Episode 965: Six simple rules for managing my teenage pandemic

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 965. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's going on? Carter, thank you for learning how to finally use technology.

Carter 0:12

It was weird, because I set up the microphone the exact same way I always set up the microphone, and it did not work. And now I'm angry. I've got some anger issues.

Corey 0:19

Your parents talking about the VCR, you know, time? I

Carter 0:22

I know, right? Like, if every time, like, I can use most of the technology that I have. Sure you can,

Carter 0:29

yeah. Most of it. I

Zain 0:30

I have a question based on this. Was the tape rewinder, you know, the subclinical, was that, okay, number one, overrated or underrated?

Corey 0:40

Underrated. If you rented a lot of movies, it was underrated.

Zain 0:43

Yeah. Number two, was that a luxury

Zain 0:46

luxury or was that a necessity? I've always struggled with that. Totally

Carter 0:51

luxury. Luxury for sure, because you could still just use your VCR to rewind. Yeah, but

Corey 0:56

but like rewinding a two-hour movie took time. so if you finished a movie and you

Zain 1:01

did you guys ever have

Zain 1:03

i forget the place that you needed to rent from for this to apply it may have been one of those late-breaking video rental places but if you didn't rewind the movie you got charged extra oh yeah it's like every place is that really a thing

Corey 1:17

it takes time yeah

Zain 1:20

okay so then wait if you did is that a thing that was at every place you

Zain 1:25

you had to rewind rewind i

Zain 1:26

thought that was some northeast thing that they just tried to extract money from us just like

Zain 1:31

hey you people you guys have a history of not like the

Zain 1:36

end of video most of the stuff we would watch was these like seven hour bollywood movies so you could imagine that'd be half our day the next day to

Zain 1:42

rewind that film which

Zain 1:44

which is why i asked it

Corey 1:45

it was near the end of video where they started saying like you don't have to rewind you know it's

Zain 1:49

it's a big breakthrough

Carter 1:50

big breakthrough through because they were able to use the videotape rewinders themselves um cory

Zain 1:59

cory uh if one is reading a margaret atwood book uh and let's just say they stop at a particular page are they putting that bookmark on that page or the next page and i need you to answer this because this is part of your ongoing war with the internet but uh tell me where you're at

Corey 2:15

so if you read a book you get to the end of a page and that would necessitate you flipping If you were going to continue reading, say it's the end of a chapter, you put the bookmark on the page you haven't read yet.

Carter 2:28

And I don't know why you

Corey 2:29

you are taking such a strong stance to the opposite.

Carter 2:32

Let me add further, right? Even when you're in the middle, like the page is open, you are marking the next page, not the one you just read. You're marking the right

Corey 2:42

right-hand page. There are two sides to a bookmark. I couldn't understand people on the internet being like, well, what if it's just at the end of an even number page? Well, then you flip your bookmark around. I'm

Carter 2:51

I'm actually— You're clearly indicating which page you need to read next.

Carter 2:56

People go back and do it twice. Do people listen to the podcast twice? That's ridiculous. Once is—

Corey 3:00

is— I don't think they listen to it once. I don't

Zain 3:04

Do you think after three minutes on Taperwinders, they're listening at all, Carter? I hope not. It keeps me out of trouble.

Zain 3:10

It sure does. does um maybe

Zain 3:13

maybe we should heed

Corey 3:14

heed that advice for future episodes thank you carter uh

Zain 3:16

uh here's why you're wrong okay number one uh i have never uh read a book in multiple sittings of course i finished every book i finished what every book in a single sitting because it's called discipline uh but if i if i ever had a lack of discipline or if i ever uh had a lack of commitment which which seems like many people do with their unfortunate upbringings. What I would do is I'd put the bookmark on the page I just finished. Why? Because I imagine that the people who need multiple sittings to read a book probably have a very low attention span, probably don't grasp knowledge, probably need a refresher or reminder in terms of what they just read the next time they crack open that book six months later, which is why you leave it on the page you just read as a bit of a preview it's like the previously on the west wing and then you read that page and then you just go on to the next page carter so a couple of

Corey 4:12

of things for you here everyone

Corey 4:14

skips the previously on the west wing that

Zain 4:16

not true at all that's

Zain 4:18

never seen the west wing

Corey 4:20

all second thing here

Corey 4:22

um only only kind of chumps who forgot their brain medicine need to worry about such such things. And

Carter 4:28

And we're also not

Corey 4:28

not just talking about

Carter 4:29

about graphic novels, right? Like, these are actual books, right? With real words on every page, right? So the graphic novel does not count. I mean, sitting down and reading a comic book, an Archie in one sitting is acceptable. But most books require more than one sitting. Let

Zain 4:46

Let me tell you guys something. For Christmas this year, I'm going to send both of you a copy of the Quran. You will not want to put it down. There'll be no bookmarks. You will read that cover to cover. You

Carter 4:54

You will ingest that like it's your own. Let's Is there a more appropriate Christmas gift than the Quran? Like, seriously?

Carter 5:01

It's a perfect gift.

Zain 5:02

I love it. I should start doing that. Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, our sponsorship review. Guys, we do this every year. Oh, yes, it is time. Corey Hogan, our sponsor of Flair Airlines.

Zain 5:16

actually. Sorry. Yes, that's right. I keep on forgetting to mention that to the audience. When I say our sponsor of Flair Airlines, I mean we are sponsoring Flair Airlines. it's a it's a program we started a while ago right carter yeah

Carter 5:27

yeah i mean uh we did it with blackberry we uh we did it with blockbuster i mean i'm happy to be doing it now

Zain 5:36

flare let's here's how our sponsorship was codec codec you know big sponsor

Zain 5:42

on before you start here

Corey 5:43

here yeah please are we really gonna do vcr rewinding bookmarks and then flare airlines as as kind of the uh top of our show oh yeah

Zain 5:51

yeah this is good yeah we are okay

Zain 5:53

goal is singular. Is there anything going on in politics or society right now? There really isn't. I have nothing to talk about.

Zain 6:00

Jesus. Carter, are you going to pay the

Carter 6:03

I'd love to pay the vax tax, except I am vaccinated. Okay.

Zain 6:07

You know, we are a podcast that reveals the strategy behind political decisions, but we are also more than happy to, let's just say, Carter, open the kimono and give people an inside look in terms of how our sponsorship deal with Slater Airlines is structured. It's very simple. Without them knowing, we just mention them a lot on the program. And then once a year, we give them strategic advice on their ongoing marketing and communications campaigns. Why, Stephen Carter? Because we can. Because that's what we do. Yeah, that's what we do. And the fine folks at Flair Airlines with their, I assume, CEO, because we've never met them. We don't go that high. Actually, we never communicate with them. With their CEO, have put out this one-minute-long video where they read mean tweets. tweets, and Stephen Carter, there are many to select from about Flair Airlines. Take a listen to this.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

threw out my back flying in that tiny ass Flair Airlines plane. Have

Corey 7:02

Have they seen the size of this thing?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

For the love of all things holy, Flair Airlines, do not force people to listen to blaring funk music after a red eye so you flight attendants can make TikToks. Get over yourself. self.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Flair Air never ceases to run late. L-M-F-A-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O. Well, I

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I mean, we do run late from time to time. It's a fair comment. We need to get better.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Do you allow flight attendants to have tasteful tattoos? Sure, do what you want. Be yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

One could also say that if you're booking with Flair Airlines, you're doing it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Don't throw your money away. Fly with any other the airline throw your money away on 800 bucks one way from calgary to toronto yeah loser i

SPEAKER_00 7:46

got food poisoning on a flare airlines flight and the crew was great well it wasn't from our food that's for sure we don't have any okay

Zain 7:54

so this guy carter we assume he's the ceo yeah we don't really know we don't know i mean it's who is it we thought it was mr flair some guy with a big with a rick Ric Flair was CEO of Flair Airlines.

