. Probably a different justice minister, probably a whole different
Zain
6:38
So not the slam dunk that it perhaps was going to be. Maybe it wasn't slam dunk. Yeah, that's
Corey
6:42
that's a good point. Maybe it was just not going to happen. Maybe it was one of those things that they decided they couldn't do for those reasons. It is not unusual, I'll just be frank, that when the vetting happens that people look for those things and your immediate thought might be trying to exclude the other guy's donors. donors, nowadays, that's actually arguably
Corey
7:00
arguably less of a problem, right? But if you put in one of your big donors, that can look really bad. And so quite often, governments will look and make sure that that's not happening, too, because
Corey
7:10
because they don't want to take the hit that they're now getting as a result of everything we're talking about. For
Zain
7:15
For those that are new to the show, we actually did have for a long time a call-in component to the show. But of course, since we were pre-recorded, it was very confusing as people were calling in from last week to call in about this week's topic. If you don't get that reference, it's from Mr. Show, and you should definitely Google Mr. Show pre-taped call-in. Let's move into our next article and our next headline. Stephen Carter, this is for you because I have promised you I've made a vow of sorts that I would keep you updated on all the vaccine incentive programs across the world. And this is going to West Virginia because West Virginia to give away guns as vaccine incentive. That is right, Stephen Carter. West Virginia will be giving away guns as an incentive to get residents of the state inoculated against COVID-19. The drawings will run from Father's Day, June 20th to August 4th, and will include a variety of prizes from cash to firearms and yes, even trucks. During the Father's Day drawing, the state will give away five custom hunting rifles and five custom hunting shotguns. Stephen Carter, is this something that we should be considering here in our great province of Alberta, the giveaway of
Zain
8:27
of guns for vaccine incentives?
Carter
8:30
Listen, you guys know that I'm on the inside with the Kenney government. And they called me and actually asked me my opinion on this. Good news, Jason Kenney's blue truck is going to be one of our raffle prizes. So
Carter
8:44
So we're actually pretty excited about it. he's going to sign the door uh jason kenney and it's i think it's going to be huge i think people are going to be really excited about it uh so you know i i'm a big fan of incenting uh incenting vaccinations and if west virginia wants to do population control in a different fashion by having more guns and out in everybody's hands that's fine um it's very on brand for west West Virginia. So have fun, guys. I mean, I
Carter
9:14
I wouldn't do it. But Jason Kennedy's blue truck, I think is is definitely something that should be auctioned. It should be available. Corey,
Corey
9:22
five more guns in West Virginia is pissing into the ocean. Who gives a shit? The fact is, it's something of monetary value. And if it gets people to get vaccinated, why the hell not? And by the way, on the blue truck thing, just whoever wins that, be careful, because I'm pretty sure that's a lease. So you might just be getting an ongoing going financial commitment.
Zain
9:40
Good point. Let's move on to our next headline from NPR. Italian artist sells invisible sculpture for real money. That is right. Salvatore Giroux has sold his latest invisible sculpture. The work titled I Am doesn't exist except in the artist's imagination. The buyer, however, gets a stamp certificate in exchange for $18,000. Corey, over to you. I like
Corey
10:03
like that it's an invisible sculpture and not an imaginary sculpture, a
Corey
10:07
fake sculpture. But there's the suggestion that there's just some inability to see it otherwise.
Corey
10:15
We've seen bananas nailed to walls. There's been all sorts of different art. Art is often performances. And this is somebody buying that. I mean, we're selling NFTs these days. It's fine. I respect the hustle.
Zain
10:30
Carter, do you also respect the hustle? and uh would you ever buy some invisible art no
Carter
10:36
no i would not buy invisible art um
Carter
10:40
if i had cory's money i might buy invisible art but i i don't have cory's money so i will probably not be buying invisible
Carter
10:46
invisible art to me though fake
Carter
10:50
things are selling for more than they ever have in the past whether it's cryptocurrencies or uh you know podcast advertising they're all fake it's all fake so to me this is just part of the part of the fake element of it uh
Zain
11:05
uh cory we haven't told him about how we get paid here right i don't we haven't he doesn't know yet right but yeah
Zain
11:10
yeah it's fake carter totally uh let's move it on to our next headline from gizmodo overworked amazon warehouse employees can now go reflect in the despair closet oh my god
Zain
11:21
i saw this amazon has come up with a dystopian solution for what its warehouse employees struggle to keep their sanity amid workloads so grueling they often have to use bathroom time to meditate. That's right, they've introduced these new Zen Boots, or as they're officially called, the Mindful Practice Room. It's part of Amazon's recently launched Working Well program, which is aimed at providing its notoriously overworked employees, quote, physical and mental activities, wellness exercises, and healthy eating support. port i can't show you over the audio medium exactly what this looks like but it literally looks like a phone booth that is painted black that folks could go in and i don't know just
Corey
12:06
i don't know what to do cory jump in there are boxes in the middle of the fucking warehouse uh they might as well have a red light and a klaxon that goes off the minute you walk into it you know it's just like if you'll excuse me a minute i'm having a mental breakdown i've got to to go for a few minutes into the box of shame i don't know what the fuck they're thinking and the fact that amazon themselves put this out it's like this good news feel good story of of positive psychology in the workplace they've lost their goddamn minds things are so terrible there apparently that this seems like a positive this is really telling you everything you need to know about the current state of the average amazon workplace so you know what maybe i'm being too too harsh. But what a PR fail.
Carter
12:49
To implement this, to put this in place right after the union has failed. You know, like this is, to me, it's just a total misread. Amazon, you know, Jeff Bezos is making all the money. And it's just a terrible business model, because it doesn't have any respect for the people who are actually doing the work. And fine,
Carter
13:09
fine, you know, it's a very popular thing but um the the fact that labor is valued so uh so poorly is is just staggering to me and a closet to cry in a closet to relax in i mean i had a napping room because you know i'm old but uh you know i only cried in there a couple of times when cory called me names
Corey
13:32
remember that wasn't it that wasn't a napping room yeah it was just somebody else's office yeah
Carter
13:37
whose office was that i just went in and slept in there That
Carter
13:41
That was a mistake. I misread that situation.
