Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is Strategists episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you?
Carter
0:10
I'm having the time of my life, Zain.
Carter
0:13
time of my life. I was outside. I went for a bike ride with my daughter today. It was unending complaining. You know, is it uphill both ways? You said this is the top of the hill. Why aren't we there yet? This is killing me. And she wasn't very happy either.
Corey
0:30
And I assume you were just, you know, had throngs of fans blocking your way all of the way, having just dropped your latest single. Yeah,
Corey
0:38
it was kind of unbelievable. Hit that music button, baby.
Carter
0:41
How much do I have to pay you for that? Like, how much of the royalties do I get versus how much do you get? Oh,
Zain
0:46
Yeah, the producer... I wrote that.
Zain
0:49
No, no, no, you don't think you understand how this works. Now, Carter,
Carter
0:51
Carter, I have to ask
Zain
0:52
ask you... Yeah, it's a remix culture.
Zain
0:53
You are climbing up the political song charts here. Are you planning to turn this thing into a musical like a Lin-Manuel Miranda, or are you going to leave it hanging out there to open source to the masses to fill in the rest of Hit That Music Button Baby, which I mean, listen,
Zain
1:12
it speaks for itself.
Carter
1:13
Corey asked me not to announce this, but I'm going to announce it anyways. He and I have actually teamed up to start writing a new musical called In the Ledge. I'm really looking forward to it. It should be pretty spectacular. Is
Zain
1:24
Is that a play on In the Heights? Is that what you want people to connect it to? Just so I can make that connection if it is. How
Carter
1:29
How would people not make that connection? It was an underperforming musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Now it's
Corey
1:35
it's an underperforming movie. It just bombed
Corey
1:37
at the box office this weekend. Yeah,
Carter
1:39
Yeah, it turns out the people still aren't ready to go to movies yet. But, you know, one day. One day.
Zain
1:44
Okay. Well, Carter, listen, I wish you the best of luck. I hope that you make something out of it. And just before I move on to Corey, what's a music button?
Zain
2:06
What's a music button?
Carter
2:07
button? Seriously, I think when
Zain
2:09
asking something... I think it speaks
Carter
2:09
speaks for itself. It's the button you press to get music. Like here, I can turn on my music button right now. Oh, I can just press.
Carter
2:18
Matt Epp and the Amarorian Assembly.
Corey
2:22
It would just get complicated. We'll have to cut that part out. Yeah,
Carter
2:24
Yeah, no, I can press play right now. That's the music button.
Zain
2:28
it's play. Okay. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Carter.
Zain
2:31
This is a very Stephen Carter song. More words, what less could have done. Corey, I'm a man of economy of words. How are you doing?
Corey
2:39
I'm doing well. I didn't go on any bike rides with my family. That was probably wise.
Zain
2:48
No, it's fine. It's fine. It's unnecessary. It's too hot. It doesn't matter. matter um do we want to talk about the phoenix suns cory before we uh we move in to our first segment uh
Zain
3:02
let's move it on to our first segment our first segment giveaway own goal that is right guys jason kenney is gonna be showering albertans with cash he has announced a new one million dollar lottery uh you guys can help me explain the details because i'm so confused about them well we we don't know i mean i think that's part of it oh
Carter
3:22
oh tyler sandra just tweeted about it today so it's all good i got it i'm all up to speed regardless
Zain
3:27
regardless we have a uh million dollar lottery that will be happening one would assume in the next week or so as albertans try to hit that 70 first dose threshold to trigger the hit that threshold baby
Zain
3:41
a threshold button is what you mean um yeah no problem and as we strive to that 70 first dose vaccination across across the country. Corey, so much to talk about. I mean, we've talked about vaccine incentives. In fact, it's been a long-going headline thing with Carter and I. Were you surprised that Alberta has joined Manitoba as the second province to offer a vaccine lottery?
Corey
4:06
I am not, because it's pretty apparent that we are now beginning to fall a bit behind, or we seem to be hitting our ceiling for first doses here in Alberta. And unfortunately, Fortunately, that ceiling looks like it's lower than in other provinces. I think we're either doing the worst or second worst amongst the provinces right now for first doses. And
Corey
4:23
And so it's kind of like necessity is the mother of incentives
Corey
4:29
incentives in this case. We have a need for it, and it would be embarrassing for the government to walk away from it. It's 70% needed to open. They may do that anyways. ways they've already talked about uh saying well maybe if we get second doses up it's not such a big deal if we don't get to 70 of those over age 12 but it has really slowed down and uh and i'm quite certain that if they do want to move forward without hitting that 70 they want to be able to say well it's just a day or two away in any case so so uh no not very surprised in some ways i'm surprised by the um maybe this isn't fair but the lack of imagination in the incentives you know It was just a million bucks, but not surprised.
Zain
5:15
Carter, quickly, unsurprised, and then let's talk about the rollout itself and what we make of that, because I know you had some sharp political criticisms of the rollout, but first, were you surprised to learn that Alberta is having a vaccine lottery?
Carter
5:31
Alberta's our strongest listenership. I'm certain that people in the Premier's office listened to it, And they heard our robust defense of vaccine lotteries and jumped on it. So, obviously, another victory for the strategists. Well done, guys. I think we did a great job on it. No, incentives work. And this incentive is something
Carter
5:54
something that hopefully will get us up over 70%. I actually hope it gets us higher than that. Sadly, the first day of communications, as so many things in the Kennedy government, was a complete bust. Yeah,
Zain
6:05
Yeah, Corey, let's talk about the communications for a second. So Jason Kenney announces this through a Twitter video. Initially makes it seem like only those that get
Zain
6:15
get a vaccine between his announcement and the triggering of that 70% threshold are eligible. The premier's office has since revised that, saying all Albertans are eligible. But now we are also hearing that as part of the eligibility, you don't have to provide proof of vaccination, which is what the minister of health has tweeted, if I'm not incorrect. I'll verify that while you speak. But what do you kind of make of the comms rollout for literally giving away money, which one would think might be the simplest thing to do?
Corey
6:45
Not great, that's for sure.
Corey
6:48
I do like to say all problems manifest as communications problems. Well, communications problems manifest as communications problems, too. And what this managed to do was ignore the audience. And since the majority of Albertans have had vaccinations, the majority of the audience looking at that video from the premier's office would be thinking, okay, what about us? And so it was a bit of a miss to have that lack of clarity and suggest that perhaps it was only available – honestly, maybe the plan originally was only for people within seven days, and there was such a sharp media backlash, they quickly revised. Or maybe it was the plan all along. I suspect it was the plan all along, and it was just communication that missed the mark because Jason Kenney was thinking about getting the people out who weren't getting out and not
Corey
7:35
thinking about how it would land with the rest of us. And so the emphasis, it
Corey
7:39
it wasn't just a question of emphasis in the wrong place. It's that some salient facts were missing and people reacted badly. And all of a sudden, a good news story became a bad news story for
Corey
7:47
for the premier. So
Corey
7:48
So that's very problematic. On that second part about no proof of immunization required, it's, I mean, it feels so no purchase required, right? Like, you know, just a hand-drawn facsimile of the UPC is enough for you to be able to enter your Popsicle Peak giveaway or whatever it is, right? It's dumb.
