Episode 999: Everything about one thing

Zain 0:01

This is a Strategist episode 999. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, we

Zain 0:09

we are one episode away from

Zain 0:12

from the big 1,000 episode celebration. Stephen Carter, we have been planning, we

Zain 0:17

we have been plotting, we

Zain 0:19

we have been preparing, one

Zain 0:22

one might say, for

Zain 0:23

for this big 1,000th episode. One might, but we

Zain 0:26

One might say that. One might say, yes, that is good. Thank you, Corey.

Zain 0:30

Um, Carter, I know you have had some ambitions for the 1000th episode. Do you want to lay those ambitions out to the audience and then tell them why we're not going to fulfill them?

Carter 0:37

So, as you know, I was tasked with approaching all the former prime ministers

Carter 0:42

of our great country and asking them if they would be interested in being involved.

Carter 0:48

answer is no. I mean, I did get some almost yeses from the estates of a couple of prime ministers uh but

Carter 0:56

but the living former prime ministers are are universal they have they don't want anything to do with the show um joe clark kept saying is this the curse of politics is this the curse of politics and i said no i'm not david hurley i'm human and

Carter 1:10

and he didn't understand that he was confused as all hell you

Zain 1:14

you you the correct answer to him would have been no sir you are the the curse of politics uh cory you know that's so harsh is

Carter 1:23

is that harsh she was a public put himself out there right honorable is going to be right upset oh

Zain 1:27

oh okay carter uh cory uh what ambitions did you have for the thousands that will not be uh met and fulfilled for our um audience well

Corey 1:36

well i was thinking we could do a 24-hour live feed where we went through the

Corey 1:43

arnie vinnick episode the arnie vinnick episode is that what you wanted we would answer every question anybody possibly had um until all questions were satisfied and

Corey 1:54

and then we would call an end to the episode yeah

Carter 1:57

and we'd have to answer them like with really long answers well

Carter 2:00

got 24 hours to be less than four

Carter 2:02

four to six minutes yeah like it would have to be long you'd do four to six minutes i'd do four to six minutes zane would then ask follow-up questions his his

Corey 2:11

question would be yeah

Corey 2:12

four to six minutes for sure

Carter 2:13

sure longer than both of our answers that'd be spectacular it's

Zain 2:16

it's called adding context to an audience that doesn't have any it's an undereducated audience um that needs any context and i try my best to provide it to them okay like listen they know why they should

Carter 2:27

should go back former

Carter 2:28

former prime ministers are people who were elected to be the leader of our country okay

Zain 2:34

okay yes thank you thank you car uh i have heard so many times that people gain more insight from the questions than they do your answers we

Corey 2:42

should do a poll we should actually i mean statistically listen valid pool about

Corey 2:46

our audience i don't

Corey 2:47

do you learn from

Zain 2:48

from the question credit where

Corey 2:49

where credit's due i believe that when you take up three quarters of the air time you're gonna get 51 of the insights it's

Corey 2:57

true 51 that's all you need mr

Zain 2:58

mr jason kenny uh carter you know before we jump before

Zain 3:02

before you know what fuck it let's just jump into it uh our first segment yeah go

Zain 3:08

go ahead i have an

Carter 3:08

an afl update i went three for six for the last three weeks once

Carter 3:13

once again that's random probability

Carter 3:14

probability you got crushed got

Carter 3:16

got crushed i am i am on the skids i'm on the skids it's a nightmare uh

Zain 3:23

uh excellent carter thank you very much uh for that uh is it okay if i move on is it okay if i move on our

Zain 3:30

our next segment our first segment i should say steven and carter because i was just jumping right into it our first segment 15 minutes of fame that is right cory michelle rample gardner the one that both of you said was going to announce today the the one we were going to cover an entire episode because that's what the people wanted of

Zain 3:49

of her campaign launch we were going to criticize talk about the branding the stage performance the mp and caucus endorsements well cory it is all for naught because she instead chose the other route which is to write a letter that clocks in at 15 minutes of reading time, ultimately saying that she was honored to be ahead in a poll that said that she could become the next premier, but alas, she can't do it because of divisions in the UCP. Corey, let's talk about this. She's not running, but she put out this letter. Your

Corey 4:20

Your first thoughts? Well, I didn't read the letter. So my first thought was that a candidate whose relevance was in debate, that

Corey 4:27

that debate ended when she decided not to run so i wasn't going to spend a ton of time i did spend a little bit of time on the meta analysis where she took about

Corey 4:34

about three dozen rounds out of her colleagues or

Corey 4:37

or or would-be colleagues where she'd run um and spent an awful lot of time marketing herself for somebody who wasn't actually

Corey 4:44

in the market right

Corey 4:45

right so um very

Corey 4:49

uh it is one of those things though i think at this point we're all going to be very doubtful of her whenever she says she's interested in running for different things because it's

Corey 4:57

it's not the first time and we talked about this in our last episode where she has somewhat teased the notion of of running again most famously in 2015 uh

Corey 5:05

uh after that election that elected justin trudeau went on a bit of a tweet storm about

Corey 5:12

you can't say somebody doesn't have enough experience anymore that old line is dead at

Corey 5:17

at the time i think she was 35 she thought that means nothing so on so forth so uh but then didn't ultimately run as we know so um she has kind of moved into the territory of the mckenna's and the lords of the world where uh where

Corey 5:31

where they are perennially named they they perennially sort of accept the the

Corey 5:36

the conversation around them and don't do much to dissuade it uh

Corey 5:41

at this point i'm just doubtful she's ever gonna run now Now, I

Corey 5:44

I understand her letter gave a few reasons why she didn't want to run, and

Corey 5:48

and those have been well discussed online, but I

Corey 5:52

I think it's more than that. I think it is more than that.

Zain 5:55

I have a few follow-up questions that I want to try to make sure we answer by the end of this segment. But, Carter, your initial take, and let me ask you a question in regards to, you know, these letters always have an out, an excuse, an off-ramp, right? X, Y, and Z, I'm honored, whatever, whatever. In this case, she goes as far as saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that she was ready to run. She was ready to go. I was ready to launch my campaign, and then I reflected on the divisions. Do you believe that? Do you believe that she was so ready to go and then just pulled the plug on the entire operation?

Carter 6:30

Yeah, I do. And

Carter 6:31

And the reason I believe it is because I know that money calls have been made.

Carter 6:35

I know that Sean had left the Patrick Brown campaign. I know

Carter 6:39

know that Michelle left the Patrick Brown campaign. These aren't actions that you take when you're just considering it.

Carter 6:45

You tell the media you're considering it, but you're in. You're done. You're

Carter 6:48

You're making the move already. And that move had been made. And

Carter 6:51

And then all of a sudden, at

Carter 6:52

at the 11th hour, she decides to send out an email that

Carter 6:56

that I'll paraphrase it a little bit differently than you did. Yeah, I have all the attributes and abilities to lead, but I can't lead you fuck. That seemed to be, you

Carter 7:07

know, that seemed to be the nature of the letter. And you know what, I think she's right. I don't think this group can be led. I think that she, she's

Carter 7:14

she's entirely correct in saying that. But, you

Carter 7:17

you know, I was stunned by her going through, let me go through the three things that I needed to have in order to make sure I could run. I have them all.

Carter 7:26

when I look at you people, when I look at how people I've known my entire political life spoke

Carter 7:32

spoke against me coming into this race because I missed a deadline by two weeks,

Carter 7:37

there's something fundamentally wrong in

Carter 7:40

in that party. And

Carter 7:41

And she looked at it and said, you know what?

Carter 7:44

I'd just as soon not lead you losers.

Carter 7:47

You took down Jason Kenney. You took took down, I

Carter 7:50

mean, let's look at their record, right?