Zain
13:45
now. Yeah, let's not talk about Carter misreading situations. Let's move on to our next headline. This one comes to us from the Canadian press. Majority of conservative MPs vote in favor of defeated sex-selective abortion bill. I want to spend a bit of time on this one, guys. A majority of conservative leader Aaron O'Toole's caucus voted in favor of a bill that sought to restrict certain abortions, even as he voted it down, saying he respects a woman's right to choose. What do we have here? Saskatchewan MP Kathy, I believe, Wagenthal brought forward Bill C-233, which sought to ban doctors from performing an abortion based on the sex of a fetus, which was defeated in a 248 to 82 vote this past week. All but one of the votes cast in its favor came from the conservatives who have 119 members, with the other coming from former party MP and leadership contender Derek Sloan. Stephen Carter, I'm going to go to you first on this. What do you think of this as it relates to Aaron O'Toole voting it down, but still having a majority of MPs voting in favor of it?
Carter
14:54
I mean, this represents what we've talked about before. There are multiple factions within the Conservative Party. For many Conservatives, the abortion question has not been settled in Canada. I think for most Canadians, the abortion issue has been settled in Canada. It is not an issue that you will get elected running on most of the time, unless you're coming from a very Conservative area. It is certainly not an issue that will get you an elected national government. But you can win a nomination race on it. You can win a nomination race on it very, very easily. And so oftentimes the people who are selected to represent us don't necessarily represent the majority's viewpoint. They represent a very small portion of it. And I think that the Conservative Party has had challenges in the past managing this particular issue, and they continue to have challenges now. And I would bet they're going to have challenges in the future.
Zain
15:51
Corey, thoughts, top line?
Corey
15:54
I think that I certainly don't assume that Canadians are opposed to banning sex-selective abortion. The only polling I've ever seen on it, and it's been a while since I've seen it, is like 60%, two-thirds opposed to
Corey
16:07
sex-selective abortion. And, you know, there are camps, obviously, who are absolutists on both sides. Yes, an abortion should always be legal, and no, an abortion should never be legal. But the reality, although the activists on both sides, neither side likes to acknowledge it, is that most Canadians live in a certain amount of grey on this matter.
Corey
16:29
And if you push the people who are more by default, you should never allow an abortion. They're like, well, what about in cases of rape or incest? You'll see it very quickly go, oh, yes, okay, well, that seems a reasonable reason to have an abortion. abortion uh but the flip side version of that on the other side is you should always be allowed to have an abortion but do you think you should be able to just abort a child just because they're or a fetus just because they're it's a female fetus right and you
Corey
16:55
you will see canadians say well that doesn't seem very right either and so i guess my point would be um this is a conversation that perhaps at dinner tables would unfold a bit differently and so i don't know if it was an an intentional tactic of the cpc i actually suspect it is not yeah
Corey
17:11
but um but it's quite possible they were trying to have their cake and eat it too uh conversely it's it's possible that they were just outplayed by the liberals i just you know i think we make this assumption about where canadians would be because of where canadians are on abortion overall canadians support you know
Corey
17:28
know uh reproductive rights that
Corey
17:31
that may not be true in every case and sex selective abortions is kind of the big outlier there. So you
Corey
17:37
you may find that it's not a case of them being offside of the Canadian public.
Zain
17:42
Carter, I want to get your reaction to what Cordy said there in terms of his calculus, in terms of sex-selective abortion perhaps being one of the fringe cases, so to speak, on the abortion question.
Carter
17:53
It is a fringe case. It is a manufactured thing that people imagine that there's a stream of women going and making this choice based on that type of criteria. but it's just a it's a manufactured issue and when you kind of break down to it if you if you have intellectual conversations with people and you show statistics and you'd have a discussion about it you quickly find that it's just a it's a red herring it's not an actual thing um that people are doing uh in canada i mean i suspect that you know when when china had its one child rule maybe there was a different type of situation but in canada this is uh this isn't necessarily the the the driving reason for why women are choosing to have an abortion. So I think that Corey's right. People generally don't want sex-selective abortions in Canada, but I think that in general it's used as a red herring, a whataboutism for the right wing to try and sneak one past the pro-choice lobby.
Zain
18:54
Corey, Carter kind of gave me a bit of this with his first answer, so maybe I'll end with you. Issues for O'Toole on this? What do you think? You know, his leadership has always been a little bit rocky post-convention when he kind of gave that speech, the membership voted against it, you know, really trying to pick a lane with his caucus and with his membership. Does this just extend the narrative on the leadership woes, or do you feel like that could be overblown in your mind?
Corey
19:18
It's quite possible that this is the equivalent of when the cabinet abstained on the, you know, the vote on genocide in China, right?
Corey
19:28
right? Right. So Aaron
Corey
19:30
Aaron O'Toole knew that this was something that could otherwise be used to paint his party as, you know, extremist, because that is that's even now how the conversation is playing out. But he also knew that this was not something particularly in conservative leaning ridings that would go over well if the entire CPC. I'm not even sure he could have delivered the entire CPC because I'm quite sure he couldn't, in fact. But this may have been an attempt to cleverly deal with the issue. Does it work? I would say no. But I also think that it's going to make it a little bit more difficult for the liberals to throw it at him during a general election.
Corey
20:08
It will be obviously something they can point to and say, well, the majority of your caucus voted for this. And, you
Corey
20:15
you know, he'll have to answer for that. But it does take some of the venom out of that attack.