Corey
8:08
dumb. It's really, you know, I don't know why we wouldn't require proof of immunization.
Zain
8:13
Stephen Carter, Alberta is launching the Open for Summer lottery to encourage Albertans to get immunized. Registration will close one week after 70% of eligible Albertans have received a first dose. Anyone who's already received one dose is eligible to enter. We're adopting an opt-in approach to fully comply with Alberta's existing privacy legislation. Limited personal information will be collected via a secure website. No proof of immunization is required. There's a lot more about winner eligibility, etc. etc. But let me go to the original question to Corey in terms of what did you make of the comms launch? And then and what do you make of this eligibility requirement that we're subsequently hearing about today?
Carter
8:50
Well, the comms launch is a total cluster. I mean, it's a relatively simple message, right? Everybody who's got their first vaccination can enter. And it seems like a second miss to me as well, in that, why wouldn't you say that everybody who, you know, we're going to do, us you know they're doing three draws right why not do one draw for first vaccinations one draw for second vaccinations and one draw for all Albertans once we've once we've crossed the threshold once we're through the this pandemic like you don't have to give away tens of millions of dollars to to incent everybody that's the beauty of people not knowing what odds are right you can give away a million dollars and it sounds like a lot of money but it's it's like 30 cents in Albertan it's nothing but it's 25 cents in Albertan I mean you know it really doesn't mean mean anything um in the overall scheme of things but by
Carter
9:37
by screwing up the the communications on day one kenny takes a a program that really matters that's supposed to incent people for getting their vaccinations and waters it down and b um angers a whole bunch of people that are again ready to be angry with him uh you know he he he screws things up now um by forgetting the first principles of politics. And the first principle of politics is be clear, be concise, and be done. Like, he's just, he's talking too much. He's trying to own the day. He's trying to control the media. And it's failing on every single front. It's just sad.
Zain
10:17
Carter, I'll come back to you on the immunization side for a second. Corey, you can jump in here.
Corey
10:22
Well, one of the hypotheses that I have to have here is that the premier wanted to leave the impression that viewers would be in a a smaller pool right you're not in there with everybody else if you go now and and in that sense kind of increase the appeal uh
Corey
10:35
uh to the group who might be watching it but this is a great example of how in this day and age you can't you can't broadcast to a narrow audience like that you can't put something out on your twitter feed that is seen by uh you know tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands and and give this uh suggestion you know be
Corey
10:52
be cute about it and imply to the very small group of people that hey if they get in they might get something really sweet because it might be actually a pretty small group of people who are in this lottery for a million. So if it was intentional, I
Corey
11:06
I think it's a good lesson in how that just doesn't work in this day and age, and certainly not when you're doing something over Twitter or Facebook like this. If it was unintentional, you've
Corey
11:16
you've really got to think about the channels in the audience. I mean, this is communications fundamentals. What channels are you using? Who's looking at those channels? How are they going to react to all of it? And, you know, I just think it's unfortunate, because ultimately, what we are trying to do here is increase the vaccination rate in Alberta. And to stumble out of the gate like this, and to have a bit of a gaffe is not just embarrassing for the Premier's office, but I worry that it risks diluting the overall message that we're trying to get out here. Yeah.
Zain
11:46
You know, this is I'm glad you brought this up, Corey, because this is where I wanted to go with this discussion primarily, which was, you
Zain
11:53
you know, one would expect that if you have a vaccine hesitant or, you know, vaccine wait and see group that hasn't gotten their vaccine or first dose yet, that offering them a incentive in a limited pool would probably be the best way to get them in terms of an incentive strike rather than being like, oh, you're in a pool with literally millions of other people. people, right? Could that have been sellable, Carter? Like, would there have been a way that a premier could have announced a lottery without, like, massive blowback? Frankly, what I'm trying to ask is, could Jason Kenney have announced Jason Kenney's original announcement in a way that would have worked? Because that is actually, you know, I mean, we're not, you know, behavioral economists, but one would assume that would be a much better incentive for this vaccine-hesitant crowd to uh to get their vaccine could there have been a way carl carter i'll go to you first and cory i'll come to you thereafter could there have been a way that he he put this uh structure together both from a communications or strategy perspective uh for this limited audience people
Carter
12:55
yeah i mean they're not they're
Carter
12:57
they're not statistically geniuses right like the difference between um you know 70 what is there 100 000 people that need to get vaccinated to to get us over the top versus, you know, 2 million people that sign up. Like, no one's going to be thinking that way. The premier didn't gain... You don't think so? No one. You don't think so? Not a soul.
Carter
13:18
Not a single soul of the people who haven't been vaccinated right now were thinking, well, there goes my chances. You know, it's going to go from 1 in 150,000 now to 1 in 1.5 million. Oh, I'm not even going to bother because the chances are so slim. I mean, if that was the case, then they wouldn't, you know, they'd get their vaccination. vaccination because if they understand numbers then they would look at the numbers and reach the conclusion that getting vaccinated is a smart statistical play they don't understand it so asking people in general don't understand statistics people in general don't understand odds um you know the lottery is played i mean have you guys bought your lotto max tickets like it's going to be 70 million dollars people are buying that thing up left right and center 58 million extra millionaires being created. Everybody's buying a ticket thinking they've got a chance. Yeah, you got a chance. It's not a real chance, but people don't care what the chance is. It's just, it literally is the line from Dumb and Dumber. So you're saying I got a chance. That's it. That's all the people need to know. They just need to have a chance. So
Zain
14:21
So you're saying that it would not even been strategically wise for Kenny to try to thread that needle, so to speak, because
Zain
14:29
you feel like this, to your point, you're generalizing and I want people to know that you are generalizing, not calling everyone in the vaccine hesitant group. No, they're
Carter
14:35
they're all idiots. That's what I'm going with. But
Zain
14:38
But you're saying it wouldn't have been strategically advantageous to even try this program.
Carter
14:42
No, because there's a simpler message available to you. Always go with the simplest message. Always go with the message that is the most simple that will appeal to the most people. How many people are you talking about, Zane? I don't know if I agree with that.