Carter 7:52

They took down Jason Kenney. They took down Ed Stelmack. They took down Alison Redford. They

Carter 7:56

They took down Klein. These are essentially the same groups of people who

Carter 7:59

who have moved against every single leader they've ever known, with

Carter 8:03

with the exception of Jim Prentice, who was moved on by the voters

Carter 8:08

that's quite a record.

Zain 8:10

Quite a lot of meta-narrative, meta-analysis that this is ultimately constructed for her out on the patrick brown campaign that this might be her out from public life any thoughts given to that from what you read what you saw what you heard uh

Zain 8:24

uh for michelle so i

Corey 8:24

i saw that but i mean oh my god there's easier ways to quit a campaign right that's

Zain 8:31

we've got an expert at that who

Corey 8:33

can help us um yeah if he if she had taken the advice of somebody on this show she could have gotten severance from that campaign would

Corey 8:40

would have been sweet as hell hey yeah

Corey 8:43

yeah what's up sitting right here carter

Zain 8:47

carter has actually carter's actually gotten severance from all campaigns which means that um on the campaign he has one mind and then when he goes home he forgets about it which is what it lets him do it over and over again without uh very much memory of mistakes past i think that is actually the type of severance david carter has had

Carter 9:03

had with the campaign you know what you are welcome you're welcome i'm signing you both up to be the liberal the liberal party leader i've got got your digital signatures this is going to happen because now i'm pissed off shout

Carter 9:13

shout out to the no problem you know

Carter 9:16

know nothing compared to all my severances let's go shout

Zain 9:19

shout out to all the apple tv plus homies uh cory keep going with your

Corey 9:21

your look uh if she wanted to quit the brown campaign i can think of about five easier ways off the top of my head i want to spend a little bit more time with family if she actually wants to throw the patrick brown campaign under the the bus she can say this This campaign has not materialized the way I wanted it to. I need to focus on the next thing, and the next thing is making sure that we're ready for the next election because Justin Trudeau can't be allowed to be unchecked at this particular time.

Corey 9:48

All good conservatives are required to move forward in this fashion or the other fashion. We need to expand the views on the campaign, so we're bringing another co-chair, and I'm going to step back from day to day. Look, there

Corey 9:59

there are myriad ways

Corey 10:00

ways there are to quit a campaign. campaign uh

Corey 10:04

boggles the mind i mean like you're only limited by your imagination and i guess it

Corey 10:08

would certainly be imaginative to decide to do a kind

Corey 10:11

kind of a fake out to run for leader and then quit and

Corey 10:14

and i guess also bring other

Corey 10:16

other people from the campaign along the way to steven's point who would also quit the brown campaign but is that really realistic i mean isn't

Corey 10:23

isn't there an occam's razor thing here which is that

Corey 10:26

that she was going to run and she decided not to run that

Corey 10:28

that to me seems much more more likely. And honestly,

Corey 10:31

honestly, when you think about it and you think about the conversations that were going on around the UCP, is

Corey 10:37

is she wrong? I

Corey 10:39

I mean, you talk about missing a deadline by two weeks. I think that's a misuse of the word deadline. There was a requirement to have a

Corey 10:45

a membership six months prior or to get a waiver from the LEC. Why do you even have that waiver criteria if somebody who is a sitting conservative MP who only missed it by two weeks is anything Anything but a slam dunk. Like, is that not why that criteria exists? That's, by the way, who just did not realize their membership had expired. That to me seems the exact case that they built that leadership rule for. So she's not wrong when she says it's insane that

Corey 11:12

that there were MLAs standing up and talking against her who she considered friends and allies. It says everything about the current state of the UCP. It

Carter 11:20

really is insane. Nuts.

Zain 11:42

sets her back? Or did this kind of help her in some way get some cred and credentials without having to actually lead this party or run in this race? Where do you think this kind of ends? Her race ends

Zain 12:03

ends today, so to speak. Where does that kind of leave her? Better off or worse off, Carter?

Carter 12:08

Worse off on two fronts.

Carter 12:10

Worse off in the province. The UCP is still the governing It is still the party that people think can be brought together. And she's essentially said, you're hopeless. There's no chance. No one's going to be able to lead this crew, which

Carter 12:25

which I agree with. But you don't say that.

Carter 12:28

But it would be much more politically correct for her to simply

Carter 12:33

asked to run for the leadership. I've decided it's against, you know, there's

Carter 12:36

there's many great candidates. I've decided that my candidacy is not required

Carter 12:41

required at this time to turn this party around. Instead,

Carter 12:45

you fuckers can't be led.

Carter 12:47

And she hurt herself with the Brown campaign.

Carter 12:50

She hurt herself with the Brown campaign in that she

Carter 12:54

you know, I'm here for you. But then she backed out. Now, again, I don't blame her for that. I think that, you know, she was going to run for the leadership of the UCP. That's where she was. So to be

Carter 13:09

be in this position, to be so honest, I think, has

Carter 13:13

created a problem for her.

Carter 13:14

And she's lost with Patrick Brown and the conservative movement in Canada, and

Carter 13:19

and she's lost with the UCP here in Alberta. Corey,

Corey 13:23

want your take on this.

Corey 13:25

Yeah, I mean, Carter's right. The letter itself and the way she quit leads

Corey 13:29

leads to all sorts of conversations that are

Corey 13:32

are not going to be helpful to her, which

Corey 13:35

which does lead to the question, like, what was the goal here when she wrote that? Was it for them to pick up their socks? I mean, I

Corey 13:42

I feel like if

Corey 13:44

I found out tomorrow there was a wire transfer of $100,000 from the NDP, I'd find it hard to be shocked because this is like, is it perfect for them? You had somebody who was

Corey 13:53

was thinking about running. A poll was released the day before saying she had the highest net positives of any of the candidates in the race.

Corey 14:02

She leaves immediately after that, says that they're all lunatics.

Corey 14:07

I mean, that is so damaging to the UCP. um it's

Corey 14:10

it's it's going to be very difficult uh i think for everybody to sort of forgive and forget that um and and so again if you were going to just quit the brown campaign you would have done the version that steven was saying you would have had the you know there's many great candidates but i've ultimately decided not to run but i've already stepped down from that patrick brown campaign so c'est la vie but

Corey 14:31

but you know you asked what does this mean for her in the long term is she better off or worse off like i think worse off in the short term but in the long term let's

Corey 14:38

let's just say even 10 years from now, she decides she wants another kick at this.

Corey 14:42

She's got a bit of a boy who cried wolf problem now,

Zain 14:46

was just about to say that. Exactly.

Corey 14:47

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because now when

Corey 14:49

when she muses leadership, people

Corey 14:51

people are going to say, well, I'll believe her when I see it. And the bar that she's going to have to clear, that's not to say she can never run for a leader. It's not to say she can never be a leader, but

Corey 15:00

but it means that there's

Corey 15:01

there's going to be more

Corey 15:03

more skeptics that it's even going to happen. And that's not helpful when you're getting a leadership campaign campaign ready because you want to lock people up or at the very least keep them on the sidelines

Zain 15:14

carter you know on this on this podcast we rarely deal with uh breaking news right because uh we break the news we are the news in fact we

Zain 15:22

we operate in our own uh ecosystem our own echo chamber yeah but i'm just seeing this right now this story just coming out from the toronto star this evening uh like 15 minutes ago that

Zain 15:31

that some tory mps are trying to get the minimum number of mps He's required to trigger a reform act to kick Michelle Rempel-Garner out of the conservative caucus that they're that they're indicating that, you know, there's smear jobs and harassment. She's going after other conservatives.

Zain 15:48

There's also accusations of her being a liberal associated

Zain 15:51

associated with the Patrick Brown campaign.

