Transcript
Zain
0:04
Stephen Carter, this is the Ministry of Podcasts,
Corey
0:09
four. Oh, sorry. He's just used a big footing on people these days, Carter. I know,
Zain
0:13
know, yeah. It's good.
Zain
0:14
It's good. As an underling, he just shows up. They're like, make the way.
Carter
0:19
TV now. The guy wins one Hilltimes Award.
Carter
0:23
One Hilltimes Award, you know? I did
Corey
0:25
did win a Hilltimes Award. We'll
Zain
0:30
save it with the resounding 7.8% You have won Once again proving that your government Should fuck off the first past the post A wise man
Corey
0:40
You would not win in a runoff All
Corey
0:43
All that happened was
Zain
0:45
lowered the percent required to win That's it
Zain
0:48
Carter how does this sit with you 7.8% Are you
Zain
0:55
who cares about you?
Zain
0:58
Let's just defer to the minister, Stephen Carter, the minister of podcasts. Okay, we're doing all the things? We're doing all the things. Okay, Corey has done the drink. Carter, you are the standing minister on the file of podcasts. I
Zain
1:11
the minister of podcasts. Please welcome and introduce the show.
Carter
1:12
Yeah, this is pretty exciting to have as a special guest again this month, Mr. Corey Hogan. You keep trying. Ryan defunds someone else.
Carter
1:21
Parliamentary secretary to energy, member of parliament for Calgary Confederation, and the Hill Times' favorite up-and-comer in the House. Can
Zain
1:32
Can I also say, the parliamentary secretary to you. Yeah. I don't know why you
Carter
1:36
you missed that detail. I
Corey
1:37
I just feel like I need to clarify
Corey
1:37
clarify that I'm not. Why do you need to clarify that? Well, because that might actually confuse people.
Corey
1:44
Who will it confuse?
Zain
1:45
Name one person. This is a pure polyam tactic. Name one. Name
Zain
1:49
Name one person. One. Zane,
Corey
1:51
Zane, you were confused. You said just before the show that you weren't aware that Stephen was actually a minister.
Zain
1:56
I'm not confused that you're a member of parliament because you show up with your fucking dipshit headset, which, by the way, is the Canadian equivalent of Jeffrey Toobin on a show. It's a
Corey
2:06
a much better equivalent. Thank
Corey
2:10
it up in your head. I'm just going to say, we have Canadian equivalents to that. All right? We're not getting into it. It didn't
Zain
2:17
didn't need to go that far. That isn't Stephen Carter on the show. What do you mean?
Carter
2:21
How did I get thrown under the bus? I thought this was the Throw Corey Under the Bus podcast. How
Zain
2:26
How comfortable do you think Corey is right now, Carter?
Zain
2:29
Okay, that's the pocket. That's the pocket we want to keep him the whole time. We want him to sweat a bit. Corey, congratulations. Thank
Zain
2:36
Thank you. You've won. I think, yeah. What have you won? What have you won? I
Corey
2:40
I mean, they literally don't give me anything. So if I want to have like a trophy or a plaque, I'm going to have to crowdsource that myself. I'm fairly certain. You
Zain
2:47
You have won the Hill Times, which is a real publication, Rising Star, okay? This is the favorite up-and-comer, according to the Hill Times. Let me read the results, Carter. You got a pen?
Carter
3:01
Yeah, I've got a pen, yeah.
Zain
3:03
You've got a pen. How good are you at writing single-digit numbers?
Carter
3:07
I'm pretty good at writing single-digit numbers, yeah. Okay,
Zain
3:09
Okay, I might give you a decibel point just to make it a little bit harder. Good, good. A
Carter
3:12
A little bit harder.
Zain
3:13
Corey Hogan in first place with 7.8%.
Carter
3:17
we break that down?
Zain
3:19
Yeah, yeah. What is the voter coalition for Corey Hogan at 7.8%?
Carter
3:25
Seven times, like 7.8%. How many people voted? Not a lot.
Zain
3:32
Who gets to vote,
Corey
3:32
vote, Corey? Do you know who gets to vote? I honestly don't know. I know very little about it. I didn't really know it existed until last week when I got a phone call saying, congratulations, you won this thing. Ten
Carter
3:42
Ten people voted for you, Corey.
Carter
3:44
Nice. Did you cast ten votes for yourself?
Corey
3:46
I didn't even cast one, but if
Corey
3:48
if I had known this existed, I would have cast 10 votes for myself. You would have thrown it to us. This
Zain
3:51
This seems like an us project.
Corey
3:53
This really does seem like a you project. This seems
Zain
3:54
seems like a thing where in every other category, people skate through with single digits, but Corey Hogan gets 89% of the vote. Okay?
Zain
4:02
If you need Saddam Husseini on something, that would be us. You're the guys I call. There's no question. That's the broad definition of Saddam Husseini.
Carter
4:09
Congratulations, by the way. And that was heartfelt.
Zain
4:11
Okay, here we go. Second place, Carter. Are you ready to write this down? Yeah. Bruce Fanjoy, 5.5%.
Corey
4:20
Bruce is probably sitting
Zain
4:22
about it. Distance third, Talib Nurmama, 3.1%. Oh, man. Hold on. How long has he been in the House of Commons? He's been around. I've done the math, okay? Yeah. Corey, you've got more than two and a half times his vote, okay? And he's been around six times longer than you.
Zain
4:37
So, I feel like we need to give Talib Nurmama a trophy. Can you present it to him? if
Zain
4:43
if we create it will you if our listeners help fund it will you show up I will not I will not okay I don't know this feels like a sore loser sore winner to me Carter feels like a real sore winner energy that
Zain
4:56
that Corey Hogan is giving to this show okay missed y'all I'm in missed y'all okay yeah
Zain
4:59
know did you how
Zain
5:01
how long does it take for you to have regrets that you're doing this show before we even hit record I think
Corey
5:07
you know because what the audience what the audience doesn't know is you guys say things before we hit record cord. That's
Carter
5:13
That's usually enough. Yeah, we do. And that's enough for you to know exactly where we're going to go.
Zain
5:17
Yeah. Mr. Corey Hogan, in all sincerity, congratulations. You were on everyone's TV tubes the last week. How's that been?
Zain
5:24
Well, it's been interesting.
Corey
5:26
You know, so it was a lot of it to do with the Memorandum of Understanding, right? Yes.
Corey
5:31
Between Alberta and the Government of Canada. And there
Corey
5:35
there was an opposition motion. The Conservatives did this motion that
Corey
5:38
that was basically, basically you know my my version of it would be they just picked like parts of it and it was designed to kind of divide and distract the liberal caucus it wasn't really designed to get a pipeline built actually that's kind of my big frustration like there is no outcome of that motion that makes a pipeline more likely to be built but they did it because they thought it would divide the liberal caucus and and so
Corey
5:59
so yeah i mean i i think because of where
Corey
6:03
where i represent this became a this became a thing that people wanted to know my opinion about and there were all sorts sorts of questions about it but you know bottom line is this it
Corey
6:11
it felt fine because i i really didn't feel like
Corey
6:16
like it was how
Corey
6:18
can i put this you
Corey
6:19
you know there are things that you're sometimes asked to do in a party and you're like uh i don't know if my heart's in it even if you agree with it it's not my thing or whatnot but
Corey
6:27
but i actually found it was pretty pretty easy to find that you know that fire and that interest in this particular one because hey it had game
Corey
6:36
game playing which you know I'm not always the most enthusiastic about. And it had Pierre
Corey
6:42
Pierre Polyev acting like a bit of a jerk, which I'm not all that enthusiastic about. So I was more than happy to let people know my thoughts on that particular matter.
