Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is a strategist episode 1019. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what
Zain
0:10
what is going on? We are back. I am back. All things are, all
Zain
0:15
all things are sane. All things are exciting. All things are back to normal. Stephen, can I
Carter
0:19
I ask you a couple of questions? questions yeah
Zain
0:21
yeah lay them on me go ahead
Carter
0:23
we start the show right and cory says to us we're gonna go live as soon as it counts down and
Carter
0:29
and that's fine because it counts down and we since five four three two and it's and we have to be quiet apparently because he gave me shit when
Carter
0:35
when i wasn't quiet and
Carter
0:38
it takes him a good five seconds to press one button which is to press the music why does it always take him so long what
Carter
0:48
why does it take so long to press the button to play the music like this
Carter
0:56
is gonna be this is gonna be quite the show hey merry christmas okay he's
Zain
1:01
he's gonna he's gonna burn out the fucking sound yeah
Carter
1:03
yeah it's gonna last another six minutes there
Zain
1:05
there you go cory
Zain
1:11
save some of it yeah
Zain
1:13
this is the long one oh
Carter
1:14
oh this goes This goes forever. This is like the big standing O.
Carter
1:20
can stop it in the middle, can't you? Like, you can fade it
Corey
1:23
it out? No, I don't know if I can.
Carter
1:24
can. Oh, my God.
Corey
1:26
I don't know if I want to.
Carter
1:32
Sorry I brought it up.
Corey
1:33
Do you know why they were cheering? Do you know why they were celebrating?
Corey
1:36
We're here in front of a live audience today as part of our 35 days of strategists. um the
Corey
1:44
the the holidays are upon us and there is there is an abundance what
Corey
1:49
day is the strategy
Corey
1:51
uh you know i don't know it's not important what's important is there's an abundance of merchandise sitting in the strategist warehouse we've got mugs we've got t-shirts that don't actually say the strategists on it we have posters for zane velgey we have pillows
Corey
2:07
you know as i say it all out loud this is a weird assortment of merchandise but
Corey
2:10
but we have and it
Zain
2:11
it is all stockpiled at our shenzhen office yeah it is ready to be distributed the
Zain
2:16
the strategy to go out immediately yeah
Corey
2:19
zane zane zane this is really important of course please most
Corey
2:24
most of the time when we talk about merchandise i've learned people think we're joking and that we don't actually have merchandise we
Corey
2:30
we have an authenticity problem i've been told this
Corey
2:34
this is we've got tone issues and an authenticity problem okay yeah both of those things are true get a lot of well
Corey
2:40
well if you go to the strategist.ca to purchase a
Corey
2:45
a flare wait not flare shirt yes that's important yeah not for legal purposes this
Zain
2:51
this jesus christ you're furthering the authenticity problem it seems like you're making the shit up on the spot cory okay
Zain
2:58
okay yeah there's a few things in your life why are you pushing in your life why are you pushing the low to no margin merch Now listen, Zane, Zane, I know what you're thinking.
Corey
3:10
Zane, I know what you're thinking. It's December 7th. There's no way this stuff will get here in time for Christmas.
Corey
3:18
You are probably right. We should have done this last
Carter
3:19
last week. for sure last week but
Corey
3:25
are a lot of cultures in the world and i assume some of them celebrate in
Corey
3:29
in early january uh and i would uh you know really strongly encourage you to purchase that strategist purchase actually it might still be possible if you pay as much as the item costs in shipping oh yeah for sure yeah
Zain
3:41
absolutely i mean listen uh this this merch we get nothing so if you hate us this
Zain
3:47
this is absolutely yeah my favorite
Zain
3:51
favorite part to to buy this merch is because we make very little off of it we lose money on the merch you were talking about some multi-national festivals and holidays that happen after christmas but i mean listen january 1st the feast of circumcision um we've got the the american uh apostolic christmas on january 6th so if you've got oh
Corey
4:11
oh january 6th is also uh it for those who celebrate the storming of the uh congress building oh
Corey
4:17
yeah it's great i do celebrate the capital
Corey
4:19
capital yeah i don't know the congress building listen
Carter
4:22
listen he was under pressure let him go you
Zain
4:25
uh what else do we have we've got uh don't
Carter
4:28
don't play that again tune
Zain
4:30
the audience was quiet for a while oh
Carter
4:32
oh my god carter do
Zain
4:34
was a good joke darwin day on the 12th of february you
Carter
4:37
you know i do do zane you know i do uh it is a day for great celebration of all the darwin awards uh handed out from the year before you some people think it's actually about charles darwin it's not it's actually about darwin day the day we celebrate all the stupid fuckers who got themselves knocked off the planet by doing stupid things so it's one of my what
Carter
5:02
oh my god why do we record this podcast it was a good week hey we didn't record a single episode that's
Zain
5:08
that's great okay so i didn't know this but hold
Zain
5:10
on feast of the circumcision of christ yeah
Zain
5:13
just so you know okay weird that's
Zain
5:15
weird what are they eating i
Zain
5:17
don't know i'm looking
Carter
5:18
looking all right dig to the other thing we're gonna get into the whole catholic eating the body and drinking the blood thing it's weird okay the
Corey
5:23
the other great thing about the 35 days of strategist christmas yeah patreons
Corey
5:28
patreons on sale normally six dollars now
Corey
5:34
you can purchase tier two for ten dollars yeah
Corey
5:39
mean that sounds like a great deal
Carter
5:41
deal don't forget well it's a great
Corey
5:42
great you get a lot more with tier two
Carter
5:44
two you do and you can also become a tier three which i think is uh cory and carter level
Carter
5:51
level of advisor and uh you just give us 20 bucks you don't get anything extra but you give us 20 bucks instead of 10 so that's
Carter
5:59
that's a win uh
Zain
6:01
it's not a win
Zain
6:06
fuck uh i am back from new york city uh thank you for for your patience i got to of course watch uh the knicks uh carter cory mark jackson was not coaching so i could not yell at him uh like uh stephen carter once had at a knicks game uh telling mark jackson
Zain
6:21
jackson that he's a shitty coach uh it was the one fact stephen carter had about mark jackson and it turned out to be right because he's no longer coach of the New York Knicks. New York was great. Everything is good. Let's move it on to our first segment because there's a lot to catch up on. Also,
Corey
6:36
Also, we're at like the seven-minute mark. This is about where people start thinking the entire episode is
Corey
6:41
is going to be shilling for Christmas. Well,
Corey
6:44
Well, I should mention that
Zain
6:45
the Strategist Holiday Special will be coming up. Oh, yeah.