Carter
14:55
Always go with the simplest message. It is textbook. book you can't go with the most complicated messages show me an advertisement with the most complicated message it
Carter
15:06
it doesn't even work with with with uh extremely expensive goods you
Carter
15:11
you always go with the simplest message which is why beer equals sex cars equal macho right like the themes that we've created in our advertising are simple themes because people understand simplicity i'm
Zain
15:26
i'm uh cory i want to ask you the original question i did carter but maybe before for that. Can you respond to Stephen on his assertion that this wasn't this wouldn't even be worthwhile for Kenny to try to thread this needle?
Corey
15:38
I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know if I agree with Carter at all. I do think that even though this is a group that almost by definition, is
Corey
15:47
is going to include some people who are not great at math and probability if they're worried about the downside risks and, and not the downside risks of COVID and be able to balance those things the reality is people in general are not good at intuiting numbers but they do understand the difference between big and small you know like one two many lots is is something that everybody can sort of understand and certainly when you know that you're very close to the end and the um you know it's just a couple of percents and you might be in that percent you might get it you think the odds are a little bit better and that's that's pretty exciting there could this this have worked could there a needle have been thread here um well
Corey
16:23
well that's there are kind of a couple of answers to that question could it have worked in the short term would it have caused problems in the long term is one that i'm most interested in here i think that there
Corey
16:34
there is probably a way he could have said this is so important this is not something where we want to be you know i think that's where you have multiple lotteries and you say yeah thank you so much if you were were involved in one of those lotteries before everybody's involved in a lottery for two million if you've done it now or if you do it in the next bit but we're doing an additional one million dollars for the group if
Corey
16:55
if they do it in the next seven days like this is your special incentive so it almost becomes like the marginal bump up right everybody's in a pool for two million those lucky of you uh who were you
Corey
17:07
know the the laggards here you get in that pool for an additional million i think that could have been sellable no
Carter
17:12
no it's not sellable no now
Corey
17:16
is it wise to sell it that way i think that ultimately the answer to that is still no because you're creating kind of a this is this is sort of part of the problem of you can win the day but you're creating a future problem for yourself i hate to say it we may end up in another pandemic at some point there will be other times governments need to encourage
Corey
17:34
encourage people strongly to take an action And if all of a sudden you think, well, if I just wait, they might give me some money, you've
Corey
17:41
you've got a different problem, right? So I don't think it was particularly, you know, it wouldn't have worked in kind of a long-term policy sense. I do think there are ways you could have threaded that needle.
Carter
17:54
Because I think that people might say, you know what, I wonder if there's another million coming for the 80th to the 85th percentile. I wonder what, you know, it creates a disincentive. And on top of that, you're still going to run into the problem that he ran into when he quickly announced the wrong contest yesterday. There's going to be a significant amount of outrage. And, you know, there's one thing that the, you know, the conservatives love to do, and that's own the libs. And I think that this could have been seen as, see, we're not even going to bother just to own the libs. I'm going to own, you know, we're going to look at all this outrage. Look at how angry they are. I'm just going to keep not getting vaccinated to own the libs. I think that that is a real concern. sir?
Corey
18:34
I think you say that's fine, but it's too important for us to get to 70%. I disagree about the 85%. Maybe I can hold out and get even more because the reality is we're
Corey
18:44
we're almost at 70 and 70 is the end of the line. Here we are in Alberta. Everything opens up at 70. So there's no reason to believe that there's going to be another incentive program coming down the line. And as a premier, you say, I understand, you know, and that's why you're in this lottery for two million dollars that's that's good money you know maybe it's five million even maybe it's just an additional two million uh for the person play with the numbers do whatever you want focus group it on that front but i think you can say it's
Corey
19:12
it's it's too important doesn't doesn't matter should they have done it earlier yeah absolutely but it's it's really important they do it now and if this is what it takes to encourage people to get vaccinated then that's a price i'm willing to pay and i think that's a price albertans are willing to pay i
Carter
19:25
i still think it's a much stronger message just to go with the simple message. You get your first dose, you're entered in. You get a second dose, you get a second entry. When everybody's vaccinated,
Carter
19:34
we give you a third entry. Everybody gets a chance. Everybody gets the ability to win million dollars. I think that that's a simpler message and simple messages win.
Zain
19:45
Corey, talk to me about creativity. You made a remark up front about perhaps giving them low marks on creativity. We know that lotteries have have started to become the incentive of choice across, well, the continent now, if I can say that. Many states are leaning towards lotteries outside of the few novel jabs for joints or burgers or whatever program. In terms of sizable action, it's become lotteries, even in the face of outright cash payments for getting a dose or 50 bucks or 100 bucks in certain areas. Talk to me about creativity. Where would you have kind of wanted to lean into? Is it creativity in the comms or creativity in the actual design of of what you saw in terms of the programming well
Corey
20:29
well i meant design and maybe that's not fair because maybe money is just the best incentive there's an awful lot of data out there now in the united states i haven't gone through it to see which incentive programs have been more successful i know that was ohio that
Corey
20:42
that had the incentive program yeah
Zain
20:43
yeah ohio started california's kind of jumped on california
Corey
20:46
like fifty thousand dollars or something right it's like lower amount i think you know everybody's sort of playing with different ones. And so obviously, you want to follow the best data. And if the best data says 1 million, well, then, what the hell do I know? And obviously, there's psychology to picking 1 million, because that's the first seven digit number. And there's still something to this notion of being a millionaire. So I guess on one hand, okay, right, sure. But that said, I think that there was an opportunity to construct it a bit differently. And in some ways, I'm sort of talking about what I was just talking about, you know, you can, you can provide different pools and different escalations and maybe early bird bonuses, right? You all got vaccinated earlier, so you get in the early bird bonus. And now we have kind of these late entries and
Corey
21:26
double or nothing if you bring a friend or I don't know. I mean, I think that there's some opportunities there. And the reason why I think that that might have been useful is
Corey
21:34
is not because I necessarily think it would have on its face made the program better, but it would have made the program slightly more newsworthy now that we've gone through a couple of these different incentive like cycles and part of what you're trying to do if you're the government here is get this message out there let everybody know that you get a million dollars like i in some ways i worry that this is not enough of a conversation starter because now we have seen vaccination programs and frankly a
Corey
21:59
a million dollars you can buy like a western 649 with a million dollar prize for like a buck or two bucks right i don't know i i'm not big on the western 649 lottery. But I just think that if you want to get people talking about it, you got to do something to get people talking about it. And in that sense, I would have probably leaned more on the construction of the plan than I would have on, you know, glitzy, flashy visuals
Corey
22:23
visuals or rebranding it in any sort of sense. But that's what I mean when I say missed opportunity on that front.
Zain
22:30
Carter, you got $3 million of vaccine incentive clay. What are you doing with it? If you're chief Chief of Staff to the Premier? If you're running the Premier's office, you're running the show, what are you doing with it? How are you molding it as an incentive structure for the populace?
Carter
22:44
Well, let me talk about what I wouldn't do. Because I think I've already outlined my, you know, one entry for the first dose, one entry for the second dose, one entry when we're all done.