Zain 8:06

Ric Flair would have done this better. The Nature Boy is not the CEO, which actually makes me regret our sponsorship because I was

Zain 8:14

was told that there was a Ric Flair connection here. So it turns out Ric Flair is not the CEO of Flair Airlines. It's this guy. And Corey, he's reading these mean tweets. He seems to be getting mean to the tweeters, which I don't think is the point. He's also leaning into the corporate brand we've helped them develop, which is that they're a shitty airline. airline um

Zain 8:35

cory your initial take uh as part of our annual sponsorship review where we provide marketing communications advice to our sponsor of the mean tweets video by our friends at flare airlines well

Corey 8:45

well you know i think this is evidence that mean tweets has truly run its course but you know the thing that really struck me about it and i i still i think it'll keep me up at night thinking about i didn't i didn't watch it until zane forced us to watch it before we recorded And I

Zain 8:58

I didn't watch it until I have to say maybe like three to four of our listeners direct messaged me this. I had no idea this was a

Zain 9:05

watched it right away. To that group of people. Thank you. Yeah, I know. Of course you did. But Corey,

Corey 9:10

But it was an interesting mix of the presumed CEO being shitty to the tweeters and then also like legitimately apologizing for bad service at certain moments.

Zain 9:22

also can i just add you can't see this when you listen to the clip but there is no lower thirds or text on the screen so we don't know when the mean tweet ends and when his mumbling begins because we don't know if that's part of the mean tweet or not uh and really unfortunate steven carter your take when you see uh the non-rick flair ceo of flair airlines reading mean tweets about his airline i

Carter 9:46

i think that funny people should be funny and this guy should not be funny, because he's not funny.

Carter 9:52

He's just mean. He's just mean. Yeah, and it was really horrible. I did not enjoy it at all. It was bad. As part of our annual

Zain 9:59

sponsorship review, you know, we jump on something, one piece every year, to provide strategic feedback, and the reason we have chosen this one is because, Corey, they've done one thing that we suggest all marketers do, which is there's a call to action in this particular video. You don't hear it in the video, but you see it in the tweet and you see it on instagram and that call to action is let us know what you think should we do a part two and i want to see what should we tell them as part of our our marketing and communications overview that they improve in part two uh steven carter i'm gonna go hold on yeah oh

Corey 10:37

oh please we think that there's actually going to be enough content of people who think flare is a shitty airline in order to have a part two i mean that That seems inconceivable to me. This

Carter 10:45

such a good point. I think we mentioned in half of their mean tweets. I'm actually shocked that we weren't mentioned. I'm a little disappointed.

Zain 10:53

Carter, if they do a part two, our friends at Flair Airlines, our sponsor. Not our

Corey 10:58

our sponsor, keep going.

Zain 10:59

What would you, sorry, our sponsor, we sponsored them. We just clarified this so we can say our sponsor now, Corey. Carter, what would you suggest that they make different, that they change, that they improve upon for part two of Mean Tweets?

Carter 11:15

Well, make it very clear when they're actually reading the tweet versus when they're not. And make it funny, because people like it when people are funny. These guys are not funny. So make it funny.

Zain 11:30

Carter says make it funny. Mention when you're reading the tweets. Corey, Corey, if you were providing some notes, some communications, strategy,

Zain 11:38

strategy, some tactical support, what would you suggest that they do in part two?

Corey 11:43

I'm thinking go the other way. Lean into the not funny. Become meaner.

Zain 11:48

Redefine mean tweets. Actually,

Corey 11:50

Actually, just apologize a lot more. Maybe turn on the jet engine that's behind you, that turbine there, so we can't hear it. And suck

Corey 11:56

suck the CEO through the

Zain 11:58

engine. No, don't suck the CEO through the engine. No, no, no. I disagree. agree i have actually now with cory's idea that he didn't have which is go the other way redefine what mean tweets is yeah you're starting tweeting mean tweets to all your customers lean into the brand fully and completely tell every single person that it's not your fucking problem if their 19 flight to toronto got canceled okay did

Zain 12:22

you actually think this was a real thing did you think we actually were going to deliver just gaslight them gaslight the shit out of your your customers you think that they got a deal for 49 or was it a gamble i like

Corey 12:35

get a twitter account that's just like the king of snark you know and it can have like you know reply to like hey i'm still stuck on the tarmac for three days it's like things you didn't pay for getting there on time you know absolutely yeah

Zain 12:48

yeah in fact you know go further don't even tell people when you're going to take off and land why do it why why be why apologize for being late when you could just be like we'll leave whatever the fuck we feel like it's eight dollars if you want to go. If you don't want to go, you can fuck off. On-time performance,

Corey 13:04

performance, you know, if you don't have a time, then it's 100%. Life is good. I feel like we're building on something

Zain 13:10

here, Carter. Choose those metrics.

Carter 13:12

and OTP. This is the best work we've ever done. I'm really pleased. I can't wait for Flair Airlines not to send us another check.

Zain 13:22

that concludes our annual sponsorship review. This segment, of course, brought to you by Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines airlines buyers from yep

Zain 13:28

flare airlines buyers remorse no purchase necessary i'm gonna move it on to our next segment our next segment the politics of omicron guys i want to do a strategy session oh we

Carter 13:37

we have not had the corey's favorite sessions we

Zain 13:40

we have not had the time to do one of these in a while and we've talked about omicron last week we talked about of course uh the earlier this week i should say we talked about the vax

Zain 13:50

vax tax or the unvax tax but i want to talk about if if the rules of

Zain 13:55

of the politics of Omicron have changed, if

Zain 13:58

if the rules of this wave have fundamentally changed the political calculus.

Zain 14:03

One of the simple ways to maybe explain that is that there's no longer two simple neat camps of individuals that are pro-public health at any cost, and those that are perhaps on the, you know, no more lockdowns, we're sick and tired of this. That group is no longer simply a minority. There is more bleeding of those that kind of say, we need to just live with this. The only thing that matters is hospitalizations, etc. So here's what I want to do, or here's how I want to try to structure this, which is from everything that we know thus far, can the two of you put together a one-pager on the new political rules of Omicron? And I want to do this as like a yes and. Each of you just add a rule to the list as a political rule that you could maybe just hand over to an elected official, a premier, a prime minister, a cabinet minister, saying, OK, we've done the analysis. We see where things are, how

Zain 15:03

Here are the new political rules. There could be five of them. There could be three of them. There could be 10 of them. We'll see how far this goes, but we'll start with the political rule that each of you throw on the table, and then the next one kind of yes-ands it and say, here's the next rule to the mix, the new political rules of Omicron. And Stephen Carter, I want to start with you because I always start with you. Yeah,

Carter 15:21

Yeah, that's really nice.

Zain 15:22

If you were to throw your first political rule of this wave onto the table, what would it be?

Carter 15:31

Don't go too far off the center path. Find the center. You mentioned it a little bit in your opening, Zane, that in the past there was kind of like a group on one side and a group on the other side. I think that now things have kind of returned to kind of a normal bell curve, standard deviation type of thing where most people are in the middle. They want to be protected, but they also want to have the things that they want to have.

Carter 15:56

So this feels like if you move too far in any one direction, there's going to be a negative backlash. so if you are closing schools too quickly or if you're leaving schools open too quickly you got to try and go down a tried and true middle path and the good news is that this is what our fifth wave so we now know the various waves and we can and we can start to i think project out a little bit better how things are going to unfold and that means you can you can be in the middle and say say, okay, this is where we are in this spike, and this is why we need to stay consistent, stay in the middle, not too big a movement to the right or to the left, just stay right in the middle.

Zain 16:40

Don't go too far off the center, Pat. So Carter, you might correct in interpreting then that Omicron's not an opportunity to get a political win.

Carter 16:49

I don't think so. I think that the political win opportunity out of COVID has always been fleeting. There was a time perhaps in maybe the third wave when we were articulating stronger measures and things like that, and there was a win to be had. But I think that that stronger measure win is gone. So walk down the middle where people are, and then just hope not to get crushed.

Zain 17:14

Corey, yes and that. Do you agree with Carter's rule? Don't go too far off the center path. Give me your analysis of that rule. Make it better if you'd like, and then add your own to the mix. Okay.