Zain 15:54

React to that for me, Carter. I know you probably even have read the article that I just forwarded to you guys on the WhatsApp chat

Corey 15:59

chat that we have going on. Well, I'm not paying 99 cents to purchase the star.

Zain 16:03

Yeah, well, I'm trying to archive it for you. while we speak okay okay i can do two things at once okay let

Zain 16:08

let me tell you something it's never worthy to pay for something okay especially at like six dollars a month it's too much it's too much carter it is react to what i just threw at you too

Carter 16:17

too much dollars um

Carter 16:19

um this is what happens no good deed goes unpunished and you know i

Carter 16:24

i think that michelle was right um i do think that this is an ungovernable caucus uh but this is going to create havoc for her

Carter 16:32

these people these these these aren't normal people. These aren't people who are, you know, just

Carter 16:38

just into politics hoping to do the very best job. Instead,

Carter 16:41

Instead, these are people who are literally trying to take

Carter 16:46

take the party in a totally different way. I'll tell you something. If Michelle Rempel-Garner is a liberal, we have a real problem

Carter 16:53

problem on where the line lies in Canadian politics between liberal and conservative. I

Carter 17:00

this is this is the greatest insult that they can hurl at her. And, you

Carter 17:04

you know, they were looking for any opportunity just

Carter 17:08

just to to slash and burn the party down from what it is to where they want it to be, which is a party that that fits that's a tent big enough just to fit in all the small minds of the Pierre Polyev campaign.

Zain 17:22

Corey, your thoughts on this, that, you know, she's going back potentially to a caucus that's maybe not that hospitable, that is going after her LGBTQ plus advocacy. She might even lean into this and say, if that's who you are accusing me of, that's who I am. But I'm curious your thoughts, right? There's more to this story, and I'm sure more will kind of be talked about on this day that she's generated a bit of press.

Corey 17:44

press. But Corey, your thoughts on this? Well, my first First thought is we're going to have to sit and adjust our priors here, because when we think about why she decided not to run, if she knew this story was coming, if this was the reality of the conservative caucus at the time,

Corey 18:00

I got to tell you, it's it's that probably weighs in a little bit on it. And it does make me think of, you

Corey 18:08

know, some standard cliche advice that the best defense is a good offense. So for her saying the conservatives have a problem, the conservatives are tearing themselves apart.

Corey 18:16

And the day before, perhaps,

Corey 18:19

perhaps, you know, the conservatives try to tear themselves apart at the federal level. Maybe that doesn't hurt her. Maybe this is a way for her to maintain her standing

Corey 18:27

standing within the organization more broadly. I don't know. It's one hell of a swing. But my first thought is this does change my thinking about her

Corey 18:35

her actions on the leadership campaign.

Carter 18:38

Does it really? For me, it's just unrelated.

Zain 18:43

Oh, with Corey on this, I think she was trying to talk about her party when she's talking about the UCP in many ways, but Carter, jump in.

Carter 18:50

I just think that sometimes there's

Carter 18:52

there's not a conspiracy behind every door.

Carter 18:55

What is the most logical explanation? She took action and now they're trying to get rid of her. Now,

Carter 19:00

Now, maybe this was happening before and she decided to get out of the way of it.

Carter 19:04

But even then, it's actually something that would propel her in this leadership race if done properly. And I have a lot of confidence that both she and Sean Schnell would manage this very,

Carter 19:14

very, very well. They're very accomplished campaigners.

Carter 19:17

They know what they're doing.

Carter 19:20

And I think that they would have the capacity to manage something like this relatively easily so

Carter 19:24

so i think that the the the easiest story the most true story is

Carter 19:28

is this is a one-day thing anyways you know you get kicked out of the conservative caucus maybe it

Carter 19:32

it lasts for more than a day but are you really going to be kicking

Carter 19:36

michelle rempel garner um attack dog for stephen harper out of the party like there's

Carter 19:42

there's just no way that's going to happen it

Zain 19:45

it seems really fucked up from the perspective of what this party used to be, but what is it? But Corey, for the longest time, and we weren't necessarily planning to talk about the conservative leadership, but it's come up here perhaps naturally, right? But for the longest time, we've said that this is going to be a soul-searching mission for the party and that there's one camp, the Pierre Polyev camp, and we'll talk about that in a second as it relates to his most recent video.

Zain 20:10

But Corey, there's one camp that's wanted purity above anything else, that's not wanted anyone that that, you know, put some water in their wine, that's wanted someone who's steadfast to their version, their ideology of conservatism, not maybe a pragmatic choice, but a pure one. And this perhaps seems an extension of that.

Corey 20:30

Maybe. This is breaking news, and I think we need time to digest it and not react to the moment. But, you

Corey 20:37

you know, listen, I've got a lot of problems with with the kind of the current vibes within the conservative party and how they are getting so extreme on so many issues and that there are these purists within the organization that don't

Corey 20:52

don't even necessarily seem that interested in winning unless they can win it all. Like all or nothing, that's for the most extreme version of conservatism seems to be the only appetite that some people in the

Corey 21:04

that said, we've now got two stories and at the center of them is Michelle Ruppelgarner.

Corey 21:11

Ruppelgarner. I mean, we've

Corey 21:13

we've also got to look at the context in that sense, too, and say, OK, is there something happening

Corey 21:19

happening here? Does she actually have a bit of a problem with her federal caucus and by extension with some of the political organizers within the province of Alberta, too? too. You know, it's it's tough to say, but

Corey 21:37

I'm sure we'll be talking. It's just too easy. It's not, though, you know, because it is

Carter 21:42

to say. I mean, these are the accusations.

Carter 21:43

What happened? Why would this happen? And then they happen to find this story. This is the this is the stuff that that, you know, the

Carter 21:53

the media jumps all over. And they're very rarely is there actually any stuff there it gets reported then forgotten um

Carter 22:00

um i i've been the subject of some of these reports you know oh

Carter 22:04

oh i'm a mean guy i'm a bully i'd never fucking bully you too right right

Carter 22:09

yes sir fuckers anyways you know like it's

Carter 22:13

it's just it is what it is this is just ridiculous in my mind i just think we're

Zain 22:20

think we just let carter wear himself out i think that's what we do at a certain point cory that's how i think that's how i want to end segments now just let him like just wear it out carter just bag it your head against the wall and then we'll just have an awkward silence and we'll move on to our next segment our next segment intense camping trip carter

Zain 22:38

hope you appreciate the pun about the tents very good but people all across the country it is now officially summer is it not stephen carter i'm

Zain 22:50

carter they're not going camping outside oh no they've rejected the outside do Do you know why? Because they don't want to camp inside.

Zain 22:57

Okay, that was... No, Carter. Carter. Jesus.

Zain 23:04

They're camping inside. They're camping inside passport offices across this country. I want to talk about that. If I can call it mini-crisis, that delay, the long lines, the large

Zain 23:17

large volume of people, perhaps the understaffed service workers in the bureaucracy to get passports done.

Zain 23:26

done. But Corey, I want to start here with the name we've mentioned already, Pierre Polyever. He put

Zain 23:30

put out another one of his classic four

Zain 23:35

Carter, has he ruined the West Wing for you, by the way, with his walk-and-talk? It's almost done, yeah. Has he just fundamentally— I can't watch

Carter 23:42

He's starting to look like Sam Seenborn to me. It's extremely upsetting.

Zain 23:49

Corey, he walks into a passport office, long line, has a camping chair with him, goes in, asks people how long they've been, then comes outside, sits on the chair and talks about how this is another failure of the liberal government. So the question I have to ask for you, Corey, is

Zain 24:02

is this a failure of the liberal government or is this an extension of perhaps what we saw last episode of us seeing this stuff more now that the liberals might be entering into a bad press cycle? What do you think this is and how do you process it politically before we get into the strategy here?