Zain
6:48
Strategist Holiday Special. I mean, some folks may not be familiar with our holiday
Zain
6:53
Holiday Spectacular. Of course, it starts with a deep-voiced intro by me that resembles some of the greatest charms we've heard on our public airwaves that are no longer there. And, of course, there goes Carter. It then is followed up. This is, by the way, a fucking train wreck, Corey. This is great. It is then, of course, followed up. I think the soundboard is what broke the system, and now Carter is gone.
Zain
7:25
how many is it the long one no
Corey
7:27
no it's it's it's it's not yet no
Zain
7:29
no what do we do during the holiday spectacular we of course do the strategies of the year we we we give our take on the best strategies of the year stephen carter and you of course impromptu eulogize things that have died in politics uh not necessarily people but uh certain things that are that are dead political political careers sometimes have died throughout the year. So you, of course, eulogize them. And then, of course, we play some holiday games, some holiday cheer that, of course, will be coming up whenever we decide it, so more than likely in February, whereas the strategist holiday spectacular, which will probably hold in February at some point. Corey, we'll wait for Carter, but let's just move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, lonely and not so sovereign. We have to talk about it. We have to continue talking about it, Corey, because it is the story, it is the gift that keeps on giving, the Sovereignty Act. Corey, Danielle Smith and her government are now clarifying, they're now saying that, listen, that we have shifted the rationale for introducing the Sovereignty Act, which was penned initially by opposition parties, of course, but by some key stakeholders in business, opinion leaders, by conservatives on the national stage saying this is not what conservatives do. It was characterized as being unconstitutional and overreach of its own kind on the powers that it granted cabinet ministers. Now, Danielle Smith and her UCP government are going to propose amendments, which they've already introduced as changes to the legislature to the power to direct cabinet, which is kind of being reversed now. Corey, let's talk about this saga. And let's talk about it through this concept we talk about quite often in our podcast, which is this concept of doubling down. They've doubled down on this legislation, but they've also kind of redirected it. And so I want to ask you from a pure strategy perspective, the play here that they had was to say, let's keep these unchecked powers, so to speak, double down on this 100%. Let's just go down the road. The other thing was a full sort of reversal. Sorry, we're going to do a reversal on a few things. But they've chosen this middle ground, Corey. They've doubled down on the cadence, the tone, the assertiveness. They've taken out an ad campaign. They're defending the Sovereignty Act. They're going hard in the paint on it while still proposing these amendments. Talk to me about the strategy you see? And is this strategy, is this the strategy you would have chosen after the week Daniel Smith had upon introducing this legislation to the province and to the country by large?
Corey
10:15
Yeah, it's like Daniel Smith is kind of, you know, the wint tweet, like, I'm not owned, I'm not owned, he said, you know, as he shriveled away.
Corey
10:23
It kind of has that energy, right? It's this idea of we're not retreating, we're going harder than ever. And they are trying to run these two strategies at the same time, the idea that there's absolutely nothing to see here, Nothing was wrong. Nothing was wrong whatsoever. But also, let's fundamentally change the way this act is presented. And so I think fair criticism of people to say, what are they actually doing here? This is ridiculous. They're trying to run a communication strategy, but they fundamentally surrendered on the main bill. But
Corey
10:50
But I would maybe give a more charitable read, which is that we
Corey
10:55
we talked about this last week. I think I said, I bet they're going to back down from it. The
Corey
11:00
The reason why I thought they would back down from it is I
Corey
11:02
I don't think they ever actually cared about the
Corey
11:05
the cabinet getting those kinds of powers. I think that was never the point of the bill for them. So in
Corey
11:10
in their minds, I'm sure they're saying, well,
Corey
11:13
well, we remain steadfast in being aggressive to the feds. People didn't like this other part, but we didn't really care about that other part anyhow, so we're just going to pull it out. But we're not pulling the bill. And so in some ways, they're trying to fix a tactical error with tactics, but they have not fundamentally changed their strategy, which is to proceed with this particular bill. Carter,
Zain
11:34
Carter, can you do that? Can you say, I'm going to go hard in the paint on the communications, the aggressiveness, the volume that they're promoting the Sovereignty Act as the solution to all that ails Alberta, even going against Rachel Notley and the NDP, going against Trudeau, going against everyone who criticizes it while simultaneously proposing amendments? Can this work would you advise it no
Carter
12:01
no i mean this is bill one it is the it is not a long bill uh cory was actually able to read the whole thing without getting flummoxed or stuck on any of the big words so
Carter
12:11
so you know it's very impressive um so
Carter
12:14
so but to change it to to decide like the the two major pieces two major pieces of a a lot of four piece legislation four page piece of legislation legislation needs to be changed, is backing down quite a bit. On top of that, I mean, did you watch Tyler Shandro, Minister of Justice, tap dance his way through the press conference where he tried not to concede that it was a massive mistake to move forward with elements of this bill? I mean, come on. This is a joke. They know it's a joke. No one has the internal internal fortitude to stand up to it and now they all look like a bunch of idiots um the critique it doesn't matter how much they change it it's still going to be defined remember when we said it's going to be always called the sovereignty act it's not going to be called the sovereignty and you know your
Carter
13:05
your canadian unity thing this is the exact same thing you can't change out of this problem because we're only ever going to remember the first part of the problem that's
Corey
13:15
that's i think that's That's true. I think that's true. But here's one thing. You recall kind of the conversation we had last time where I said they probably were a little concerned going into this that people thought the bill was not strong enough, right? And so they had to find a way to make it look tough, because fundamentally, it's not a bill that says anything.
Corey
13:35
anything. Yeah, I mean, it suggests that there's the power of the legislature to determine whether something is constitutional or not. Yes, there is actually some indemnification for the actions the government may take on the regulatory side that's built into it. So it doesn't say nothing. I'm not saying it says nothing, but it didn't say an awful lot. And this, to me, always struck me as them trying to find a way to say nothing, but in a way that looked very aggressive, very forceful, right?
Corey
14:01
right? Giving themselves the power to act quickly, I think I put it.