Zain
20:20
We're going to leave the headlines there, move it on to our first segment, our first segment, Skyfall. Guys, I want to talk about two stories, both, you know, almost reeking of elitism, both to do with the air, both to do with the sky. Let me tease them out to you, and then we'll talk about one and then the other. The first one, of course, here in Alberta, where we sit, where Jason Kenney is pictured alongside his fellow cabinet ministers sitting on the patio of the federal building, also known as the Sky Palace. We'll get into the long history of that in a second. And the story thereafter? Well, Air Canada, after inking a deal with the federal government, which they indicated they would cap their executive compensation to a million dollars until the loan, the nearly $6 billion loan that the government has provided them, is fully repaid, sneakily greenlit $10 million of bonuses for their executives. it is. I want to talk about the ramifications of that for Air Canada, as well as for the government that seems to have gotten played a bit on this deal. Maybe you disagree. But let's start in Alberta with the story in the sky known as the Sky Palace. As I said earlier, Premier Jason Kenney's office is defending photos that showed the Premier and his senior cabinet ministers sitting on a patio at the Sky Palace in the federal building saying they're not in violation of COVID-19 gathering rules. Seems like they might be, but we'll talk about that. But photos obtained by multiple media outlets indicate Joe Kenney, Health Minister Shandro, Environment and Parks Minister Nixon, Finance Minister Taves, and at least two others sitting on the patio of the offices commonly known as the Sky Palace. They also have two other folks who appear to be servers that are also pictured not wearing masks. Stephen Carter, I want to start with you first.
Zain
22:12
Perfect. Yeah, your reactions. No, actually, no. No, I was going to say your reactions, but give me the history on the Sky Palace. For those that are not familiar, who better in this province to give us the history of this particular rooftop known as the Sky Palace and why it's kind of given that moniker?
Carter
22:36
Alison Redford was elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2011, I was there. It was kind of a moment. The federal building, the building that the Sky Palace is located in, was slated to be renovated. And it was going to replace the old annex building, and there would be new offices for facilities in there. And we undertook
Carter
23:01
undertook kind of a review of what that federal building should include. No decision was made, to my knowledge. What did happen, though, was the premier and her staff went directly to the team building, the federal building, and requested that the top floor be turned into a penthouse of some sort, a premier's residence. residents we're one of the few promise and provinces that don't have a premier's residence was sold during the Klein era and so getting a premier's residence back was deemed to be a priority by the premier
Carter
23:45
anyways didn't work out well the media found out the world found out about it and people said 2.3 million dollars you're not going to waste 2.3 million dollars building a facility like sky palace and he got named the sky palace i think rick bell called it that bennett
Carter
23:59
bennett oh dean bennett uh fucker uh because a really good really good name and it's gonna stick forever an amazing
Carter
24:06
name amazing name uh sky palace is was named uh it was one of the contributing factors to allison redford leaving um as the premier because it turns out albertans don't like it when you You spend money on yourself, especially if you don't ask them first. So that's Sky Palace. And, you
Carter
24:25
know, it was a major, major screw up.
Zain
24:30
So the Sky Palace itself was a major screw up that kind of took down a premier. Corey, do you want to add anything to the contextual history of Sky Palace before I talk to you about what political sins Premier Kennedy's cabinet have committed with this photo evidence? Yeah,
Corey
24:45
Yeah, the thing that Stephen didn't mention, but is really important to underline is that as a result of everything he just described, the space has basically been deemed cursed, just absolutely
Corey
24:57
fucking cursed. So they made a last minute pivot to change the nature of the space from an apartment to quote unquote offices and hosting space. I worked in the federal building for four years and it was like a rite of passage. People would come in and ask with morbid curiosity, can I see the Sky Palace? Can you take me up to see this penthouse apartment? And I would, you know, I would take them up and I would show them. And inevitably, people would be in uproarious laughter because the idea that it was supposed to be an office because this was sort of the back justification that was made, there was an attempt to sort of pretend for a while, at least that it was not actually going to be an apartment. Like the quote unquote offices were these small, weirdly shaped rooms with closets in them. It
Corey
25:41
was not an office space. It was clearly an apartment. Even with kind of the adjustments made, it was so obviously meant to be a place somebody lived and so obviously not meant to be a place somebody worked. But the NDP government really avoided the space as a result. And in most of my time in government, and in the early days of the UCP, they seem to as well.
Corey
26:08
In most of my time in government, the people who use that space were bureaucrats. Like, if there was a farewell party, if somebody was retiring, we would go up there and we would do our speeches. If there was a Christmas party, we would go up there and, you know, there'd be the spread of food or whatnot. But the politicians sort of all
Corey
26:26
all shied away from it, all got pretty scared of it. And nobody really wanted to be associated with the quote unquote Sky Palace. And so, good or bad, and you can argue bad, because all of a sudden, there's this government space that's just not being used, but it's still being maintained. People stayed the hell away from it. The 11th floor of the federal building, which is the floor this is, has had for almost all of my time there, nothing in it, no activity, certainly nobody was ever situated there. And it was used very intermittently, like I said, almost entirely by bureaucrats. So the place has taken on kind of this cursed feel.
Corey
27:02
And when Jason Kenney moved
Corey
27:04
moved his office temporarily into it during COVID, and there's a lot of reasons for that. One of the main ones is the legislature building proper is having renovations done on it. It's just it's I'm sure it's quite disruptive. It was it was like a whoa, you went to the Sky Palace. Like it did not go unnoticed when the premier decided to move his office there. And that's sort of the tea up here.
Zain
27:29
Yeah. No, I appreciate that, Corey, especially with that, if I can call it that, lived experience history, having worked in the federal building. You're
Corey
27:35
You're one of the people I gave a tour to, Zach. No,
Zain
27:38
Oh, fuck. I didn't get
Corey
27:43
Inviting you into a government building?
Zain
27:47
behind this closet, which was supposed to hang clothes, is just a little storage room we've created. And I'm like, okay, Corey, that sounds right. No one was there. You were absolutely right. You were like, oh, yeah, no one's going to be there. It was like middle of the day. No one was there. I recall that conversation explicitly. Carter, you know, okay, so there's these, I
Zain
28:07
I don't even know what to call them. They're not bird's eye photos, and folks may have already seen these photos, but they're almost like taken from a wide-angle lens from the top of another building, perhaps, or a blimp, who the hell knows, showing Kenny and these folks, you know, white tablecloth, bottles bottles of wine, some sub-brand whiskey, I'll explain that in a second, according to Jason Kenney, that's just sitting on the table, not socially distanced. Some of the criticisms waged against Kenney are elitism, hypocrisy, right? Elitism, you know, you sell yourself as a blue, you know, pickup truck dude, flannel shirt, but you're here at the Sky Palace where your office is, you know, doing your thing. Hypocrisy, because, well, you told us to follow these rules, but as soon as you know it comes to you you don't follow them um is it one of those two that's the gravest political sin here or is it something else that really is seeming to trigger folks about jason kenney's and his and his uh cabinet colleagues up in the sky palace having their their dinner i
Carter
29:09
i think it's do as i say not as i do that that is really the the primary tracking problem i mean i think there could have been a lot more outrage about um you know what
Carter
29:21
were they doing up there i mean drinking
Carter
29:23
drinking uh while working or were you working or were you not working if you were not working who paid for the dinner um you know like there there could have been a lot more outrage expressed about how the situation was unfolding um i think instead people got pretty pretty fixated on, you told us what the rules are, and now you're telling us that the rules are something different, or you're not even following these rules.