Corey 24:18

Well, it's a failure of the government and the liberals are the government. So I suppose I'd have a hard time saying it's not a failure of the liberal government. And these

Corey 24:27

these are the kinds of things that can

Corey 24:30

can become so emblematic and symbolic of government problems more broadly. If you want to take a step back, there's actually two things happening right now that are causing the lines at the passport office, maybe even three, right? Right. So one, Canadians

Corey 24:44

Canadians are returning to travel after a time of not really being able to travel. So there's higher demand for passports. Two,

Corey 24:55

10 years ago, we introduced a 10 year passport option and those passports are coming up for renewal. So it's like the double cohort in Ontario. All of a sudden we're finding there's more of a more of a surge of

Corey 25:10

the public service is coming out of COVID times, and I'm sure that there's some dust on the gears that needs to be kind of shaken off and they need to be re-greased in order for everything to run. So it's a bit of a perfect storm in terms of the passport office, but why

Corey 25:26

why you absolutely cannot

Corey 25:28

cannot just sort of shrug and say, ain't that the thing and move on, you know, even setting aside the fact that this is 2022 and people like to travel, people need to travel. There

Corey 25:39

There is, you know, there's familial connections, there's work connections.

Corey 25:45

They were warned. So the public service had, you know, this note that, hey, this is going to be a bit hairy. and

Corey 25:51

it doesn't sound like anything happened now do i think justin trudeau had to immediately call up service canada and say you

Corey 25:58

you gotta hire a whole bunch of people no i don't think that's how government works i think it should have happened through ministers

Corey 26:04

ministers deputy ministers directors general all of that all the way through um

Corey 26:10

but it didn't happen so

Corey 26:11

so it was a breakdown of government somewhere along the way and um there's not a lot of excuses for that and

Corey 26:18

and whenever you have something like this it spurs so many conversations with so many people who say what the fuck are they doing and i can tell you even in my own life i have a colleague who

Corey 26:31

who did that brought her

Corey 26:32

her camping chair to

Corey 26:33

to um to the passport office here in calgary showed up at 6 30 there

Corey 26:39

there had been people there since 4 30 she

Corey 26:42

she did not get to talk to anybody that day they just shut the line off at a certain point in the afternoon she

Corey 26:47

was like two hours away from

Corey 26:49

from the place online that you needed to be in order to talk to anybody there were people furious understandably so the whole system had kind of broken down and by the way this was after she had done like the mail passport request

Corey 27:05

six months so yeah you know it's real problem and

Corey 27:08

and but more to the point it's a real problem that she then proceeded to tell probably 30

Corey 27:12

30 people about and

Corey 27:13

and probably with each Each of those 30 people, including myself, we

Zain 27:17

we had a, what

Corey 27:18

the hell is going on? How

Corey 27:19

How did we get here?

Corey 27:21

How were people so asleep at the switch?

Corey 27:23

And because they're so personal and such dramatic stories, they're

Corey 27:28

they're going to have legs. And they're the kind of thing that really hurts the government.

Zain 27:32

Carter, is there any parallel, maybe I'll ask it this way, to what we're seeing right now with the issues and the items that the Trudeau government has, to Corey's point, maybe walked into a perfect storm with? The issues related to travel, the issues related to passports, the issues related to affordability, that, you know, when we go back to one of the classic political lines that we've used is that, you know, it's that, was

Zain 27:57

was it $16 glass of orange juice, right? People care more about that than they do if

Zain 28:01

something was supposed to be a billion and it's a million or vice versa that they don't understand here. In this case, it's similar in some ways, right? Right. It's my 50 or 100 dollar passport renewal that I just want to fucking just get this shit right versus the billions of dollars in spending and propping up the stock market and the economy and the two thousand dollar checks that you kept giving me. Like I can still be mad at you because my 150 dollar passport renewal is being fucked up. Is

Zain 28:28

Is there some parallel in that way, Carter, to these constellation of issues that the liberals face right now, whether by design? And this is what I want to talk about next, whether by design or

Zain 28:38

or by some weird circumstance and happenstance.

Carter 28:42

This is one of the things I'm always shocked that we don't get higher turnout at municipal elections, right? Municipal elections, municipalities are responsible for making sure that water goes uphill and poop goes downhill. And the moment water stops going uphill or poop stops going downhill, it's going to be super important to you.

Carter 28:58

But the municipalities, by and large, make sure that water goes uphill and poop goes downhill with great efficiency.

Carter 29:07

it's amazing, really, the society in which we live. And those places that don't have water, we all look at it and say, we got to fix that right away. Well,

Carter 29:14

Well, here we have the

Carter 29:15

the base functioning of the federal government.

Carter 29:18

The base functioning, no one thinks that getting a passport should be that onerous. I

Carter 29:22

I mean, there's a few forms to be filled out. They check this box, they check that box. But ultimately, most people who go into a passport office get the passport court in

Carter 29:30

in relatively short order.

Carter 29:32

Except when the process doesn't work, when the simple stops

Carter 29:36

stops being simple, people

Carter 29:38

people start to lose their minds.

Carter 29:40

And the simple has stopped being simple here.

Carter 29:44

this is going to be a problem for the government. Now, is this going to be a long-term problem? I

Carter 29:48

I don't think so. It really depends on how quickly you get it sorted out. If you get it sorted out by the end of May, there's a group of people who were disadvantaged and

Carter 29:58

aren't you glad you're not not one of them.

Carter 30:00

If this continues on for quite some time,

Carter 30:02

this could be one of those things that literally brings down a government. You

Carter 30:06

You can't even make

Carter 30:08

make sure that the poop

Carter 30:09

poop goes downhill and the water goes uphill. This is

Carter 30:14

is what the passport office is. I'll tell you something, interesting contrast, Revenue Canada is working. They have no problem taking my tax money. They have no problem making sure that my taxes are supposed to be paid. And if I was Pierre Polyev, that'd be my next my next video.

Carter 30:29

My next video would be, here are the parts of the government that are working.

Carter 30:33

Them taking your money still works. Them getting you a passport doesn't.

Zain 30:39

Corey, we've talked a lot about Pierre Polyev's message of disciplining. He displays it again in this video, which I'll talk about and explain and tease out a bit more for those that haven't a chance to see it. But Corey, same

Zain 30:48

same question to you, right? Does this fall into that same parallel lane that

Zain 30:52

that if you aren't getting the shit that directly impacts me, that I can relate to, touch feel use then

Zain 30:58

then what the fuck are you doing here in the first place yeah

Corey 31:02

yeah you know so there's two reasons that's the case one is it speaks to basic competency you can't even run a passport office how can you do x right why should i trust you with a multi-billion dollar recovery when i can't trust you with the

Corey 31:14

the 150 passport to

Corey 31:16

to your right um

Corey 31:17

um but the the other reason that that this This is something that really damages the government's credibility is it

Corey 31:25

it is it is that tangible thing that Stephen's talking about. We all know when the passport office is broken. We may not know if

Corey 31:33

if a multibillion dollar recovery is not working.

Zain 31:36

working. And so it's very easy for us to pass judgment on.

Zain 31:39

There's no question about it.