Carter
22:52
That's what I would do. So
Carter
22:54
So let me tell you what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't do cash payments. I think that in general, people would much rather take a chance at a lot of money over a little bit bit of money um you know so guaranteed money
Carter
23:05
yeah so you're you're not going to take you know i'm going to give you 50 bucks to get a vaccination 50 bucks a lot of money 50 bucks buys you stuff um but you're still probably going to take it you know would you would you take this 50 bucks that you didn't have before 100
Carter
23:19
100 guarantee you're going to have 50 bucks or would you rather have something that you have as a a very small percentage chance of winning most people are going to take the very small percentage chance of winning because they have zero opportunity costs of kind of giving back you know like it's not money out of their own pocket so they didn't lose anything they're they're just gaining the opportunity of winning more so i think that that's why the lottery structure tends to win because there's there's this um inherent desire to gain something significant right um i
Carter
23:48
i think that that's probably you know i i would have i would have thrown out some different ideas too like um the home lotteries do really well in alberta maybe a home instead of a a million dollars maybe a million dollar house um to stimulate the to stimulate the uh house building industry that would have been interesting um you
Carter
24:07
you know with the lumber
Zain
24:08
lumber prices probably would have been a five million dollar home but exactly
Carter
24:10
exactly uh maybe uh maybe a downtown penthouse in calgary and a downtown penthouse in edmonton uh again to reinvigorate the downtown cores something on message maybe you could have done but really the simplest is, and I've been on a simple bandwagon here, the simplest is give us our million dollars. Give us a chance.
Zain
24:33
Corey, Carter, last question for you on this. Will it work? Will we get to 70% in the next couple of days with this incentive, you think?
Corey
24:40
Well, I wanted to wait for Carter so I could pick the opposite because that's what smart money does. But I think that it will The question is just with how much time, right? And will it escalate it? And the problem is we don't have a parallel universe where somebody is running kind of the control experiment where they didn't do this. So it's going to be tough to say one way or the other because maybe the numbers just hold. But without this, they would have gone down.
Corey
25:04
We'll get to 70%. It may take more time than we're comfortable with. There is good data coming out of these incentive programs elsewhere. I think economists everywhere rejoice in the dismal science is having a real win on these. And it's just a question of timing, and it will get there.
Carter
25:25
Yeah, I mean, we're going to go over 70%. That's no problem. I'm just quickly checking the doses today. I think we had 8
Carter
25:35
8,700 first doses. We're still under 10,000 doses, and at this rate, it's still going to take another 10 days to get there. So the question isn't, will we get over 70
Carter
25:47
70%? The question is, will we get over 70% before, you know, June
Carter
25:53
June the 20th? I mean, so we're on track to get over it by June the 22nd or something like that. You know, Jason Kenney, if he really wants to launch the stampede properly, he needs it to happen by the 18th.
Carter
26:06
18th. You know, by the end of this week, he needs to get over his 70%. And I don't
Carter
26:13
don't doubt it's going to get over that because it's really, really small numbers at this stage. But at the same time, it would not surprise me at all if we're doing the podcast next Sunday night and he still hasn't gotten over 70%.
Zain
26:26
Do you feel like you can, Carter, I'll ask the question that Corey answered earlier. Do you feel like he just moves on if he doesn't at some point? He's
Carter
26:31
He's already said he's going to redefine the parameters. He's going to use second doses all of a sudden to make up first doses. I mean, for me, this is, it's crazy. The east side of Calgary, all the way down from north to south, the east side of Calgary is not over 60% yet. It confuses the hell out of me. We're talking about 70% as though it's across the board. 20- to 30-year-olds are still stuck around 55%, and they're the ones that are going to be working the stampede, working at the restaurants, doing all of these things that are opening up. So it's beyond me that we're not looking for a more comprehensive 70%.
Zain
27:10
Let's leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment, our next segment, Dean of the Faculty Club. Corey, I want to talk to you about Justin Trudeau, and his G7 adventures, with Angela Merkel preparing to exit the international stage. The longest serving leader of the group of seven, well, it's Justin Trudeau, and he's pitching himself as the new elder statesman of the G7, despite the fact, of course, you got Joe Biden, former vice president and his years of experience, Emmanuel Macron, who spent much time positioning himself as the heir apparent to Merkel. But there's now been efforts to brand Justin Trudeau as the dean, quote unquote, of the the G7. He's been offering his services to help the U.K. and E.U. on trade dispute issues. He's been successfully assigned by Boris Johnson to lead high stakes discussions on China, a country that, let's just say, does not like him. I want to talk to you about the political strategy of this. Why do you think Justin Trudeau is trying to kind of lean into this position of global leadership leadership amongst the g7 uh and maybe let's start with the politics of it and the international politics or maybe even domestic politics of of the why and then let's then talk about the whether it's good strategy and good positioning or not and cory i want to go to you first on this yeah
Corey
28:26
yeah i mean there's there's two theories there's there's well
Corey
28:30
well look there's really only two reasons one is he wants an international job of some sort whether that is like as post prime minister in a corporate sense or uh you know at the un or something but the much more likely is
Corey
28:42
is simply that this helps him domestically he becomes uh he gets some shine internationally and that comes back to him in canada all of a sudden you can make claims like canada's back with a little bit more certainty it cuts at the knees the suggestion that aaron o'toole has that we we are somehow lacking in in status or authority and it's a bit of a it's a bit of a consolation prize after not getting the seat on the security council right it's it's a way that you can start rebuilding your reputation on the international front. I guess it goes back to all of this, all politics is local, right? And so
Corey
29:15
so why not? You're looking around and you're saying, hey, I've been here longer than everybody. Now, it's interesting because six years to become an elder statesman, not even six years, right? We're at five and change. That's probably pushing the definition of elder statesman a bit. I think it would be a much different situation if he had been prime minister for 12 years, 13 years, people would actually look to him for what was going on around here. But the suggestion that the guy who's been there for six years is carrying all of the knowledge, especially the six years that they were, is a bit unlikely. And I was kind of a little embarrassed as a Canadian to hear that there was a bit of a push to, for example, intervene being in in kind of uk uh eu conversations it's like all right uh that's in theory something that we could be doing as a country but in in practice that's we're not the people you're going to be turning to right now and um it just also more than anything just tells you the turnover at the g7 lately how how quickly it's been it reminds me of how i don't know not even three years into to being the deputy of communications in Alberta, I was the dean of the deputies of communications across the country. It didn't mean anything. It just meant there was a lot of crazy turnover. And that's more how he's ended up in this position. So I certainly wouldn't be, I
Corey
30:36
I wouldn't be carrying it around like it's a big, big deal if I was the prime minister. Yeah,
Zain
30:40
Yeah, it's not like some sort of, you know, a coalition that is formed amongst his peers to be like, oh, you know, the next wisest in the line or the next sort of seasoned in the order. Carter, talk to me about the why. Corey talks about the international side. He talks about the domestic side. Do you agree with that? Is there a third wave? What could this be? Tell me the why.