Zain
6:50
Didn't it also have a bit of like gameplay
Zain
6:53
gameplay analysis? Like not to make everything about the podcast,
Zain
6:58
but this did seem like Corey Hogan pundit emerged. Well, and I actually want to enter a broader conversation of how much of your job you feel like is punditry, because we're seeing a lot more MPs do what seems like punditry, right? But you are kind of explaining to people the hazards of each direction, if that's fair to say, that the Conservatives wanted you to go. And I'm like, oh, that's an old-timer. That's like hearkening back to an archive Corey Hogan, in a sense. Am I wrong in saying
Corey
7:29
saying that? No, you know what? You're not just right. I gave a speech in the House of Commons, and I basically said, like hey i used to do strategic analysis i i even mentioned the strategist podcast and i said let me let me unpack it a little bit because there
Corey
7:43
there are times where i believe and i've said this on the show in the past right one of the benefits of the show is it exposes to people the marionette strings right like you see how politicians are trying to manipulate you you see the games they're trying to play and by exposing those things and exposing that thought thought process. The idea is it actually makes it easier to defend yourself against those kinds of things. So I've always believed that was one of the real benefits of the strategists. I think that was a pretty
Corey
8:09
pretty sensible benefit that we provided.
Corey
8:12
But I also think that we were pretty good at telling politicians when they were fooling themselves and, you know, when they were deluding themselves as to what they were doing was going to serve any purpose whatsoever. So
Corey
8:23
look, I was pretty plain about this in the house. I said, I think let's just explain to Canada what what you're trying to do. But then let's also explain why I think you're, you're kind of kidding yourselves, conservatives on this particular matter. And, you know, it's funny, like I never try to make these ministry of podcast things like overly partisan or anything, but I'll just say, like, I
Corey
8:41
I really do think the conservatives were fooling themselves on this particular matter. They sat there, they came up with something they thought was oh, so clever, you
Corey
8:48
you know, to, to point out divisions in the liberal caucus, try to get people on the record voting for a pipeline. Oh, can you imagine, can you imagine how awkward it would be, right to have people have to vote for a pipeline and uh in doing so they they seem to have like lost the forest for the trees right they they didn't seem to consider that's
Corey
9:06
that's going to make it a lot less likely a pipeline gets built potentially like if you if you vote yes on this particular matter it
Corey
9:13
it looks like because the the motion was essentially i support a pipeline like that's the short version they amended it down the road but let's use the short version and
Corey
9:21
the mou is big the mou with alberta has a lot of things it's got environmental protections it's got economic economic projects it's it's got lots of stuff but
Corey
9:29
but by doing the one they hope to make it awkward for the
Corey
9:32
the liberals but by doing the one you vote for it and you're basically saying to bc you're saying to first nations you're saying to environmentalists that other stuff doesn't matter to us this matters to us and
Zain
9:41
and it would have been super easy for the conservatives just to put the whole mou
Corey
9:45
mou in a motion but they got a little clever by half as we say so
Corey
9:49
so that's the yes side you
Corey
9:50
you know and if you vote no it looks like potentially you're not serious about a pipeline so you talked about me and pundit mode but one of the things that i think i was really trying to do last week is a like hey if we're gonna vote no we need you to understand why this is just a shitty trap right like almost to have as i put it the meta conversation about the motion like we needed to actually talk about what they were trying to do so that people could understand why we were doing what we felt we had to do because we didn't want to jeopardize the pipeline project by antagonizing you know And we had First Nations in Ottawa at the time.
Corey
10:24
And we didn't want to antagonize the pipeline project.
Zain
10:27
Carl, I'll let you get in on this because I see you nodding. But Corey, you know, your approach was called novel to me on PNP. I was with Cochran on
SPEAKER_00
10:36
on the show live. You can watch
Zain
10:38
watch it on Friday. And he pretty much was like, yeah, you may know this guy. What do you think of this approach? We haven't seen anyone go up against Pierre Polyev like this, which is plain spoken, but also explanatory. So it's interesting. And I want to get to the broader sort of two threads around pundit mode in terms of what we're seeing. And I want to talk about process, how you got here being tapped to do this. But Carter, I'll let you jump in as well with any reflections or thoughts you may have. Well,
Carter
11:01
Well, I liked it because it wasn't—and you keep saying pundit mode, and it really— That isn't the term, but I'll use it.
Carter
11:08
It's not really pundit mode because punditry to me is people coming on and taking their talking points from, you know, the organizations that they represent. This was strategist mode.
Carter
11:21
Fair. And strategist mode for me I thought was very interesting. interesting my question to cory you know so i enjoyed it because obviously we're arrogant and egotistical and we love seeing ourselves being mentioned in you know and the house of cons you didn't we are officially on
Corey
11:36
madam speaker before i entered politics earlier this year i was a regular commentator on political strategy and one of the things i tried to do in my appearances particularly on the popular political podcast the strategist was lift the hood and show how and why political strategic decisions get made this
Zain
11:50
this is very exciting he didn't
Carter
11:51
didn't he didn't mention us by name he just said the podcast which is fine i mean that's That's fine. I mean, people can find it.
Zain
11:56
Corporations are people, is what Corey Hogan believes. Can
Zain
12:00
Can you just co-sign
Zain
12:01
-sign on that right now, Corey?
Corey
12:04
as consent. No, no. Okay.
Carter
12:12
Did it actually work? Did it last? I mean, obviously,
Carter
12:16
obviously, question period and all these types of theatrical performances only go so far anyways. anyways, but did it go further than a normal response or a normal speech, or was it really just like a normal speech in the House of Commons in that it goes out, lands
Carter
12:33
lands with a thud, you
Carter
12:34
you think you've done a great speech, but no one's paid any attention?
Zain
12:37
Can I add my question to that too? How did it work, and how did it work? How did they assign you this, and did they give you speaking notes, and then how did it, like, from an outcomes base, So how did it work for you?
Corey
12:46
Yeah, so look, when
Corey
12:49
this motion started being thrown out there the week before, on the Friday before we were all going, I started texting most everybody I knew in these various power centers saying, at least my two cents was, this,
Corey
13:02
this, we've got to vote against this. This is ridiculous. You know, this is going to make a pipeline less likely. We just need to vote against this. We can't be playing these games with them. And look,
Corey
13:12
look, I mean, the prime minister called the shot. I have no idea how much of my analysis, if any, made it up to the prime minister. That's just a simple reality of when you're dealing with office. It doesn't really matter. I think he called the right shot there. there but it was um it
Corey
13:26
it it wasn't something where i asked a lot of people's permission i guess is what i would say zane like so you know i was i was saying to these people hey i think we need to talk to them about what pierre poliev's trying to do i think we need to discuss with them uh exactly why that would be dangerous to the creation of a pipeline project the so-called objective of pierre poliev like this is what i think i need to do and
Corey
13:46
and i got back like yeah okay well that's that's interesting and you know maybe even like that's okay and and it was clear that That, you
Corey
13:54
know, there was not enthusiasm for just supporting part of the MOU. We wanted to support the whole MOU. That was clear.
Corey
14:00
But the thing about Ottawa and the thing about the House of Commons, the thing about West Block is you got reporters everywhere, right?