Corey 31:40

And the Pierre Polyev video, the

Corey 31:43

the reason why I think it was so successful, I

Corey 31:46

I agree with you. You texted us. You thought it was one of his best videos to date. I did. i did yeah yeah um

Corey 31:54

the you know the the theatrics and the absurdity of it but also

Corey 31:59

you know what i thought the minute i i saw that video yeah

Corey 32:02

the the lawn chair oh

Corey 32:03

oh my colleague did exactly that like that's not just a thing where pierre pauliev is that's apparently a thing everywhere right i'm hearing about these stories in calgary this is happening in ottawa this is happening in montreal you know

Corey 32:16

know it's everywhere uh

Corey 32:17

uh and to the point about message discipline amazingly he managed to blame gatekeepers for this oh my

Zain 32:22

my goodness yeah i mean like that that's exactly it his concluding statement was somewhat of what carter said which was you

Zain 32:29

you know listen this is a government that likes to do a lot of things poorly when i run government we're going to do a few things really well powerful

Zain 32:36

powerful one might argue and then to the extension of your point cory the visuals were undeniable him

Zain 32:42

him you know walking through a a line of people that had been there for literally hours, if not had shown up for multiple days. Undeniable stuff. And then he sits you down and talks to you.

Zain 32:54

Carter, talk to me about that political attack. Let's talk about the crux of it, right? Pierre Polyev's through line has been freedom,

Zain 33:02

freedom, more freedom, gatekeepers are standing in your way. He tied this back to your inability to buy a home, your inability to say what you want online, your inability to keep your own money, all these things that he's he's introduced but

Zain 33:15

but carter as it relates that political attack i want to get your take on it how powerful is a political attack of few things well versus a lot of things poorly

Carter 33:26

you know this this commitment that the peer has to his language is textbook message discipline as corey has indicated he knows exactly what he's going to say we know what he's going to say he is consistent with it every single time and we never get bored of it because Because he takes the same, and this is something that I spent a lot of time trying to explain to different politicians through my career.

Carter 33:50

The messages aren't the actual policies. People always think that the message is the policy. Those are the proof

Carter 33:55

It's not the policy.

Carter 33:56

The policies are what I call the walls of the house. And you can have as many walls in your house as you want, but it's the roof on the house that is actually... Some campaigns have a two-slope roof. Some have a three-slope. Some have a four-slope. But the slopes of the roof are

Carter 34:14

are the gatekeepers. You can put anything in the gate. The

Carter 34:17

The work I'm doing in Surrey, we have three things. It's all about openness

Carter 34:21

openness and transparency. It's about fairness. And it's about cost of living. You

Carter 34:27

You give me any issue anywhere,

Carter 34:29

anywhere, and I can make it about one of those three things.

Carter 34:32

That's the message discipline that Pierre brings to this. Whatever the issue is, he's always going to bring it back to his point of his his core message and we will hear it and hear it and understand it because he's now put the understanding in the context of an issue that you care about whether

Carter 34:50

whether it was home affordability whether it's passport whatever i mean the government's not going to get out of the business of passport of

Zain 34:56

of course not i

Carter 34:57

i can tell you that there is no private enterprise that can get in the way of that um

Carter 35:02

he knows it's still going going to be government run, but he's still able to phrase it in his language, in his core message structure that brings out, you

Carter 35:12

you know, brings him the opportunity to win the day. It's textbook, and it's rather, I

Carter 35:17

I mean, if it wasn't coming from such a, what's

Carter 35:20

what's the word I'm looking for, horrendous human being, I think that it would be really quite impressive. I

Corey 35:26

I mean, I just think, I think it's impressive.

Corey 35:30

When we talk about, look, listen, he's saying gatekeepers are keeping you from getting your passport and it somehow made sense in the context of his words i mean don't scrap scrap too deep because what are we really saying here like there's nobody saying no no no you can't have your passport yet they're just they don't have enough people it's almost the opposite they need more gatekeepers for you to get your passport right um

Carter 35:53

well you need gatekeepers at a passport office right

Carter 35:56

right like that's the point You have to be vetted, right? Like that's the actual point of passport.

Corey 36:01

The port is a gate. But, you know, like the whole thing is absurd when you think about it. But his discipline, his message discipline is second to none.

Corey 36:10

And it's a real masterclass in tying everything back to your key message.

Zain 36:14

And, you know, here's what I want to say. And this is where I want to get into the strategy element of it, Carter. We need to help the liberals here on this episode, because as it relates to the liberals, I diagnose two fundamental problems. Number one, they do not have a smart, succinct response to the gatekeepers' freedom narrative and the subsequent proof points, which we've now been able to see. Do we need more proof points? That everything in this campaign, he's going to jam into that frame. And he's doing it quite effectively. Affordability, gas prices, everything. He's

Zain 36:45

putting everything into that frame. And so the question that we have to ask ourselves, and Carter, let me start with you on this, is what do the Liberals need to do? Because the second problem I diagnose here, perhaps with the Liberals, and maybe I'll use the response that Minister Gold gave to asking Service Canada to do more in a generic way regarding passports, but also the speech by Chrystia Freeland, where her plan to tackle affordability really fundamentally just reannounced things that the Liberal government said, oh, look, we

Zain 37:15

we were already going to do a bunch of this stuff. and this stuff all shoehorns into affordability, it

Zain 37:19

it seems to be an emotional disconnect. Maybe not even a policy disconnect, Carter, an emotional disconnect that the liberals have and that peer is starting to build and perhaps grow on. So when you have a government, as we've talked about last episode, when we talked about this disconnect that the liberals might have, this malaise, I think is the term that I kind of pushed on us. Now

Zain 37:39

Now I'm kind of going a bit further to saying there might be an emotional disconnect with the public, an emotional misalignment with the public, while the guy on the other side seems to be running unabated,

Zain 37:48

and not just a good policy that might appeal to his base, but by creating an emotional resonance with people.

Zain 37:55

So talk to me about this, Carter. What is the strategy, framework, and response that the Liberals need to start giving to something like this?

Carter 38:02

Well, first of all, they need to stay out of his message box. They need to stay out of where his messages lie. They need to go back and address what it is that they're in this government to do.

Carter 38:12

The second thing that they need to do is rather relatively tactical. The beauty of being in opposition is that no one ever expects you to do anything.

Carter 38:20

So if you don't, if you're not expected to do anything, you get to just travel around the country and say, this isn't working, I would do it better. We see no indication that that's actually true, but it doesn't need to be true. He doesn't need to actually implement anything. That's the joy of being in opposition. But the liberals may need to go back to their to their, um, deputy ministers and say, um,

Carter 38:42

um, you know, we have a problem here. You know, we have to, we have to shake up this ship. And that means that some of you are going to sink. Uh, we need to redefine how we're running this, this bureaucracy. Um, when oftentimes when the new government comes into place, they will move a lot of people out and shuffle people around. The people who are near to retirement will suddenly find themselves, uh, retiring or entering private enterprise. rise, getting

Carter 39:08

getting some well-paying jobs and a nice severance. I'm in favor.

Carter 39:13

But this is what's going to happen. I think that the liberals need to put themselves in that position where they go to their civil service and say, I need to start seeing changes, or

Carter 39:21

or we're going to start shaking things up.

Carter 39:23

And we're going to enter into a new message framework that we're going to own. It's going to stay away from polyabs. Corey,

Zain 39:29

Corey, same question for you here, right? This emotional connection is kind of what I want to get into. It seems like one side and one candidate in particular is building it, And the other side may have had it during COVID, may have been on the same emotional wavelength with the electorate, seems to now be giving it up on affordability, all the things related to everyone's immediate future and the personalization of their government.

Corey 39:55

Well, I don't 100% agree. Okay, yeah, challenge the premise. Challenge the premise. I'm just putting

Corey 39:59

putting it out there to be challenged. nothing

Corey 40:01

in life is as good or as bad as you think it is

Corey 40:04

and i don't think pierre is as good as we're acting and i don't think the liberals are as bad as we're suggesting here i

Corey 40:10

i do agree with steven 100 that they

Corey 40:13

they need to stay out of his message box if they start going ham on responding to his gatekeeper charge they're fucking dead because they're entirely you know we're not gatekeepers that can't be their message uh and so they need they can't get distracted at least not not on what they're fundamentally trying to do.