Corey 17:24

Okay. Well, so you asked me two things. Do I agree with Stephen's rule? Not generally, no, because I think, you know, splitting the difference when you're talking about a public health crisis is not necessarily going to get you where you want to be. But it does sort of lead me to my rule. And I take what Stephen's saying. I'm not trying to shit all over his point here because there's some wisdom in it here. But you just have to be careful knowing that, you know, compromise can lead you into some pretty uncomfortable positions. I think that's a lot of where Jason Kenney ended up wrong side, you know, trying to challenge, do two strategies at the same time. My rule is don't turn off your brain, right? Like past performance is not a guarantee of future results here. And just because you want it to be over does not mean it's over. And you've got to sit and look at Omicron for what it is and not either what you wish it is or what the last wave was. And I'm sort of seeing signs that we're seeing a polarization into both of those camps, right? One of them is saying, well,

Corey 18:19

well, like, I'm just tired, and I want Omicron to be over. So let's just, you know, guns ablaze and go through. And I don't think that that's a particularly wise approach to public policy. And I'm seeing another one that is, look

Corey 18:31

look at all of these hospitalizations, or sorry, not even hospitalizations, case numbers.

Corey 18:36

Therefore, this is worse than where we were in Delta. And we may end up there, but it's not there yet. So I think that all of the major actors in politics need to just sort of sit and say, what is this? Let's measure the base set of facts. Let's neither, you know, just wish this out of existence, nor assume that this is exactly like the last waves.

Zain 18:57

Carter, we had your rule, don't go too far off the center path. Corey adds, don't turn off your brain. We're writing the rule book for Omicron, the political rule book. Carter, react to what Corey said here, and then do you want to throw another one into the pile?

Carter 19:08

I'm going to throw another. Well, first of all, I like what Corey said, and I'm going to add another one that I'm actually stealing from his earlier advice around Wave 4. And it was stop focusing on case numbers. Start focusing on the negative outcomes because the case numbers are astounding. They're just like, even though we're not tracking PCR tests in the same fashion in Alberta, you know, 40% positivity rates in Alberta, those positivity numbers across Canada are massive. Like, we're talking huge numbers. Everybody and their dog, well, everybody, their dog, and one of the co-hosts of The Strategist has had COVID this time. And, but

Carter 19:48

but that's not the same as it was before. So now you've got to focus instead on your hospitalizations and your ICU admissions. So how can you manage those things? How can you get people healthy again, recognizing that what

Carter 20:00

what we were counting as the primary negative case numbers is no longer the primary negative. The primary negative is the hospitalizations and the ICU. And if you can do a better job of managing those things and get your deaths down, then you're doing the job that you need to be doing as a health care system.

Zain 20:17

Let's focus on this a bit. But let's spend some time on these couple of points that we now have on the table, the first three. So let's pick up where Carter left off. Corey, how do you politically do that? First of all, do you agree with Carter restating your advice from the fourth wave? And secondly, how do you make that political shift? Because the public health advice is kind of going in multiple directions. Some are still focusing on cases, some media outlets saying we're switching over to hospitalizations. But from a political perspective, how are you making that pivot without burning yourself or spending too much political capital on it?

Corey 20:47

well that i mean it's not going to be easy and and the thing is if people are thinking it's going to be an easy transition they're kidding themselves but they've got to compare it against the other reality right which is that if you continue to talk about the case numbers if there has truly been a decoupling uh at least from where we saw the relationships before uh that's one reason to start moving off case numbers the other is case numbers are at least in the province of alberta pretty effing broken because you can't go get yourself a test anymore you're supposed to use one of these rapid antigen tests, and then those numbers don't show up anywhere, right? They're just gone into

Corey 21:22

the ether. And we have situations like our chief medical officer of health here trying to extrapolate what it means for case numbers. I remember when it was at 40%, she was saying, well, we're probably catching one in 10 cases, which means like a truly mind-blowing number of people have active cases, like 600,000 or something in a province of 4.4, 4.3, 4.4 million. million so uh you know when you start thinking about that we've been at this for a month and you start thinking about the update she's given like just we're got to be approaching a third of this bloody province has had uh omicron in the past couple of months here which is wild right like totally wild um so

Corey 21:59

so it's broken like our case count numbers aren't real anymore i mean that's the other problem why you can't really test them as kind of a forward indicator so there are other Other forward indicators available after two years of COVID, the most obvious one is wastewater. So, you

Corey 22:14

know, universities such as the University of Calgary, University of Alberta in the province of Alberta are testing wastewater to see, you know, how much COVID is in the wastewater. And they're doing this fairly regularly. And it has been a pretty good leading indicator since summer of 2020. So that we can look at and we can say, okay, maybe that'll tell us a bit about where we are in the trend. because i think one of the reasons people are a little anxious to give up cases is uh the canary in the coal mine right you see cases rising you can expect uh icu's to rise

Corey 22:48

um is that the same relationship as during the fourth wave no no

Corey 22:51

no i think that's pretty clear at this point but i think that signal is which direction we're going in is still useful so if you're going to get away from it i think you need to address some of the obvious challenges like what's our our what's our early warning system and i think things like wastewater offer that carter

Zain 23:06

carter i want to i'm still digesting the first three points we have on the table and i know it's cory's turn when we go next for the next point to add to the to the rules list the political rules of omicron but i want to stress test your first one again don't

Zain 23:17

don't go too off too off the center path i'm digesting it so i want to kind of bring it back to that what

Zain 23:22

would you say to a premier or political leader that saw what francois legault did because he clearly went off the center path i don't know know if you agree with that i think he did yeah right yeah if

Zain 23:33

if another point now you've had ford and kenny and and and o'toole say we're not going to do the the anti-vax or the unvax tax but suppose they had an inkling to try to get a win out of omicron to try to go off the center path it might be something else might be a different mechanism it might not go after the the what would you tell them would you still try to ground them in this principle or would you say you know there There's an opportunity here to extract some political upside from this wave. How married are you to this principle, I guess, is my question, with certain political leaders seeing the residual benefits that, at least in the very, very short term, that François Legault is experiencing in his home province of Quebec?

Carter 24:14

me be simplistic, right?

Carter 24:15

right? Never been a challenge

Zain 24:17

challenge for you on the show, Carter, but yes.

Carter 24:20

There's two potential outcomes after Omicron.

Carter 24:23

One is that, you know, there's this kind of the dream that I've heard health professionals speak of and emergency planners speak of that says Omicron is the thing that's going to really level this and slow us down because everybody's going to get it. We're going to see much higher immunity levels. Not everybody's going to get it, but it's going to be widely, you know, Corey's numbers of 600,000 people active cases right now in about three weeks, we will see 60% of the population of Alberta will have been exposed or would have had this thing. It's a big it's a big problem, big opportunity, because when you get that kind of big spread that coupled with your vaccination rates gives you a fairly solid herd immunity. And this may be the last one. So in that case, then the win is winning. Right. The win is you're out of Omicron. You're done. We're done. COVID COVID is now the Spanish flu, which we get every year. Right. And we can have booster shots. We'll get we'll get better at managing COVID as it mutates. we'll be ready to catch it and hopefully we see just better and better outcomes for people who get it the

Carter 25:25

other is this isn't the end the other outcome of this is this just mutates again and they find it somewhere else maybe they find it uh in british columbia next time or maybe it's the japanese variant or maybe you

Carter 25:38

you know iceland sets it upon the rest of it doesn't matter comes from somewhere it's now called whatever comes after omicron in the uh in the alphabet of the the the ancient greeks um so

Carter 25:50

so off we go pie

Carter 25:52

this is the pie one here we go pie sounds good and the outcomes the the next the next variant in which case the win that you had is fleeting and gone so don't try and get a don't try and get a win when the win is either going to present itself to you or it could backlash and bite you in the ass and and so i just say manage as best you can this isn't a time for political wins. The

Carter 26:17

The political win comes later.

Zain 26:19

Corey, I see you nodding wrong to parts of that. Go ahead.