Corey
14:09
when you've got something like this going on, someone is going to throw a microphone in front of your face. So on the Monday before the Tuesday motion, somebody threw a microphone in front of my face and I thought, well, why
Corey
14:20
why not? Why don't I just say the thing, right? Right. So I said the thing I said exactly what
Corey
14:26
what I just told you all in different words and all of that. And and then
Corey
14:31
then on the cable shows that afternoon, Andrew Scheer and others were kind of it was thrown at them. It was like, well, you
Corey
14:40
basically, Corey Hogan says this is game playing, says this is not a serious, you know, Pierre Polyev is not acting like a serious leader. These are serious times. And how do you respond to that? and the
Corey
14:48
the conservatives kind of well
Corey
14:51
well actually maybe i'll say this so i did that i walked upstairs and i went to the house of commons it was qp and as i'm sitting in qp question period i think to myself you
Corey
14:59
you know they're gonna maybe clip part of that and i might want to get my entire thought process on the record so i went and i recorded just a quick like tiktok
Corey
15:07
tiktok style video minute hey this is my view it's still up there if somebody wanted to find it right
Corey
15:13
And I got to tell you, it
Corey
15:15
it kind of landed with a thud. Like there wasn't very much engagement. It was kind of not perceived
Corey
15:21
perceived as very good content, at least by me.
Carter
15:24
Yeah, no, I saw it too.
Corey
15:25
Well, I think the content quality was fine, but it was just not – No, no, it wasn't.
Corey
15:29
It wasn't great. No,
Corey
15:33
Well, look, I'm not saying it was Shakespeare, but it was – I thought it would do better and it wasn't really doing better. But then after the cable show appearances, the conservatives kind of freaked out and turned the whole eye of Soron on me, and you had Pierre Polyev, you had Andrew Scheer, you had everybody. You had an ad, Kemp. You had like an ad. Well, we'll get to the ad. Get to the ad. Get to the ad. Sorry, you tell me the timeline. We had all of them that are active on Twitter posting
Corey
15:59
posting about me, Michelle Rample, all of them, all saying like, oh, can you believe this Calgary
Corey
16:04
Calgary liberal who's going to vote against – And by the way, at this point, I didn't even say I was voting against it.
Zain
16:09
it. Can I ask you a question here? At this moment, when
Zain
16:14
not the entirety of the conservative operation is kind of focused, but you become the issue of the moment. I don't even say the day.
Zain
16:20
Do you gaslight yourself even for half a second being like, did I make the right call here? Or were you like so strong in your conviction that you knew this was the play for me? I'm kind of curious, like even with someone of, I hate to say this, like of your brain power that carter and i know but like were you at first second me like huh did i think of all angles here did i cover it off or was it like no i'm good with this well
Corey
16:40
well okay so i think it's a healthy thing to say hey did i do this right and i probably thought that maybe a little bit but there's two things that made me think no i'm i'm actually okay here and one of them is how they stated my position was absurd like it was it wasn't even in the same they had to twist
Corey
16:58
as As my actual position. Exactly. Right. And closely related to that, none of them were like quote
Corey
17:03
quote tweeting the content they were referring to. They're all referring to this. I mean, Michelle Rumpel literally took a screenshot of a video on Twitter rather than quote tweeting, you know, the thing. Like she went out of her way. The video. Yeah.
Corey
17:14
Yeah. To to avoid it. And so I thought, no, no, no. They're like
Corey
17:17
like they they don't want anyone to see the content. They know that they're on a weak foot.
Corey
17:21
And I will say this is a pretty classic technique of the conservatives, you
Corey
17:25
you know, and I'm not even saying I hate the game. I understand why they do it. But when they feel like they're on a bit of a weak footing, that's when they're the loudest. That's when they're the most aggressive, right? They
Corey
17:35
often compensate for a weak argument with volume. And look,
Corey
17:40
look, again, I try not to be like ultra-partisan on these Ministry of Podcast ones, right? But this is something that I've perceived them do. And so I thought they doth protest too much. But what was funny is this video that was kind of a flop, they salvaged. All of a sudden, it's going everywhere. It's getting thousands of views across platforms, tens of thousands of views, hundreds of thousands of views. And they made it into the argument in a funny way. I actually believe if they had had the discipline not to swing at that,
Corey
18:08
they would have been in better shape on Tuesday, for
Zain
18:10
for sure. Because then I hear you in multiple ways talking about serious, serious is not serious. They're not serious. They're not like in multiple different ways talking about that. Talk to me about your colleagues in this sense. Like, do you get positive reaffirmation around your choice and your decision in that moment when you're kind of the momentary target? How does that work? How does it play out? I shouldn't say how does it work, but how did it play out in this particular scenario? Yeah,
Corey
18:31
Yeah, I didn't get any direct feedback from powers that be about it, I will say. I will say one of the nice things about being in a caucus is you've got 170 friends. And so a lot of them are reaching out and being like, hey, man, how are you? They're like throwing everything in the kitchen sink at you. And I
Corey
18:49
I mean, you both know me. It didn't bother me very much. I kind of got
Corey
18:54
got pumped up by it, like fueled, like, okay, let's go. But it was something that they were worried about me about, right? And that's really nice. And so most of the conversation back was like, hey, concern, you're doing the right thing or whatnot, or I'm glad you're taking this stand or what have you. But
Corey
19:09
But there wasn't like deep strategic conversations. And I guess this is one of the things that maybe I would have even interpreted different from the outside. I would have assumed this was all much more coordinated, maybe even from being in seats that you're both in.
Corey
19:23
It wasn't. It wouldn't be fair to say I was, you
Corey
19:26
you know, quote unquote freelancing, like I was involved in the conversations. I
Corey
19:30
I was part of the press release where we said we were going to vote no. You know, I took kind of the
Corey
19:34
the cleanup where I made
Corey
19:36
made my comments at the end. But it's not like this crazy command and control environment. It's more like, I think you should be there. Your judgment seems pretty good on this. We sort of trust you to get this a little bit. it and it's not a blank check but it's it's
Corey
19:51
it's like okay we all know we've all had conversations about this be adults about it be smart about this would be more of the vibe i suppose more than it's a direction that's
Carter
20:01
that's interesting because you know it is we
Carter
20:05
we were talking about it and it felt like it was one of those things it wasn't going to have much of a lifespan anyways right and ultimately it did get kind of shut down then was it the next day or the day after by the floor crossing by Michael Baum. Yeah, two
Carter
20:17
days. Right. So, you know, most of our listeners will remember Michael Baum or the floor crossing more than they're going to remember that particular motion. But for you, I mean, it must have been kind of
Carter
20:31
of an ideal opportunity to gain more national exposure. I mean, you won the Hill Times up and coming work period of the year. That's 7.8%. Yeah, 7.8%. Two and
Zain
20:41
and a half times taller than your mom. Again, there
Corey
20:43
no such thing as vote splitting. it just we will see you in
Zain
20:46
in the rocky mountains where cory hogan will be presenting tell them to rub it it's just okay thank
Corey
20:51
thank you not happening but you guys give me a trophy it's fine i'm just saying christmas we're
Carter
20:55
we're thinking of getting you a cake we
Corey
20:58
might get you a cake cake okay that's last time
Zain
20:59
time we did that worked really well yeah
Carter
21:01
yeah we're so great last
Carter
21:02
last time we got your
Zain
21:03
your cake worked really well so
Carter
21:06
happens like what what what you alluded to a commercial yeah
Carter
21:12
are we talking about that okay
Corey
21:12
okay so after the vote on tuesday the conservatives put out a tweet saying
Corey
21:19
i think it was tuesday night hey here's some audio this is a radio ad that we're gonna run in calgary attacking cory hogan for voting against a pipeline again
Corey
21:28
again i mean i couldn't have been more explicit in the house in my commentary you know all of it that i support the pipeline if
Corey
21:36
if you're gonna move oil it's
Corey
21:38
it's the most environmentally responsible way to do it It's the cheapest way to do it. It's the safest way to do it. And by the way, we
Corey
21:45
we have an interest in not being so beholden to the U.S. market. So look, I mean, I
Corey
21:50
I think even in scenarios where oil use declines globally, you can easily see the benefit of having a piece of infrastructure like that. So let me just
Zain
21:57
just put that on the table right there. And
Corey
21:59
And I've said this in
Corey
22:00
in a lot of media.