Carter
31:01
No, I think that the why is simple. I think the why is, you know, as Corey was saying, this helps Justin Trudeau tell a story. The story is that Canada's back and Canada's a leader and Canada's going to achieve great things under his leadership. And for a subsection of the, especially the liberal voter, I think that that really has resonance. I think that there's, you know, there's a longing to go back to the Lester Pearson days of Canadian influence. But, you know, I just don't think that that's what's happening. I think that it looked like a, you know, it looked weak, frankly. you know it doesn't look strong when you know you appear to be asking to lead leadership is something that is thrust upon you not something that you ask to do and if the other G7 nations wanted him to be the leader he'd be the leader he wouldn't have to talk about it people would be writing articles of all the great things he's done how you know Boris Johnson invited him into these problems how the issue of Brexit could still be discussed and Justin Trudeau alone has the answers or you know what that little israel palestine issue that continues to dog uh the world you know justin trudeau would be invited in he's not being invited into anywhere he's not being invited in to you know to to uh discuss
Carter
32:21
discuss our petty little problems let alone the petty little problems uh of the world so i i i just don't see this i didn't i don't like it and And I don't think it's a good play.
Corey
32:33
Corey, you want to jump in here?
Corey
32:34
Well, there's a couple of things. One is that in the G7, Canada is the smallest economy, just barely behind Italy. And Canada is the smallest population. So we're also not like a natural leader in the G7. There's a reason everybody turns to the United States, right? But the other thing is international leadership does not come from seniority. It doesn't come just from having been there the longest. and i think that's that's the thing that that i think makes people cringe a little bit about this it's like well just because you've been here the longest does not actually make you the best suited to deal with this particular matter yeah
Carter
33:09
yeah think of your own office place right
Carter
33:11
right someone's been there for 26 years you're not asking that person to be the leader right that person may be you know one of the junior staff in fact the fact that they've been there for 26 years doesn't make them senior that's
Carter
33:23
that's not the way that we promote people that's not the way we ask people to lead so this is and and the person you know what is this an episode of the office except it's being done um you know with international leaders where you know oh angela's leaving i'm going to take over says michael scott i mean that's what it feels like to me weird
Zain
33:45
weird mixture of analogies but i'll take it carter i like it's a really good
Carter
33:47
good analogy i think
Zain
33:49
think angela merkel would have been okay on the office i would have watched a season of that um so
Zain
33:53
so then all this being said cory good Good positioning, bad positioning. Like, there seemed to be a deliberate effort here, which is why I'm bringing this up from as a strategy play. Like, there seemed to be at least a back channel or a media relations effort to be like, you're a new leader, right? Like, just nudging it along, being like, oh, just by the way, Angela's leaving, you know, Trudeau. And it seems to be rebuked, like, largely. Like, people off the record, senior officials to other leaders are saying, nope, that's not happening. That's not who we look to for moral or other types of leadership at this international stage. age. So, you know, talk to me about whether you think this is good positioning or not, and even necessary positioning for Trudeau.
Corey
34:32
You know what? I think it actually could have been fine domestic positioning if he hadn't actually done anything at the G7. Now, that might sound a little counterintuitive, but the fact that he attempted it and he failed is what could potentially come and bite him. If it had just been a conversation that was more to the Canadian media when he was back in Canada, like, well, you know, Justin Trudeau is now the longest there. That actually is something that you can take as almost a bit of a soundbite. And it also reinforces the notion of stability and this can move forward, which is not so unhelpful for you as you start talking about a post-COVID world, really depending on what your election platform is. Strangely, I'm not sure stability is really in line with this notion that it's the moment to change the future for the better, quote unquote, right? That said, the minute you kind of throw Throw that out there and somebody says, thanks, no thanks, you're done. It's toast. You can't, you know, it now becomes almost the other thing. Now Aaron O'Toole could use these lines in an attack ad. And so that's the unfortunate thing for the liberals. Yeah,
Zain
35:31
Yeah, Carter, it seemed like a risky strategy for, maybe I'm wrong, but not much domestic upside. What do you think of the positioning play that they tried to make here?
Carter
35:39
I think it was a tremendous amount of risk for very marginal gain. Like there's a subset of the liberal voter who may be interested in it. But overall, I would say that it's not a very big section at all. Not a very big section at all.
Zain
35:55
Carter, I'll stick with you for a second before I close off with Corey on this, which is what would you have tried to do here? Like, what would you have tried to position if you were helping Trudeau? Would you have suggested you try to make an international play at all? Or would you have gone along Corey's lines of being like, yeah, this may be not a horrible play, but the way we do it is not us back channeling or you saying anything, but you just going, looking competent, coming back and soundbiting it thereafter. What would you have tried to suggest if that was an active conversation you were involved in? let's
Carter
36:24
let's have a really good g7 you
Carter
36:26
know let's let's have a really solid g7 let's look the part let's make sure that we you know get a fucking haircut um like look good uh you
Carter
36:36
know the the the cameras of the world were pointed at him and he's done very very well when he's been the sex symbol prime minister why can't he just be the sex symbol prime minister it's a role that works it works here at home and now he's trying to change his role and i mean changing your brand is is problematic and people don't like their brand sometimes i don't think this prime minister likes his brand but it's the brand that he's got and it's working right now and he's up against aaron o'toole jagmeet singh uh go for it man you i
Carter
37:07
think that he's got enough in the in the brand tank
Corey
37:12
yeah i don't know about that i don't know if his 2015 brand will work in 2021 and i think he knows Which is why he's now trying to establish some more durability behind it. And I don't think this was about internationalist
Corey
37:24
internationalist voters in the Liberal Party. I think this was about providing some sort of validation
Corey
37:29
validation of the Liberal plan and the idea that Canada is a relevant force. Because I do think Canadians are a little bit worried about Canada's place in the world.