Corey 26:21

Yeah, I mean, it's a good lead into what my next rule was going to be. Carter's right. The win is, if there's a win, it's that we're out of Omicron, not that we're out of Omicron before anyone else, and we can't control the types of variants. So the other thing governments need to do as a rule is focus on downside risk. There's absolutely no sense to let things go absolutely nuts with with the hopes that you're just out of this two weeks before, say, the province next door. Prudence has still got to be the rule of the game here. If this is running through and it takes another four weeks and that protects your health care system because of measures you've taken, I think people

Corey 26:56

people will forget that inconvenience a lot faster than they will forget a collapse of the health care system. So downside risk. It's not equal, right? You're not placing a bet and it's 50-50 either way. If you place a bet, this is all going to be fine and you do nothing and it's not fine. I mean, I don't think that, just to use this province as an example, I don't think Jason Kenney's got another one of those in him. I think it's over, over, over. Maybe not with his party, but certainly with the province of Alberta, if we still have something like Delta again. So given that, what is, is it worth it? Like, take a couple of steps, see what you can do.

Zain 27:36

Carter, I want you to react to this particular one that Corey's put on the table. Rule number four that we add to our list, focus on downside risk. What do you make of what Corey said thus far? And I've got another question for you guys before you jump into your next rule, Carter. Yeah,

Carter 27:48

Yeah, I think that it ties directly into what I was saying earlier. I mean, this to me just feels like the

Carter 27:54

the healthcare system is a very hard place to get a win.

Carter 27:57

So in a normal situation, you're not trying to get a win out of your healthcare system. You're trying just to have have the health care system not kill you you're thinking of the health care system politically as the third rail of canadian politics that's why it's kind of developed the way that it is developed you know like i think that any rational or sane individual wouldn't necessarily develop the canadian health care system from scratch to this point we would have a better discussion about like for example why dental isn't included or why pharmaceuticals aren't included but we do have hips and knees and we do have you know like there's certain things that you kind of go well that

Carter 28:31

seems weird you know other things could be more important i don't know um you know these but bottom line it's it's evolved the way it has and uh politicians are reticent to to tinker with it um we've been forced uh through the through through covid to put your our health care systems front and center in the political zeitgeist and i think that that forces a lot of nervous

Carter 28:58

nervous energy energy through it. Because, you know, you're surviving, you're not making things better.

Carter 29:04

You know, it's not making the healthcare system stronger, or

Carter 29:07

or better to go through this. In fact, I

Carter 29:09

I think that the cost

Carter 29:11

cost of COVID in the healthcare system is going to be borne for a number of years. years.

Zain 29:16

Corey, I want to ask you a follow-up on this, right, and as we kind of digest it. And maybe this is a follow-up for a specific class of leader who may not have necessarily handled COVID very well or may have been criticized publicly for their handling of COVID, right? And I look at a couple. Like, Jason Kenney's an obvious choice here in Alberta. Doug Ford may be another choice in that sense. You know, if they're thinking about their legacy of COVID, of their handling of COVID.

Zain 29:44

There's a case to be made that the first, second, third, even fourth wave is not what they get judged on. It's what have you done for me lately? How did you perform most recently, right? The recency bias stuff. And there's probably parts of either themselves or their advisors saying, there is an opportunity, or if you nail Omicron, this could really help you in June, Doug Ford. Or if you really land the ship or the plane here, Jason Kenney, that this really really helps your leadership review chances, or this really sets you up for a nice trajectory for your eventual election in 23. So is there a sub rule around downside risk for those leaders that might be looking to rectify past performances with how they perform in this most recent wave?

Corey 30:29

So I think that's the temptation that both of them are being sort of teased with here, right this idea that well we do this uh we we have a stark contrast with opposition who are calling maybe for more extreme things circuit

Zain 30:43

circuit breakers whatever right yeah you know it's a more conventional third or second wave sort of things yeah well

Corey 30:48

well i don't yeah i mean i think i think what the ndp is calling for is probably beyond where the public is right now maybe we should get into that in a moment but i you know this is this is one of those things though that i just i don't feel that there's a ton of upside there

Corey 31:03

right like there's there's this desire but again i i don't think that people are going to say well

Corey 31:08

well god bless doug ford because he uh he brought you know sure

Corey 31:13

sure the hospitals were you know overrun

Corey 31:15

overrun or they're never going to say that so let's just put that aside say the hospitals aren't overrun sure right but i'm just so glad that he did this thing and therefore uh we got to go back to school in the end of january instead of in february right Like, you're not going to remember that come June. Like, this is just moving too quickly. Time passes too much. So I just don't think that's going to be the big win. Nobody's going to be talking about that during an election campaign. And

Corey 31:40

it's not a big enough thing that it's going to be leaving this warm aura over him going forward. I mean, that's just not how politics works. So this is, again, where I say, like, the downside is the thing you need to focus on here. You're not going to find the great COVID hero win because

Corey 31:55

because the war has been too long. We're all exhausted. We're tired. We hate it. And, you know, this is no longer kind of the idyllic fairytale hero space. This is just get it through it without fucking things up space. And for that reason, you're just not going to have the glory that you would be chasing in that scenario. Carter,

Zain 32:12

Carter, do you want to respond to that? And then I've got the next rule back to you. So I'm going to summarize the four, right? Don't go too far off the center path. Don't turn off your brain. Stop focusing on case numbers. Focus on downside risk. Do you want to react to what Corey just said around leaders who need a win, like they need a political boost, they need a shot in their arm, and they might be thinking of Omicron as a way to do it?

Carter 32:33

Yeah, I think that the problem there is that it sounds a lot like a problem gambler, right? You sit down at the table and you just keep going. Or you reference Jason Kenney

Zain 32:41

Kenney as big that is. Yeah,

Carter 32:42

Yeah, and you start to think to yourself, you know, if I can just, you know, I'll put it all on black. If you double every time, you're bound to make your money back, right? If you double every time, you're going to get your money back, except the house always wins. ends and and in this particular case um go back to your fundamentals where do governments when do governments succeed governments succeed when people have money in their pockets okay get money in people's pockets that's how people are going to be judged as successful and this if you're facing in june you know a june election then you've got to be making sure that you are you

Carter 33:18

you know working towards making sure that people are have money and are comfortable and they're not facing undue risk and that's the problem that's occurred since the beginning of this in 2020 supports were run out very quickly by 2022 the supports have eroded there aren't the same types of supports and people don't feel as comfortable that's a problem if you're heading into a quick election it's not the

Carter 33:44

the same problem for kenny because he has a little bit longer um

Carter 33:48

you you know, there's a reason why Horgan

Carter 33:51

Horgan wanted to go for his election early, right? Like there was an opportunity. There's a reason why Trudeau wanted it. Unfortunately, he just didn't get the outcome that they was hoping for.

Zain 34:01

Carter, add a rule to the list after focus on downside risk. What's your next rule that you're adding to the political rules of Omicron?

Carter 34:08

I think that the next rule is make sure that you are focused on the economy.

Carter 34:15

Make sure that you You have the traditional pieces of whatever your winning alliance are. So one of the challenges has been that, you

Carter 34:23

you know, schools have been dragged in with Omicron, right? Post-secondary has been dragged in with Omicron. I'm just going to focus on provincial because I think provincial is super important. So,

Carter 34:32

you know, health care, education, post-secondary education, these are the things that you normally make your case on when you're going back to the electorate. But if you're Jason Kenney or Doug Ford, you've put everything, everything into the economy. So you got to be making sure that your next six months looks like, you know, James Carville's notes in the Bill Clinton election. It's the economy, stupid. Right. So how are you going to get people to focus on the fact that they're economically much more whole than they should, you know, than they might have been? Or maybe they even believe they would be. No one expected a two year pandemic. And yet we're doing OK, you

Carter 35:11

you know, for the most part. I mean, there's still, you

Carter 35:13

you know, Alberta's got a bit of a problem, but I think for the rest of the country, we're moving in the right direction.