Carter
29:50
So do as I say, not as I do has never been a particularly effective means of governing. And at this point, when we're 18 months into, as the right wing would call them, lockdowns, as I would call them, modest precautions, cautions um people want to see their leaders following uh following the rules i mean this they didn't learn their lesson apparently from uh from you know the aloha gate as we were
Carter
30:17
making fun of it in uh you know uh in episode 906 which just jumps out at me for some reason but when we were talking about you know former
Carter
30:28
former ministers and mlas going to um going
Carter
30:32
going to hawaii It was tone deaf. It just didn't reflect the reality that the rest of us were going through. And it's the exact same thing now. You know, I want to have people over. Not you two, but other people. And we can't do that because we're trapped in our houses. So, you know, we will be able to soon. I have no doubt that the premier was working. I have no doubt that that was a working meeting.
Carter
30:57
But then that begs the question, what's the 40 of scotch doing on the table?
Zain
31:04
Corey, what's the political sin here? Is it what Carter indicated, or is it something else?
Corey
31:12
So I'm of many minds on this one, but let me just start by saying I don't actually think people care that much. I think this
Corey
31:18
is a bit of a tempest in a teapot here. And the main reason I believe that to be the case is that we are now coming out of these restrictions, right? And people are generally confused as to what's allowed and what's not allowed. And the situation is, you know, obviously not, not following the rules. Like I actually, I will say, I think where the government has gone truly awry is on pretending that this was all above board and that there's nothing that's violating the COVID restrictions in this sense. But I just don't think people carry that much that, that it was broken. And in December, when
Corey
31:50
when we had Aloha Gate, the situation was foundationally different. People were making big sacrifices of things that they wanted to do and that they weren't being allowed to do, and they were staying home for the Christmas break. And yet we had MLAs, we had cabinet ministers, we had them flying off and going everywhere and having a grand old time. And that
Corey
32:10
that brought kind of a visceral reaction back. Here, it's more like your crime is jumping the gun. We know in two weeks, this is going to be the basic state of play anyhow. And so I just don't believe that the outrage is nearly as high on this one as it was during Aloha Gate. I think part of the reason the coverage and the commentary is
Corey
32:30
hitting a pitch that's similar to Aloha Gate is everybody knows how big of a deal that was, but they're fighting the last war. I think if you were to canvas 100 people, they would say, yeah, it's fucking bullshit. I hate those assholes. But that's because that's sort of the foundational feeling people have about the government right now. The government's unpopular right now. I don't think that this has dramatically changed the popularity of the government to the negative. Carter's right. Was it a social visit? Was it work? I don't think people are entirely outraged by the notion that working late into the night, the premier might have had a drink. Certainly, we've all worked in politics. I think we know how common just casual drinking is in those environments, whether you want to endorse it or not. That is sort of, let's just say, a multi-party fascination.
Corey
33:17
And it's not the same thing. It's not that exciting. But the sin, the sin, I think, was really just the whole air that was put off the white
Corey
33:26
white tablecloth, the sparkling water on the table, the fact that you had a bottle of whiskey, the entire scene looked like it was from the 1960s. But for the fact that there was one woman there, right, you know, it was it was not it was not a good look for politicians, even, even in non COVID times. And I think that that this kind of literally being on top of everybody, literally, you're at the top of the federal building. And you're kind of casually disregarding the rules and having a – you're having your whiskey. You're having your sparkling water. People are serving you food.
Corey
33:59
That's a pretty indelible image, and that's going to be difficult for people to remove. So did
Carter
34:05
get served food when you were in government? Did the premier have food? I
Corey
34:10
I wasn't a – I was a bureaucrat. Was there food in government?
Carter
34:13
government? We had food when there was like late into the night and we kind of could go and steal something from the caucus. But there was like, there was never, like, we never had a catered dinner unless it was at the governor, left in a governor's kind of, you know. Yeah,
Corey
34:30
Yeah, Carter, there was food. Often for cabinet meetings, if they were going into the evening, there would be food that was brought in for cabinet. How
Carter
34:36
How did I get screwed? I mean, this is all changed under the NDP, no doubt. The fucking NDP changed
Corey
34:43
That's not even the case. The NDP, when they came in, they really cut those budgets. They brought them back. They started using students at culinary institutions to bring in food, all of those things. It's not uncommon. It's not like the, you know, if you're in the public service, you're not getting lunch or anything like that. Those days are long gone. But the government has so many hosting responsibilities. When people are coming in from outside in particular, you'll often. When there's
Carter
35:06
there's someone outside coming in,
Carter
35:08
there would be hosting, there would be catering. But we never would have a catered event with just cabinet ministers.
Corey
35:14
Oh, yeah, no, that.
Corey
35:16
I don't know what to tell you. your government sucked our government outside
Zain
35:19
outside of the personal indulgence of how you got screwed over i got screwed over i'd
Carter
35:23
i'd eat tuna fish on terrible like brown bread every day it was terrible uh
Zain
35:29
carter you were disagreeing though with cory around um not that big of a deal cory says you know people may not necessarily care um because they're jumping the gun you you were you were shaking your head to jump in in terms of why you you disagree with that is
Carter
35:43
is this this a big deal if he's at 70 approval absolutely not you know he gets to ride he gets to skate on it but when you're at 80 on approval or whatever the number is 60 70 80 whatever it is because there's been new numbers every every week whatever his disapproval rating is um this
Carter
36:02
this does not stop like it may not dig the hole any deeper but it does it further erodes his ability to climb back out of it. And that's what he's trying to do right now. Everything that he's doing is an effort to try and climb back out of the hole. And he can't get out of the hole when he's sitting at a linen table, having someone serve him his alcohol, because I didn't even actually see any food in the photos. All we saw was the booze.