Corey
14:04
here's the thing yeah
Corey
14:06
they don't have that problem anymore nobody
Corey
14:08
nobody now thinks the sovereignty act is nothing even though after the amendments the bill is effectively once again nothing like run the parallel track where the bill as modified as what was introduced on the on the first day that
Corey
14:22
that that actually doesn't look like anything i think they would be in an entirely different conversation about how they've entirely surrendered on the sovereignty act but they're not there now doesn't
Corey
14:30
doesn't mean that it was a great communications
Corey
14:32
communications play for them, but it means that they've
Corey
14:37
fumble it so badly they no longer have their original problem, which is a really fascinating thing to kind of unpack.
Zain
14:42
Yeah, well, I especially unpack in terms of how much does the original problem that they have still matter now and perhaps still matter going forward? I want to get to that, but Carter, respond to this and then we'll jump into a broader conversation I want to have around, A, the messaging strategy that they have and the communication strategy that they are pushing here, and then B, to Corey's point, how do you, as opposition parties, keep alive something that this government might be changing, that this government might be shifting on, so to speak? So Carter, respond to Corey, and then we'll jump into these two topics of conversation that I want to hit on.
Carter
15:21
Well, I'll tell you, there is no government that doesn't try and say something by not doing anything. I mean, every government tries that in some ways. Rachel Notley did it with the pipeline stuff. Alison Redford did it with the Canadian energy strategy. We had, I think, a meaningless five principles that we were going to impose upon British
Carter
15:40
British Columbia, which we knew couldn't be imposed. The difference here is that our stuff we put forward as a communications exercise, knowing that the power was in the initial communications, the power was in the the communication itself. And once you're done that communication, you've almost set the tone and tenor. People will be able to point out, hey, that Canadian energy strategy that you created on this piece of paper, that's pretty fucking meaningless. Yeah, it was pretty meaningless, but we got our communication cycle. And
Carter
16:12
And this is the problem with what Danielle has done, is that she screwed up her communication cycle from day one. On every single subsequent day, it's gotten worse and because of that she never gets to go back she never gets the clean bill of health that she's that that if if if time hadn't elapsed over the last 10 days or the last 15 days she wouldn't you know she might be okay and no not anymore because she's not okay because she fucked it up this
Zain
16:42
this is the question cory how long do the scars of this first week last in your mind if she if she completely reverses course if she cleans this up how quickly can something like this be forgotten and forgiven given this context and we're seeing some scathing analysis right like that don braid headline which i don't have in front of me but i'm going to use terms that he used dictatorial unworkable um you've had the chamber of commerce legislation in alberta history yeah you've had the chamber of commerce say like we do not need this this is bad for businesses weaknesses um
Zain
17:23
permanent are these scars in your mind cory um
Corey
17:27
look you talk about a bad week one it's not her first bad week one and when we consider all of the errors that are piling up we talk about this all the time you know a narrative about somebody is not about an individual event it's about a series of events it's about a feeling that's now created about it and
Corey
17:45
daniel smith is now in a situation where there's
Corey
17:48
there's too many of these things to ignore for a lot of voters there was some angus reed polling that came out on approval disapproval of premiers and
Corey
17:55
and 44 strongly disapproved in this particular survey in
Corey
18:00
in the province of alberta another 10 moderately disapproved that's the majority of albertans disapprove of you within like a month month of
Corey
18:09
of you getting the job yeah
Corey
18:11
you don't normally start low and go high it happens the other way around this is usually your first days are your best days for popularity and you only go from there because people tend not
Corey
18:21
not to forget and
Corey
18:23
and not to forgive that's
Corey
18:25
that's interesting to me carter i
Zain
18:26
i want to ask you about this because from your perspective you
Zain
18:31
you know there's there's something in politics where we've talked about this a bit before as well but i think that was such a timely moment to bring this up, where something happens to your opponent, something happens to a political opponent, and you just wish, oh my goodness, I wish we could bottle this up and preserve this forever. This feeling right now, this convergence of media, outside stakeholders and influencers, influencers, strange bedfellows, all piling on against this government, all saying that this is wrong, this shows incompetence, this shows instability. But the challenge that you have is you have to run an election weeks from now, months from now, in certain cases, years from now. So Carter, what is your advice to bottle this feeling, this moment up? How does one do that in politics is what I'm really trying to capture here. Does that make sense?
Carter
19:27
Yeah, I'm going to use a Corey Hogan analogy. Corey is always talking about blitzing the quarterback. You know, you have to put the pressure on and make sure that the blitzing happens on every down, especially when you've got them backed up behind their own 30. You've got to blitz, you've got to blitz often, you've got to make sure that you've got pressure on that quarterback, because when you put pressure on that quarterback, that's when mistakes get made. made. Corey also made an interesting point about how, you know, most people get a honeymoon period. Alison Redford, after she won the leadership, they were talking about her winning 84 seats because her polling was so high. We went down precipitously, of course, because, you know, it was me and Alison. But nonetheless, you know, it was still, we had a honeymoon. Were you blitzing
Zain
20:12
blitzing your own quarterback? Anyway, just keep going. Yes, that's fine. When
Carter
20:15
When you return back to the Blitz, if Rachel Notley keeps the pressure on Danielle Smith, Danielle's going to keep making mistakes because she's made mistakes all the way through. This is not out of character. This is her character. And as she moves forward, there's no way that she recovers because ultimately the
Carter
20:39
recovery is not in her. She
Carter
20:41
She doesn't have that capacity to jump out of this. Well,
Corey
20:43
Well, so that's the interesting question here. We often talk about situations where you need to play error-free ball. This has been all error ball, by and large. We've given some good marks for the composition of the cabinet, to be fair, and we've suggested
Corey
20:57
suggested that her televised address was probably going to hit the mark with people. But every time there's a moment like that, it seems to be followed very quickly with something
Corey
21:05
something that lands badly. And it's not landing badly because of an overly hostile media or anything like that, but it's landing badly because of fundamental tactical
Corey
21:17
tactical mistakes that you can look at and you can say, how did you end up there? How did you end up there? And why did you bleed on this for three days before you decided to surrender? I mean, I think in a funny way, the pattern of behavior that Stephen's talking about was on display in long form here. The Sovereignty Act was just like the comments about the unvaccinated and the comments about Ukraine, in
Corey
21:42
in that there was a couple of days of denying that there was a problem before then surrendering on the problem, right?
