SPECIAL EPISODE: Carter and Velji Episode 1

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode one

Zain 0:04

one of Carter and Velji. That is right.

Zain 0:09

This is not a regular episode. No, folks, we are putting away all the nines. They are all going away. They're all being shelved. They're all being backpocketed. You know why? Because

Zain 0:18

Because this is episode one of something that has never fucking

Zain 0:23

fucking happened, Stephen Carter.

Zain 0:25

It's you and I, my friend.

Carter 0:31

hang on i did that wrong carter

Carter 0:34

carter carter carter see what i did there see i've got the uh okay okay what i've got here can i tell you something i've got what

Zain 0:41

what do you got here

Zain 0:46

the prisoners the prisoners have taken over we have taken over we have no adult supervision uh although cory is

Zain 1:00

love that this is great this is excellent you know what you could do carter yeah drink

Zain 1:04

drink whatever you want on the show drink whatever you want eat whatever you want hang on

Zain 1:13

can see why it's annoying now i can see why it's annoying uh do but do but do any do more of it do more of it um i've actually brought do more of it i brought i brought my dinner here here with me we can do anything carter honestly we can we

Carter 1:24

we can do whatever we want we can listen

Carter 1:26

hang on let's ask cory what he thinks that

Zain 1:33

is right uh cory hogan has been fired from the podcast and as you can see carter yeah the first 48 seconds of a podcast are like a crime investigation the first 48 hours matter just like the first 48 seconds and i gotta tell you something we're delivering we're delivering for the patreon crowd uh they are getting their their money's worth i mean how many sound effects eight we haven't even had eight cumulative sound effects throughout the entire podcast tenure and

Zain 1:57

had we've had eight i feel like this is going really well well

Carter 2:02

well the good news is i got the live stream going now yeah

Carter 2:04

so we're also broadcasting live to video but no one knows because i wasn't able to put up a an actual link we'll

Zain 2:12

we'll figure it out doesn't matter this is huge you

Zain 2:14

you know why we don't care we're not i think i figured out what i did we're not sweating the small stuff okay we're not cory hogan in this the situation we're not we're not going to care about this no uh carter uh what's been keeping you busy i've of course uh people might be wondering why we haven't been recording i've of course been uh uh

Zain 2:28

uh just going through this uh 8 000 word profile on let me just see uh steven carter uh it's uh it's about you carter really yeah there's a profile about you come out it did come out you're pretending like you haven't read it i actually don't believe you i

Carter 2:41

i have not read it i have not read it let me tell you why why

Carter 2:45

you can't read or write your own press like if you're You're going to be, like, you can't fall

Carter 2:49

fall in love with your press clippings,

Carter 2:50

even when they're shit.

Carter 2:53

I don't believe the press when it's really good, I'm also not going to believe the press when it's really bad.

Carter 2:58

So I don't even know what happened. But I do know that

Carter 3:01

that Sprawl was planning to do a bio

Zain 3:04

bio story. You know more that they were planning to do. They were doing a

Carter 3:08

a bio story. Okay,

Zain 3:09

Okay, I think, and I'm going to look this up. I think this is perhaps the longest profile written of

Zain 3:16

of someone named Stephen Carter. And what people don't know is that there is a way more... There's a really big

Carter 3:21

big Stephen Carter. There's

Carter 3:22

There's a very successful

Zain 3:23

successful Stephen Carter. I would argue even bigger than you.

Zain 3:26

He's a Yale professor. Way

Carter 3:28

Way bigger. Do you think... Yale professor. Do

Zain 3:30

Do you think... Like

Carter 3:31

Like setting the tone of American democracy kind of professor.

Carter 3:35

Black professor. I think I mentioned this on the podcast before,

Carter 3:39

uh, that it showed the bias of the, of the algorithm when it used to show my photo with his quotes, uh, which was tragic because he's

Carter 3:48

infinitely smarter than me.

Carter 3:51

but he's, he, you know, he's, he's, I

Carter 3:54

I always feel bad when I, you know, like when I get a bunch of mentions, cause the other Stephen Carters, uh,

Carter 3:59

uh, they really suffer. They really do. Let

Zain 4:00

Let me, let's look at it. What would he do? i got

Carter 4:02

got i got some message i

Carter 4:04

got some mentions last week i guess and here

Zain 4:06

here i am i'm

Zain 4:07

i'm just i just scoured the entire internet and the answer is no he does not have a 6 000 word profile on him like you do carter uh talk to me about this because there's there's more than you knew that this was coming out right like bullshit aside we talk strategy on this podcast let's talk about this profile um

Zain 4:25

did you okay i have to talk to you about it uh

Zain 4:27

uh it took uh all the politicos at least in this province uh a couple of days uh of of airtime to to to read it you

Zain 4:37

you had a strategy behind this didn't you you knew this profile was coming out yeah

Zain 4:41

uh talk to me about that and what was the strategy and frankly let's like then extrapolate like what were the strategy implications uh because this profile for those who haven't read it first do read it uh carter says he hasn't read it i've read it i think it's a gives you a pretty fair shake this is my My perspective

Zain 4:58

in, of course, elements of what we knew in background, brings in elements of your campaigns.

Zain 5:05

But the heart of it, Carter, is you sat down for an interview that lasted three hours that makes the bulk of this. Tell me why you did that.

Carter 5:15

I mean, I'll compare and contrast. So when I was asked, you know, but when Jeremy Appel put out his five horrible things that Stephen Carter's done, And he asked me if I wanted to be interviewed for that. And I didn't because

Carter 5:26

I was not going to be able to change nor set the direction for that piece. I got wind fairly early on that the sprawl was going to do a profile piece. I reached out to Jeremy Clauses, who I think may not share my may

Carter 5:43

may not share my point of view in life, but I think is a fundamentally decent and human being and is making a very good go of it with the sprawl, doing

Carter 5:52

doing journalism differently and showing a different face to things. And I reached out to him and essentially let him know that I was aware that there was going to be an article. And he put me in contact with Taylor, who wrote the piece. And I

Carter 6:11

I sat down and did the interview. My thinking behind doing the interview view was, they're going to write this.