Corey 40:29

I do think they're getting a little distracted because issues

Corey 40:33

issues do, boy, issues, right? Like issues come up and

Corey 40:36

governments on their head. And

Corey 40:38

And the big issue right now is inflation and affordability. And they're trying to do something on that, but their tools are very limited.

Corey 40:45

But this is a marathon, not a race. And while there

Corey 40:51

I just, I cannot believe how good Pierre Poliev is at message discipline. I it is

Corey 40:55

is it is better than anyone I have ever seen. Like I yearn for

Corey 41:00

for candidates like this when I when I was working in politics. I've never seen a candidate who's so good at moving back to it.

Corey 41:08

Doesn't mean that where he's ultimately very artfully taking the conservatives is the right place. So

Corey 41:14

So he's disciplined in his message. His brand will be super well defined. fine.

Corey 41:18

The Liberals need to think about their brand and their message, and everybody needs to think about where they want to be in 2025, not 2022.

Corey 41:28

guess what I would say the Liberals need to do first and foremost, Zane, underline in red, bold, don't

Corey 41:34

don't panic. Don't overreact. Don't be stupid and sit there and do nothing and just sort of take

Corey 41:39

take your lumps. But you

Corey 41:41

you can't throw out the entire playbook and all of a sudden be on Pierre Polyam's terms. That would be a massive mistake.

Zain 41:48

well you know carter let's talk about this cory's brought this up i wasn't going to take this segment here but let's free flow this let's

Zain 41:54

let's talk about why he's so good at message discipline from

Zain 41:56

from a strategist perspective because i think message discipline doesn't give

Zain 42:00

give it credit enough because we've seen politicians who are disciplined on message they're also sometimes not very good as politicians they mean they may lack the oratory they

Corey 42:10

they know it's so same

Zain 42:13

to me what message discipline is yeah cory jump in here because i think we should examine this because Because message discipline is one thing, but it's a cocktail of a few other things that

Zain 42:21

think make this special.

Corey 42:24

Really? 100% disagree. What makes it fucking special, Zane, is he actually knows what message discipline is. A lot of other politicians think message discipline is repetition, is just saying the same thing over and over again, giving the same fucking stump speech. But what he understands is exactly what Stephen was saying. His metaphor about a house with walls that hold up a roof. And what is the roof? and how does he make everything about the roof the version i use uh you know in politics

Corey 42:51

politics and public sector in kind of corporate life was message spears exact same idea what's the tip of the spear what

Corey 42:58

what is what are you putting behind the tip of the spear that allows you to put force to the tip of the spear and

Corey 43:02

and how does everything ladder up into that key message that

Corey 43:06

that is what he understands he understands that at the end of the day his job is not to just repeat the word gatekeeper it's to make everything he says about that gatekeeper charge about the liberals that is message discipline compelling

Zain 43:19

compelling cory but i'd also argue that there is a gifted storyteller in him and that there's an oratory skill that makes that message discipline more transcendent than than others we may have seen so you may want a candidate that had a hundred

Carter 43:33

hundred percent oh my god how can you 100 disagree i

Carter 43:38

mean this is hard to jump in

Corey 43:40

are you wanting are you lacking politicians who are good storytellers steven do you do you find it hard to find politicians who are good storytellers i do i do

Carter 43:48

do actually are you kidding me because you're nuts you're both

Carter 43:50

find i find it really crazy i find it hard oh

Carter 43:55

oh my god i have it hard to have a politician they can take they can all tell stories but they can't do that

Zain 44:02

that he was about

Carter 44:03

about themselves themselves. Well, there was a time when David came up to me and introduced me to the topic of poverty. Um, and David came and told me the poverty story and everything was fine. That's the fucking storyteller I get. I get the person who has just learned about this great thing or has, you know, I get the person who is, who wants to tell everybody everything and walks into the room and says, Oh, what is your issue? Cause let me tell you how I agree with it, regardless of what they actually feel that's the person my head is gonna explode i don't i don't

Carter 44:35

don't i don't get the person who says i'm

Carter 44:39

i'm not i don't

Carter 44:40

i don't get the person who walks in and says this is my message i can then take three minutes internalize this and do a four minute fucking walk and talk into a camera you think that that skill just grows on fucking trees yeah i i read the ability to do a into a camera dumb idiots how

Carter 44:59

fucking paid for seriously

Zain 45:00

seriously like oh this

Zain 45:02

this is insane how

Carter 45:04

cory be on a scale of one to ten how long is cory just politics

Zain 45:08

politics in a long time do you know the quality of fucking

Corey 45:14

this is a skill no no no listen up stephen

Corey 45:19

stephen carter just talked about how he thinks that he's got got no shortage of people who can go in and say oh yeah and connect and tell a story be

Corey 45:26

be storytellers but they're not able to tell the story that matters that's message discipline the ability to move things back to the bloody message that's

Corey 45:35

that's it are you gaslighting us on the definition more than

Carter 45:37

than that it's as simple as this it's more than this it's i would agree so much

Carter 45:43

more than this it's about saying it's about saying i am not going to connect my core message to the the thing that you just gave me, and turned it into four minutes of content. That's message discipline.

Corey 45:55

how I defined message discipline five minutes ago.

Carter 46:00

No, it's not. Message discipline is the ability to understand where the roof is. Message delivery is the ability to actually sell me on that roof, to get me to buy the fucking roof. All of a sudden, I got a Tesla roof being installed, and it cost me three times as much as all the other solar panels. But I did it because it was a Tesla fucking roof. this is this is the difference the

Carter 46:19

difference is he can fucking sell it so he takes the message discipline he then adds in the message delivery which he is second to none to his inflection his ability to draw you into the story his ability to reflect back the characters how many times we talked about this how poor are

Corey 46:38

he's second to many i mean if you want to talk about the art of delivery there are many many politicians many many

Carter 46:45

you're forgetting i would say try

Carter 46:47

try and get a story out of joe clark what did that fucking do for a thousandth

Zain 46:51

thousandth episode carter what has

Zain 46:53

done for us fucking nothing bullshit

Carter 46:57

god i think he's he's

Carter 46:57

calling into curse of politics i think

Carter 47:00

think for sure that's what he's doing good

Zain 47:02

good he'll be um anyways um i'll save it carter um

Zain 47:07

this is not just semantics though, right? Like we, we, we can have a fiery semantics. No, this is

Carter 47:11

is not. Let's get into the strategy. Corey is so wrong on this. Let's actually get into the strategy here because I think

Zain 47:17

there is a fundamental strategy difference between what the two of you are saying in terms of what you seek in a candidate and what you see in a candidate. Seek and see.

Zain 47:25

Carter, maybe tease out a bit more the, the discipline and delivery. And then Corey, talk

Zain 47:32

talk to us a bit, maybe get a response to that from a strategy perspective. perspective. Talk to me the difference, Carter.

Carter 47:39

I think that the discipline of being able to stand in front of a camera and speak is really tough. I think that it used to be that we would ask people to stand in front of an audience and the audience was hard enough, but at least you could take notes, right? You would take your notes up onto the stage. You would deliver your speech. That speech would then create

Carter 47:57

create some sort of excitement that you could respond to in the the room. The best deliverers had the ability to add, live on the spot, and connect with the audience as it was responding. That is a tough skill. That's a hard thing to do.

Carter 48:10

This being able to deliver to a camera that

Carter 48:14

that doesn't have the ability to tell you if you're doing a good job or a bad job, that is fundamentally more difficult. Seeing you two yahoos on my screen while i do this makes it infinitely easier than if i didn't see youtube right i am the only one apparently who has the screens all working for me today i can actually see everybody because i have i pay for internet something you guys should try but

Carter 48:41

makes it easier because i can see and react to you and when cory's making his head gods and bobs i can get more and more and more and more more furious with him.