Corey
37:38
Not necessarily because we'd love to sit there at the Security Council. But because there's this constant question as to in a world that is so much more multipolar. Well, let's even use the G7 for an example. The only reason Canada is really on the G7 is because decades ago, the United States wanted another North American country there to sort of counterbalance this, you know, this Atlantic group. And it just made sense that Canada would be part of it. And obviously, we are a very large economy. The idea that we almost have the same GDP as Italy, you know, we have far fewer people than Italy. Our
Corey
38:14
Our GDP is about the same as Russia's last time I checked, you know, we're not an insignificant nation. And sometimes I think we sell ourselves short. But I do want to stress, we're now in a world where, you
Corey
38:24
know, China is one of the great powers. There are countries like Brazil, India, that have significant economic and people power. And it sort of is pushing us out of some of these bigger conversations. conversations. Carter mentioned Mike
Corey
38:38
Mike Pearson back in the 50s and the Suez crisis. Well, that
Corey
38:42
that was a wholly different time for a lot of different reasons, not least of which is it was right after the Second World War. And there were basically four functioning armies, and we happened to have one of them left after all of that was said and done, right? But now
Corey
38:56
now here we are. Now here we are as a country of 35 million people that used to be much richer than the rest of the world, That's far less the case. And we're sort of feeling a bit lost. And there are questions as to what does it mean to be Canadian? And do Canadians actually lead?
Corey
39:13
And look, I don't think this is an existential conversation that's going on in households across the country. country but when you are an incumbent government and you are facing an election and you worry about these things and you worry about how you can shore yourself up and
Corey
39:30
i think that's what was going on here i just think it was done a little bit too eagerly and uh as a result we had a couple of doors shut in our faces let's
Zain
39:39
let's move it on to our final segment our over under and our lightning round steven carter are you ready i
Carter
39:46
i am always ready i'm i'm ecstatic well well
Zain
39:49
well the only there's only one way to show that you're ready uh
Zain
39:52
uh the over under in the lightning round music steven carter laid on us it's
Carter
39:56
it's the lightning round it's the over under lightning round it's the lightning round did you
Zain
40:03
you like that no
Zain
40:04
no it's fine it's fine it's fine uh steven you
Carter
40:06
you know what you gotta stop asking me for this shit because it's gonna it's gonna get worse no
Zain
40:10
no corey's gonna have some good editing time tonight he's gonna he's gonna be totally fine uh with some of this editing i want to spend a bit of time on some of these subjects steven carter but let's start here over overrated or underrated the air canada execs are now voluntarily returning their bonus now you may forget steven carter that we had to deploy uh ai steven carter to respond to this story last time we recorded this episode uh so i want you to be consistent and i know that's super important for you uh but is this overrated or underrated that uh the air canada execs are returning their bonuses
Carter
40:46
it's overrated the the the sin is is always greater than the apology and uh that's what's happened here is that the the the
Carter
40:54
the mistake made by the uh by
Carter
40:57
by the air canada executives will not be undone simply by giving the money back they had too many weeks of bad publicity and now they're giving back the money, who the hell cares? You know what? You took it in the first place. You did wrong in the first place.
Zain
41:10
Corey, it would be only fair if I asked the chief programming officer of the Stephen Carter AI yourself to give me an answer on overrated or underrated on the Air Canada execs voluntarily returning their bonus as the Stephen Carter AI, please.
Corey
41:29
please. No, no, no, no. Look, when we talk about this particular matter, I think it's it's it's just it was a given and the minute it happened they had to do it they had to do it the minute this all went down it became a situation where they were going to have to eat a bit of crow and i i believe they basically what they did was defend their people which was the nice thing and the right thing to do as as leaders in a corporate setting where they said we as executives we're we're going to give it back but we're not going to take it back from our management cohort which i don't think they would have had to do under the guidelines anyhow but the um uh you know the
Corey
42:05
lived to fight in other days, not even right. They lost. They lost entirely and they had to reverse themselves. And hopefully they're smarter going forward on these matters. Corey,
Zain
42:14
Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this next one. Overrated or underrated, the political strategy of Jagmeet Singh demanding Justin Trudeau drop the legal battle against First Nations children and survivors of residential schools. You know, he is seeming to have a a decent week, making some upticks in the polls, making that impassioned speech in London on the heels of the tragic death of four members of a Muslim family. So he's also kind of gaining some speed here and some traction on this. But on the political strategy, and I hate to kind of make it so crass, but that's what we talk about here, overrated, underrated, him asking the prime minister to drop the legal battle against First Nations children and survivors.
Corey
42:57
think it's smart, because in addition to it being the right thing to do, and this falls into that bucket of things we were talking about a while ago, where the public service will give you 100 quote unquote good reasons why not to do something. And sometimes you have to say, yeah, but it's right. And I understand it, it opens us up to all sorts of liabilities here, there and other places. But sometimes governments just need to act morally and let the chips fall where they may. So in addition to it being good, I think it also is a bit of a subtle reminder that Justin Trudeau came in in 2015 talking
Corey
43:33
talking a big game about reconciliation, talking about a different relationship between indigenous peoples and settlers and the descendants of settlers. And I think that's something that is just one example of many that Justin Trudeau, his 2015 brand, is probably going to – it faces some tarnishing. You know, I mean, let's even say, setting aside the obvious of things like blackface, right? Yep, yep, yep. It's, you know, this real change, this hopiness. It doesn't really work when you're the six-year incumbent, right? Right. And so I
Corey
44:12
I think it makes an awful lot of sense there, too. But can we can we sort of talk about Jagmeet Singh for a second? Because I think I think
Corey
44:19
think he's he's kind of having a bit of a low key good spring summer right now. And you mentioned some polling that is going his way. But but more than that, we
Corey
44:30
we talked about the Green Party last
Corey
44:32
last election or last time. And we talked about the
Corey
44:36
the liberals sort of turning to the Greens and saying, this is important, that might not actually be of benefit to them. Well, if the Greens aren't going to be benefactors of that, I think the NDP could. And every time the, well, when the Greens suffer, the NDP tend to capture a fair bit of that vote. And a total overhauling of kind of the landscape between the Greens and the NDP and the Liberals might actually be more to the NDP's advantage than to the Liberals, notwithstanding one MP going over that way. So it
Corey
45:08
it will be very interesting to see where things go over the next bit for Singh. But I think Jagmeet has reason for cautious optimism and just don't screw it up. Yeah,
Zain
45:22
Yeah, Carter, I want to ask you the political strategy question as well, the one I originally asked Corey, but to substantiate his point, right? Like, two polls this week had the NDP up a half a dozen points above its 2019 popular vote total. You know, while it remains tough in Quebec for Jagmeet Singh, which is going to be a, you know, riding by riding level liability for, you know, his party and him. him um and and obviously the the ndp are making provincial gains across the country you know ontario manitoba alberta we can always talk about the the cousin relationship that they share there and how that's not a direct uh correlation to that point carter the political strategy here for for for jagmeet singh um would you um would you would you say it's overrated or underrated that he's demanding justin trudeau drop the legal battle against first nations children and survivors well
Carter
46:13
i want to break it into two two halves because i i think you have to look at the political tactic of the demand and and standing up for those who um have been so aggrieved um
Carter
46:26
that that makes sense to me that makes sense to me i think that the the you know uh to cory's point uh justin trudeau came in speaking a big game he has not been able to deliver and uh jagmeet singh has has come in and said and on top of that of course we're all still reeling from the the 215 um you know bodies found uh there's no nice way of putting it uh in a mass you know at the Kamloops residential school that is um that's the back story and and so for him the political move was probably pretty wise um the
Carter
47:04
the I think the advantage of being the NDP is you don't have have to worry about being in government, right? You're not aiming to be government after this next election. You're aiming to be in a perfect world. You're going to hopefully get to be propping up a minority government and therefore having a lot of power. So you can make demands like this. You know, you can make demands that the government of Canada stop fighting this. I'm not sure that in the practicalities of governance, the government of Canada can just simply walk away from this lawsuit. So I think that I have to look at it from both sides. I think for him, it's probably a wise political play, because he doesn't have to worry about ever being the government. Corey's made this distinction a couple of times when we've been talking about O'Toole and his relationship with China, right? If you think you're going to be the prime minister, you have to be careful about what you're saying about China. And I don't, you know, I think Corey said very well, and very clearly, he hasn't had, you know, he hasn't been doing that. He's been been taking what we call, you know, like the short political win. Singh took the short political win on this. And I think that that worked out pretty
Carter
48:10
pretty well. I mean, it worked out pretty well, because he's probably not going to be the guy who then has to, you know, maintain the case for the government of Canada, because the case needs to be maintained. Carter,
Zain
48:20
Carter, I need to ask you a quick follow up on this on the Singh question. Do you feel like he's finally, perhaps through some of his actions and his poll bump, acknowledged that he's not going going to be government? I know that's such an elementary question, but, you know, they say that you play a bit freer when you know that you're not necessarily going to reach a certain land, but you're in it for a very specific reason, which is, you know, to maintain the balance of power, to, you know, try to get the policy wins that you can and force the government to do. Do you feel like that there may have been a sense of acknowledgement, even on an internal basis? I know we can never know from Jagmeet Singh that he may not be playing for the top, but certainly could be playing for a very different prize?