Corey
22:01
media. They know it is not me opposing the pipeline, but they decided to run this ad about it. now you can never tell when somebody says oh we're going to run this ad on calgary radio donate money to get this ad on there like you're
Corey
22:13
you're running it once you're spending two hundred dollars
Corey
22:16
right you spend five thousand you're spending ten thousand but
Corey
22:19
but i strongly suspect it was more of a fundraising tool than an advertising tool i guess time will tell but
Corey
22:25
yeah they decide that this is going to be like a point of advertising about this but
Corey
22:31
i ultimately don't think they're They're going to use it a lot for a couple of reasons, one I went through. The other is I
Corey
22:37
just don't think they decided it was a winner for them at the end of the day. And the way you can kind of tell is the next day in question period, I
Corey
22:45
mean, we all know question period doesn't really affect the real world, but it can reflect the internal thinking of political parties.
Corey
22:52
And they asked across the 40 questions or whatever they get, they
Corey
22:57
they asked one question about this.
Corey
22:59
They asked one question. And that was the one where I spiked the ball back in Pierre Polyev's face that Andrew Scheer threw, right?
SPEAKER_00
23:06
So isn't the real reason why he voted against his own MOU yesterday is he has no intention of actually getting a pipeline built. He just needs to pretend long enough until the next election.
SPEAKER_00
23:19
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.
Corey
23:21
Well, Mr. Speaker, we support a pipeline. We support the whole MOU, which is a careful balancing of the economy, the environment, and it gets us away from the United States as a primary trading partner, and that's great news. It also is an MOU that balances the interests of Indigenous peoples and other jurisdictions. We do not support, and we are happy to vote against, games played by the opposition that make a pipeline less likely. That the leader of the opposition would do this is ridiculous. It lets Alberta down, but I shouldn't be surprised. Being elected in Battle River does not an Albertan make.
Corey
23:57
and that's it and they were they moved on like they moved on the day after it happened and they don't do that if they think they've got a winner yeah
Zain
24:07
can i can i can i ask you about
Zain
24:10
when you initially said you know you kind of ported your thinking up to the to the mothership it was like you know we got to vote no on this and and subsequently there and then you
Zain
24:19
you probably knew knew their play, which was, and it's very clear, the ad, I think, is one reflection of it, but they now have this
Zain
24:29
half-truth, which is Corey Hogan voted against a pipeline.
Zain
24:34
Does that bother you in some way? And we know, and to your point, Carter, we always concluded that this was going to be about fundraising. This was about their end of year, as much as was anything. This was about base motivation. But they've got that half-truth that they can float out. How much does that bother you, both for your MP brain, but also your strategist brain, which I guess are one and the same, and this is a good example of it, right?
Corey
24:57
Well, it bothers me they lie, obviously, especially when you're sort of the victim of the lie. And I don't think this is one of those things where it's reasonable people can disagree. They clearly, clearly
Corey
25:07
clearly lied, which I can say because I'm not in the House of Commons. Isn't that nice?
Corey
25:12
But, I mean, ultimately, I represent Calgary Confederation. There's a diversity of viewpoints. It's a super educated writing. I really think Pierre Polyev does an absolute disservice to himself and the constituents of both my writing and more broadly in Alberta with such nonsense himself because this is like it takes three seconds to scratch at this and realize that he's lying. And then he's just undermined his own credibility, right? He's just deeply eroded his own credibility.
Corey
25:41
And also, I'll say, Zane, I
Corey
25:43
I am kind of staking, and I have since day one, kind of my whole political career on a ridiculous theory that people
Corey
25:50
people are sick of being spun and lied to and all of the bullshit that's going on.
Corey
25:55
So let's just try something a little bit different. Let's just try to be a little more candid, try to be a little more honest and try to be a little bit longer
Corey
26:03
longer form, I suppose, about why we're taking the stance as we are and not feel like we need to win every exchange. change so i
Corey
26:12
don't know it bothers me they lied i'm not actually even sure that it cuts against me uh
Corey
26:16
uh i'm not sure how many votes i would lose and i would observe well
Corey
26:20
well it's an open question how many votes i
Corey
26:23
i or a liberal candidate would lose as a result of this he's
Corey
26:27
two and a half mps because of his heel ways you
Corey
26:31
you know it's not as though there's
Corey
26:32
there's not a counterfactual here which is these games you're playing, Pierre, this
Corey
26:37
this unserious approach you're taking to it, this idea that you've got to win every exchange, you
Corey
26:42
you don't care how badly you have to torque it, you don't care whether the country suffers or not, it
Corey
26:47
it is having a serious effect on his own political fortunes. This kind of attitude is exactly what got Chris D'Entremont to leave the Conservative Party. This kind of attitude is exactly, I'm
Corey
26:57
I'm not saying this event, but this kind of attitude is exactly what
Corey
27:00
what got Michael Ma to leave
Corey
27:01
leave the Conservative Party. and
Corey
27:03
listen matt jenneru is
Corey
27:05
is is in kind of mp protection program right now it sort of feels like but no kidding he also clearly
Corey
27:13
clearly was not enthused with things i mean i
Corey
27:15
i get it there's a lot of spin out there but honestly it's
Corey
27:19
it's pretty clear like there hasn't been a lot of votes from it was
Carter
27:22
was kind of an eventful session yeah
Corey
27:24
yeah i guess so you
Carter
27:25
you know the budget the floor crossings the the, uh, you know, the, this motion, this trap motion, you know, what was
Carter
27:36
what was the most fun?
Corey
27:40
mean, it was a really fun day when Chris D'Entremont came, right? Like just everybody felt pretty, pretty
Corey
27:46
pretty good. Like that, that was a pretty enjoyable day in the liberal caucus for sure.
Corey
27:51
Uh, I think that was fun. I actually think that last week with all that was was going on was i mean
Corey
27:56
mean fun makes me think it sounds like less serious i i enjoyed it because it was an opportunity to talk to
Corey
28:03
to a lot of people and
Corey
28:04
and really expose some things right so i i thought that yes
Carter
28:07
yes it can be fun and it can be fun and be serious at the same time they're not mutually exclusive i mean this
Carter
28:14
this is a this isn't a game for us but it is fun for us this is one of the things that we're attracted to well
Corey
28:20
well you know i i say a lot because people are always asking me like how How do you like it? I say I
Corey
28:26
love the work and I hate the job is the answer that I've settled on after being here for eight months. Any given moment, I'm
Corey
28:32
I'm really enjoying myself. I like basically
Corey
28:35
basically everything that being an MP entails. I
Corey
28:38
I like talking to constituents. I like being in the House of Commons. I like making speeches. I like making announcements. I like talking to the media. I like these things. Inherently, I guess, when I'm saying that, I find them kind of fun.