Corey
21:49
right? Now, in those cases as well, there was language about like, but I'm not going to lose the overall point on this. I goofed on this, but I'm still proceeding in the same direction.
Corey
22:01
That is a pattern at this point. And to Stephen's point, it's
Corey
22:05
it's going to be difficult for
Corey
22:07
for Albertans to forget
Corey
22:09
forget it as easily as a result. It's like, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool
Corey
22:15
Fool me 10 times. well
Carter
22:19
aim on the province of alberta nice
Corey
22:25
earned that one buddy oh my god oh
Carter
22:29
oh man i'll wait it out
Zain
22:30
out hey cory um outside
Zain
22:37
this moment as a proof point to a larger narrative what
Zain
22:42
can opposing parties do what can those that are that are running against Daniel Smith do to bottle up this moment? What advice would you have?
Corey
22:51
You know, it's tough to bottle moments. It's really, most things are pretty ephemeral these days for good and for ill.
Corey
22:58
Sometimes when you're on the communications team, it's like, well, you know, there's always another day and it's somewhat comforted in that context.
Zain
23:05
any side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You always get
Zain
23:07
have another round, so to speak.
Corey
23:09
But, you know, the downside is the things that you really loved are hard to carry forward. And an opponent but it's the positive that you're trying to carry forward about what you have done as well and
Corey
23:22
what you often try to do let's talk about it in the positive sense and i'll circle back to the negative but it's you know in government we would often find ways to talk about the positive through kind of re-announcement we would often refer
Corey
23:35
so how are we going to get this back in the media what are the things that are occurring that become natural hooks to talk about it infrastructure
Corey
23:41
infrastructure project an obvious one would be shovels in the the ground is when paving starts having
Corey
23:49
having a tour of the building with a uh you know with the premier at a certain point and you you have to pick the moments you do these and often you will try to tie them into broader hooks uh that are about either infrastructure or about let's say it's the cancer center well maybe there's something going on related to a cancer campaign and there you go and there's your media hook and there's your chance to re-announce it with
Corey
24:10
with the negative The problem you have is that they're
Corey
24:14
they're not going to help you by reannouncing these things. So it's almost your job to reannounce them. And in that sense, what you do is you try – that's the pattern of behavior, Zane, that I'm talking about. So next time there's a screw-up, you want to bring it forward, you say, well, this is exactly like the time with the Alberta Sovereignty Act where Daniel Smith was scaring away investors and accused of acting in a dictatorial fashion.
Corey
24:38
if you don't have one of those hooks, what you end up trying to do is, well,
Corey
24:43
well, look, I mean, this is, here's the nature of media, right? Here's the nature of communications.
Corey
24:48
We try to get it through
Corey
24:50
promotional activities where we make news. That's what we would call earned media. And if we can't get earned media, what do we do, Stephen?
Carter
24:58
We buy a baby. media
Corey
24:59
media exactly i like paying
Corey
25:03
yeah and so then you um then
Corey
25:05
then you take this material and you package it and you put it on the air so hopefully uh
Corey
25:10
uh for the ndp what they've been doing is actually sending somebody with a camera to get video of these moments these press conferences having their people there so they have their footage that they're able to use in their advertisements their
Corey
25:22
their recordings of the audios that they can use for their radio ads if they they intend to use this and push it forward and promote it and don't think that they're going to have natural media hooks for it.
Corey
25:31
And that's it. I mean, it's as simple as that. There are maybe other opportunities where you can remind people and recast, but it all relies on events
Corey
25:40
events and a clever use of hooks. So if you don't have those, you pay. And that's
Corey
25:46
that's why you want to have an advertising budget.
Zain
25:48
Carter, your thoughts on just broadly bottling up moments. If you, and while you've been running races, you've probably seen stuff that's happened multiple weeks out that you've wanted to take advantage of. What have your kind of instincts or political sort of lessons been around how to bottle something up and give it maybe a longer shelf life, so to speak?
Carter
26:10
my experience has been that you don't get to choose when it happens.
Carter
26:13
Yes, of course. You're always trying to make it happen. I think I've told you this story before. I mean, how many times did we try and get at the anti-gay, bigoted, somewhat racist views of the old Wild Rose Party, we tried to make that happen many different ways. And
Carter
26:32
And it just didn't happen, right? Until the Lake of Fire, which actually wasn't our initiative. It was done by a third party who brought forward, who found these quotes that we didn't have in our great binder of, of, uh, of mistakes made by the, by the wild rose. Um,
Carter
26:50
the, the truth is we don't get to choose when they come out. Sometimes you're big, like, look what happened with Sean Chu in Calgary here. I mean, here's a guy that the allegations of his, uh, misdeeds, um, when he was a police officer became very well known, um, with only a a couple of days until the election day. He
Carter
27:11
He lost election day massively, but
Carter
27:14
but he won advanced voting enough to actually carry the election, right?
Carter
27:19
right? Because the date of the information becoming aware was
Carter
27:23
was after advanced voting. That's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. So I'd much rather have it available now that she's screwing up than having it available after she's won the next election.
Zain
27:35
Right. That's really interesting, thing, Carter. I want to move it on to the messaging and communication strategy of Danielle Smith. And
Zain
27:46
And Corey, I found this to be really, really interesting because they have done at least visibly a couple of different things to push the Sovereignty Act. It seems like there's a 30-second ad that they've run, which features Danielle, which features this attack against Rachel Notley and the Notley-Trudeau-Singh alliance, and then talks about how she's defending Alberta's interests against Ottawa with the Sovereignty Act. That's one thing. The
Zain
28:16
The other thing they're doing is trying to line up influencers, trying to line up voices that support the Sovereignty Act. But what I found really interesting, Corey, is that they're not outright endorsements. They're more defensive posture messages. So let me just read you a a couple of them, right? So President and CEO of Synovus Energy. I have not heard anything from investors worrying about that at this point, about the Sovereignty Act. That's his quote. They're pushing this out there. From Ted Morton, right? From Ted Morton, the former finance minister. There's nothing in the act that is going to undermine investor confidence in Alberta business. That's the quote. John C. Major, what's so terrible about the province saying if you want to impose something, you better make sure you're doing it constitutionally. Let me find find one more here that i'm just going through her twitter page um you know constitutional expert says it's totally constitutional national lawyer says i reviewed bill one the truth is daniel smith is standing up to ottawa's anti-alberta policies that's probably the most positive but
Zain
29:17
but what do you think of this strategy of almost trying to myth bust but
Zain
29:22
but using influencers to do so and i know we're getting kind of like tactical but i find this really interesting usually you use influencers to be like the tip of the spear, assertive, positive,
Zain
29:34
positive, talking about what you've done and adding their credibility to expand your point in this. They're kind of almost leaning into the defensive posture. Talk to me about both the strategy of leaning into the defensive. We got a myth bust her own bill posture
Zain
29:52
posture while also talking about the tactic of it. Corey, your thoughts on this first and then we'll come to you, Carter. Well,
Corey
29:57
Well, my immediate instinct is it's leading with your chin, right? It's repeating the charge. It's going out there. And if you knew nothing about the Sovereignty Act, now you know some people believe it's unconstitutional on top of that. Now, maybe there's just such a universal understanding of it. Maybe they've assessed everybody universally thinks it's unconstitutional and they need to take this approach.