Zain
36:28
Corey, what do you think of that take?
Corey
36:30
think there's something to it when you're behind every day that you don't move forward it is a bad day, right? You're not changing anything around. And ultimately, it does pile on to an overall feeling about the government. But I just, you know, I don't know that it does anything more than reinforce. I don't think it changes minds. I still don't. And it'll be interesting to see how people react to this. It certainly knocks them off agenda. And I bet you it really irritates caucus.
Zain
36:59
To both of you, I wanted to talk about the NDP response. But this This is not exactly that. I'll take this little side road for a second, which is this is a visual. This is, in many ways, it's not like a thing that was done. It's kind of a visual that, you know, you have to see it, the white linen cloth, as you mentioned, the sparkling water, etc. Carter, you know, putting in your campaign game face on, how would you leverage a photo like this if we were heading into campaign mode? If you were a TPA or if you were the NDP, would this act as a proof point to you? So Corey says, you know, people may not necessarily be concerned because they might be jumping the gun. Corey might be right about that. But if we look two years in the future, do you feel like this image could mean something to the broader political conversation to remind Albertans about, you know, an element of Jason Kenney? And if so, which element would that be for you?
Carter
37:46
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a sense of entitlement that Jason Kenney is supposed to have campaigned against, but actually is taking advantage of, right? He campaigns in the blue pickup truck because he's the everyman, right? He's the every Albertan, except, you know, it's not really his truck he's just borrowing it borrowing the lease right and and it's not really his genes and it's not really his food um so my you know if i were running a war room i'd probably be pulling this up every time we were talking about his entitlement you know he
Carter
38:19
he's getting catered dinners when you can't even go to a restaurant i
Carter
38:24
i i'd be playing the game so
Zain
38:26
so cory two years from now election season how are you leveraging a photo like this i
Corey
38:32
just don't think I think I am. I think there are so many other things I would rather point on. If it's being used at all, Zane, it's as part of like a montage. It's scene
Corey
38:40
scene after scene after scene after scene of ministers and media coverage of said ministers violating COVID regulations. And you just have that as part of a pile. And ultimately, you just pick the one where they look the most entitled, most out of touch, and that's the one you emphasize. size. And I actually don't, I don't think that photo does it because frankly, you can't see Jason Kenney well enough for starters. So you wouldn't use it in a campaign attack ad. It just, it doesn't, it creates a nice tapestry for an attack ad, but it doesn't have the principal actor in it. And so that's probably your biggest challenge in terms of leveraging that forward. But if you are still talking about, I don't know, is
Corey
39:23
is it really realistic to think in two years that that this is an image that's going to be stuck in people's minds. So maybe it is. Maybe I'm totally wrong about this, but I think that this shot that was from wherever, that's taking a picture that doesn't have the principal actor entirely in focus, that occurred with the distance of time within a couple of weeks, if that, of when you would be allowed to do that anyhow, is just not going to be real
Carter
39:52
compelling. Yeah, the photo is part of the joy of it, Because it's the spycraft, it's the being caught, it's the serendipity of being caught, right? This is part of the story of this, is that someone had to get this photograph, right? Like, they thought they couldn't be seen, but we see them, right? Like, that's part of the—
Corey
40:13
the— Well, so there is a how dumb are they thing, right? Or at least how poor was their judgment. That's probably a much better way to put it. I
Zain
40:19
I think the angle, if I can offer a very quick opinion, is exactly what you said, Corey. It's these folks at the top floor of this building, white linen cloth. This is less about COVID restrictions, more about how they act as, you know, selling themselves as one thing. In this case, a leader who sells himself to Carter's Point, flannel shirt, blue pickup truck, but acts in this other way. I think there's perhaps something in that direction. Not to say how much, you know, you'll have to see how much legs it has two years from now. But I think it's that direction, not even tethering it to COVID, but more so on the entitlement front. front. I do want to talk about another element of this, the strategy that Kenny took, and frankly, the Mats and the issue managers took around doubling down, saying they did nothing wrong. You know, even the official quote was, we did nothing wrong. Jason Kenney in the legislature today, no, did nothing wrong. We were working, just explaining away. Corey, what do you think of that strategy? And is it the right strategy considering, you know, what Jason Kenney and his cabinet did and more specifically is the right strategy to to kind of keep them out of trouble or would you have proposed something else no
Corey
41:26
no i think this is the the real i mean the the misstep was the misstep and i again i i gotta say like how did they think it was a good idea in the middle of edmonton a city that just loathes the government having out in a public setting something that's clearly violating at the very least the spirit of the covid restrictions right like someone's going to take umbrage someone's going to take that picture and and you're going to lose at the very least a day if not more uh as you manage it right so when you respond with they did nothing wrong and that like that just bold defiance i think only has the ability to kick the story further because then you're getting health experts saying did they do it properly did they not do it you have dina hinshaw being kind of mealy mouth with her yeah well
Corey
42:10
well you know i'm i'm not i'm not I can't even talk about her response, but she's being ambushed saying, was this a violation? Was this not a violation? All of that occurs because you didn't just fold. And ultimately, all you're doing is elevating what is patently absurd to Albertans. And I think that that patent absurdity and the defiance and the standing by and saying, ignore what your eyes show you, is much more dangerous than the act itself. And if we do remember this, it's going to be because they really
Corey
42:40
really raised all of our goats by just essentially trying to gaslight an entire fucking province because we like it's clearly a violation of the rules is it a social visit obviously not uh but if it was work why are there no papers like you can't look at it either through either lens and say this is proper and what they should have said is you know we pushed the limits we were too close for the two meters that was wrong of us we should have known better uh we are all trying to get back to normal but But this is a good reminder that we've got to wait for normal or normal will never come. And, yeah, then there'd be stories like, didn't you say you were going to kick out anybody in your caucus who broke the rules?