Corey
28:49
The job kind of sucks. long
Corey
28:51
long long hours you're away from your family i miss my wife and kids but i
Corey
28:55
i like the job i do think the job is fun that doesn't mean i don't take the job seriously what
Carter
29:01
what do you want go ahead carter no go ahead i was just gonna take him in a different direction go ahead yeah
Zain
29:06
yeah i might too but i'll
Zain
29:07
i'll actually let me stay on this what
Corey
29:08
what do you want to do more of whether
Zain
29:09
whether it's self-imposed or otherwise that you have not been doing more what do you want to do more of now that you've got But this calendar year, I guess, under your belt. Yeah,
Corey
29:18
I mean, nobody gets elected without just wanting to change things and do things, right? So what I want to do more of is more of the policy work, working more with NRCan, the department, trying to get some good strategies going, working on how we can resolve some big, difficult problems like how we support the forestry sector.
Corey
29:38
Those are big, difficult problems. I want to do more of that.
Corey
29:42
And maybe paradoxically, I also want to do a little bit more of the communications. But I think in particular as it comes to the West, and I'm doing that classic Alberta thing of when I say the West, I don't mean BC. You know, I mean, Alberta. No
Corey
29:55
No one does. That kind of means Saskatchewan.
Carter
29:56
Saskatchewan. No one cares about BC. But
Corey
29:57
But I really mean Alberta,
Corey
29:58
right? I think that the
Corey
30:02
the Liberal Party, I think Mark Carney's government needs to be always
Corey
30:06
always very present in Alberta. And I think that's something that, you
Corey
30:10
you know, not quite uniquely because, of course, we've got Eleanor, too, but I'm close to uniquely situated to do.
Zain
30:17
Carter, where do you want to take him? I do want to hit on the strategist mode slash pundit mode at some point. It doesn't have to be now.
Carter
30:23
Well, I'm intrigued with how you deal with rumor mills and how do you differentiate, you
Carter
30:29
you know, the rumors of more floor crossers coming, the rumors
Carter
30:32
of Cabinet, the rumors of, you know, Pierre Polyev and what's going to happen in his leadership review. you and how do you deal with the rumors versus the
Carter
30:40
the reality of the everyday how do you not get caught up or do you get caught up in the rumor mill and kind of the the
Carter
30:49
the punditry and the press speculation about what's going to happen in your future because this is for us it's kind of it's kind of a game and when the rumors happen you know we talk about the rumors we talk about what's going on we talk about what's not going on we give ourselves probabilities we we make predictions it's all kind of fun he's been on
Zain
31:08
on the show carter i don't know if you know this he's actually he actually was here for a while yeah i
Zain
31:12
don't know if you were
Carter
31:13
were explaining to the listener to the listener this is the first time listener yeah yeah
Carter
31:18
who's attracted to this particular podcast and this episode
Zain
31:23
it's quite as well the rising star exclusive interview zane
Carter
31:27
zane i almost got the whole question out before you interrupted me it was almost it was it was so close it was such a long question
Zain
31:33
question i feel like now i know what
Zain
31:35
people yeah oh my god only i get to last long questions carter yeah
Carter
31:38
yeah how do you separate the uh the rumor from the reality and and or
Carter
31:43
or do you or do you is is the rumor part of the reality uh
Corey
31:45
uh well that's that's very meta i like that that's profound how you end that the rumor is the reality here's the thing we've
Corey
31:53
we've been around a long time all of us right this is not this is my first time being an electorate federal mp but but I've worked in federal politics before. I've been a senior official in the Alberta government. I've seen lots of legislatures. And I guess what I would say is it's
Corey
32:09
it's always a little bit like this. Like the rumors far eclipse reality. You hear way more than actually happens. And so you get pretty used to knowing that not everything you hear is true. And I guess I would describe it like this to somebody who's not worked in one of those environments. A wish becomes a rumor so quickly in Ottawa, right? yeah and you can see how it happens it's oh when wouldn't it be cool if x
Corey
32:35
x crossed to um to the liberal well you know i'll just use an example of an mp who i don't think is gonna michelle rample is gonna wouldn't it be cool if michelle rample crossed to the liberals right
Corey
32:45
and then the next person is yeah we were just talking about it would be cool if michelle rample crossed to liberals and then it becomes yeah did you hear that people are talking about michelle rample crossing to the liberals and it becomes hey i just heard a rumor michelle rample's crossing into the liberals and that happens so fast in this town in this town being ottawa i'm actually back home in calgary but you know we're
Zain
33:04
we're talking about ottawa
Corey
33:06
so you've got to take a pretty jaundiced eye to it like when the first floor crossing rumors were happening and they were saying you know the eight people are ready to cross and all of this right oh
Corey
33:15
i i said to one reporter i said you know i i'm the opinion like for every i
Corey
33:21
i don't know 10 rumors of a floor crossing you'll get one actual floor crossing and
Corey
33:27
that hasn't really changed although we are now starting to see actual
Corey
33:30
actual floor crossings so
Corey
33:32
it does make you all of a sudden start thinking about other rumors but i'll give you i'll give you an example because it's i think illustrative and funny um on
Corey
33:41
on monday last week uh
Corey
33:45
uh staff in ottawa not all of them but pockets of them were convinced Convinced there was going to be a cabinet shuffle today,
Corey
33:51
today, Monday, December 15th. Convinced. 100% chance was what somebody said to
Zain
33:57
to me. Like, and bring us into the details. Are these phone calls, text messages? Like, what, are these group chats? Do you know what it is? What
Corey
34:05
What is it? I'll tell you the one. So I will say that there is, at the staff level,
Corey
34:10
whole ecosystem of conversations occurring that the electeds don't always get to play in. And so this particular one came to me through Jacob, who works, he's my head of parliamentary affairs. He says, hey, I heard a rumor. And he tells me this rumor. And it's like 100% source, very, very solid. Of course, it's going to happen, right?
Corey
34:29
By 3pm, it was no, 0% chance that was mistaken. That
Corey
34:34
know no it turns out the prime minister just invited cabinet to a christmas party or something to that effect right so yeah it
Corey
34:42
happens like that you you have to discount heavily any rumors you hear in ottawa but carter
Corey
34:47
carter your point at the end about how the rumors become part of the story is true like you then start living in a world where you talk to people about rumors even if you don't believe they're true just because you know those rumors might be affecting them right and it's like hey i saw those rumors too whatever man you know yeah
Corey
35:05
it's very very interesting uh
Carter
35:07
uh yeah i think it's it's fun to uh it's fun to watch from our point of view but it must be even more interesting from the you know from someone who who's going to have their life potentially impacted by these rumors i mean lord knows you're two people down on the cabinet list now right there's uh the
Carter
35:24
the promises have to have been made right you make a
Corey
35:27
a prediction right now Now, Stephen, I will kill you. Just kill you. Just which ministry, Carter?
Zain
35:34
Yeah, which ministry? I
Carter
35:39
I'm going to keep my mouth shut because the threat of violence doesn't seem becoming of an MP. And I think that that...
Zain
35:44
that... Congratulations to Talib Nurmahmet for maybe one day becoming a minister. Have I jinxed it for Talib? Have I jinxed it for Talib? I probably have. Why would you do that to me? You know what I think would make it better, Corey? An award presented by you. Just... God.