Carter 6:17

I better frame it the

Carter 6:19

the way I want to frame it. And we

Carter 6:22

we talk a lot about getting in front of an issue. And this was me getting in front of the issue. I framed, I think, the entire story by

Carter 6:28

by giving him the

Carter 6:29

the entire story. I was not going to hold back on anything. And

Carter 6:32

And then when my story, you

Carter 6:36

know, verged from someone else's or went away from someone else's then

Carter 6:40

then it was left to the reader to to

Carter 6:42

to try and determine why that was um because

Carter 6:45

because no two people are going to tell the same story right

Carter 6:47

right no two people everybody's

Carter 6:49

everybody's got their own version of what the story looks like and feels like and

Carter 6:52

and in my case i wanted that story

Carter 6:54

story to be told

Carter 6:55

told from my perspective so i i told it from my perspective uh

Zain 6:59

yeah and i think this there's a strategy implication there by the way for anyone listening wondering uh yes we will in fact impose stephen carter to

Zain 7:06

to uh read the piece in fact uh we are going to do this carter we have a hour-long podcast that's a sprawl yes we are uh the the sprawls put out an hour-long podcast of the piece uh we're gonna actually impose you to listen to that while we record and then we will do a director's cut from you steven carter um where you can address some of the um um

Zain 7:26

um controversial quotes let's just put it that way the controversial quotes that are in the piece uh

Zain 7:32

but i here's what i like the best carter what controversial

Carter 7:34

controversial quotes a couple

Zain 7:38

couple a couple like me couple carter a couple uh by the way i do like the headline you know i've done

Carter 7:42

done a thousand episodes of a podcast

Zain 7:45

well we both have and this is the first one that i've done a thousand episodes of

Zain 7:48

podcast the first one i'm enjoying that's what i'll say it's the first one i'm having a good time at you

Carter 7:54

thousand episodes of a podcast i may have said a few outlandish things on this podcast too i mean i'm not too fast this time it got written down into an article uh

Zain 8:02

uh this is true uh by the way a shout out to the podcast it does get mentioned in the piece uh and shout out more specifically to me who i believe has the best line of the entire story which is clipped from the podcast so i just wanted to give a shout out to myself usually cory would do that cory's very generous with the compliments to each other uh to ourselves uh but he's not here so i'm just gonna do it for myself carter uh

Zain 8:25

okay you over with that well i mean cory's

Carter 8:27

cory's cory's texting cory's texting with me now trying to figure out why we haven't posted that we're doing a live show and i'm like i copied the url you

Carter 8:36

you know so he's mad at me okay

Zain 8:39

okay well he's he's now saying he's now saying this is pointless and and the fact is um part

Zain 8:43

part of me makes it it's not like i

Carter 8:45

i like there's a podcast this is a this is

Carter 8:47

is a podcast not a video right let's continue let's continue i mean

Zain 8:53

i will say the best part about this is there's

Carter 8:55

there's so much shit going on right now we're doing a podcast baby i

Zain 8:59

i like this you know the best part about it carter uh a final thing on your piece uh

Zain 9:02

uh what's that the

Zain 9:03

the headline i'm a bad boy the

Zain 9:05

the stephen carter story carter

Zain 9:06

carter that that needs to be i don't know why they chose that that needs to be that needs to be put on t-shirts that needs to to be uh plastered across uh murals uh i i love it and it brings me to my first segment our first segment i'm a bad boy the steven carter strategy segment that is right the bad boy featured in the sprawl piece we're gonna do run through a bunch of strategy questions carter there is so much going on i'm gonna list to you as we try to without cory you and i just jamming on a bunch of strategy questions um you have been listed you have been quoted as being a brilliant strategy mind anyone who listens to this podcast knows that here's what we're going to do we're going to go through a bunch of different strategies uh that are within the current zeitgeist a bunch of different decisions that were made by politicians to launch campaigns to make videos to endorse to say certain things about cancer um to respond in a certain way about some debates and i'm going to ask you why it's good or bad strategy what you would do differently we're going to try to do this in relative rapid fire um and try to give some insight to our listeners carter the first one andrea horvath is now running for mayor of hamilton what

Zain 10:20

what the hell is going on here and and here's the here's the angle that i want to cover from a strategy perspective she loses she

Zain 10:27

she may even have taken the chance of saying i lost but i perhaps over perform in a sense because the the Liberals vastly underperform. She could have taken that lane.

Zain 10:36

lane. I lost her as I'm out of politics on the provincial level and then just pops up with the worst kept secret. I'm running for mayor of Hamilton. What do you make of this from a latency perspective from a, didn't we just see you perspective? Like, is there, is that a thing in politics where people are like, but you were just here? Like at what point does it look opportunistic? And at what point is it strategic Carter? And is there any difference whatsoever?

Carter 11:03

politics is a game of opportunism, right? So if you've got that, then you should jump into it, right? You should push as hard as you can and

Carter 11:13

and try and make this actually, you

Carter 11:17

you know, take your name recognition and turn it. Andrea Horvath did very well in Hamilton. This is not a market that she's not known in. She should be in a position where she can win the mayor's chair. I mean, Patrick Brown just stepped out of running for the mayor or running for leader of the CPC and he's now running for mayor of Brampton.

Carter 11:36

I'm working on a campaign in British Columbia with an MLA that

Carter 11:39

that is running to be mayor of Surrey.

Carter 11:41

You must be known if

Carter 11:44

if you're going and you must be opportunistic. And

Carter 11:47

And I think that the problem, I don't have any problem with Andrea Horvath taking the fact that she just ran in

Carter 11:52

in the provincial election and, you know, did okay, didn't, you know, we can squabble

Carter 11:57

squabble about how good she did or how didn't, how poorly she But the

Carter 12:01

the truth is that she wants to be the mayor because she's never going to be the premier.

Carter 12:07

Do great. But be prepared.

Carter 12:10

Be prepared. Because the problem is right now, she's not prepared at all. And that's where things, I think, have

Carter 12:17

have really fallen apart. part we'll

Zain 12:18

we'll get into the prepared side in a sec here because i know what you're referring to you're referring to her on launch day here uh

Zain 12:25

uh being interviewed by the media um ultimately criticizing not criticizing i would say they were fairly questioning what's

Zain 12:32

what's your rationale for running like what's your why right like andrea tell us your why why why are you here like you know um in many cases a softball for launch day right and she ultimately said well you know fuck off today's just to launch i'm not we can talk about policy positions later i'll get to that in in a second but i do want to go to the heart of my question which is when

Zain 12:53

carter she ran to be premier okay let's let's let's break this down elementally she

Zain 12:58

she ran to be premier she

Zain 12:59

she didn't succeed to be premier she

Zain 13:01

she failed to become premier now

Zain 13:03

now that she's running for another post

Zain 13:06

is there some sort of change is there some sort of difference

Zain 13:11

difference is there some sort of like like

Zain 13:13

reconciliation with past failures that politicians need to make before they jump into the next race?

Zain 13:19

race? Or is that like a 2015 thing that we're now in a world where it says, fuck it, just jump if you need to jump, use the same strategy. There's no, you

Zain 13:28

you know, penance you need to pay. And we'll get to that too. There's no sort of, there's no sort of apology. There's no sort of reconciling what went wrong. There's no sort of postmortem, right? Just do it. Just just do to your heart's content. What do you think of that element of an introspection or a thoughtfulness that perhaps would be required from a Horvath before she threw herself into the mayor's race? Am I just being too philosophical and too naive about what politicians may need to think about?