Zain 35:19

So your rule here, Carter, is make sure you focus on the traditional pieces of your coalition, on the economy. Because

Carter 35:25

Because it's about electoral success, right? I hate to be so crass. I really do. That's

Zain 35:31

That's the point of the political rules,

Zain 35:33

We're not doing public health rules,

Carter 35:33

rules, so I appreciate

Carter 35:34

that. We're not public health leaders. I mean, we're not trying to fix a system. What we're trying to do is stay in power so we can fix the system. Do you know what I mean? That

Carter 35:45

is really the core. And none of these people are particularly well positioned

Carter 35:50

positioned to get back into power. I do think that the more people who have the Omicron variant and

Carter 35:58

have the light symptoms instead of the heavy symptoms and the dangerous symptoms, it actually helps the government.

Carter 36:06

And my thinking is just simply this. if it you know i was very lucky i had a very light case um and

Carter 36:16

now you know you kind of come through it and you're like oh this is great you know and you don't feel negative towards the government in the same fashion of people who didn't get it and are scared because you remove the fear once you're through it you've had it the fear is gone i'm

Carter 36:30

i'm not you know i don't fear it right now in the same fashion that i might have when delta was certainly out there

Zain 36:36

gory react to carter's rule about make sure you have the traditional pieces of your coalition considered i.e the economy where he points to you know two specific leaders ford and kenny who we've been talking about react to that and then throw another rule onto the pile well

Corey 36:50

well i think carter's um right i would sort of broaden it i would say it's not all about covet right now right uh it's funny because it's all about covet but it's not i mean there's a certain amount of it's

Corey 37:02

it's like oxygen it's around us we've been dealing with this issue for two years people are talking about other things People are thinking about other things. Elections are being won and lost on issues other than COVID-19. And so you can't put all of your chips in that basket, whether you be a government or whether you be an opposition party looking at a government that's done a piss poor job. uh it's it's one of those situations where it's a bit of a great leveler like everybody seems to be doing not not shit hot on it you know in varying ways you think about the government here in alberta you think about the government next door in bc the criticisms are pretty common despite very different ideological stripes on them there and you know i the it has however um contributed to a souring mood in canada i think abacus had some interesting information about more people thinking we're on a worse track here you combine that with um you know inflation rates where they are you combine that with global challenges like by the time you listen to this maybe there'll be war in ukraine right there's just some dark things happening in the world right now uh and there's a bit of a sour mood and you've got to be able to address those things as you're going forward here um you

Corey 38:11

you got to walk and chew gum i guess this is one way to think about it here and it's it's a tough one so i i don't know that i have any more rules zane i i think even the axioms we've provided are probably um you

Corey 38:25

you know they'll be all broken tomorrow i'm sure but you know we just we i i like them like you know stick to where the public are that you know inherent in that first rule of stevens is know where the public is so you want to be tracking that pretty carefully there

Corey 38:40

Don't turn off your brain. You've got to continue watching the issue as it is and not as you wish it to be or not what the last one was. Look at your measurements to see if there's a way you can recontextualize the conversation. You know, focus on the downside risk or another way to put that is err on the side of caution. And then just remember, it's not all about COVID. So if you're a conservative party, for example, Doug Ford or Jason Kenney, you better have a strong economic message. That's one of your prerequisites for success. And you've got to have, you know, the issues of the day at hand. It's not all going to be about Omicron. I mean, it's running so quickly. Here we are, January

Corey 39:20

It was a month ago when this was just barely coming up. And for all we know, here in Alberta, by

Corey 39:24

by the, you know, Monday, we may start seeing, I don't know, they might still go up. They might be going down by the end of the weekend. Who the hell knows? So this can change rapidly, I guess, is my point.

Zain 39:34

Carter, do you have a sixth rule to add to the pile?

Carter 39:38

don't think so. So I think – I really do think that you need to shift to the future, right?

Carter 39:46

There are other things that need to be done and I think that there's certainly a lot of people talking about a lot of things beyond Omicron and economy is certainly high above the numbers. I mean if you're in Alberta, it's high numbers for unemployment and

Carter 40:05

and if you're unemployed, it matters an awful lot to you. If you're underemployed, it matters a lot to you as well. So whether

Carter 40:12

whether you're in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, any of the Canadian provinces, you want to know that you have a job to go back to if this

Carter 40:22

this is the end. And if this isn't the end, then I think that we're starting to feel like what

Carter 40:27

what politicians said at the beginning, which is we are going to have to learn to live with this at some point. And it feels like we

Carter 40:34

we are closer to some point today than we have been at any other point in the pandemic.

Zain 40:39

Carter, you bring up something interesting here, inadvertently, perhaps, which is when you said we're going to have to learn to live with this. And I think one thing we're going to have to learn to live with, and

Zain 40:49

and I'm not trying to tease another rule out of you guys, but maybe a topic of discussion that leads to a rule, is how you deal with the unvaccinated. You know, if we were giving a broad strokes political advice to any political leader, we'd say, drop a strategy that includes the majority of people. But for the last little bit, a lot of the political rhetoric and a lot of the political focus has been given to the 10% in terms of the blame. And, you know, this is where you should be looking versus the 90%. And I'm curious if this is sparking any thoughts on is there a political rule that maybe has not been developed specifically to Omicron, but maybe that Omicron highlights, especially if we have to consider living with Omicron, but also living with a group of the population that is unvaccinated. What is the rule for a politician if they're looking to develop policy and frankly, a political agenda with this, what

Zain 41:40

what I'd call very convenient hammer that is hitting on the unvaccinated day in, day out? You know, it's a 90-10 wedge issue if you want to put it in those crass political terms. So is there a rule for the unvaccinated? Corey, I see you gesturing, so I'll go to you first on this.

Corey 41:55

Yeah, the rule for me is simple. It's, look, Look, you don't need to indulge these people. They are the 10 in the 90-10. But remember, you still need to all live in the same house. And there's going to be challenges down the road. And there's already a group of people who feel deeply

Corey 42:11

deeply disenfranchised. They have been manipulated by social media. They've accidentally manipulated themselves in many cases with the way they treat algorithms and news and all of this. And the

Corey 42:23

the fact that we've got a bunch of people who feel incredibly pissed off and have put on this kind of martyr, you know, complex.

Corey 42:31

10% is not a lot of the population if we're talking about do

Corey 42:36

you support a helmet law or not, right? Sure.

Corey 42:39

It's a lot if we're talking about deeply radicalized people who feel absolutely outside of the margins of society. And so just be careful, right? Right. Like, don't push that 90-10 button beyond

Corey 42:51

beyond what you need to for legitimate policy purposes. Don't exacerbate this because, you know, that's millions of people who are going to cause all sorts of challenges otherwise. Carter,

Zain 43:01

Carter, you know, I was on the TV this weekend talking about this particular issue and the clumping of the vaccine hesitant and the anti-vax as one monolithic group that politicians have been doing and hitting on aggressively. And what that might do, not downstream effects, but even converting the vaccine hesitant to getting their first doses in the next little while. But I want you to build on if there is anything you want to say regarding what Corey's rule is here on the unvaccinated. Don't indulge them, the

Zain 43:28

the unvaccinated, but understand that we got to learn to live in the same house together, the same country together here on in. Anything to add to that? Anything to adjust to that from your perspective on this particular rule?

Carter 43:40

Yeah, I'd really like to get it to where we were with those people who weren't getting their kids vaccinated for measles, right? The MMR vaccines weren't being, you know, taken up and we had little outbreaks of measles in certain cities and certain towns around North America, because there was a group of people who felt like the vaccines weren't safe. safe and but we didn't you know we thought maybe we thought less of those folks than we uh than we thought of everybody else but we really didn't think of them very much right uh we'd pop up every once in a while and say who doesn't get their kid vaccinated that's ridiculous um

Carter 44:16

i'd really like to get back to the place where you know uh first responders and health professionals are just vaccinated because you know you can't be a first responder and not have your hepatitis vaccinations. You need to have your hepatitis vaccinations if you're going to be a first responder. And no one went, oh my God, how dare you? I want to be a paramedic. I don't want to be vaccinated. Well, that's what

Carter 44:46

need to do to be a first responder. And the same thing applied with being

Carter 44:54

being a member of Alberta Health Services. You had to get vaccinated every year for the flu.