Zain
35:58
uh okay talk to me about this i am intrigued maybe i shouldn't be but
Zain
36:03
i think you i shouldn't say you novelly hit on something but this strategy slash pundit mode thing is is interesting to me do you feel like more mps are going to play this role of unpacking analyzing explaining you you saw of course your version of it in this particular instance which was on the floor in front of the cameras you see another version of it which is nate erskine smith kind of doing a John Oliver style daily show, like News Explainer, being like, let me give you the analysis of what to think about the situation. Not
Zain
36:30
Not the same, slightly different, but in the same vein. And you talked about Michelle Rempel, you know, in your hypothetical example. I remember back on the podcast, we were talking about Michelle Rempel starting a sub stack and how novel that was at the time and how she was going to try to analyze what the Trudeau government, why the Trudeau government can't make a move here because and she was kind of walking us through or walking her readers through this.
Zain
36:52
is that is that drumbeat getting louder do you feel like that's like it is now just part of the job do you feel like it's a different angle of the job we've talked about this before but i think this week really kind of crystallized for me um at least you know a version of it through through what you've been doing i'm just curious to get your thoughts on this well
Corey
37:08
well i definitely think that the line between pundit and politician is getting blurrier all of the time right there's no question in my mind about that i think it would be a mistake maybe i'm just saying this because i'm one of the people who does it right now but for everybody to run towards that particular corner of the playground i like i don't actually think what people respond to is that it's pundit mode or strategist mode or however you want to call it i think what they are responding to is oh a politician's talking to me not like i'm a child like they're not just giving me three word sound bites they are explaining the nuance on an issue the complexity of it and i don't know know if we need 343
Corey
37:47
343 mps doing that right
Corey
37:50
right people are going to have different strengths but i do think um i
Corey
37:54
do think generally speaking politicians should treat people more seriously if they want people to treat them more seriously like if you want politics to be a more serious thing we
Corey
38:03
we we gotta stop with this like these three-word slogans these gotcha motions all of this ridiculousness it's not helping the country and i think actually one of the things that canada has going for it right now that the united states doesn't is we have the united states we have that quasi-existential threat where everybody is saying okay enough
Corey
38:22
enough enough effing about here like we've got to get serious we've got to take care of our country we've got to do the things that put country first and it is forcing us all to look at it a little bit differently and i think that's a good thing i really think that's a great thing it
Corey
38:36
it will be short-lived if we don't take this moment and try to turn it into something more permanent though hmm
Zain
38:42
carter do you remember in core you guess you too like we back
Zain
38:46
back in the day there was this presentation either that was given to us or that we made you guys may be able to correct me if i'm wrong where we talked about mlas in the legislature i think it wasn't about mps but it's about mlas but i think the same same difference kind of holds which is there was show horses and then there was workhorses we had like this stark different sort of categorization i think probably too simplistic but trying to make a point has has Has any of that kind of applied to you, you know, now that you're, I don't even know how many months in, Hogan, seven months in? Eight, I think. And is it much more blurry than that? Or do you kind of feel like the 2025 reality of that has kind of introduced a third category or maybe different classification now that you're on the inside in some way? Well,
Corey
39:24
Well, I was talking about this last time we did like this, not at the live show where we did that quasi one. It's been really interesting to see all of us as new MPs find our thing. And I think I mentioned there are some that are really good in the House. They're like on the House stream. Like they are good at talking about issues in the House. They like to talk about issues in the House.
Corey
39:44
There are some that are really good at stakeholder management. And there are some that find a community that they can really champion and be like the liberal representative of community X,
Corey
39:53
X, you know, whatever it is, the Sri Lankan community or whatever, right?
Corey
39:56
I think about the caucus chair, Jamie Maloney, who wears many hats. I'm not trying to simplify him. But he is known for his commitment to Canada-Ireland relations, right? And you see people
Corey
40:07
pick these things and then really run with them and go with them.
Corey
40:10
And I'll say, it
Corey
40:12
it wouldn't work if we didn't have a bit of a spread there. It's really important. But self
Zain
40:16
-selected. It wasn't dictated. It's self-selected, which is interesting to
Corey
40:19
to me. There is like an invisible
Corey
40:21
invisible hand at work here.
Zain
40:25
Yeah, no, no, I get it. Because I understand if 50 people wanted to do the same gig, it wouldn't work. It would work. But
Corey
40:31
But you're all going to look at each other and say, well, only one of us can actually do this gig. It's almost like this market
Zain
40:35
market force kind of
Corey
40:36
of dominates it. Exactly, right? And
Corey
40:38
the person who's got the best kind of pull to it, or maybe there's two or three, or maybe it's broken by region. But this happens all the time. And
Corey
40:45
And I can only speak to how it works in the Liberal Party. For all I know, the Conservatives are very descriptive
Corey
40:49
descriptive about this and say, you will do X, you will do Y. I don't think they are. I don't get that read. But yeah, really what it is, is you get there as an MP. it's this unlimited smorgasbord of activities you can make the job anything
Corey
41:03
anything you want absolutely anything like the only thing that is constitutionally required of you is to show up right and even that is like you don't need to show up all the time and um and
Corey
41:14
and from there you make the job what you want it to be maybe you are the person who goes to every community event maybe you're the person who handles all of the difficult casework in an area and like you you manage for Or say the liberals, like you're dealing with all of the immigration files or whatnot.
Corey
41:29
People find their place, though. And we all, well,
Corey
41:33
well, I think so far, we all kind of have naturally gravitated to those things. How
Zain
41:36
How would you define your place?
Corey
41:39
You know, for sure, I am in this comms box. Like, I think if you were to talk to my colleagues, they would say, Corey, he's good at communications, right? I think I can do more than communications. But that is for sure what my brand is within the liberal caucus. And that kind of makes sense. that was my career before but yeah i mean that's that's just one of the one of the boxes that's out there i think i also live
Corey
42:03
but um yeah western comms
Carter
42:06
that's fascinating i always wonder like as people start to choose those things they almost kind of get pigeonholed into them right where you become the the constituency mp or you become the communications mp i think think of michelle rempel garner actually about the you know she always seemed to be stephen harper's designated hit person um that goes out and you know she was doing that communications and subsequent to that her career has uh uh
Carter
42:36
stabilized to be put you know to to you know to to put to be polite um stalled to be less polite um like
Carter
42:45
like how do you fight around that i can do more more than communications piece. That's
Zain
42:49
That's a great question. You
Carter
42:50
You say, I can do more than communications. Yeah, but you're really fucking good at communications. And
Zain
42:57
And I may even just add to Carter's question, which is a term you mentioned earlier, Corey, which is cleanup, right?
Zain
43:03
right? Like, and not to say, that was just where you were in batting order. But I could also see Corey Hogan being like the person that you put in at the end, maybe not to lead announcement where there's no questions, but like clean up the mess, massage the corner, see the spots that were not necessarily uh you know talked about in the way that we needed to and then you know do the cleanup or i mean the responsive like you could almost be like that's that's his specific role like that's an amazing sort of capacity to be so good
Carter
43:27
good at it yeah
Corey
43:30
i look i mean again i worked in the field of communications my whole adult life i i think i could it is your point about getting
Corey
43:38
getting pigeonholed is an interesting i don't think michelle that's It's quite the story. Let's be clear. Michelle ran after Brown's campaign. No,
Carter
43:42
No, but it's a simple story. I'm
Zain
43:45
simplifying. No, no, no. Corey's right. She also started a sub-stack in between. Yeah, exactly. She did start a sub-stack.