Carter 48:50

But when it's just that blank camera now and we're expected to carry something for four minutes and put it up on YouTube or

Carter 48:56

or do it live, I mean, it is so hard to do. We've got people who are rehearsing or, you know, using teleprompters to try and achieve these goals. This is not an easy thing to do. The only performer I remember being able to do this are people like Rick Mercer, who is a trained comedian who can do it, who does it because he's actually got that skill. Pierre

Carter 49:17

Pierre Poliev is our Rick Mercer of politics and to suggest otherwise is not to denigrate the other people who are good at improv or who are good at, you know, creating stories that are scripted for them. This is just a different skill and the ability to address a camera to direct the camera, keep

Carter 49:35

keep your eye focused within the camera and draw in that person. We've all done double-enders.

Carter 49:39

The double-ender is when you look into the camera and you're doing the news story and

Carter 49:43

and you're doing the double, you know, and you have to keep your your concentration and

Carter 49:45

your eyes right into that camera the whole time so that you're connecting with the audience. That's super duper hard to do when you're ad-libbing. Can I ask

Zain 49:53

ask you this question?

Carter 49:54

Trust me, people. I'm

Zain 49:55

I'm on your team, Carter,

Zain 49:56

Carter, but Corey, I want to ask you a different question.

Zain 50:00

How much value does that have in the 2022 political world? Traditionally, this charisma, this ability to storytell, this ability to speak has been been highly valued.

Zain 50:11

Is that value still tethered at the same amount? Is it different in your mind? Do you feel like we've recalculated politics? And it seems like in your case, you feel like we've seen folks like Pierre Pallier before, that he's one of many in that sense. So give me your take in terms of the skills that he presents, whether they're unique or not. Are

Zain 50:29

Are they tethered to a higher or lower value, perhaps, than they historically have been in

Zain 50:34

in our modern day politics? Because I think that goes to how perhaps the liberals think about defeating him and responding responding to?

Corey 50:41

Well, you know, I do think every presentation is a story, right?

Corey 50:45

right? And storytelling matters a great deal. The ability to capture somebody with, you

Corey 50:51

you know, something that's compelling or something that's provocative or emotional, that

Corey 50:56

that matters a lot. And if it builds towards a point, that's

Corey 51:00

that's everything. That's everything in politics.

Corey 51:02

The challenge we have, of course, and this is not new, is that everything

Corey 51:05

everything now is distilled into six-second soundbites, The clip, the 140 characters that then became 280 characters that then somehow became 140

Corey 51:14

140 characters again because everybody got pithier.

Corey 51:18

that's tough. You know, you lack those mediums that are natural for storytelling. And what Pierre Polyev's done is he said, I'm

Corey 51:26

I'm going to make my thing longer

Corey 51:28

longer form. I'm going to make it that three, four minute video, not

Corey 51:32

not that six second clip, not those other things that the politicians are after going for. And

Corey 51:36

there's no doubt that he has a good sense of the inverted pyramid. He hits you so hard with the thing right off the top, right? He makes his point right away. Then he sort of circles back to everything and he layers those things in. So you can get six seconds and

Corey 51:51

you've seen the attack or you can get the whole story. And that's that's

Corey 51:55

that's really good. That that is that is an excellent approach to the craft used

Corey 52:00

used through a medium in a novel fashion.

Corey 52:04

That, however, is not like

Corey 52:07

like there's nothing I stand by. There's nothing special about that. I've seen so many, especially federal ministers, you know, really talented politicians come through and do that well, you

Corey 52:17

you know, but but they're doing the same thing in every town they're going to. What separates Pierre Poiliev is

Corey 52:23

that he managed to make everything about one thing. That's the only thing that I'm willing to give him credit for, for being top of class. And I take nothing away from that. I think that is everything in this game.

Corey 52:37

But let's not turn him into like this Greek god of oratory. For fuck's sake, people, get your heads on straight. Get

Corey 52:44

Get your heads on straight.

Carter 52:46

oratory is a different skill.

Carter 52:49

Oratory is a different... If he was a Greek god of oratory, that would be a totally different thing. That's not who he is. He is Rick Mercer of politics, and that has a different value today than it did in the past. It has a tremendous value.

Zain 53:06

Carter, let's end this segment with this final question, which is really

Zain 53:11

really an extension of what we've been talking about here with Pierre Polyarv. I'm going to actually lean it into the message

Zain 53:16

message discipline, message delivery conversation we've been having. But

Zain 53:19

But rooted in the fact that we

Zain 53:21

we both agree that he's fundamentally very good. Corey, you just said he makes everything about one thing. He's fundamentally able to do that. Carter, from a strategy perspective, how

Zain 53:30

how do you need to think about someone who's so good at message discipline and fighting it, fighting them? What is the response to a, I shouldn't say historically good, but above average, if not exceptional candidate

Zain 53:44

candidate with message discipline? What is the pathway to defeat them? I know there's pathways through policy. I know there's pathways through additional strategy, but on message, what

Zain 53:53

what is the pathway to defeat someone who's exceptional at message discipline? What do you need to keep in mind?

Carter 54:00

focus on the messages that he's that that matter more to canadians i think the irony about pierre paliev is that the issues that he's talking about are somewhat manufactured right

Carter 54:10

right he is really good but there aren't you know this idea that we're suffering from freedom whether we're suffering from gatekeepers um

Carter 54:17

um this isn't my

Carter 54:19

my shared experience i mean yeah sure there's a gatekeeper at the passport office yes that's what they're supposed to be doing they are keeping the gate at the passport um this is the the entering and exiting of our country and it should be important and it should take you know it should be overseen properly um

Carter 54:37

my thinking is that you

Carter 54:39

you know we change the topic change the channel make it so that there's no oxygen left in his in his world unfortunately the liberals at virtually every turn are giving him oxygen for his for his his world right so this is about the liberals having lost control of the narrative more than it is about how effective the narrative that Pierre Polyev is doing. He happens to have exceptional skills in message delivery and message discipline. That's excellent. But those messages are resonating more because the other guys have just stopped doing their own messaging.

Carter 55:12

We've lost sight of the Ukrainian war.

Carter 55:15

The liberals were doing really well with that.

Carter 55:18

We've put COVID behind us. The liberals were doing relatively well with that. Now is their opportunity to figure out what they're going to be when they grow up. They've lost child care. I mean, do you want gatekeepers at the child care? Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like a gatekeeper at a child care. So let's make sure that there's more child care. Let's make sure there's more health care discussion. These are the places where we need to be focusing, not on Pierre Pauliev's message. Corey, how

Zain 55:40

how do you defeat a candidate who's got exceptional message discipline and, to use Carter's words, exceptional message delivery as well?

Corey 55:49

Well, I said this, but I'll reiterate, just because he's disciplined in his message doesn't mean it's the right message. And what you need to find is that trumping message, the one that resonates with Canadians more. So gatekeepers, that's consistent.

Corey 56:03

consistent. He's good on his consistency. That matters a lot.

Corey 56:07

More than Aaron O'Toole, more than Andrew Scheer, we know what Pierre Poliev stands for, and he's not even leader yet. We're acting as though he's already leader of the Conservative Party.

Corey 56:19

But but there are ways that you can you

Corey 56:23

can beat him simply by saying the thing that's more relevant. And if

Corey 56:27

if you can say the thing that's more relevant as efficiently, you're going to win every time.