Carter 44:59

Now, I think that Jason Kenney actually killed the law that enabled those mandatory vaccination statements. But the law should come back under a new government. Perhaps it will come back. And we just get back to the normal thing, which says, oh, you're a health care provider. Make sure you've got your tetanus shot, your COVID shot, your, you know, whatever shots you need to have in order to be safe, because that's where we want people to be. And the 6% or 4% that choose not to get vaccinated at least stop rallying because right now they're being persecuted and that persecution is creating a secondary response. And I don't mean that the persecution is wrong in any way, shape or form, but it's in everybody's mindset. And that's that's just if we can just make it back to normalcy, then the protests go away. We don't have to shut down roads every weekend. And something that's disturbing happening in Western Canada, especially with protests happening at politicians homes that needs to fucking stop right now, right now. But the best way to make it stop is to stop that big pushback.

Zain 46:06

And, you know, Carter, I want to go to Corey on this in a second here, because we talked about this group being persecuted rightly or otherwise, but also an additional thing we just don't mention because we're so used to it because it's kind of like oxygen is their modern ability to organize with digital technology, their modern ability to, you know, Corey and Carter, I remember back in our H&K days, you guys would talk about, you know, this was more in the abstract, but if you believed in a minority opinion, you could could find other people who believe in your minority opinion, which actually calcifies that opinion, solidifies it, and kind of creates a sense of community. And I think that's something that we're experiencing here. It's not just a disparate 3%, 4%, 5%, but it's a percentage of people that are now able to communicate, organize, and reinforce that worldview. Corey, I want to go to you on this.

Corey 46:55

I just wanted to, you said that the rule, as I put it, was don't need to indulge these people, but remember, you have to learn to live with them. That's not what I said. Because learning to live implies we have to give, and that's not what I'm saying. We're not talking about creating a chore wheel. We just, we have to live with them. We're literally all stuck in the same house. So let them be kept in their room, but don't encourage them to light said room on fire. That is my point, right? Not that we need to somehow come to a compromise on this matter. Okay,

Zain 47:21

Okay, don't indulge the vaccinated, but we have to live with them. We're

Corey 47:24

We're going with that. But we live in the same house. Yeah. I mean, it's just, that's the reality of it, you

Carter 47:30

I like it. Unless

Corey 47:30

Unless you're intending to find some way to deport 10

Corey 47:34

10% of the population, which

Corey 47:36

don't think anyone here would support. And

Carter 47:38

And it's just getting worse, right? Like you mentioned how people are able to find one another now. I mean, not only are they able to find one another, but Facebook and Meta, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, they're actually elevating those posts. Those posts get interacted with in a way. We saw a post about

Carter 47:59

about a political rally that had as much interaction for a very small group of people, like thousands of likes, hundreds of retweets, hundreds of shares. I hadn't seen that during the entire political campaign, and we got 45% of the vote, right? Right. But in in this one small group with only a few hundred people, they got massive shares, massive interaction because Facebook's algorithm continues to be skewed towards these metrics. And this shit just takes off. And, you know,

Carter 48:35

know, we have to start figuring that problem out and we have to figure that problem out in a hurry. that would actually be my advice to the federal politicians we need to turn facebook and twitter into publishing houses and we need to hold them accountable for what they're publishing

Zain 48:50

nicely done guys the six rules i'm going to read them again don't go too far off the center path number two don't turn off your brain number three stop focusing on case numbers number four focus on downside risk number five it's not all about covid slash make sure you have the fundamental pieces pieces of your coalition addressed, i.e. the economy. Number six, don't indulge the unvaccinated. Understand you live in the same house with them. Look at that. The six rules of Omicron, the political rules of Omicron. I made you guys do this without any warning. How much do people pay for this podcast?

Carter 49:22

Any warning. It's free.

Zain 49:24

Unbelievable. I rarely celebrate. I rarely celebrate your guys' abilities, but I made you do that without any warning, mainly because I didn't have a show planned.

Carter 49:31

Mainly because Corey always objects to the COVID politics topic. he always objects and you just push through you

Carter 49:37

you don't give a shit i

Zain 49:38

love it nicely done nicely done let's let's keep that strategy cap on because someone might need some political chiropractic services let's move it on to our next segment our next segment not so local man rants in front of parliament i want to talk about aaron o'toole guys a video that aaron o'toole has made where he's flapping his arms like a fox news commentator telling us that our environment minister is going going to get rid of canadian energy in the next 18 months as a phase out uh it's making the rounds on social media it's clearly getting some partisan support but by a lot it's being panned i guess i'll ask both of you first have both of you seen this video do you guys know what i'm referring to yeah okay uh carter actually tell me what that yeah actually give me your initial take explain the video as you saw it and then that very sullen yeah it's almost like a disappointed dad yeah that that I got from you there. Tell me why you're disappointed in our man Aaron O'Toole, especially for Corey and I, who are real estate owners on O'Toole Island still. I am

Carter 50:34

am so tired of the out-of-context quote that is then sensationalized to create some sort of massive backlash. Guilbeault didn't say it. It was taken out of context. It was turned into something that it wasn't. He flapped it. You know, the best way to describe it is he flapped his arms. he made text that was super big. It looked ridiculous. He looked more like Ezra Levant than the leader of the Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. It was, you know, I just hate this stuff. I hate when people take things that aren't true and turn them into political opportunities. I think there's tremendous opportunity in truth. And you should pick that which is true. And you you should find a way to make it into something that matters. You should not need to lie to be good at politics. And I think that in fact, if you do lie, if you use excessive hyperbole, and note the word excessive because hyperbole does have a place in traditional politics. But if you use excessive hyperbole, it will come and bite you in the ass. And I think that this one did bite him in the ass. It didn't go where it needed to go. And I'm exceptionally emotionally uh

Carter 51:50

uh frustrated by that type of politics in general and O'Toole and O'Toole those who own property on O'Toole Island I'm I'm holding responsible for that type of behavior so you two are responsible and

Zain 52:02

Corey as a as the lead deed owner on O'Toole Island uh what do you think when you when you saw Aaron O'Toole uh both in substance or slack thereof maybe right because of the the bending the truth but also in style what he was trying to go for here i i just find this interesting on on so many levels but your initial take before i jump into some of the strategy questions yeah

Corey 52:25

yeah my initial take is we've seen this erin o'toole before you know pointing to urinals and saying that was going to be just a trudeau's office

Corey 52:32

under similar circumstances which is this is the period where he pretends not to be a moderate right where he He puts on this kind of like bullshit Trump Jr. act, and I find it incredibly off-putting. But I suspect he's doing it to try to shore up the base because the base is what sort of controls his fortunes outside of election cycles. Andrew McDougall wrote a column for the Ottawa Citizen. He wrote a tweet about it, and it really struck me because I agree with it 800%. He said, flapping about like a coked up second string Fox News host over things that were never said won't get Aaron O'Toole elected. I agree. I mean, I just I don't think that that possibly has a chance in hell of helping him with the Canadian public as a whole. But I don't think that that was his audience. I don't think anybody does. I think it was designed to show like, yeah, I can be a piece of shit,

Corey 53:25

shit, you know, asshole too. I don't know why that would be appealing to people, but obviously that seems to be the desire. You

Carter 53:32

You know what? I could almost see it in a fundraising appeal.