Zain
30:16
approach. Can you pause there? Do you think that's an error for them to assume that everyone has heard about this and also above and beyond that knows that they think it's unconstitutional writ large? Is that a political strategy error to assume that their world is everyone else's world? What I'm trying to say, and probably too many words, Corey, is that is this a bit of Corey Hogan's false consensus effect he talks about that they might be making an error on the baseline premise?
Corey
30:48
Maybe, but most of the content you've talked about is on Twitter. And who is her audience on Twitter? It's probably not the general population. It's probably arming her supporters with lines so that they're going to slavishly follow it. Anyhow, that's the nature of politics these days. Rachel Notley supporters with her ride or die and Danielle Smith's with her ride or die. But it means that when they're having dinner with their, you know, family member who says, oh, that bill is totally unconstitutional. He says, no, you know, it's not. I saw this professor say it was totally constitutional. Right.
Corey
31:21
Right. A national lawyer said it was great. But it was a national lawyer, by the way. A national lawyer.
Corey
31:26
It's a lawyer who works at National, perhaps.
Zain
31:27
But that's that's about the only thing I can think of. Well, he can work for us, the country. I mean, he can he can go anywhere and he's a lawyer. there he was
Carter
31:34
was also one of the property rights lawyers that was back talking in her ear in the in the early 2010s it's the same people they've always been around her they're still around her it's kind of a joke so
Corey
31:45
so i i feel like it's arming people right uh but no on its on its face it it doesn't seem like a particularly solid strategy it tells you a lot about their mindset they obviously think they're losing on this one if
Corey
31:58
if this is the kind of content they're putting out no, this is not the
Corey
32:01
the kind of content you put out when you're winning. This is not positivity. You're not running defense this way if you've got your opponent on the back heel.
Corey
32:09
This is a pretty good indication that they're quite anxious about the economic message because if you're using the quote from Sinovac's CEO that to date, I have not heard any kind of complaints, that's the most positive you've got?
Carter
32:22
Yeah, and his quote
Corey
32:23
quote by extension was- And it's a splice, you're
Zain
32:26
There was a lot of correction on it because there's more context to it, but it was a neutral quote. Ultimately, it was a guy who was pretty much coached to say, I haven't heard anything yet, but we'll wait and see to see what happens sort of thing. Carter, talk to me about this strategy. Is there a merit in this strategy? Can you take in politics a defensive myth-busting style approach to something that you're also trying to assertively promote? Talk to me about what you kind of think both here on the leading with your chin,
Zain
32:59
almost accepting the premise, and then also the tactic, as I've described it to you.
Carter
33:05
Yeah, no, it's not good, Zane. It's the wrong way. But
Zain
33:09
But is it universally not good? And I'm not just trying to tease out any good just for the sake of it. I'm generally trying to understand, is there any thinking here where this could work? Corey's presented an interesting point around this could be talking points, right? So if you know you're in a crouch in a defensive posture, this is good modeling of behavior. Fuck this
Carter
33:27
this is stupid, Zane. You're trying to get me to come up with a reason that this is a good idea. Here, let me tell you why it's a bad idea. Because you're not talking about the benefits, you're talking about the structure of the, you know, it's constitutional. Tell you what, if you have to lead with it's constitutional with a law, you're doing a pretty fucking bad job of being, you know, a law creator. here's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to actually go forward and say hey we're gonna fight fucking ottawa we're gonna fight ottawa for you you fucker fuckers
Carter
34:06
what is this why why this
Zain
34:09
this is already a trade right you know what they needed court uh carter this year's got a national lawyer on it if they had a national lawyer this not
Carter
34:16
not that i see that it was a national lawyer you're
Corey
34:19
you're thinking a little differently about it now yeah okay so let me grab it you're you're kind of carter's
Corey
34:24
carter's not helping you out here he doesn't need to i was exactly right
Corey
34:29
there is one genuine curiosity though this is a genuine curiosity on my part i will point to exactly one situation where this is is seemed to have worked right and
Corey
34:39
and that was the 2015 election that uh ultimately our current prime minister managed to to win and
Corey
34:45
and if you will recall call very well actually even zooming out before the election there there was a lot of conservative ads that justin trudeau just not ready you
Corey
34:54
just not ready nice hair though you know kind of this lightweight and
Corey
34:58
and very early in i think when the writ was dropped there was this election and it was a walk and talk with trudeau saying you know they say i'm not ready but here's what i'm ready for blah blah blah ready for change and i remember thinking at the time i remember talking about it on this podcast at the time what
Corey
35:13
what the fuck was that like why are you repeating the charge you were not ready right at the start and our friend uh dan arnold who um ran the uh you know the prime minister's polling before he was even prime minister he
Corey
35:25
he said okay but here's what you don't understand the
Corey
35:28
the charge was universal everybody had heard about it there was no risk of us introducing it in people's minds so we decided to address it head on and it was our best testing ad i believe he said maybe it was just at that time and
Corey
35:42
know i guess the point would be if
Corey
35:46
we we say not to repeat the charge because we don't want to introduce the charge this is this is about the backfire effect um you know there's there's all sorts of research in this where you talk about you
Corey
35:55
you rebut something and by rebutting it you create the concern but if everybody has the concern you don't need to worry about that but
Corey
36:02
but let me say something else about that zane that means you're You're already in the deepest of holes, like the deepest of holes, right? This is that that is like, well, everybody thinks it's a pile of garbage. So let's explain why it's not is not strong positioning. It is not because
Zain
36:17
because I agree. And, you know, this this concept of saying that that it's constitutional. And even if they win that argument, we still haven't had the fight around whether it's good or productive or necessary. Right. Right. And so, Carter, in your mind, is there any way that by having this protracted argument on the amendments and the constitutionality that that Danielle Smith and the UCP might avoid the conversation on whether this is good? Or do you think that's just yet to come and that is going to be the ongoing saga that they've now just bought themselves a longer media cycle to have to deal with this shitstorm? them?