Carter 13:57

Yeah, I think you're being naive. I think that you don't need to offer a rationale to serve right um you

Carter 14:05

you need to you need to have a desire to serve you need to have a why i don't think that the problem was you know why are you jumping from this particular problem or from this from provincial politics to um you

Carter 14:18

you know to to municipal politics i mean that makes sense she fucked up she didn't win um you

Carter 14:27

that's where i think that she

Carter 14:30

has no reason to offer an explanation. What she needs to offer is a reason why she wants to be the mayor of Hamilton. I want to be the mayor of Hamilton because, right?

Carter 14:40

I always joke with municipal politics. There's a whole bunch of reasons to be mayor, but bottom line, because you think city services can be delivered better, right? Water needs to go uphill. Poop needs to go downhill. Needs to have a good public safety strategy. We need to make sure that, you know, that everything, the development makes sense for the good people of Hamilton, right? It costs too much to live here. How are we going to make sure that the costs are less? That's what we need to do.

Carter 15:14

That's where she fucked up. Not because she said, not because she screwed up and didn't win the premier's chair. We already knew that she wasn't going to win the premier's chair she fucked up in in when she didn't have the answer for why why am i going so here's

Zain 15:28

here's the thing carter right you're running a race in surrey right now we talk about this why question i really this is interesting this why question um on

Zain 15:38

on paul on on a rationale to run and remember west wing episodes where like they spent entire months trying to get the and bottle up the why how

Zain 15:46

how important in 2022 is the why is it just a boilerplate response or does it have to be like like a thoughtful like evocation, a thoughtful sort of like triangulation of everything I've done has led to this moment in history sort of answer. What do you think right now from that perspective? Could she have just like said anything and would have been better than the hit that she got today where she said, fuck off? Like pretty much saying, I don't have an answer. Let's talk about this later.

Carter 16:13

Yeah, I mean, that was the worst answer. I mean, we saw this actually when Kent Hare ran to be our

Carter 16:19

our good friend Kent Hare. I mean, let's not pick on him too much.

Carter 16:22

But when Kent Hare ran to be mayor in

Carter 16:25

he didn't have the why. He didn't understand the job.

Carter 16:28

And when you're coming from provincial politics, it is expected that

Carter 16:33

that you're going to actually succeed in

Carter 16:37

in this new element, right? You are going to succeed by knowing more about the municipal politics than just,

Carter 16:44

you know, the guy, the businessman who's going to run

Carter 16:47

run to keep taxes low and run

Carter 16:49

run the city like a business, which is always such a pathetic thing to answer.

Carter 16:52

But at least it's got a why in it, right?

Carter 16:54

right? At least it's got a why. Andrea Horvath came in today with no why. And she should know better given that she's an experienced politician. Now, the West Wing blew it up. The West Wing, you know, ruined it.

Zain 17:06

it. It romanticized it, didn't it? That's what what i'm trying to get to like it didn't romanticize it to like try to make it this well crafted perfectly like contoured elevator pitch versus like just a fucking line that is palatable enough to most people and i think there's an element of like liberal overthink and progressive overthink to things like this which i i don't mean to criticize my side of the ledger but i feel like i've seen this so many times where we try to like bring every stakeholder and every group into the the why and who is seen and who isn't seen and making sure all of this to the point then you either sand it down so much to lowest common denominator or to andrew horvath's point i'm not saying this is the case today you just don't have anything to go with because it's got to be workshopped to such a fine detail and it's not one of those pieces is it

Carter 17:59

it's not one of those those um yeah

Carter 18:03

yeah it's it's just kind of a it's kind of a joke You don't

Carter 18:08

don't have to have these great big things. You just have to have these little ideas that take you where you need to go.

Carter 18:18

That's all that really matters. My candidate

Carter 18:22

candidate had three reasons for running. I always like threes.

Carter 18:26

one is to increase openness and transparency two

Carter 18:30

two is to make it more fair for the for every single person in surrey and three was to address the cost of living i

Carter 18:37

mean is that really tough is

Carter 18:38

is that really hard like three

Carter 18:40

three things that really if we did a poll we're going to find those three things at the top of every poll right

Carter 18:46

right we're fine why wouldn't we just do that um

Carter 18:50

but you didn't you didn't get caught up you know why wouldn't we do that you

Zain 18:53

you didn't you didn't get caught up in in the poetry you didn't get caught up in the um um

Zain 18:58

the the elements of poetry which is exactly what i'm trying to get talk about which is um

Carter 19:03

because the poetry the poet this is prose what we're looking for is actually the ability to put every issue into our frame right and so that's the frame that i put in place so the frame matters the issues don't right what does cost of living even mean? Is that cost of housing? Is it taxes being low? Is it roads being taken care of so my car doesn't take cost as much? Is it

Carter 19:28

popular transit routes? All of those things is what cost of living is. What does fairness mean? I can take fairness and apply it to any issue. That's why we launched the way we did. And Andrea Horvath and the NDP in Alberta, both

Carter 19:42

both don't seem to have the ability to do that.

Zain 19:45

You know what's interesting about this is it kind of brings some of the the lessons back to our time working together and and by the way if people don't know the reason you and i started to work together initially was because of wait

Zain 19:55

wait for it that

Zain 19:56

that is right cory hogan who is not here um the the guy uh cory

Zain 20:01

cory hogan by the way as as we are recording this he is scolding us uh for everything including the sound unbelievably i'm gonna for the sound of this this can right here oh he's probably gonna hate that he probably hates that it's gonna make his yeah he's

Carter 20:13

he's gonna hate that

Zain 20:13

that however carter there was something we always talked about especially especially in the world of politics and advocacy, which was, it

Zain 20:20

it would be really, really attractive, but simultaneously really, really easy to get caught up in cleverness and poetry versus

Zain 20:29

versus what actually is effective, which is prose and simplicity. And how many times have we seen? And I think what happens is that we romanticize poetic and clever in politics. Like most recently, a great example, great video of mothers against Greg Abbott, right? This extremely clever video um of a

Zain 20:51

mother in an abortion clinic saying

Zain 20:53

saying you know doctors coming in saying we need to talk about termination the mother's like okay we need to make this decision and the doctor's like nope let me talk to greg about that greg's

Zain 21:00

greg's gonna make the final call on it super clever those

Zain 21:04

those clever hits yeah are really hard to generate like they're a one in a thousand hit and i think the problem is campaigns

Zain 21:11

campaigns often waste so much energy in trying to be poetic and and clever that they, and it's usually playing to a very small base that's already engaged, that they forget simple and efficient and pros for those that they need to bring in the tent and communicate to who perhaps don't have the knowledge base, don't have the fact base that the insider or the chattering class does. And it ultimately leads to the same problem, the chattering class wanting to develop content for the chattering class.