Carter
43:51
-stack. Yeah, which was a communications tactic.
Corey
43:54
Look, I do think that's something that I think about in part because I think there's been other times in my career I've felt that where it's like, oh, you're very good at this thing. So we'd prefer you stay in this thing rather than go do that thing, which you would rather do,
Zain
44:08
I think anybody who is
Zain
44:10
is good at something can feel that frustration, like, yeah,
Corey
44:14
yeah, but maybe I want to do the other thing. Maybe I'd be good at that thing, too, if you gave me a chance. Look, I mean, it's
Corey
44:20
it's not therapy. I'm not looking for couch time. But this is a thing people worry about. Well,
Zain
44:25
Well, I will add that, and this is a drumbeat in the corporate world as well, but it's often the folks who do comms that are, like, stuck in the comms category so they're so good at it. But what they want to do is one sort of iteration or like standard deviation away, which is kind of comms, but kind of nots, which is strategy.
Zain
44:44
Right. Like, right. Funny. Yeah. Yeah.
Zain
44:49
exactly. But to be clear, like, strategy
Zain
44:52
strategy on the pecking order seems to have a higher spot than comms in some way. But people were like, well, if you're good at comms, we're going to keep you there, right? You know, harken back to our corporate experience where we've seen that play out, right? Harken that to how org structures where we collectively or end individually have seen that play out. So
Zain
45:11
how do you kind of ensure that it's not just comms, but you add the strategic in front of comms, and then you maybe drop the comms and add strategy as its whole thing? Or is that just work and roles reserved primarily for folks that are on staff, I should say? Well,
Corey
45:26
Well, look, first I'll say, what the F do I know? Because I'm right in the middle of it right now, so I have no sense of that. But I do believe you're better to be known for one thing than zero things, and it is a very big caucus. And I don't believe it's a bad thing that I am known for at least one thing, right? I think that's okay. Okay, we'll see if I feel the same way in
Corey
45:48
in a year, in two years, in 10 years after my third re-election or something to that effect, right? But
Corey
45:56
right now, I think it would almost be kind of greedy to be like, well, I want to be known to be great at everything or whatnot. You find a place, you add value, you
Corey
46:06
you hope that exposes you to other opportunities. That's life. That's not even politics. That's just life.
Carter
46:12
You're absolutely right about being good at one thing, too. There are lots of members of parliament whose one thing that they're good at isn't really useful in the government. Or it's
Corey
46:23
it's incredibly useful, Stephen, but not valued or not recognized. Right.
Corey
46:26
Like, I do think that there are a lot of,
Corey
46:29
of, you know, you were talking about, like, the workhorse versus showhorse thing, Zane. I don't really believe that, but I do think that there are a lot of people who are doing very, very thankless work for their political parties. Very thankless, essential work. And
Corey
46:42
And maybe because it's not the flavor of the week, they're not getting the recognition from their leader's office, right? That's not even a federal thing. That's every election, every legislature, every political organization I've ever worked with. but
Zain
46:56
but but there is also this additional dynamic tell me if you disagree that comms is sexier than most other things because it's so upfront and and it gets rewarded more yeah and and there is and and you you can probably be on the other side of this where often very good communicators um are kind of looked down not looked down upon but like they're an annoyance to those around them to be like fuck they got that one thing that is disproportionately rewarded whereas i'm here doing Doing that other stuff, that other work that is so technical, so deep, so sophisticated, whatever that, you know, insert your word of choice there. But communications has this reward structure that seems to be fundamentally different, if not disproportionate. Am I wrong?
Corey
47:37
Well, I don't know. I mean, again, I'm still living it. I think in politics, communications is rewarded more. But I think in a lot of corporate jobs I've had, I feel almost like the comms thing is almost like the junior version of it. You might be a vice president, but you're the vice president of comms. And I'm not actually talking about my last job. I had a lot of responsibilities there. But you see this in a lot of organizations. Like, oh, that's the vice president of marketing.
Corey
48:02
serious job. Oh, that's the vice president of operations. Yeah, serious job. That's the vice president of comms. Okay, well,
Zain
48:07
good for them. I guess the distinction I'm trying to make, not to use a corporate model too much, is not that you would be a VP of comms and getting rewarded disproportionately. But it's that you're a leader who can communicate, which are two very different things.
Zain
48:20
right you're part of the exact team who can communicate and have a competency so to speak and i think that's kind of what i'm i'm trying to draw the distinction of and that being a leader with communication skills does get rewarded disproportionately even at the corporate level i would argue with you i
Corey
48:32
i would agree but like zane what you just described like a leader with calm skills that would be like my
Corey
48:38
my aspiration like right now i think
Corey
48:40
perceived as a comms guy a
Corey
48:42
a pretty good one but like leader with calm skills that implies broader responsibilities Interesting. Interesting.
Zain
48:50
Yeah. And to me, like, as I listen to that, that seems A, doable, B, possible, but C, like also Carter is sort of pigeonholable, right? Like the transition to being one from the other, being like, oh, this guy's a great comms guy versus the leader who knows a lot, has got a lot of breadth and
Zain
49:07
and potentially even some depth, but who can communicate extremely well across many files. I think it's like, I don't know if it's an eye of the beholder thing, but it's a really interesting transition point. we're getting very metacarter i like
Carter
49:17
like and i i'm really where else i want to dive into the different types of communications too oh good we're
Zain
49:22
we're doing more time okay
Carter
49:23
okay because the the the communications piece of of you know um the
Carter
49:29
the doing the media right doing the media could be really uh you know people would be envious right why does he get all the media opportunities why is he getting all the slots uh but then there's communicating in caucus then there's one-on-one communications and there's how am i maintaining the relationship with 170 peers that i have on my side of the aisle how am i maintaining my relationships with 170 that are across the aisle how you know those those types of um individual micro things are each going to dictate you know are you just a good communicator in the media or are you building something that has um leadership you know if it's a leader with communication skills that implies a totally different relationship a totally different set of skills than he's just a really good communicator and it really intrigues me well
Corey
50:19
well can i say one of the things that has been a long-standing belief of mine is one of the challenges any communicator has is you you work with a lot of non-communicator well two things one is everybody thinks they understand communications because everybody
Corey
50:32
talks everybody has a
Corey
50:35
a sense of aesthetics right it like there is there is nobody lacks an opinion on communications But I think one of the things that is maybe
Corey
50:43
maybe a caution to people outside of communications but also inside of communications is it is really easy in communications to conflate a fluency with communications tactics with
Corey
50:56
good communicator. And they are very different. It is a tactic to be entertaining. It is a tactic to be noteworthy. It is a tactic to be able to manage the media.
Corey
51:07
But if you're not doing those in service of embedding a message, which is the purpose of communications, I would argue you're not actually a good communicator. but stepping back you can be a good communicator and be deficient in some of those tactics you just know that the your goal at the end of the day is to put a message in somebody's brain because that is the essence of professional communications and and it gets really muddled around very quickly and it gets observed by people in very interesting ways because you can walk into a room be like oh my god that's the most charming person in the world that's the funniest person in the world but
Corey
51:37
but if their job was to get a point into your brain and they failed at it well
Corey
51:41
well the world's full of entertainers but it doesn't mean they're a great communicator
Carter
51:45
Hey, I think you just slagged us a little bit. It hurts. It hurt a little bit.