Carter
36:57
They just have to, they have to focus on getting the, getting the benefits out. I mean, we, we talk about this quite a bit, right? Like this is all communication should be focused on benefits to me. That is what, that is what the, the point of the exercise is making me feel like I've got a good idea or a good product or someone working for me, something working on my behalf. half. The problem with it's constitutional is that, or I don't see any negative impact from investors, is you remove it from being about me to making it be about someone else. And I just think that this is the problem that they have right now is that they are talking about the wrong attributes for their bill. Their bill is supposed to be, we're going to fight Ottawa for Alberta. That was the beauty of the equalization argument, as fucked as it is and as stupid as it is. It works because they're taking something from me and giving it to someone else. It's about me.
Carter
37:54
It's constitutional. I don't see a problem with it. It's not removing investors. These are all stories about someone else. And I'll tell you something else, Corey, your example about the prime minister. Ultimately, it was about how he would serve us, how he's ready to serve us. And that's the difference. His ad was about us and him.
Carter
38:15
These comments are about Danielle and her bill. and that's where they fall off i
Zain
38:21
mean those ads by the way i should say those should be a declared canadian heritage moment carter uh we've seen those so many times uh more than the james naysmith the peach basket ads and more than the lady with the burnt toast uh also more than the uh the guy who was uh uh
Zain
38:38
uh some people say i ate too many chocolate bars or i don't wash my face you remember that that just no
Carter
38:43
no that was uh i felt incredibly racist chocolate bars chocolate
Zain
38:47
chocolate bars He would say
Zain
38:50
Okay, you look it up. Look it up. Look it up. It was everywhere on
Carter
38:53
on television. Corey, can we have a sound effect there, bud? House
Zain
38:56
House hippos and the chocolate bars. It's a thing. I bet, I bet there are dozens of listeners being like, I get exactly what you're saying, Zane. Nope.
Carter
39:03
Nope. There was a guy
Zain
39:04
who was just like, listen. Nope.
Zain
39:06
Some people say, eat
Zain
39:07
too many chocolate bars. Don't wash my face. Carter, talk to me about what advice you'd give Daniel Smith right now before we move it on to our next segment. What would you tell her in this moment to help her of course, right? And because she's picked both lanes. She's picked the lane of doubling down and retreating on the actual bill. She's picked the lane of being assertive, but also offering defensive posture, talking points. What would you tell her right now?
Carter
39:37
To focus on the voters.
Carter
39:39
The voters are the people you're trying to win over. You've introduced yourself poorly to them. You need to be able to say the reason we're changing the bill is to make it better for Albertans. It has nothing to do with constitutionality. It has everything to do with making sure that it's about voters. It's about the people who are actually electing us in a few months. That's why we're making the changes. The voters asked for us to make these changes, not the constitutional experts. We're making these changes for you so that we can battle Battle Ottawa. Get back to the to the the universal selling point as the as the language of the, you know, the the the the
Carter
40:19
the commerce grads used to be.
Carter
40:21
Get back to that. What is it you're actually trying to achieve? And the thing that you're trying to achieve is taking Ottawa to task on our behalf.
Carter
40:30
Get back to that and then you might have a chance of redeeming this and making the double down worth it.
Zain
40:35
Corey Hogan, advice to Danielle Smith. What would you tell her as she heads into maybe another week of chaos and another week of repairing her initial signature piece of legislation?
Corey
40:50
She should have surrendered more completely. And, well,
Corey
40:53
well, it's too late to do that for last week. It's not too late to do that for this week. And, look, the reason is simple.
Corey
41:00
Bill 2, which was about affordability, totally
Corey
41:02
totally lost, totally buried. by all of this. I actually questioned their programming of the bills and how they decided to run these out, but they obviously thought that Bill 1 was the thing that they were going to stop talking about using Bill 2, and
Corey
41:15
and that did not happen. Bill 1 became so all-consuming
Corey
41:19
that it affected their overall legislative program. When you say ordering of bills, are
Zain
41:23
are you suggesting, just so I'm clear, Corey, that Sovereignty Act could have been Bill 2, that they could have gotten
Zain
41:29
affordability out the door and
Zain
41:30
then dealt with sovereignty?
Corey
41:31
Look, she committed that it was going to to be her bill one that was the reality but she could have had a different version of that bill one that said very little that was more along the saskatchewan lines of reaffirming things that were already the case and then moved everybody on to bill two to talk about affordability because to stephen's point that is talking about things that matter to albertans right the sovereignty act is only going to matter to a certain hardcore group of albertans who really feel hard done by by uh ottawa but that's not that's
Corey
42:00
that's not the majority even like not to the extreme that the sovereignty So what she
Corey
42:06
she needs to think about now is channel changing. And unfortunately for her, her best channel change with the affordability stuff was diminished in that it was, you know, she had her televised address before it.
Corey
42:17
And when she introduced it with more specifics, nobody was over the Sovereignty Act, right? But it's time to clear the decks. One of the things that I think Jason Kenney only did too late was he had every fight in the world, and he only started resolving them when he was kind of facing down the barrel of a gun.
Corey
42:35
As a politician, you need to know when to cut bait. And the greater win here is on the issues that matter to Albertans, healthcare, education, affordability, these things. And right now you're just getting, you're, you're sitting on turf, asserting something that's constitutional. I mean, I can't, I
Corey
42:53
can't tell you how flimsy that is from like a, from a kind of like a durable ground in terms of ground you want to be standing on. You're getting crushed by every pundit about the constitutionality of it or not. Are you really going to fight and die on this hill or would you, or do you want to fight on, you know, ground that is much more popular and much more brutal?