Carter 53:35

I could almost see it in a fundraising appeal going to a very specific target audience and you put it into your newsletter and your email newsletter. But I don't see it as the social media push that's going to be seen by everybody because you're going to get significant – You think it's targeted wrong,

Zain 53:47

wrong, you think? think yeah

Carter 53:48

yeah i think that if you target towards those who are predisposed to agree that

Carter 53:52

that justin uh trudeau has put in this type of people um you

Carter 53:57

you know it was it was uh it

Carter 54:01

was stupid and it hurt him and that's you know these letters you know the fundraising letters that they put out they're very very effective and this could have been in a fundraising letter didn't need to denigrate the the leader the way it did cory

Corey 54:16

cory you know there's um one

Corey 54:18

one of the reasons why when you get like one of those crazy like nigerian prince emails or those crazy scams that are absolutely unbelievable

Corey 54:27

you know the reason full of typos you know with a with a suspicious domain and all of that

Corey 54:31

there's actually a logic to that from the scammers point of view which is you put the most incredulous step first right like you if if they're going to fall for that email they will fall for anything you tell them after in terms of like going to get a bank wire transfer and all of of that. So they

Zain 54:44

filter early. I mean,

Corey 54:46

mean, it's their filter to go early.

Corey 54:50

I think it's really kind of sad and discouraging that there would be an audience for these kinds of lies. But I can see like in a fundraising appeal, if you're going to like this, you're going to like anything that Aaron O'Toole does. And so maybe from their metrics point of view, maybe they look at an engagement, maybe they're building it, maybe it's part of that social media strategy we were talking talking about after uh or like during the election i guess i mean um but uh but

Corey 55:15

but i don't even want to be that charitable like you just shouldn't lie like this he didn't say he wanted to eliminate fossil fuels uh in 18 months

Corey 55:24

that'd be quite ambitious part of me would almost enjoy hearing that conversation because it'd be kind of fun

Carter 55:29

fun i mean there's no one no one's talking like that nobody's

Corey 55:35

he was talking about fossil fuel subsidies right Right. Now, if you are equating fossil fuel subsidies and the existence of the industry, you're probably telling on yourself and saying a bit more about the industry, especially as a conservative,

Zain 55:48

especially as a conservative.

Zain 55:48

conservative. So, Carter, you know, I wanted the main I only really had one fundamental question here, which probably won't surprise either of you, which is like chiropractic adjustment for O'Toole, like politically. Is that like what he needs now? Because he's he's also not he's

Zain 56:04

he's also competing for his political life. So you understand the look. It

Zain 56:09

like he is. So this is OK. Let's stress test this. I feel like he's clearly acting like it, you know, just because of the opposition within the conservative movement isn't as strong as it was the days after that election. It still seems like he's competing for his job. Still fighting to ensure he remains as leader. Do you not agree, Carter?

Carter 56:27

Carter? We're 10% through this

Carter 56:29

this path that, you know, this up to four years that Trudeau has. I mean, it just strikes me that, you know, within two to four months, there is no leadership review. I mean, like he'll get to the normal leadership review. He'll pass through it because no one else is emerging. Nothing else is happening. And I think that, you

Carter 56:50

you know, and the best way to hold on to it, frankly,

Carter 56:54

frankly, is to be a better leader and actually have your polling numbers go up.

Zain 56:59

with the gen pop rather than try to compete for the bay see that's what's interesting to me cory i see you smiling i have no idea about it's another stephen

Corey 57:06

stephen carter prediction i

Zain 57:07

i know you know why this is uh carter i appreciate this because this is helping cory and i's property values but jump in on this cory i

Corey 57:17

don't you know i don't know i i think he's obviously still under a little bit of a threat at the very least he's worried about holding the the party from losing votes to the PPC or something like that. So this is not a video that you would expect from kind of a confident leader. And it saddens me that this has currency with anybody in this country, because it's a lie. It's just an outright lie. And if Twitter was willing to slap down Chrystia Freeland for her email that was a creative cut of what was said, I think absolutely this should have been flagged accordingly on social media.

Zain 57:52

Corey, do you have any political advice for O'Toole as he tries to even whether it's majorly or minorly compete for his political life, he needs to ensure that this base that he's trying to appeal to is part of his coalition at a leadership vote. Carter says, best, best, you know, sort of empirical evidence, boost your poll numbers with the public at large. What would you say if you were giving that political advice here on O'Toole on this Sunday night?

Corey 58:17

I would say that a grown up pretending to be a kid is appealing to neither Neither grown-ups nor kids. So fucking pick a lane.

Zain 58:24

Tricks are for kids. Let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, first question to you. Are tricks actually and indeed for kids?

Carter 58:32

Tricks are, in fact, for adults. That's when you go to a prostitute and they do tricks on...

Carter 58:39

Jesus Christ. No, the cereal. I'm

Carter 58:41

I'm sorry, the cereal. Yeah, those are for kids. I misunderstood the question. I apologize.

Zain 58:49

Corey, they brought tricks back. are they still for kids

Corey 58:51

kids i didn't know tricks were gone tricks

Zain 58:53

tricks i'm glad they're

Corey 58:54

they're back they're gone something for prostitutes to eat now

Zain 59:00

no we're not we're going powering through powering through uh people will understand i'll just say i'll just say three words for you doris kearns goodwin now i just throw that out there people will understand that if they ever get the the ultra cut of this episode which they they never will. Corey Hogan, our next question goes to you. The damage on Aaron O'Toole for this video, overrated or underrated in your mind? There are a lot of ink is being spilt. You talked about that Ottawa Citizen column, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, it's everywhere. Overrated or underrated the damage for Aaron O'Toole on this particular video?

Corey 59:34

Oh, overrated. We'll forget about it in a week. It will play into kind of general criticisms of him by different people. But if it brings him down, it's a straw that broke the camel's back. He's not going down for this, not directly. Carter,

Zain 59:48

Carter, overrated or underrated the damage for Aaron O'Toole on this video?

Carter 59:53

Overrated. I think, you know, that's one of the reasons that it really pisses me off is because I'd really like to be seeing consequences to this type of action. And when there isn't consequences for lying, it just encourages more lying.

Zain 1:00:10

Carter, there's a new poll out that suggests Bill 21 and its popularity in Quebec is taking a bit of a nosedive. Still in the majority territory, 55%, but not in the 70s and 80s, what it used to be in terms of, you know, that talking point saying this is deeply popular in Quebec. At least with this new polling doesn't seem to be the case. The national conversation may have helped it overrated or underrated in your mind, that in Quebec, Bill 21 seems to be taking a dip in popularity. I

Carter 1:00:38

I think it's underrated. I think that, you know, Bill 21 is easy to kind of support in in the abstract, right? But when you start to see young teachers getting fired because they wear a hijab, all of a sudden you've now got a person that you can look at and say, you know what, I really

Carter 1:00:54

really don't think that that makes sense. I don't think that that's fair. And it may take a few more martyrs to really, you know, finish this. But I think that, you know, it could drop down under 50. And then I look to the

Carter 1:01:10

the incredibly strong federal leadership to finally figure out that one of them, at least one of them, should stand in opposition to this law.

Zain 1:01:18

Corey, same question to you. Overrated or underrated, the 55% of Quebec now in favor of Bill 21 taking a dip from its previous highs?

Corey 1:01:25

I think really underrated. And also, I hope it's a bit of an eye-opener for that incredibly strong federal leadership that Carter was talking about. I mean, could you imagine if our federal leaders hadn't been absolute cowards on this issue? Maybe if instead of just seeing something that was so popular and saying it's too popular and running for the hills they'd stood on their principles and made a case and explained to people why this thing that they'd never really thought about no other province ever did was actually a really terrible idea deeply illiberal and shouldn't be occurring i i mean dare

Corey 1:01:55

dare to dream that we could ever live in a country like that i'm

Carter 1:01:58

i'm jumping in on this because cory you've talked about before if you're if you're at a 20 polling space uh anything that's over 20% is a good thing to go after. Jagmeet Singh is not at 20% in Quebec. He

Carter 1:02:09

He had the opportunity now to appeal to 45% of Quebecers. Actually, he'd be on their radar screen as a leader. Especially young

Zain 1:02:17

young Quebecers, which by the way, their support

Zain 1:02:19

for this is in the 20s. Right.

Carter 1:02:20

Right. All of a sudden now, if he's taking a leadership position on this back, I don't remember how many episodes ago this was or how many weeks ago this was. It's probably episode 632 or something like that or 633 i don't even know who cares we don't why do we number these anyways the point of the exercise that's a great question

Carter 1:02:39

uh the point of the exercise is if he'd taken a leadership position 45 of quebecers would be looking at him and saying you are right i am with you on this issue and instead he's like still figuring out how to be a leader and after all All of these years.