Carter 21:43

yeah i think that that's that's what the the the challenge is is that you know you you you

Carter 21:49

you know how many times have you done this saying where we try and write the the seven word headline the six word headline and everybody's got to comment on what the six words need of course

Zain 21:56

all the time you is

Carter 21:57

is i don't care what the six words are you

Carter 21:59

you know just get the six words out just make sure that they're clear and understandable have we ever are we being clear you know does it matter if we use uh voter or, you know, elector or, you know, resident versus citizen, you know, who the fuck cares? Get the headline out. Timeliness is far more important than the poetry, right? So I'm far more a prose fellow than I am a, you know, someone who worries about, is this the actual outcome that we're trying to get? Like, for example, let's say that Corey Hogan really wanted us to put this video out to patrons,

Carter 22:34

right? But I couldn't get it out to patrons because I fucked it up i

Carter 22:37

would just as soon put it out to twitter because

Carter 22:39

because at least then i got it out right

Carter 22:42

right and cory's gonna be all pissed off because we didn't get it to patrons but i'm like dude i got it out to someone right i got i fucked it up i

Carter 22:50

i fucked it up i i see now after you've explained to me the step that i missed i see now that step that i missed and now i know how to do it but in the meantime i didn't have an actual thing oh

Zain 23:03

oh my god so it's all good real

Zain 23:04

real bad boy move carter real real bad boy move uh i'm gonna move it on to our next strategy question carter bad boy steven harper endorsing pure polyamory i cannot think what

Zain 23:14

fuck is that okay so so what angle do you want to take and then i'll hit another angle go you go first when

Carter 23:21

when was the last time a former prime minister of the country that was my angle came out and endorsed their a replacement or anybody else leading like when you are done you are the fuck done why that could get

Zain 23:32

get out going why that

Zain 23:33

that convention because harper's interesting and more than one reason this endorsement is one but remember he started like harper and associates a lobbying firm which we all were like really like this is a little too close to home dude like do you think this is just harper what's the strategy here talk to me about the strategy and then talk to actually then talk to me about the convention talk to me why you think you did this and then talk to me about why the fuck when you're done you're done because this is actually not all all that uncommon carter in the united

Zain 24:00

united states right Right. Like where we're certain presidents, former presidents, even in the primary, silently,

Zain 24:07

silently, tacitly and explicitly back particular candidates. So first talk to me about the strategy and then let's talk about why this convention exists in Canada.

Carter 24:17

Because it backfires. Right.

Carter 24:18

Right. So the strategy itself, you know, the reason the reason why, you know, the reason that Harper's doing it is Harper wishes to take his goodwill and apply it to Pierre Polian. yeah right he wants to take the thing that he's got and hand it over to this person you know who's running carter that's that's the framework

Zain 24:37

of any endorsement is it not like there's nothing that that framework is not special in this case what

Carter 24:43

yeah but the difference is that when you're a form former politicians i mean how many politicians go out when they win none

Carter 24:51

right most politicians go out after they've lost stephen harper lost to justin trudeau and now he's taking And he's endorsing Pierre Polyev.

Carter 25:00

You shouldn't be doing that. First of all, Pierre Polyev should want to stand on his own. So

Carter 25:04

So Pierre Polyev should not have sought this endorsement. I think he did. I think that he did because I think the actual strategy here is Pierre Polyev is incredibly concerned that

Carter 25:14

that he's going to lose to Jean Charest. And

Carter 25:16

Stephen Harper is very concerned that

Carter 25:19

that Pierre Polyev is going to lose to Charest because

Carter 25:21

because Stephen Harper doesn't

Carter 25:24

a progressive conservative style government or a moderate conservative government.

Carter 25:30

Stephen Harper would rather have a conservative conservative opposition than having a moderate conservative government. So

Carter 25:38

So Pierre and Stephen shared the same strategic goals. But this should not be done. First of all, why

Carter 25:45

why would you as a former prime minister want to lower yourself, debase yourself into actually just endorsing someone?

Carter 25:53

And you say that it's happened in the U.S. It didn't happen in the U.S. until very, very recently. Yeah, true.

Carter 25:58

true. You know, you would see someone take the, you know, the existing, the sitting president would

Carter 26:04

would take someone in their existing party and say, yes, I'm with that person,

Carter 26:09

right? Party to party member in the general election, that's done. Brian Mulroney standing up with Aaron O'Toole, that is done because that's someone saying together,

Carter 26:19

together, you know, this party is bigger than me. It's bigger than Aaron O'Toole, right?

Carter 26:24

right? But to do this in a leadership, it minimizes the important. It minimizes the impact, and

Carter 26:30

and it should be up to the members. It minimizes the members themselves. This, to me, is why you stay away from it and why, in general, you just don't do

Zain 26:39

do it. Here's a question, Carter. Who is more desperate in this situation,

Zain 26:46

Who needed this more, Stephen

Zain 26:48

Stephen Harper or Pierre Palliever? You see where I'm going here? Did Pierre need the endorsement to have a first ballot victory over Charest, or did harper need this more not

Zain 27:00

not for relevance but to ensure that the party he founded uh that the user manual goes to the right individual like who needed this more in your mind

Carter 27:13

think pierre needed oh interesting

Zain 27:16

harper needed this more thing okay okay no

Carter 27:20

no i think that that's not how it goes because i think that um i

Carter 27:25

think that in general role what harper harper

Carter 27:27

harper will be there anyways he will be driving the party in any case but pierre needs to win but doesn't but doesn't

Zain 27:33

doesn't harper doesn't harper need a party that he can drive doesn't he need someone he can help steer uh the wheel jointly doesn't he need a vehicle that's still uh resemblant of his dna from more than a decade ago like that this is why i think kind of harper's legacy and we've talked about glory and legacy on previous episodes isn't harper's legacy hinge on the fact that this thing is still a thing, kind of like Kenny's legacy will

Zain 27:59

will probably hinge on the fact that the UCP is still a thing. He founded it. It's still alive.

Carter 28:06

Well, no, I just I'm not sure that that's necessarily the way I see it. I mean, keep in mind, Stephen Harper has been advising far right governments around the world. I

Carter 28:15

I mean, he's you know, he's he's reached his tentacles reach into all kinds of different far-right parties around the world. Parties, frankly, that I think most Canadians would be rather disappointed

Carter 28:26

disappointed in, given the way that we look at right-wing politics in our country. I mean, Stephen Harper, when

Carter 28:33

when you talked about that lobbying firm, we assumed he'd be lobbying our government here in

Zain 28:38

in Canada. Domestically, yeah. That's

Carter 28:39

That's not what he's doing.

Carter 28:41

He's an international lobbyist who has access into some of the prime prime ministers, and presidents around the world.

Carter 28:50

And that's the part that I think is the most distressing.

Carter 28:55

I do think that Stephen Harper was going to continue to be relevant even if Pierre lost. I think that Pierre isn't relevant when Pierre loses, because

Carter 29:04

will be no place for Pierre in Jean Charest's conservative

Carter 29:07

conservative party. What did

Zain 29:08

did you think of Harper when you saw the video? Did you watch the video, by the way?