Corey
43:18
that's why you don't make statements like that. I think we talked about that at the time even, right? Like that's an absolute statement that's going to bite you in the ass at some point. But
Corey
43:28
do you think perhaps
Zain
43:28
perhaps that's why they didn't go down that? I have to
Corey
43:31
to assume that was part of the calculation there. But I also don't believe Albertans are saying, well, look, a lot of Albertans are done with Jason Kenney, right? Or at this moment feel done with him.
Corey
43:42
They're going to call for his head either way, right? I mean, I don't think that the average reasonable observer of this is going to say, being
Corey
43:51
being closer than two meters, let's fire a premier, right? Like, unless that was already their opinion, that's not going to be their opinion.
Zain
44:00
Carter, gaslighting, I was going to say, you know, there is a term for this. it is gaslighting, as Corey mentioned, right? Yeah, I'm not the crazy one. You're the crazy one. What are you talking about? They're following the rules. Good strategy considering the predicament they were in, or bad strategy?
Carter
44:14
There was a previous iteration of this podcast where we always said double down.
Carter
44:18
Don't apologize. Double down.
Corey
44:21
We love the double down.
Carter
44:27
mean, there's no upside to this. We were wrong. It isn't going to fly. You got the health minister that everybody wants to fire anyways. You've got the premier that everybody wants to fire. I mean, double
Carter
44:39
double down. I think that this was the right decision to double down and not apologize. It's the right call. It just sucks because it's a shitty call. You shouldn't have put yourself in this position. You did. Eat inside, for God's sake. Eat
Carter
44:55
Eat inside. No one can take a a picture of you inside.
Carter
44:59
But whatever. They did what they did. Now they're going to suffer a consequence. And the consequence probably isn't going to last for two years. The consequence is probably going to last for a couple of days. And then they get through it. Double down.
Zain
45:13
Corey, let's just reformat the setting. You just made your argument about how this is a huge mistake to double down. Carter's in the same room with you. You got the premier. You got your leader, right? Whichever one it is. In this case, it's Kenny. But you guys are making this argument. What's your retort to Carter after he says, we always say double down. There's the reason that this is a conventional piece of wisdom in politics. What's your retort?
Corey
45:34
I would say, you've
Corey
45:35
you've got to look at what the negatives are for the Premier right now. You've got to understand what the knock against him is. And this idea that he thinks he's always right, is a big part of it, right? Especially when you think about the caucus relations of it, and showing just a little bit of humility on this front and saying we were working late. we wanted to get you know we were still having the conversation going uh we thought that you know yeah we were kind of stretching the two meters it was maybe more like one one and a half but we wanted to continue doing the work that we were doing um i
Corey
46:07
i don't know like maybe it's like the non-apology apology but i i think you just say yeah our bad right we were too close we shouldn't have been too close like you you you confess to the lesser crime and then what are they going to to do to
Corey
46:19
to to my earlier point are they going to say i'm sorry that was not two meters you're fucking out of here right like that's that's not a reasonable position for people to take so if you just sort of confess to that uh yes we were supposed to have two meters distance obviously it's clear from that picture there was not quite two meters distance if or between some of the respondents we are sorry i just i don't know where the story goes after that i'm
Zain
46:44
i'm gonna going to move it to the NDP. Rachel Notley's response was a photo that she snaps on her patio where she says, we don't need a palace. We've got a feast that her and her husband are enjoying. Carter, what do you think of that retort? And then let me just, you know, add on to their the responses, you know, from the NDP, which extend to, you know, picking up some of Jason Kenney's quotes regarding, you know, one of them was Jameson is a nice Irish whiskey, but not at the finest, et cetera, trying to pick those apart. What do you think of the NDP response here? Is this one of those get out of the way? Is this one of those, you know, you hit them with the sarcasm? What would your advice to the NDP be? And are they hitting the right tone in your mind?
Carter
47:25
I liked the photo of Rachel and Lou. I thought it was good. You know, I think my normal advice would be just get out of the way. It's a bad day for the premier. But that was a that was a piling on that was uh it was really safe it was really funny and i i thought it was hilarious cory
Zain
47:44
ndp response what do you think the rachel and lou picture on their in their patio and then kind of the nitpicking on the kenny quotes yeah
Corey
47:51
yeah i thought it was a pretty good poke and uh i certainly i don't have much to fault on it up to and including like you know you you've got pellegrino on one one side and and like route 99 diner is it's
Corey
48:04
it's pretty good but it's not fancy yeah right and and so you're you're kind of creating a really good contrast here you've got people acting in a covid safe fashion you've got them eating much more common food like so you're kind of checking all of the boxes you asked us at the start which of these things is the bigger problem it's the sin well yeah well
Corey
48:24
well with this tweet you managed to kind of diss them on all of them
Carter
48:27
them right so no
Corey
48:27
no No matter what you're looking at, no matter what lens you're being irritated by this through, you just hit them all. So I thought it was pretty good. And it
Corey
48:37
it certainly played to the base. If
Zain
48:40
If you were helping the NDP at this moment, right, helping them strategize, what advice would you have for them regarding this particular story? Whether it be about extending narratives, whether it be about getting out of the way, whether it be any caution that you'd have for them around trying to extend the mileage that may not exist. I'm just throwing some options out there. You don't have to choose from those. But Carter, if you were helping the official opposition with strategic advice on this, what would you tell them?
Carter
49:09
don't know. I'd be a little bit wary of the story, to be honest. I think it's getting in the way of a bigger story. You know, like the reopening is the real story. And the reopening going from, you know, we talked about this a couple of days ago, going from 20 people in our backyards or in a social gathering to 100,000 people at the Stampede in a single day. That strikes me as a bigger story, and I would probably go back to keeping my eye on that prize. It was a fun couple of days, but it reminds me of the Danielle Smith bus. You know, like the busty bus gets you a couple of days of bad coverage coverage or good coverage if you're if you're against them but it's not going to be the defining moment of the campaign cory same question though
Zain
49:56
though same question to you advice for the ndp or any cautionary tales well
Corey
50:01
well i i don't know how much more you're going to get out of this than you got right and so think about it in the context of that larger story put it in the bank there are so many things that that you should be kind of indexing for later use to create those montages as i was alluding to earlier but um i think it would be i
Corey
50:20
i think the longer this goes the closer we get to reopening and the more we'll be exposed to even
Corey
50:27
even in our own lives as sort of pushing those rules as we move towards reopening and i just don't think it will help the ndp to be talking about this at a matter when in
Corey
50:36
in two weeks or 11 days this is actually it would be fine right and And it also it almost makes it too clear how close it was. Yeah.