Corey
43:11
That's the question you got to ask yourself. And it's time to move on. it's time to move on and just drop the bill carter
Corey
43:16
carter i'll ask you this this
Zain
43:18
this seems i'm not saying your advice isn't good your advice is actually very clean very yeah very
Carter
43:25
yeah of course part of me is
Zain
43:28
is this conviction speaking right now for daniel smith like is there part of her that says i know what the right thing to do is but fuck it like i will die like is it possible that bill one is actually a hill she's willing to die on this
Carter
43:41
this is why i said this is why i said earlier if you'd been listening uh cory wasn't either so i'm just going to continue no that's fine you disappear
Zain
43:48
disappear from time to time yeah both physically and otherwise but that's as i
Carter
43:51
i was saying earlier this is this is her problem this is why i'm not worried about her having this great you know resurrection later in the game i believe this is who she is this is what she believes this is what she wishes to accomplish and that's why she's going to be one one of the shortest term premiers in Alberta history, rivaling Dave Hancock, I believe, who is our current shortest. Is he not? Or is he second shortest?
Corey
44:19
Well, and he was just an interim, effectively. Interim
Carter
44:22
premier. But he was still premier. You don't get to put the interim in front.
Corey
44:27
here's the thing, Zane.
Zain
44:27
Zane. Okay, go finish stuff and I'll move it
Corey
44:30
Final thought, final observation. We talk about hills people are willing to die on. The thing to underline is people die on hills they're willing to die on. and there's only so many heroes who can triumphantly raise the flag at the top. Those people tend to be few and far between. The more likely thing to happen when you face a situation like this is you lose.
Corey
44:49
And is this actually what you want to go down on?
Corey
44:52
It doesn't make any sense to me. So surrender doesn't need to look like a full withdrawal of the bill, but surrender needs to be complete enough that we're not talking about it next week. And the problem right now is everybody is still talking about
Zain
45:04
Right, we'll leave that segment there. That segment, of course, brought to us by our sponsor, Flair Airlines. Flair
Zain
45:09
is this actually what you want to go down on? Let's move on to our next segment. Our next segment, all alone in the party for everyone. We move from lonely and not so sovereign to an individual, Corey and Steven, who is in Ontario and was the only candidate for her party's leadership. I want to talk about Merit Style. She's the new Ontario NDP leader and she got there, Corey, not through a leadership race that was supposed to be held in March sometime of the new year, she got there because by midnight on Tuesday, she was the only person in the race. Now, she seems like a very competent, qualified candidate. That's not necessarily what I want to discuss. I actually want to discuss what she needs to do going forward because she didn't have a leadership race and what one misses out on by not having a leadership race. And so, Corey, we know some of the standard issue things that people talk about that you miss out on is that you don't get the stress test of your ideas. You lose out on this sort of healthy debate. But talk to me. If you're in the Ontario NDP right now, Merit Stiles is your leader. Whether you're like her or not as your leader, what, in your mind, as a political operative, as a strategist, as a tactician, and a practitioner, what did the Ontario NDP miss out on by not having a full-fledged race that ended in March, instead having a leader appointed by 11.59 p.m. last night?
Corey
46:32
Well, look, my historical answer on this would be, as
Corey
46:35
as long as you're out there and you didn't beat anybody for the job, there's this asterisk that maybe you would not have been the preferred candidate.
Corey
46:43
Maybe if somebody had come in, you wouldn't have had the job, and that's a challenge for you. So you've
Corey
46:48
you've got to go out and prove that you have your party hook, line, and sinker. You've got to have full-throated endorsements, a lot of enthusiasm from your caucus. You need it from the party faithful. You've got to go around and do a tour and show that this is not so much a situation where you
Corey
47:04
you were the only person willing to put your hand up, the only person willing to do the job, but you were such a powerful, imposing candidate that everybody just said, I'm
Corey
47:12
I'm on that team, or I don't dare stand in front of that team. And there are ways you can do that moving
Corey
47:18
moving forward. But let me be frank.
Corey
47:21
I think as much as anything, we have seen that political parties are becoming terrified of leadership races. So they create these
Corey
47:29
these barriers, both actual and social, where,
Corey
47:34
I mean, you saw what happened in BC with EB. You saw what happened
Corey
47:37
happened here in Alberta with Smith, frankly. It's just kind of a different iteration of the same thing. thing.
Corey
47:43
Parties are having a lot of conversations where it's, we
Corey
47:46
we all hang together. They're almost making the decision before the decision now, right? We're all going
Corey
47:52
to back EB. We're just going to get together and we're going to make sure he can be the guy because we're worried about what else might happen.
Corey
47:59
And this is happening more and more and more and more. And I know we've talked about this too much, so we won't talk about it today, but I think it's just more evidence that we need to fundamentally rethink leadership races in this country because we're getting to a point where people are so scared of what might happen in the race that
Corey
48:16
that they are actively stage managing behind the scenes to make sure there is no race and
Corey
48:21
that's very problematic long term to
Zain
48:23
to cory's point they lose out on a few things they lose out on membership sales they lose out on the media cycle they lose out on perhaps fundraising but what they do get carter is
Zain
48:33
is the candidate that that they wanted. He's the candidate that they, because there was no competition, they got the outcome. In a 2022 world where, to Corey's point, all that other stuff has happened, is that worth it to them? If you were sitting as president of the Ontario NDP today and this was your candidate, would you be fine, if not elated, with what you got out of this, despite not getting all of the process wins that could come with a leadership race?
Carter
49:00
Well, let's be clear. I don't know her at all. I don't know her from Adam. I don't understand. And this is one of the big things that we've missed. We've missed the entire period of getting to know her. We've missed the entire introduction. We don't know who she is. You know, maybe the, I'm sure the NDP in Ontario know who she is. I'm sure that the Metairie Gallery know who she is. But I'm quite, I'm equally certain that
Carter
49:22
that the people of, the good people of Ontario didn't get to, didn't get introduced either. Right, right,
Carter
49:27
right, right. I am always shocked by how little known the average MLA is, right? right, especially the average backbench MLA in a third party out of 124 MLAs. So we didn't get the seer. So the two things that they are missed out on, they've missed out on getting us introduced to her under competition, I might add, and
Carter
49:53
and they've missed out on the ability to build 124 ridings.
Carter
49:57
They don't have the majority, don't have the capacity to win an election, as
Carter
50:01
as evidenced by the fact that they didn't win the last election.