Corey 56:31

If you can say the thing more relevant, less

Corey 56:34

less efficiently, but its relevance is that much higher, you know, it covers the gap, then you're still going to win. And, you

Corey 56:40

you know, to the point I made just a second ago, here

Corey 56:42

here probably have all

Corey 56:44

all of his message discipline in the world. like

Corey 56:46

he still has got to win this conservative leadership and i believe he probably will but it's

Corey 56:50

it's not done you know it's not a hundred percent on this there are other ways that you can um that

Corey 56:55

that you can make your case and steven you're

Corey 56:57

you're always talking about you

Corey 57:01

i agree with you i think brand's an incredibly important part the other thing i would say is storytelling

Corey 57:07

storytelling isn't just about the storyteller there are people who tell stories about you as well and

Corey 57:13

and so you can build that brand you can tell that story and you can ultimately deliver those messages through

Corey 57:19

through ways beyond the walk and talk you've just got to find your strength and

Corey 57:25

if you're smart you'll test it you'll make sure it's it works with the people who are accessible to you you

Corey 57:30

can build that voter coalition you

Corey 57:32

you can win with it you

Corey 57:33

you don't need to be pierre pauliev to win and it would be again

Corey 57:37

again a mistake respond

Corey 57:39

respond to his charge or to try to beat him at his own game

Zain 57:43

We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, you know, listen, most episodes, all 999, in fact, we do for you. So let's start with you, Carter.

Zain 57:56

Overrated or underrated, the liberal passport issue. I'm calling it the liberal passport issue. I'm not going to even tell you, give it a clue to where I think the answer leads. But Carter, overrated or underrated, the passport issue that this government faces seemingly across the country.

Carter 58:11

Overrated. I already have my passport.

Zain 58:14

good. I mean, you're answering in the way only

Zain 58:16

only Stephen Carter heard. Could Corey overrated, underrated the passport issue across the

Corey 58:21

the country? I'm just rummaging through my desk. I'm looking for my passport.

Corey 58:25

I can't find it, so I'm going to say underrated. I might need to get one. OK, wonderful. Thank

Zain 58:30

Thank you. Thank you so much. Don't really appreciate that.

Zain 58:32

Carter, you know what, Corey, I'm going to stick with you. Michelle Rempel-Gardner announcing she's not running today.

Zain 58:38

In your mind, which

Zain 58:40

which UCP candidate does

Zain 58:42

does this favor the most?

Zain 58:44

her not entering the race who does that favor the most

Corey 58:47

most and why oh

Corey 58:48

oh interesting so there's a couple of different ways you can take it first

Corey 58:52

first is who is she most ideologically like and where would those people most most home otherwise and i'm not really sure what the answer is to that um maybe rebecca schultz maybe uh sonny maybe

Corey 59:05

maybe i don't like that that would be my first instinct but um

Corey 59:10

i'm not Not 100 percent on that.

Corey 59:13

The second way would would be to look at it through like a demographic gender lens. And so there, I mean, I guess you can talk about Smith, you can talk about Schultz, you can talk about Swanee or Sonny. Sorry. And and then the final way is who would who would most likely otherwise have gotten federal conservative votes if you assume that that's a voting bloc. And in that sense, I actually think caves would be okay because he's likely to get that Kenny coalition and that Kenny coalition had a lot of that

Zain 59:44

that federal conservative support.

Corey 59:46

So TBD, we're going to need to look at this and sort of clear it out. I guess you could say Gene as well.

Carter 59:55

this is this is why my predictions don't this is why my predictions don't come true cory literally just about named the entire field lord mayor lord lord mayor bill

Zain 1:00:05

bill rock let me tell you what does this mean for bill rock when

Carter 1:00:08

when when someone inevitably does pick up some votes that would have gotten to michelle he counts it as a fucking victory for himself that's

Carter 1:00:15

that's bullshit the person who's going to benefit from this is the person who's the front runner the person who's the frontrunners, Travis Taves. It's a good day for Taves, a bad day for everybody

Zain 1:00:24

Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this next one. Overrated or underrated, CTV News reporting today that on Wednesday, as in yesterday, we're recording today on a Thursday, 23

Zain 1:00:33

23 conservative members of the federal conservative caucus, nearly 20% of the party caucus, met with key figures of the convoy, including their spokesperson, for an anti-vaccine presentation. This, of course, in advance of the convoy saying they're going to re-emerge for Canada Day on July 1st. Overrated or underrated in your mind? Nearly

Zain 1:00:57

Nearly 20% of the Federal Conservative Caucus meeting with convoy members on an anti-vax presentation.

Carter 1:01:03

Underrated. This is the exact problem that Michelle Rempel-Garner was talking about when she pulled herself out of the UCP race. When you have a subset of a political party that are are getting into bed with people who wish to see the destruction of our political order. And keep in mind, this is a relatively new phenomenon. We haven't seen anything like this really since the terrorist attacks

Carter 1:01:24

attacks in the 1970s in Canada with the FLQ crisis. This

Carter 1:01:29

is a most people, even the people who are Bloc Québécois, who wish to see the separation of Quebec from Canada, are doing so within the

Carter 1:01:45

of having a lawful and working order government, not within revolution and trying to destroy the government that currently exists. When you're meeting with people who have hang Trudeau signs that are advocating for violence, you're meeting with the wrong people. And ultimately, this is the end of the Conservative Party, because

Carter 1:02:04

because people like Michelle Rempel-Garner signaled relatively strongly that they're not going to be able to work with

Carter 1:02:09

with people like Pierre Polyev and the people who are meeting with these domestic terrorists. Corey,

Zain 1:02:15

Corey, same question to you. Nearly 20% of the caucus meeting with the convoy spokespeople ahead

Zain 1:02:21

ahead of their reemergence in Ottawa, overrated or underrated?

Corey 1:02:24

underrated? Underrated. I don't want to repeat everything Stephen said, but ultimately it is worth underlining.

Corey 1:02:32

seen in the United States, which is just a few years ahead of us, it feels like on this, when you start flirting with this illiberalism, this idea that you

Corey 1:02:41

you can say whatever you want, you can demand whatever you want. The rules don't apply. The norms certainly don't apply. It leads to a very bad place. And I hope that the conservatives step back from this ledge. My friend, Third Eye Blind Jumper, good song from the 90s. What

Corey 1:03:01

What were we talking about today?

Zain 1:03:03

Not a good song. Terrible song. Terrible song. Terrible taste in music. You're

Zain 1:03:07

You're supposed to be like me from the Northeast. That is not Northeast music. Corey, I'm

Zain 1:03:12

I'm going to start with you for our final question.

Zain 1:03:16

does the Conservative Party caucus have enough votes to trigger a Reform Act vote on Michelle Rempelgarner and kicking her out of caucus? Yes or no? Oh,

Corey 1:03:24

Oh, my God. You know what? Our record...

Corey 1:03:28

welcome. No, you're welcome. Do it.

Zain 1:03:30

it. Do it. Just do it. Swing. Swing hard. In the last bit here.

Zain 1:03:34

You don't need to qualify. Don't need to qualify. Just fucking swing, Vlad. Don't walk

Carter 1:03:38

walk away. Walk towards the light. Vladdy Gruyere Jr., man. Just fucking swing.

Zain 1:03:42

Carter's going to. I know he's going.

Corey 1:03:44

going. If self-preservation is an instinct they possess, no.

Zain 1:03:50

Qualifying it, Carter. He qualifies it.

Carter 1:03:55

No, they're going to get enough votes, and they're just not going to be able to vote it out. You

Zain 1:03:58

You think that's what's going to end up happening?

Carter 1:04:00

There'll be enough votes to get... There's enough votes to get to the vote, but there's not enough votes to take it out. Okay,

Zain 1:04:04

Okay, so they're going to get enough votes, but they won't know what to do with them. Sounds like the story of the Federal Conservatives.

Carter 1:04:09

That is absolutely... It's like they catch the car. This is exactly... exactly it nicely

Zain 1:04:15

nicely done we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 999 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory

Zain 1:04:26

and we'll see you next time

Transcript