Corey
50:43
So I would be I would be poking
Corey
50:46
poking the caucus. I would be trying to see what kind of dissent you can get between between the UCP true believers and the cabinet saying things like, I thought the UCP was supposed to be against all of these things. You know, I thought the UCP was supposed to be a group that cared about the rules. This is what you told us all in 2019, Premier. Is this is your caucus supportive of this? and encourage reporters to sort of go around and poke around and see other voices who might be angry, try to turn the problem he has right now into a problem that will be paying dividends down the road in terms of continued caucus disunity for the UCP. And, you
Corey
51:25
you know, just take it for what it is. But no, it's not everything.
Zain
51:30
Let's move on to our next story under the Skyfall banner. Let's go go to Air Canada and the federal government. So as I mentioned earlier, Air Canada has paid out $10 million in bonuses to their executives. This is after they agreed with the federal government as part of their $6 billion loan package that they would cap executive compensation at that $1 million until 12 months. Well, it turns out that they, just before signing this deal with But the federal government greenlit this $10 million, this bonus structure to their executives, which they do say is less than what we usually do. Carter, did the federal government just get played here? Or is that not necessarily the narrative and how you look at it?
Carter
52:15
No, I think they got played. I think that, you know, the federal government was trying to get their, you
Carter
52:21
know, get their their moment and get their attention. attention uh you know so they wanted to be able to say because this is what happened in the 2008 financial crisis right all of the bonuses were paid out to all of these people um and in even the the the emergency uh the emergency funding that was provided uh during covid so much of it went to shareholders uh so the government was trying to prohibit that and instead air canada just made you know found the loophole and drove right through it um you
Carter
52:52
you know from my point of view, I guess that's what Air Canada is supposed to do. But, you know, the
Carter
52:58
the government's coming to help, and you're not in any way, shape, or form able to survive this. And you're just allowing it to, you know, you're just pulling tens of, you know, $10 million out of the company. I just don't think that this is necessarily the way we should go. Where are my Lee Iacocas who get paid a dollar dollar until the company recovers. I mean, where's
Carter
53:21
where's that leader? Do those leaders exist anymore? Or are they all just dead?
Zain
53:28
I might just remind our listeners that tonight's podcast is brought to you by WestJet.
Zain
53:34
This is a sponsored segment by WestJet. You can deny it, Corey. This is sponsored content. I'm totally joking. Or am I? Corey, same thing for you. Did they play the the government? And yeah, I actually answered that question first. And I've got a second round for both of you. And I think we can, you know, hit on this story. But did the government get played here?
Corey
53:55
don't know. I think that would be the legally safe answer to give in this moment. I think that the timing is incredibly suspicious. And I suspect it will lead to all manner of inquiry to determine exactly when decisions were made, and whether those decisions were made pre or post knowledge of other demands of the government and how the negotiations went. And they'll be lining up of a couple of different internal timelines and determining exactly what is what is happening here uh what i will say is that this is obviously
Corey
54:25
obviously obviously a problem for both air canada and now the government of alberta or sorry the government of canada which happens to own half a billion dollars of stock in air canada yeah
Corey
54:37
this doesn't end well for those executives and they should have had the wherewithal to know the the political charge that was created and probably rescinded this on their own volition before it happened or been a little bit more savvy about it even gone back and said yes this was made before but we're making it conditional on
Corey
54:54
us giving back money
Corey
54:56
you know people who haven't gotten refunds yet or i don't even know but something that they could point to and say we did this before we didn't think it would be quite right if we didn't meet these conditions of the deal there's
Corey
55:05
there's ways they could have done this and probably kept most if not all of their money but by it looking like they tried to sneak it through I think this is just going to be a world of pain for a couple of different people, both in the pocketbook and in the reputation sense. I mean, we've already had the deputy prime minister just tear a strip off them. And I think there's more to come on this front, more with the real consequences down the road. Carter,
Zain
55:27
Carter, is this like a too-big-to-fail style hubris on Air Canada's part? Is that what you kind of sense here? That, you know, yeah, you know, people hate airlines, but who gives a shit, right? We're Air Canada in many ways. They were never going to let us fail, and you barely have a choice. I'm not saying they'd say that, but part of the
Zain
55:43
the communications and the lack of that wherewithal that Corey talks about kind of seems to be heading in that direction. Would you classify it as such?
Carter
55:51
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a hubris about executive compensation now as well, that they've earned their millions of dollars in bonuses, and that's part of their corporate compensation structures. And it doesn't matter how the company is actually performing. They expect their money. And the fact that they had to be bailed out by the government, the federal government, surely wasn't their fault. So they still deserve their bonuses. But I think that, you know, there needs to be a bit of a view towards executive compensation because, you know, I mentioned Bezos earlier. Everybody is out of control. The money that is flowing to these people is out of control. And, you know, it doesn't bode well for society when there's this kind of an income gap.
Corey
56:41
Well, I mean, I agree. It's so funny. You know, run the tape from Strategist 1 to Strategist 934 and see the evolution of Stephen Carter from Reaganite to hardcore
Carter
56:52
hardcore socialist. Listen, we were all in love with Alex P. Keaton, OK? And I just shifted.
Zain
57:00
And there he goes. Yes, the technical difficulties that are Stephen Carter, his mouth and brain are gone. on uh cory do you do you want to do you well one of those two things was never there in the first place cory do you want to jump in uh with uh with anything on this on this air canada story and executive compensation yeah
Corey
57:21
i mean i think that people need to appreciate that we look at all of these things through a very political lens uh and we think these people must be trying to do something that is political fuckery because that's the only explanation we have for why they would act in this fashion but they you know there's an occam's razor answer to this too and it's just that these groups people like this they don't think about politics like we do and they are baffled by politics they might think they know a lot about politics but the nature of their work which gives them so much money and moves them into these circles that are so so elite and the air is so So rarefied, pun entirely intended in the context of an airline here, that they lose
Corey
58:01
with how people perceive money and they lose touch with how people perceive the issues on a day-to-day basis. And so they feel, well, I earned that. And in fact, they might think, well, in negotiation bailout, I did that. And my friends are making money like this. And if I went to another company, I'd still be making that $1 million additional bonus. And so, of course, I should get that. God, could you imagine if they didn't pay us $1.5 million? We'd all leave. And then what would they do without us, the highly paid executives at Air Canada that saved this airline by negotiating that bailout? And so the government would probably be fine with this. This just makes sense. I mean, the rules said going forward. So it was before and it's okay. Like, what would they possibly have a concern about? It's allowed under the contract and they don't fucking get the politics at all. And you see this in organization across organization.