Carter
48:56
I think, in fact, it's the opposite, Zain. I think that maybe he's he's thinking oh my goodness it looks like we're not going to be annihilated um
Carter
49:02
um i can now have a little bit more freedom uh
Carter
49:05
uh to say the things i want to say and to do the things that i want to do and ironically those things that he's doing and saying now that he's been relieved of the stress of will i be annihilated are
Carter
49:14
are making him stronger um
Carter
49:17
i i don't think that he ever labored under the you know the the premise that he was going to be the next prime minister of of Canada. I don't think that any NDP leader since, what was it, 84 with Broadbent? It goes back. I don't think any NDP leader has had that dream per se.
Zain
49:41
Carter, I'm going to stick with you for our next one. Overrated or underrated, we talked about tarnishing political brands. The political issue or the political downside for Aaron O'Toole, that he was one of the MPs opposing the 2017 motion to condemn Islamophobia, overrated or underrated, that he was one of the MPs to oppose the motion to condemn Islamophobia in 2017.
Carter
50:11
think, sadly, it's overrated. I think that we have the collective attention span of Nats and remembering his votes in that particular era. I mean, of course, the media will dig them up. They'll make him say something to it. But I believe Michelle Rempel-Garner today apologized for some of their earlier positions vis-a-vis the cultural hotline and a couple of other hot-button issues that the Conservatives have taken to try and win over votes, primarily in Quebec, that never materialized. So apologizing for something that didn't work seems to make sense. But, you know, I just don't think that this is going to be the defining moment for O'Toole that maybe Trudeau and team would want. I think that we're still getting to know O'Toole and the past behaviors, the past votes aren't going to be as meaningful as his current behavior. And maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't remember past votes ever being a thing that just absolutely haunted someone. You know, did Dion vote on something that really branded him? No, he was branded by his actions. And Ignatieff, you know, there were no votes to be branded on. He was branded on that returning to Calgary or returning to Canada. I'm just trying to think of votes that have really hurt
Carter
51:37
hurt someone in the federal stage. I'm sure there's some example somewhere provincially, but I can't think of anything at the federal level.
Zain
51:45
Corey Carter says overrated in terms of the damage to O'Toole as being one of the MPs opposing a 2017 motion to condemn Islamophobia. What do you think, overrated, underrated?
Corey
51:56
I think it's – I don't think it's going to ultimately matter too, too much, because I think that Aaron O'Toole will be able to point to a couple of things and say, well, that's why. And the most obvious is that every – I think every conservative except Chong voted against the motion. I
Zain
52:15
conservatives, if I'm not mistaken. If I'm not mistaken,
Corey
52:19
All right. And then the other one is, if you look at the motion of the text, it wasn't just about condemning Islamophobia. It was also then collecting data about hate crimes and conducting needs assessments and impacted communities and a bunch of other things. And I think you can make a conservative case that, yes, absolutely, we condemn Islamophobia, but we weren't looking to – like, I'd have to go through the motion again and understand it. But I'll bet you anything you can find a kind of a principled conservative reason that would say this is why we didn't support it, because I'm assuming that's why they didn't vote for it in the first place. But I have to go back and look at perhaps Hansard, which sounds really dull. I'm not sure I want to do that.
Corey
52:59
i i think he'll be able to to give enough contextualization about that to get out of any any real real challenges there and um and ultimately stephen's right because we live in a system we're not the united states where every vote's a free vote and even the united states is not the united states anymore when you when you ride or die with a political party you you get a little bit more uh of a free ride uh
Zain
53:22
uh next two questions about uh the the political damage here for liberals. Let me ask you first, Corey, two senior military leaders went golfing with the former chief of defense staff, General Jonathan Vance last week, while he was at this while he's at the center of a military police investigations for allegations for inappropriate behavior involving female subordinates. Let me do my scale to one to 10. How bad is this for the liberals? Corey?
Corey
53:48
Well, I don't know how bad it is for the liberals. It depends on their response. It's certainly something they are now going to have to lean into even more. But fucking unreal yeah
Corey
53:56
and it really does speak to kind of a a very casual culture about these things in the armed forces the the the notion that the person who at least in theory is responsible for overseeing this or can direct charges uh would be out on the links with fans jesus i mean it's just these these people what what are they even thinking here and uh and now the challenge The challenge for the liberals becomes how do you respond as liberals? How do you say, all
Corey
54:23
all right, clearly, we've got a problem here. And I think that one of the obvious ones would be to change the oversight of the quasi judicial process, say, okay, well, clearly, you are not responsible for that anymore. Because if I'm not mistaken, this is something that's actually been pointed out in the past, as a potential, you know, maybe this individual shouldn't have that response, maybe no one role should have that responsibility the way it's defined. fine so now is your now's your time to fix it fix it right now uh and uh and slap these generals down pretty firmly carter
Zain
54:55
carter maybe i'll ask you a slightly different question i want to get your thoughts on this but cory's opening up like how much slack should should we have for minister sajan on this like it's been several years that he's had this singular portfolio um is it just that the rot is so deep or is this a political mismanagement here and i know that's maybe not an entirely fairly fair question, but I want to get your thoughts on this, especially in the light of this story where one of the senior officers who golfed with Vance quite literally has the power over military police investigations.