Zain
51:51
Can I ask you an uncomfortable question or potentially uncomfortable question? Oh, wait, the first one.
Corey
51:54
one. Yeah, go for it. Yeah,
Zain
51:55
Yeah, okay. A, will you be heading out the award? Okay, thank you. Will
Zain
51:59
Will you be? No,
Corey
52:01
think I've been pretty clear on that
Zain
52:03
I'm like Vashie Capella on this show. I
Corey
52:06
I keep coming back to it.
Corey
52:07
respect, sir. It is Vashie, by the way. With all
Corey
52:09
With all due respect. I don't want to diminish it, but it is really effective. but it's asking the question five times with increasing levels of incredulity and
Corey
52:19
you know what i say to people is like you don't have to give a different answer on the fifth time like i know she wants you to and it's a very good tactic but you don't have to are
Zain
52:28
okay here's my this is this will be a bit therapy this will be a bit because we know you but some background carter help me out on this because he won't fill in the gaps for us but it's
Zain
52:39
it's fair to say carter that at a certain point in our career,
Zain
52:44
Corey Hogan went from being good at the one, he exposed the one thing that he was good at, right? I should say in comms. Then he exposed the second thing he was good at, and a third thing, and a fourth thing, and a fifth thing, to kind of being like, oh, that's just Corey. That's just the Corey we know. He's able to do 15 different things. Is that, like, that's, we're not blowing, there's a question here potentially, an uncomfortable one for you. I like it so far.
Corey
53:06
far. It's a great question
Zain
53:08
question so far. Are you worried about
Zain
53:11
that reputation in some way that that in the sense that you might not just say you'd be too bright of a star, but like, you know what I'm trying to get at, which is that it
Zain
53:23
it could be a little bit of a Corey show, which in a workplace, it kind of was at certain points where it's like, just give it to Corey. like he's just he can manage it he can write it he can do whatever he'll probably be the best to present it oh you need it coded cory will do that oh you need a design for fucking cory can do that oh you need a script for it like i'm not fucking joking carter like that was our workplace at the end where i had to sell it
Zain
53:45
right i mean there was i mean it was increasingly variable proficiency yes
Zain
53:53
when i say variable i mean decreasing uh that's
Zain
53:58
are you actually worried about that because that is a reputation that you the i'm not saying you have that reputation and i'm not saying that but yeah
Zain
54:07
there is something about that in the sense that like it could it could take up a lot of oxygen yeah
Zain
54:13
if it increases in that way look
Corey
54:14
look i think that was a in many ways a really bad habit of mine in our hill and nolton days which is the last time the three of us worked
Zain
54:21
worked together that is absolutely fair yes so
Zain
54:23
may have changed it.
Corey
54:24
it. Well, and I was a big micromanager. But I'll tell you something. When I got to the government of Alberta, for sure, there was a – okay, it was a really interesting time. So I was made
Corey
54:36
made a senior official in, I think, October of 2016.
Corey
54:43
And January comes around of 2017. And I was – somebody had told me, like, January would be quiet. It was not quiet, right? It was just a different kind of busy. but i was still trying to run my life basically as i'll just do it all and
Corey
54:57
i ran a department well at that point we weren't an integrated department but i had a big big team you know and the communications apparatus of the government was 300 plus people right and
Corey
55:06
and i was still trying to do it as though i was a single performer who could just do it all just
Zain
55:11
just will it into
Zain
55:12
existence sort of and
Corey
55:14
am good at a lot of things uh and i'm better than a lot of the people who worked It worked for me doing those things in many things. That's why I ended up getting to be the boss, right? But the most important lesson I learned was in that January of 2017, when I basically almost broke, because you cannot run a 300 person communications apparatus by trying to do it all yourself. And you have to learn that you can't do it all. You can't try to do it all. You can't be the bottleneck where all of the work goes to and not responding to emails. And you've got to get your teams to do it. And I think that, you know, we have not had the opportunity, the three of us, to work together since Hill
Corey
55:50
Hill and Knowlton. You know, we've worked on projects together. But
Corey
55:53
But actually, Carter, I'll bet you you could attest on the campaign.
Corey
55:56
There were things that I hyper fixated on, for sure. Really? I was not a micromanager. Except for one piece
Carter
56:02
piece that I was called.
Corey
56:04
Except for the thing you did, yeah. No,
Carter
56:06
No, there was one piece. There was one piece of literature.
Carter
56:09
And Corey fixated on it like it was going to change the outcome of the whole goddamn election.
Carter
56:15
and uh oh oh it did but let's
Corey
56:18
that exception to talk about the rule which is i i i'm not that guy anymore yeah and i'm
Zain
56:26
i'm just older i
Corey
56:27
like and he's not as talented he was much more
Corey
56:32
talented than me at all of these things but
Zain
56:33
but i mean i will attest that you know you didn't micromanage me when i showed up to the victory party for the first time i didn't
Corey
56:39
didn't feel micromanaged at all that's good i'm
Corey
56:41
glad because that's the vibe we
Corey
56:43
but i felt like
Zain
56:44
like i could could take all the credit with zero amount of work no
Corey
56:46
no listen you you asked a serious question it deserves a serious answer i yeah that is always a risk when someone's like give me the ball and other people are like actually i wouldn't mind a turn with the ball my dude right yeah
Corey
56:57
and you've got to know that in a team part of your job is to make sure you're being a supportive teammate you're doing that and i'm not gonna pretend i always succeeded that nobody does but i am much I was much more mindful of those things in 2025 than I was in 2015.
Zain
57:15
close us out. What do you have?
Carter
57:17
Well, I'll tell you something. Zane, I'm tired, and I'm pretty much stopped paying attention. This turned into another episode of All About Corey.
Zain
57:28
again, the minister has to defer. You know,
Carter
57:29
know, I'm the minister of podcasts, and for some reason, it always winds up being about the parliamentary secretary. And that's just terrible. But I'll tell you this, Zane, hell
Carter
57:40
hell of an episode. Let's close it up.
Zain
57:43
Corey, finish us off with, and close this episode out with anything else that's on your mind. You get final word. It is your time. Look,
Corey
57:51
Look, it is a funny job. And it is really easy to get wrapped into. And in fact, we talked a lot, like almost exclusively about Ottawa, right? And the drama in Ottawa and what does it mean? And how do you become known for something amongst leaders in Ottawa? And you know, this weird caste system that we all have. And, you know, I guess I just want to kind of ground this all by saying, it's
Corey
58:13
it's not remotely about Ottawa at the end of the day. And so one of the things that we all need to do as MPs, but something I try to remind myself, is that Ottawa
Corey
58:23
the cherry on top, right? You've got to take care of your constituency at home. And when you're talking about things like communication, that's actually where you've got to put a lot of effort if you're an MP. And
Corey
58:33
I am glad the session is over so I can spend six weeks in Calgary because, objectively, Calgary is better than Ottawa. but also because
Corey
58:43
if we were just all Ottawa all the time this place would be even more ridiculous than it sometimes feels
Zain
58:50
it's a good ending with all due respect sir you seem to have no issues getting awards yet you have no no desire to give out awards what's
Zain
58:57
what's up with that
Carter
58:58
that the world is about giving yeah it's
Zain
58:59
it's the world it's about giving yeah
Zain
59:01
I appreciate you're in you're in I think you said okay I think I heard it we're taking okay we're taking okay fantastic it's it we're done we got him we