Corey
58:48
It's just not a world that's natural to them at this point just because of the lives that they live. And I'm not giving them a pass. I'm not giving them a pass. But I am saying it may not be as premeditated as everybody thinks. You
Zain
59:01
You make a good point around that perpetuated groupthink that can take place as well, right? Like you have, you know, these folks being like, you know, in their little silo being like, yeah, and then this, they just build on it and be like, perfect, problem solved, moving on. And you don't have that dissenting voice or that political voice being like, that's not how this is going to be interpreted, FYI. Well,
Corey
59:19
Well, it's a good reason why you should be thinking about building executive teams with people who have a sense of those things as you go forward, especially as kind of this stakeholder capitalism becomes a bigger and bigger deal, right? You've got to have a good sense of what the public is thinking about these matters, particularly if the government owns half a billion dollars of your fucking company and it's just given you $5.9 billion in financial assistance. So hopefully lessons learned, but this is going to be a painful one as they unspool it, as I said, financially and reputationally, I suspect. let's
Zain
59:48
let's move it on to our final segment are over under in our lightning round stephen carter are you ready he
Zain
59:55
seems to be ready he seems to be ready he's still not here but he is ready uh cory here's what we're gonna do i'm gonna get you to to play stephen carter it's very easy uh it's like jason kenney cosplay but easier um our first question overrated or underrated stephen carter donald trump's twitter style blog permanently shut down is that overrated underrated or underrated in your mind uh
Corey
1:00:20
uh underrated zane uh it's important because it means there'll be more traffic to my giant bald-headed blog steven
Corey
1:00:27
steven carter's bald-headed idea blog good
Zain
1:00:29
good it's pretty good pretty good steven carter impersonation good answer cory overrated underrated donald trump's twitter style blog permanently shut down it's
Corey
1:00:38
it's funny but it's overrated steven just again again, goes with a flip dumb answer, as is his style. But the fact is, he was irrelevant. And all this does is confirm an irrelevance. It would be different if it was a very popular blog he shut down. But if a tree falls in the forest, and no one's around to hear it doesn't make a sound.
Zain
1:00:59
sticking with you on this next one overrated or underrated. Canada on pace to be leading all OECD countries in first dose vaccinations overrated or
Zain
1:01:10
or underrated in your your mind. Corey? It's
Corey
1:01:11
It's big time overrated. We're doing pretty well. If you look at the doses that we're giving per 100,000, we're second, I think, in the OECD. We're first in the G7, first in the G20. I think this was today's statistics. We're doing really well. We're already second in the the oecd for like the you know the number of first doses here but let's not let's not go nuts and we're still a bit behind a lot of other jurisdictions in second doses we are going to catch up rapidly but what does it mean to be first it doesn't mean anything to be first in a race that we all lose if not everybody crosses the finish line so we're we're at a place where we've protected our population we do need to start thinking about becoming more generous now And how we're going to help. Frankly, we should have thought about that a bit sooner, but I know that's deeply unpopular concept. But we need to think about how we help the rest of the world deal with COVID and get vaccinated as well. And being in first is just
Corey
1:02:12
just kind of in poor taste at a certain point, isn't it?
Zain
1:02:15
Carter, what do you think?
Corey
1:02:19
It's really important that we vaccinate Canadians. I love vaccination. And I love when you talk about the Governor General. rule i
Zain
1:02:26
i i've got an entire episode for you and cory coming up on that carter carter i'm going to stick with you for our next one overrated or underrated the political damage for the federal government that sent nine million dollars worth of code covid relief funding to dead people the political damage on that steven carter overrated or underrated
Corey
1:02:45
i'm a simple man zane and i never heard that story so i'm going to say it's rated just about right that
Zain
1:02:51
that sounds that sounds like something you would say and have just said. Corey, over to you. Overrated or underrated the political damage of the government sending nearly $10 million worth of COVID relief funding to dead people.
Corey
1:03:03
It's overrated. These are the kind of things that happen in a big bureaucracy. There are going to be errors.
Corey
1:03:09
errors. People are dying all the time. People are being born all the time. This is a country of 35 million people. And it's
Corey
1:03:16
it's not the greatest harm in the world. And And $9 million is a lot of money.
Corey
1:03:20
But when you look at it relative to all of the COVID relief that's been spent, that's actually a shockingly small amount of money that's been erroneously sent.
Zain
1:03:27
Corey, I'm going to start with you for our last one here, which is are you in or are you out strictly on the political strategy, not on the issue at hand? Because we're going to discuss both on Sunday, but a bit of a preview. Are you in or are you out on Jason Kenney's contentious, you know, lamenting of cancel culture as schools are being renamed on the heels of calls by advocates and activists after the Kamloops story of 215 indigenous children found? Are you in or are you out on the political strategy of Jason Kenney lamenting cancel culture? We'll discuss it more, but give me your top line first. Oh.
Corey
1:04:07
On the political strategy alone. I'm
Zain
1:04:09
I'm going to isolate it because I know there's a lot of charged feelings around it and we can get into that on Sunday. But on the political strategy alone, are you in or are you out? It's
Zain
1:04:18
Oh, interesting. Stephen Carter, Corey says it's good strategy. Would you agree? No, I don't agree. It's
Corey
1:04:24
It's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. The guy is getting killed for taking this vanity trip onto the front pages of the National Post. read the fucking room jason this is outrageous a
Zain
1:04:36
lot more to discuss on sunday we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 934 of the strategist my name is zane velji with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time