Carter
55:25
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a
Carter
55:27
a reasonable expectation problem if you're the conservatives trying to make hay out of this. Is it reasonable to expect that the Minister of Defense is going to have to inform his staff or inform the military not to to play golf with the person that they're investigating it just doesn't feel like that's a reasonable thing that the minister has to do this is fucking common sense this is this is um
Carter
55:53
it's beyond embarrassed like you
Carter
55:55
know like to imagine that you're sat down your staff meeting and they're saying you know someone was just fired from the organization for embezzling six million dollars did at that staff meeting does the manager have to say guys the
Carter
56:09
the you know i don't want want you going for lunch with this guy right like you don't go for lunch with this guy you know please don't do that i mean and don't golf with them and don't go for coffees i mean you'd have to go through a whole list i mean this is this is fucking common sense and for whatever reason common sense has left the canadian military in certain areas and it needs to just be brought back um i did like the idea of shifting it around changing the responsibilities uh who is investigating this um maybe that needs to change i mean maybe
Carter
56:42
maybe it could be the rcmp but i'm told that they're still investing jason kenney's uh leadership from three years ago so their hands might be a little bit full so i don't know i don't know who to go to there's there's a lot of problems in the institutions of canada a lot of problems in the institutions of canada and someone needs to wake up grab all those problems and shake the shit out of the leadership in order to get them done.
Zain
57:04
Stephen Carter, Corey, do you want to jump in there before I jump? I
Corey
57:07
I completely agree. This is this is common sense. And for that reason, it's
Corey
57:12
it's not going to be something they
Corey
57:14
they should have seen in advance, they being the liberals, right? But now let's see the reaction, and they'll be judged on the reaction.
Zain
57:20
Yeah, the Prime Minister is thus far sidestepped. And so John's office is still, you know, waiting to comment, just acknowledging that certain individuals did go golfing with Vance thus far. That's all we necessarily have thus far.
Zain
57:33
Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this, and I'm going to give you the 1 to 10 scale on, is this a real scandal? 1, no, not a real scandal. Zane, shut up. Why'd you ask the question? 10, a huge major scandal. Two political aides to Federal National Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador at taxpayers' expense amid the pandemic and spent part of their time on the the island door knocking for the provincial liberals during the province's recent election campaign on a scale of one zane what the fuck are you doing asking me this question this is not a real scandal to 10 it's a pretty big deal what is stephen carter giving that well
Carter
58:09
first i'm disappointed that you're starting the scale at one it starts
Zain
58:12
starts at one we
Carter
58:12
we had we had always started we had an understanding it was going to start at zero from now on um
Zain
58:19
we are open to a polling sponsor this this uh we are open just we should say to a polling sponsor to uh to sponsor the about gets. Stephen Carter, you're saying it's a four. I'm
Carter
58:26
I'm saying it's a four. And the reason it's a four is that it does get some bad press. It's a stupid thing to get caught doing. But the staff traveling there, I'm sure they had other reasons. If they traveled there just to door knock at taxpayers expense, that
Carter
58:43
would be offensive. That would be something that would be a full scale scandal. But I'm sure they had other reasons to be there. On their night off, they went door are knocking um political staff doing political things isn't scandalous cory
Zain
58:56
cory one to ten for you what do you think i
Corey
59:00
think a four is probably pegging it about right maybe i would say a five simply because we don't necessarily have some of the details stephen was saying i guess i want to stress that in non-pandemic times how very common this is right political staff
Corey
59:13
staff who work for ministers going and the minister in fact and frank i'll just be blunt quite often finding excuses to go somewhere that they want to do political activity in because it's stuff they need to do like it's something related to their portfolio it was going to be done in the next three months so why not do it now and then hey when we're there in the evening why don't we go do our politics right i
Corey
59:34
will say that if they were doing that a little and if they were gaming it a bit and this was not necessarily a really compelling reason to be in newfoundland uh with the minister maybe didn't need to be staffed so heavily maybe the minister could have had that done by zoom
Corey
59:49
that's why i give it a five i think like let's see some of those details where it comes out i'm sure people are all over it now uh but assuming that they were just there and
Corey
59:59
and assuming that um that
Corey
1:00:02
that everything is as it seems then yeah i mean it will be very embarrassing i'm sure there'll be some sort of staff censure where they'll say that was the wrong thing to do and maybe the minister will say it was very wrong of me to allow them to do that or i was aware and i should have known better and and I should have told them no.
Corey
1:00:17
don't think it goes any further than that. But we
Corey
1:00:20
we just don't have the details. And the thing I will say is, it's
Corey
1:00:23
it's common, which means people are sometimes casual about it, which means sometimes they push those rules further than they should. And certainly in a pandemic, if they're doing that, they're going to get burned for it.
Zain
1:00:33
Corey, I'm going to end the segment with this final question, overrated or underrated. At her convention speech last week, Rachel Notley said that the Alberta NDP, she pledged that the the Alberta NDP would adopt universal childcare with or without the federal government?
Zain
1:00:48
Overrated or underrated as a political strategy for you as we kind of boomerang back home with the final question?
Corey
1:00:54
Well, so here's why I think it makes sense to put it like that, right? Because you don't want to be looking like you're just getting too cozy with Justin Trudeau and your major policy plank requires the support of a Trudeau government, which is still not particularly popular in in alberta right so makes sense good framing i suppose in that context a
Corey
1:01:13
a little funny though i mean like it it's kind of this tough guy it's it's like if somebody came up to me and said hey uh you know what i think we should split the price of this lunch we just had and
Corey
1:01:26
and uh and then i said well i am going to pay for this lunch with or without your support it's like well they've already said they're going to pay for half the lunch right like you you don't get you don't get the tough guy credit you think you did you don't get the generosity credit you think you did when you already know that money is there um so i understand why it was done i think it makes an awful lot of sense in the context of alberta's politics i i you know i just it's it is funny when you think about it that's
Corey
1:01:52
that's what i'll say carter
Zain
1:01:54
carter overrated or underrated as a political strategy rachel notley um saying
Zain
1:01:58
saying the ndp to adopt universal child care with or
Zain
1:02:01
or without the federal government i
Carter
1:02:03
i think it's overrated i think the first half of the sentence is the part that really matters. They're
Carter
1:02:06
They're committed to universal child care. That's the part that matters. And that's the part that will be emphasized. How they pay for it, who pays for it, who they're partnering with, I don't think really matters.
Zain
1:02:19
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 934 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.