Carter 29:14

watched pieces of it. I mean,

Zain 29:15

mean, you know how hard it

Carter 29:16

it is for me to watch these things. I find them

Zain 29:20

so hard. You didn't read a 6,000-word piece about yourself, so you watched maybe, what, 30 seconds of a 60-second clip?

Zain 29:26

What did you think of it? It kind of seemed interesting from the Harper perspective. Like, his

Zain 29:31

his words, like, his presentation style, like, almost like, hey, I've come out of nowhere. I know this was being talked around in the media as well. Like, just popping out of nowhere, no warning. returning, did you

Zain 29:43

you feel like this did brand damage to Harper? If you were on a, hey, protecting the prime minister sort of

Zain 29:49

of strategy angle, would you have been like, oh, don't do this, even though Jenny's pushing you to do it, sir? What would you have said to Harper with that request coming in from the peer camp?

Carter 30:01

I would have asked, if I was in Stephen Harper's camp, I would have asked to see the numbers.

Carter 30:06

I would have asked to see the numbers. I would would have said, you know, I think that with Patrick Brown out, you don't need my endorsement. Why are you asking me? And if Jenny said, well, I actually do need your endorsement. Um, I mean, Jenny's the, the, the piece that links these two that, and, uh, I mean, I think that Pierre Polyev was actually, you

Carter 30:26

you know, always a very useful tool. Um, he

Carter 30:30

he was also a very useful tool tool in the, uh,

Carter 30:36

you know, in the Harper government.

Carter 30:38

Yeah. You know, he was that mouthpiece. He and Michelle Rempel were the two that

Carter 30:42

that were really pushed out and

Carter 30:44

and put in front when Stephen Harper was there. And Jenny, I'm sure had a big role in that. So I'm imagining that Jenny had a pretty big role in, uh, ensuring that Harper

Carter 30:53

Harper was in fact, you

Carter 30:55

you know, the, the

Carter 30:57

the guy, eye, right? Like, you know, was brought in. I just think, you

Carter 31:04

Pierre's telling us two stories, which is Pierre's thing. Pierre's telling us two stories. Story one is that he's got this locked up. He's going to win.

Carter 31:12

And story two, as evidenced by Stephen Harper coming in, as evidenced by the fact that he continues to attack Brown and

Carter 31:18

and he continues to attract Sharae with

Carter 31:20

with these massive frontal attacks that aren't going to leave the party whole when he wins. He doesn't give a shit about a whole party. He wants to win at any cost. And it looks to me like he's scared because you don't ask the former prime minister of the country to endorse you if you don't need that endorsement.

Zain 31:37

It's interesting. We'll see how this plays out. It seems like that this has really not changed the dynamics of the race at all. And it'll probably still be a pure first round ballot victory. But these moments of like desperation

Zain 31:49

desperation or these moments of like it's

Zain 31:52

it's maybe closer than than we think, at least that's how the political class is reading him, the pundit class is reading him, do give me pause on Pierre Polyev's overall strategic skills.

Zain 32:02

skills. His oratory skills, I still think, are extremely, extremely well honed. But from a perspective of strategy, moments like this, while it might seem to have momentary upside, gives me quite a bit of pause in terms of where there might be opening for the liberals when and if he does become the candidate. it carter i want to move on to another strategy question this time let's move it on locally here to or regionally alberta daniel smith oh

Zain 32:29

ucp leadership says in a discussion

Zain 32:33

discussion with a naturopath about

Zain 32:35

about cancer being completely within your control until it reaches stage four now

Zain 32:41

now carter i know i know you're like a you've

Zain 32:43

you've spent a lot of time when you were chief of staff to the the premier on primary health networks, PCNs.

Zain 32:49

I want to kind of stay away from the health side of this. I want to talk about the strategy side of this, because I know the first part can blow both of our heads off. And it has been for a lot of Twitter, a lot of physicians, a lot of doctors.

Zain 33:01

I hate to be so crass, but tell me, does this play better? Or does this play worse than where Danielle was a week ago? Now that this comment is out there, and knowing who her audience is,

Zain 33:11

Carter, does this actually help her in some way? Or is this actually a gaffe? gaffe, own it, it's a gaffe, writ large, game over, sort of. Not game over, but like, this was own it as a gaffe, and let's put it in that column. Would

Zain 33:21

Would I be charitable by saying that this helps her?

Carter 33:23

I think it was a

Carter 33:26

a gaffe, but I'm not sure that it doesn't help her in some fashion,

Carter 33:30

right? I think that fighting the establishment is what she's going for. And

Carter 33:35

she's fighting the establishment in this case. I do think that far

Carter 33:39

far too many people have had bad.

Carter 33:42

You know, relatives die from cancer. Relatives go through horrible experiences with cancer. And cancer is one of those things that is just known to everybody, right?

Carter 33:51

Everybody knows cancer. It's not like, you

Carter 33:53

you know, one of those rare diseases that is

Carter 33:56

is kind of just out there that impacted, you

Carter 33:58

you know, someone that you've never, never known. This is somebody, everybody is impacted by cancer. So

Carter 34:03

So Danielle has chosen something that everybody has a personal experience And that's why Don Braid gets to write the article saying, Danielle, you're just completely wrong.

Carter 34:12

But does Danielle want, Danielle,

Carter 34:14

Danielle, you're just completely wrong.

Carter 34:16

No one has talked about any of the other leadership candidates. There is no oxygen for

Carter 34:19

for anybody else. And there is a school of thought that says, if you're being spoken about and no one else is being spoken about, then you are winning the game, right?

Carter 34:29

right? You are winning the game, right? Right. I got more attention than Corey Hogan this week. Ergo, I'm winning the strategist podcast game. Right. Six thousand word profile. It doesn't matter what they say as long as they're spelling your name. Right.

Carter 34:43

Right. Do you buy

Zain 34:44

buy that school? Do you buy that?

Carter 34:45

that? But do you buy

Zain 34:46

of thought, though, from

Carter 34:47

from you? Like there's

Carter 34:49

there's a degree of truth to it.

Carter 34:51

Oxygen is everything in a campaign.

Carter 34:55

for example, when, you know, Jeff Davison came into the the mayoralty campaign, if

Carter 35:00

if we couldn't have put our put

Carter 35:02

put on, you know, if we couldn't have stopped the oxygen flow to his campaign using

Carter 35:07

a positive for us, I would have used a negative. I

Carter 35:11

I have no problem taking the oxygen away from his campaign and

Carter 35:14

and doing something a little bit negative.

Carter 35:17

I wouldn't have done something this negative.

Carter 35:21

this is a big problem, right? Like I didn't mind that everybody was coming after our strategy about putting out signs early because, ooh, you're breaking the rules. You're putting signs out. I

Carter 35:30

I was fine with that.

Carter 35:32

I didn't care. You just kept mentioning our name in the newspaper. Keep doing that. We like having our name

Zain 35:36

name mentioned in the newspaper. Right, because your strategy at that point was that you're

Zain 35:38

working, you're doing work, you're putting in the work.