Corey 1:02:57

Can I just add

Carter 1:02:58

add a what else? Good principles

Corey 1:02:59

principles and conceivably good politics

Zain 1:03:02

him. And downstream political impacts, Carter. What would happen if Jagmeet Singh took a stance on this, not just in Quebec, but in other parts of the country, where he's trying to create separation between progressive values between him and the liberals in their leftward march?

Carter 1:03:18

I mean, what's the total population of non-Christian in Canada right now, right? It's huge, right? Between non-Christian and— If

Zain 1:03:27

If my mail-out Quran strategy works, it's going

Carter 1:03:30

going to be great.

Carter 1:03:30

You know, you take the atheists, you take the non-Christian believers. There are big numbers of people who aren't

Carter 1:03:40

aren't going to be super thrilled with this. I mean, the idea that the atheists like this is, I think, a push, too. This isn't really about religion. This is about something that kind of goes beyond that and the freedom of expression. And I think that if you're even close to a modest libertarian where you say, you know what, I enable you to have whatever religious beliefs you wish, then

Carter 1:04:01

then this is just a bad law and leadership would have really helped.

Carter 1:04:07

He could have done so

Zain 1:04:09

Well, OK, so let me ask you this. I don't think this poll is going to be the lightning rod. But do you feel like he'll do something in the next little while, Carter, or continue on the same track? track

Carter 1:04:19

track if he's if he he's going to continue on the same track because if you don't take the if you don't do if you don't lead at the beginning you look even weaker leading at when the polling goes up let's

Zain 1:04:29

let's move on to our next question carter i'm going to start with you i know this is not a one size fits all but maybe a starting point for a discussion it's something we mentioned earlier circuit breaker lockdowns during omicron we're talking about you know the two camps that were pro like you know let's lock it down let's be totally safe it's much it's different now much much more textured, there's spillover. So, you know, circuit breaker lockdowns, the Alberta NDP calling for them, opposition parties in Ontario, I believe, also calling for them. Recently, a lot of public health officials, a lot of, you know, intensive care and epidemiologists calling for them as a political tool, overrated or underrated

Carter 1:05:06

during the Omicron wave.

Carter 1:05:07

Overrated, completely overrated. I think that, first of all, look at where we are, Right. Totally

Carter 1:05:13

Totally down on the number of people that can be at a restaurant. Totally down on the number of people who are working in their in their offices. We have a work from home order across the province. What exactly more would you be doing except removing children from school and children from school is still tricky. hierarchy um and i know i know i know and i know i know that you know we got to protect kids we got to protect kids we got to protect kids but protecting kids and means enabling them to see their their their their peers um because they're this is a developmental question as much as it is a question of of illness and i think that you must allow children to see one another if they're going going to have a proper developmental arc um and you

Carter 1:05:58

you know now that vaccination's available what five up cory or is it six up um five up five up i mean get vax get to school uh

Carter 1:06:07

uh stay in school cory

Zain 1:06:10

cory overrated underrated circuit breaker lockdowns during this omicron wave oh

Corey 1:06:14

oh well you know i saw some polling about a week ago and it was in the wake of ontario you'll recall call actually did go online for their schools for the first couple of weeks there, that just generally asked Canadians if they were happy about their approaches in government towards COVID, if they wanted more restrictions. I can't remember the wording right now, but I was quite struck by how split it was. Because for a long time, we had seen Canadians generally wanting more. But it was the first poll I'd seen where people were pretty, pretty evenly balanced on that matter. And if you you think about Alberta and you extrapolate out and you know, just based on

Carter 1:06:51

on vaccination rates in Alberta being a bit

Corey 1:06:53

bit of a lag, you know, and again, I want to stress like, it's a little behind the Canadian average, but way ahead of like the American average, anything like that. So let's just keep this all in context. But you know, that in Alberta, it's probably if anything, likely tipping the other way with people saying, you know what, no enough, like, it's too much, like, it's enough, right. And so I just, you know, I don't think it's necessarily a political winner to call for those kinds of actions. I think Stephen hit the nail on the head with schools. It's really tough. I knew it was five right away because I've got a five-year-old. I've got a seven-year-old. Those are pretty important years. And I will confess, I'm getting a little freaked out about how much time they've spent just sort of in bubbles, sitting at desks, even in kindergarten, on the mat on their own and all of that and what this is going to do in the future. And the idea of going to online learning again seemed wild. like there's things i want the government to do i want better ventilation in schools this should have been an eye-opener for all of us that schools need better ventilation this isn't just a covet thing let's just fix ventilation in schools how about that for a starting issue here i want to make sure that we have the protections available let's use the best mask let's do all of those sensible things that would allow us to continue those are reasonable things that i'm looking for as a parent i'm not looking for another fucking like shutdown of schools i'll tell you that right right now. But let's not make it all about me. The polling generally says that Albertans are feeling kind of the same level of fatigue. So look to

Corey 1:08:19

to the six rules that we came up with on the spot there. Carter's first one was about knowing where the center is. Where is the population on this thing?

Corey 1:08:28

I think the opposition parties

Corey 1:08:30

parties across the country need to keep an eye on that too. It's not just governments that are exposed on this. If you are right, Zane, and if the last If the last wave is the one people remember the strongest, and if the last wave is remembered for one group calling for way too much, and

Corey 1:08:45

and then the other group saying, no, no, no, we don't actually want to do that, and that other group turning out like they got it, you're sort of exacerbating that problem there. I think this is the time for sensible policy and pragmatic stepwise solutions. solutions.

Zain 1:08:59

Let's get the confetti ready, because it's time for our final question. And Stephen Carter, it's a prediction question. And I'm going to let our friend Corey Hogan go first. Corey, earlier today, Jean Charest, former Premier of Quebec said that the federal liberals will not, they will not challenge Francois Legault's unvaxed tax, that it's not going to be something that they try to clamp down on. Do you agree? Will the feds try to do anything to Francois Legault's proposed policy solution of taxing the unvaccinated. No,

Corey 1:09:31

No, they won't try to do anything to Legault. I mean, look at the number of things that they let slide in this particular matter over many governments of different stripes with Quebec. Like, look at, let's take the long game of this. Part of why Charest was so confident saying that is because as

Corey 1:09:45

as any sort of Albertan who's feeling aggrieved about our own kind of perception

Corey 1:09:51

perception of having like all sorts of private health Quebec is like the king

Corey 1:09:55

king of private healthcare, and

Corey 1:09:57

they've never managed to run afoul of the Canada Health Act. But also,

Corey 1:10:02

also, just look at Bill 21. Look at all of this. Do you see anything but cowardice coming from federal leaders when it comes with popular policies in Quebec? This isn't a prediction any more than it's a prediction to say the sun's going to rise in the east tomorrow. moral. Yeah, they're not going to fucking do a thing.

Corey 1:10:16

God forbid that this government stand up on any damn principle. And this isn't even one they feel that strongly about, right? This will be coming to the defense of the people who are opposed to vaccination. So they're not going to do a thing.

Zain 1:10:29

thing. Carter, it's a one foot putt. Are you going to try to hit it with a driver? Are you going to do the sensible thing? Are

Zain 1:10:37

do the sensible thing and tap it in like Woods Woods on a Sunday with a red shirt.

Carter 1:10:41

I'm Woods on a Sunday every day. I mean, it's pretty, I think.

Carter 1:10:46

Especially when he goes for a drive. You know, I.

Zain 1:10:54

Here's a question. Carter, will Charlie Woods be better than Tiger Woods?

Zain 1:10:58

we lost Carter. That's great. That's fine. Charlie

Corey 1:11:01

Woods is going to be great.

Zain 1:11:02

great. We don't even get to hear him. That's perfect. And that's a wrap on episode 965 of The Strategist. My name is C.L.G., with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, who doesn't get to make his predictions, so we'll never know if he

Zain 1:11:17

We'll see you next time.

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