Zain 35:41

You might be doing it early, but the reputational,

Zain 35:44

the residue from it is

Zain 35:47

positive for the most part.

Carter 35:51

80% of the mentions were negative, but

Carter 35:53

but what they were saying about us was still positive. We're out there campaigning. We are out there trying to be, you know, interact with residents, have large community events at a time when, you

Carter 36:03

know, it was really hard to do so.

Carter 36:04

So I was looking at that as like a giant win, even though it was partially negative. But there's a line somewhere, Zane,

Carter 36:11

Zane, and I don't know if you know where it is. I don't know where it is. But there's a line somewhere that says this has gone from being negative to being positive. Like even my own little profile, right? There there were three types of feedback I got from my, from my profile. One was that's as good as it's

Zain 36:27

it's going to get.

Carter 36:27

get. One was this fucking asshole. Right. And the third was, yeah, it was pretty much down the middle. Right. Like it was just middle. Right. That was good. Middle bad. People who didn't like me thought it was bad. People who thought who do like me thought it was good. People who didn't know me kind of came down the middle. That's fine.

Carter 36:46

Right. What is, where's is danielle on this are the people who liking her who liked her they still like her my thinking is yes i don't think she saw a money drop this week i'd

Carter 36:56

i'd love to see a money drop but i just don't where

Zain 36:58

where the hell were any of these other candidates who said let me find let

Zain 37:05

let me be crass for a second i'm just i'm just spitballing this with you let

Zain 37:08

let me find some stage one to three folks with cancer in this province fuck we're building an entire cancer center so this shit is real these people People are out there. They're

Zain 37:17

They're sympathetic characters. Well, let me bring them out here and say, are these people here because they made choices completely within their control? Where was anyone this week? It didn't have to be as extreme as that. You may say it should have been. But where was a version of that this week? While

Zain 37:33

While she gets all the headlines, it's the media kind of doing the light touch questioning. Where are her opponents being like, what the actual fuck did you just say?

Carter 37:45

Brian Jean got closest you know Brian Jean's lost his son to cancer and that was a you

Carter 37:51

you know I mean Brian Jean's had a lot of heartache I mean we can rail

Carter 37:54

on his political policies but as

Carter 37:57

as a human being he has suffered more than a lot of people have suffered and

Carter 38:01

losing a child is a tragedy and he lost his child to cancer I believe I don't think I'm wrong on that but

Carter 38:10

opposition to it was two tweets

Carter 38:12

like where was the where was the op-ed where was the where was the editorial where where where were the things that he could get done where where was he just fucking blasting her saying

Carter 38:22

saying that people don't choose this outcome and

Carter 38:24

and and it's just it's tepid at best where's raj and talk

Zain 38:29

you have the reins on one of these i hate to use this term because it's so catch-all but one of these non-fringe candidates right let's say a sonny schultz or here let's just pump them together other you have the reins on one of the three what would you have done this week what would your response have been carter i'd

Carter 38:48

i'd have gone and stood in front of the alberta cancer center that they're building at the food medical center and

Carter 38:53

and i'd have said under danielle smith's leadership this wouldn't have been built this

Carter 38:57

this wouldn't have been deemed required everybody

Carter 38:58

everybody who's entering into this facility with stage one two or three cancers would have been offered a series of vitamins and some sunshine to take away their cancers. But that's

Carter 39:10

that's not how this works. Danielle, if you want to be the premier of the province, you have to understand that you need to serve people in buildings like this. And this costs money.

Carter 39:20

This costs money. This was one of the best decisions that

Carter 39:22

that the NDP did, which

Carter 39:24

which was moving forward with

Carter 39:25

with this cancer center. It's another good decision that Jason Kenney made,

Carter 39:29

made, continuing to move forward with this cancer center. It is a decision that it would be undone by

Carter 39:35

by Danielle Smith. And look at all those people, all

Carter 39:38

all of those people going in and out of the hospital today.

Carter 39:41

28% of them have cancer, making

Carter 39:44

making up the 28 to

Zain 39:45

to find the real number.

Carter 39:46

28% of them have cancer and

Carter 39:51

doesn't want to help them.

Carter 39:54

Who are you going to help, Danielle?

Carter 39:57

Who are you going to help?

Carter 39:58

Why is it not happening?

Carter 40:03

when you when you look at the campaigns that are being run, first

Carter 40:06

first of all, almost every single one of them last week was concerned with one thing and one thing

Carter 40:17

I have to get the official recognition. So now we have seven of them officially recognized, but they didn't have the bandwidth. Let's be realistic here. They did not have the bandwidth to attack Danielle at the same time that they were getting, um, what's the Tani Yao to get their signatures in northern Alberta.

Carter 40:38

They needed a thousand signatures. The signatures needed to come, I think, from five different regions. And it was a fucking nightmare to get those signatures.

Carter 40:47

they got them done. Good for them.

Carter 40:51

But you didn't have the bandwidth to even do a simple press release or a simple media hit because

Carter 40:56

because you were so busy trying to find

Zain 40:57

find signatures. Let's just actually quickly, while we have the moment, Carter, Carter, take that moment of silence for Bill Rock, Lord Mayor of Amisk, who has dropped out of the leadership race.

Zain 41:09

We gave him we gave him the template. We gave him the formula and he just didn't take it. Carter, talk

Zain 41:15

talk to me. I want to I want to hang on this. And by the way, let's just we don't do this when Corey's around. Let's do a check in. How do you think the episode's going? I think we're killing it.

Zain 41:22

I think I think given all the technical difficulties, given

Zain 41:25

given the fact fact that uh cory isn't around uh now that i'm realizing that he does add some insight and some value still think we're i still think we're killing it i i think we could do this uh without him carter i think we could take the patreon profits slice it in half we don't need it we need to slice them in third i feel i feel like i feel like people would stay i mean they're here for you and

Zain 41:43

and they're here for me no

Zain 41:44

no one's here for cory we know that

Carter 41:48

well and i i can't get the um the

Carter 41:51

the soundboard well we

Zain 41:54

yeah it's rich as real-time retribution talk

Zain 41:57

talk to me about brian jean carter like

Zain 41:58

like and i know we're going to discuss this as it leads up to the actual vote but i've

Zain 42:03

i've been thinking does

Zain 42:05

does brian jean here's

Zain 42:07

here's the reason i'll actually ask the question and then i'll give you the contouring does

Zain 42:11

does brian jean come with the suite of of supporters already without

Zain 42:16

without without doing any work in this campaign, without having to do the hard work that Danielle's had to do to kind of energize people? Or does he need to do the same work? Because the question I have is,

Zain 42:26

does Brian Jean's underperformance mean Danielle Smith has a hard time winning on the first ballot? Or does it mean that there's these Brian Jean supporters who are disenchanted and just haven't been courted by Brian Jean and they just go to her immediately?

Zain 42:41

It's not a story. Those two stories are pretty simplified. I think... Give me a sense of where your head's at on this this, because I've been struggling to think about this. Is Brian Jean's relative, at least public underperformance right now, helpful or a hindrance to Danielle as you see it?

Carter 42:58

I think it's helpful to Danielle. It's a hindrance to himself.

Zain 43:03

course. I think overall,

Carter 43:04

overall, you need to get...

Carter 43:06

Every campaign I've ever done, I've always started from zero.

Carter 43:11

You have no votes until Until such time as you have votes and you have to earn every single one.

Carter 43:17

You know, the old story, you know, guys running for the nomination of the party or the leadership. And he he goes around to his neighbors and he asks all of his neighbors if they would support him. And then afterwards, he loses by one vote. He goes to his neighbors and he he

Carter 43:32

he thanks them all for voting. But his next door neighbor, the elderly woman next door, he

Carter 43:36

he says, thank you for voting for me. She said,

Zain 43:38

said, I didn't vote for you.

Carter 43:40

Well, why didn't you? He says, well, you didn't ask.

Carter 43:43

Right. And that's a story that we use. I mean, I'm not sure that it's even close to true, but it's a story that we use in politics to show that you're never going to get the votes you don't ask for.

Carter 43:53

You're not going to get the votes you don't earn. this

Carter 43:55

is why i don't believe in vote splitting because

Carter 43:57

because everybody started at zero and the person who gets the most votes is the person who got you know if

Carter 44:04

if to assume you have vote splitting assumes that you were entitled to

Carter 44:08

to a vote and you're never

Carter 44:10

ever ever ever ever there we go

Zain 44:12

there's also a case to be made you didn't earn every vote you get but carter i don't want to go through this academic exercise again uh it hates hindrance to brian of course like him Him underperforming is, of course, shitty for Brian Jean. For Danielle Smith, though, assuming that they play in the same lane-ish, you think it's helpful to her. You think that she could be just taking away these supporters who may have seen the sparkle in the eye of a Brian Jean and don't see it anymore and said, you know what? I like the momentum that Danielle has. That's how you see this playing out.

Carter 44:45

I think she's taking away Pierre-Paul Lievre supporters. I think she's taking Brian Jean supporters. I think she's taking Drew Barnes type supporters. I think she's taking Hinman

Carter 44:55

Hinman supporters. I think that she is appealing to a very, very broad swath of Alberta voters because no one else is appealing to them.

Carter 45:06

Right. Because no one else has started the campaign yet. This has been, you know, where is everybody else? I mean, Sonny's is putting little videos out and tweets and things like that, but there is no real push to get attention yet. And man,

Carter 45:22

it's a short, short campaign. You've got to get the attention right now if you're actually going to make this. I

Zain 45:27

I want to do an episode in the next little bit here about campaign resets and how some of these campaigns,

Zain 45:33

campaigns, which might be, frankly,

Zain 45:35

frankly, we don't know this, Carter, just might be fucking selling the shit out of memberships.

Zain 45:40

Right. They could be.

Zain 45:42

But they're losing out on the air war. They could be doing like what Patrick Brown did in the first three months of that campaign, the first couple of months. Right. Which is he comes out and he's like, I'm not doing any media. I'm not actually trying. In this case, what seems different is that these campaigns are trying to get hits. They're trying to get publicity. They're trying to do it, and they're just failing. And at some point, you might ask yourself, if we're selling, should we just turn the entire operation inward and just continue on that and not communicate to the broader public? because we like danielle may have found our own sliver our own lane of support to jump into but i want to save that for another episode because i'm looking at the clock carter i

Zain 46:18

i want to talk about one more thing and

Zain 46:20

and this is less a strategy thing and more of a reflection this

Carter 46:23

is really impressive though you're this

Carter 46:25

this is impressive that you're

Zain 46:26

you're looking at the clock i

Carter 46:27

i i've never been more proud of you than i am right now like are you getting a text from you have to go up for dinner or something no

Zain 46:33

no i have i brought my dinner with me because this is the episode where we get to do whatever we want okay yeah let us i

Zain 46:39

gotta have a drink of water thank

Zain 46:43

thank you carter yeah i appreciate that you know what and i wasn't bothered by it yeah

Zain 46:46

a little bothered but not not not as bothered as i thought a little bothered it

Zain 46:50

it was quite it was quite annoying i'm actually on cory's side now uh

Zain 46:55

open alberta carter i

Zain 46:57

i i struggled to find a strategy angle here unless you got one like do you have a strategy angle here the one that i'm intrigued by is just the um the

Zain 47:08

sense of how powerful visuals are uh

Zain 47:11

uh from the perspective of the staging of what we saw in masquerade cheese the perspective of commonwealth stadium despite not the 60 000 with 50 plus thousand people still incredible today uh

Zain 47:23

uh the power of the visuals and more specifically carter what i think it may have led into maybe a second topic that i think is important on And this could be a huge can of worms. But

Zain 47:33

But how important it is from a political and electoral level, this has kind of made me realize in real time, how

Zain 47:42

many people of faith there are in

Zain 47:45

in the urban centers, even

Zain 47:48

even on my Twitter feed, my Facebook feed, so many people talking about this. so

Zain 47:52

many people having commentary on it so

Zain 47:55

so many people that i didn't know that you know describe themselves as believers and it's interesting perhaps from the perspective of political parties and how faith doesn't necessarily make an overt explicit rationale in some of our political circles so those are just my two my observations i just want to get your thoughts as you witness some of the things that uh were historic over the course of the last couple of days here in alberta

Carter 48:19

i want to differentiate between the pope's visit and yeah

Zain 48:22

yeah yeah let's talk i wanted to get the apologies so let's let's go into that because

Carter 48:27

because they're different yeah so the pope's visit so

Carter 48:30

so what is a pope in today's society right is is the pope um

Carter 48:37

uh the spiritual leader of the

Carter 48:38

the religion yeah i think for a lot of people it is but i also think that there's a little bit of like when the queen comes or when the prince you know prince charles comes or you

Carter 48:50

don't know megan and harry or whoever right i think that there is a sense of um connection to celebrity and celebrity in a very different way than we see necessarily celebrity uh you know ryan reynolds right this is a person with this is a person who um a lineage of a

Carter 49:10

a faith has been been passed down through. And that lineage of faith has meant a tremendous amount to believers.

Carter 49:20

But the personification of the faith is more important than the faith itself, right? The personification of the individual, which is what I mean when I say the celebrity, right?

Carter 49:32

Because we have this weird relationship with celebrity in today's society, as we used to when

Carter 49:37

the king would ride past our village,

Carter 49:40

You know, we would all stand along the road and watch as the great person went past. And this great person, we

Carter 49:48

we want to endow certain people with greatness.

Carter 49:51

And so many people fail us.

Carter 49:54

But this Pope, by

Carter 49:56

by his presence, didn't fail us,

Carter 49:58

right? And I think that that's the piece that makes

Carter 50:02

makes it so interesting, is because you see this personification of a giant faith of so many different ideals in one person. And that

Carter 50:15

that has real resonance for people.

Carter 50:17

Now, I've seen it with the Queen. I've seen it with the Dalai Lama. I've seen it with the Pope.

Carter 50:20

I've seen it a

Carter 50:21

a lot of times. And maybe I'm a little bit immune

Carter 50:24

immune to it because I have seen it up close a number of times.

Carter 50:30

for a lot of people, this is this is the closest that they're going to be to their to

Carter 50:37

to their god and

Carter 50:39

that will matter and

Carter 50:40

and the fact that he came to canada um and this is where i think now we have to draw back into the

Carter 50:46

fact that he came to canada to make the apology this

Carter 50:52

a good thing and and so forget about the forget about the first nations piece for a second to

Carter 50:57

to the catholic faithful this is

Carter 50:59

is a great thing right

Carter 51:00

right the catholic faithful have seen someone who a great man right

Carter 51:04

right who personifies their faith who who exemplifies their faith has

Carter 51:08

has come to apologize for a wrong that was committed you

Carter 51:12

you know many years before and not as many years as we like to think

Carter 51:17

many years before um that person and that that has risen up in his faithful the problem is that

Carter 51:26

that it's hard to to get everything in an apology. An apology does not undo the harm.

Carter 51:34

think that when one is seeking apologies, one looks for the apology to in some fashion fix something. It doesn't fix anything. An apology just simply, you know, it says,

Carter 51:46

says, you know, it says it is what it says. You know, I'm sorry, but

Carter 51:50

but there is nothing more beyond that than that, that

Carter 51:56

And across Canada, are

Carter 51:58

are going to be stuck in a situation where everybody

Carter 52:01

everybody who can't apologize has now apologized.

Carter 52:04

We're still not better.

Carter 52:06

And that's, I think, the hard work that needs to be done. There is nothing more in terms of apologies. Apologies didn't fix anything. Maybe they were a step in the right direction. But

Carter 52:18

But now we need to actually start working on what reconciliation

Carter 52:21

reconciliation reconciliation means and how

Carter 52:23

how we actually heal a country that has been divided since its inception.

Zain 52:27

inception. And how would you respond to that, Carter? If you're a politician right now, if you're Trudeau in the mic having the question asked to you about your reflections on this, is it just an easy sidestep to say, listen, we weren't listening to Indigenous voices? But if you're asked, was this apology enough? Does this do enough to now move it forward? What is your general framework as a prime minister now need to be? Because what I'm hearing you say is that the runway on on on some of the the truth side and the rather than the the reconciliation side which we've talked about before on the show and other politicians and and leaders have used in the indigenous community is where we need to get to is this a risk for justin trudeau that like they

Zain 53:06

they are you know checking things off the list in certain ways as it relates to some of the truth elements and that now it's upon him and his government to really push through on some of the the action elements, which on a lot of files has been the historic weakness, execution for this government.

Carter 53:26

I mean, so what am I supposed

Zain 53:27

supposed to say? What are you supposed to say? You

Carter 53:28

You know, what am I supposed to say? We're going to, you

Carter 53:30

you know, like, so let me put myself in the role of the prime minister.

Carter 53:34

What am I supposed to say, right?

Carter 53:38

know, the water problems that have existed on reserve for a long time, we're just going to magically fix those. What was holding us back? We had to wait for the apology from the Pope before we could fix fresh water, potable water on reserves. No, I don't think that that's what we've been waiting for. How are we supposed to fix the fact that 80% of our children in care come from First Nations? How are we supposed to fix that?

Carter 54:05

The problem that I have with federal politics is almost everything keeps coming back to First Nations issues. And Zane, I'll be honest with you. You know how arrogant I am, right? right? You know how arrogant I am. I don't have the answer is

Carter 54:19

I don't have the answer. And one of the reasons that I don't like playing in federal politics is that it should be the first question, the second question, and the third question. What are you going to do to fix the relationship with First Nations in Canada? And the answer so far, and I don't care if you're conservative, liberal, or New Democrat, the answer is non-existent. All it has been is platitudes. No one has an answer.

Carter 54:41

No one knows what to do. So now we can punt the ball back over and say, you know what, First Nations, tell us what you need. Or we can say we're going to help. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that what we've done to this point does not work, has

Carter 54:55

has not worked, will not work. All the apologies are done now.

Carter 55:00

Okay, good luck. Now the apologies are done. Now something actually has to happen and no one knows what to do. as evidenced by the fact that over the last 25 years, nothing has gotten done.

Zain 55:13

I want to leave that there, Carter. Yeah, no, that's good, Carter. I mean, I want to talk more about it because we still have many more days in this Pope's visit. I think the Alberta aspect of it, the visuals I want to talk about. Frankly, I actually want to talk with Corey's here about some of the strategy elements to how they decided on some of the visuals and frankly, just the emotiveness of this particular Pope.

Zain 55:32

And then, of course, getting into the substance of what you've talked about. But we're going to leave that segment there. moving on to our final segment carter our over under in our lightning round and carter we do this for you we did this whole show for you we wrote we

Zain 55:43

we commissioned an entire 6 000 word profile for you carter we do this all for you and this is why on the over under the lightning round i've got just one question steven carter overrated or underrated cory

Zain 55:59

uh cory hogan you may have heard of him overrated underrated carter

Zain 56:05

oh i agree i have now

Carter 56:07

now that i've tried to produce the podcast while recording the podcast this is a fucking nightmare and i'll tell you something the other thing that makes it impossible and it's been a lot easier since he stopped texting us for those following along at home cory has not texted us for 34 minutes i would argue the last 34 minutes have been the best part of the podcast because

Carter 56:25

because when he when he was texting us you may have heard longer pauses than normal and that was us trying to figure out what the fuck was going on because he was texting me every 14 we're

Zain 56:35

we're gonna leave it there that's yeah

Carter 56:37

all the best at cory cory

Carter 56:39

cory cory is underrated i miss you cory if you're listening right now we do miss you come back

Carter 56:45

and produce the show but

Zain 56:46

but don't participate we don't need them in the participatory level just production that's fine uh because this is working i think

Carter 56:52

think that i think our i think our insight was probably really good probably

Zain 56:55

really good um better

Zain 56:56

better well it's pretty much all you carter we just laid down you heavily We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode one of Carter and Velji. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, definitely not Corey Hogan, and we will certainly see you.

Carter 57:11

Oh, my God. Let me see if I can do this.

Zain 57:13

Okay, go ahead. Do it. No, but

Carter 57:15

I can't make the music. I

Zain 57:16

I was literally three words away from doing it.

Zain 57:19

And we'll see you next time.

Transcript