Carter
50:06
With that being the starting point, you just can't give up these opportunities to build and create your party in such a fashion. You just can't give it away. That's all they did, was give it away. It's a real waste of opportunity. It's almost as bad as the Green Party of Canada, just going back to Elizabeth May, but nothing's that bad. That's
Carter
50:34
That's the worst. That's the worst level.
Zain
50:36
Corey, can I ask you to do me a favor? Can you put your former executive director party hat on? If this was a situation you had walked into, let's say you got a couple of weeks notice and you're like, shit, this is looking like a
Zain
50:49
a one candidate race that's going to end on December 6th, not March. What would you have done as someone who's led a political party provincially well how would you have thought about this how would you have thought about this right sizing to the 2022 environment versus the environment you were in what would you have done in this situation uh
Corey
51:10
uh absolutely nothing because as somebody responsible for the party apparatus there's kind of a general encouragement of candidates you want to do but
Corey
51:18
but you do not want to look like you are trying to put your thumb on the scale or that you have a problem with the person who's in the lead
Corey
51:24
lead or whatnot. You just kind of have to take it as it is, working
Corey
51:27
working with the party president and the party executive to
Corey
51:31
to make sure that people feel the process is fair, even if the process is truncated. And I think that's one of the challenges.
Corey
51:36
And so when you have the Ontario NDP, who, by the way, Stephen, are not the third party, they're the official opposition in Ontario. But when you have a party like that, that is looking for a new leader and And there is a robust caucus. You're also going to look a lot towards caucus for cues on these things. But again, as the party apparatus, you want to stay out of the way. You certainly don't want to become the story. You're certainly watching what's happening in BC.
Corey
52:03
what would I have done if I looked down and saw, hey, it looks like this is going to be just a coronation?
Corey
52:08
coronation? Well, I'd be arranging my contracts for vendors to have backing out clauses in them. Like it looking like I'm
Corey
52:16
I'm probably not going to need to run a leadership contest. But, uh, that not too much more than that, Zane, uh,
Corey
52:22
general encouragement that it's a, it's a great job and any interested parties should apply, but I certainly wouldn't be doing anything like individual reach outs or encouraging people to have a
Carter
52:32
That's more of my job as the party outsider insider.
Carter
52:35
That's what I would be doing is, is, is out beating the bushes to try and find someone who could, who
Carter
52:40
who could serve, um, you
Carter
52:43
you know, as a leadership candidate, even if I was working with with the candidate that
Carter
52:48
that looks like she's you know like that everybody wants i would still be saying to that candidate we need someone to run against you we
Carter
52:55
we need the ability to uh build this party from the grassroots uh so the people like stephen carter in in alberta know that it's actually the official opposition um
Carter
53:07
because that's fucking embarrassing that uh you know they're actually in opposition and i i completely forgotten that part well
Zain
53:13
well does that change it for you though, Carter, that this will now be the new leader of the opposition, that this will be an individual that can just take those reins and will have at least some of that public airtime just granted to them based on position?
Carter
53:26
Sure, you get that. But there's a difference between being introduced as a human being and being introduced as the leader of the opposition. She will never get introduced as a human being now. She is always going to be the leader of the opposition. We don't get to know her as a human. And that to me is the part of politics that is so hard to create. How do I get to know you as a person when it's almost all this constructed, managed media moments and roles that we all fill and play?
Carter
54:03
tell you something, Carter. I think she's missing.
Zain
54:04
Let me ask you then from a campaign manager or campaign strategist perspective, would you, I know you don't know her, but I'm using Merit Stiles as an individual to broaden our conversation. As a campaign manager, would you have rather assured guaranteed victory last night without that upside, without any of that time to have the public and the party and the membership get to know her or the ability to fundraise and build the constituencies? or would you have wanted to go into a contested race where you would have that opportunity to storytell and to actually compete for the job?
Zain
54:42
I'm curious genuinely about your answer here because you get assured victory in one hand, but you get all the other accoutrements on the other. What would you have taken?
Carter
54:51
I think I would have preferred a race.
Zain
54:53
You're kidding me. Come on.
Carter
54:56
No, I'm serious. I would have preferred a race because... As her campaign
Zain
55:01
campaign manager, a short victory last night versus you got to slog this thing out
Carter
55:06
out who gives a shit if you win if you can't do anything with it you have
Carter
55:10
have to build a story you have to tell the people who you are you have to show them who you are it is such a long fucking process and we know the second people are stuck in the legislature they get sucked into the bullshit of the legislature instead of focusing on the people and introducing yourself and communicating properly we see it with rachel will not leave we see it with you know every opposition leader across the country as soon as you become the leader of the opposition you start believing that what happens in the legislature actually fucking matters and it doesn't it's what happens in my real life that matters and you missed out on that chance you're you know you and you never ever get it back
Zain
55:51
cory in this hypothetical what would you have taken
Carter
55:55
he'd take the easy way out he's always about i would take the win like
Corey
55:58
like bird in the hand i don't I don't think
Corey
56:01
should even be in dispute. Why would we
Carter
56:05
Maybe if you'd won an election once in a while, you'd feel a little more confident heading into them.
Zain
56:10
But Carter, you're saying this because she hasn't had the ability to tell her story. So let's talk about this. Whether it's Merritt Stiles or anyone who's kind of gone on to be acclaimed, who's gone on to not necessarily make the splash that they should or could have based on circumstances, based on the structure of the race or the lack of additional sort of opponents, what strategic sort of advice would you have for them now? Now, knowing that that oxygen is hard to grasp, knowing that that storytelling sort of natural moment of a race is gone, what advice would you have for her? And then Corey, I'm going to come to you as well.
Carter
56:47
Um, I would have the, like, you got to actually do a race. Um, you've got to go to the 124 ridings. You got to make sure that everybody's selling memberships. You've got to construct something that has real, real value, um, and try and, and,
Carter
57:03
and, you you know, create something that's not gimmicky, but that actually creates some sort of action or outcome from this party that, frankly,
Carter
57:14
frankly, hasn't been performing the way that it needed to. You know, Andrea Horvath had all of this opportunity and potential. She had such a long period of time to define herself and to win over the voters, and she never did. And now you're just going to drop into her position, drop into her job. And I just don't think it's going to be enough unless you're able to construct something that is meaningful. And I don't have that answer. I was thinking maybe there's something off the top of my head, like the shield run in the riding that adds the most number of members or something like that. But I think that's all too gimmicky. I think that ultimately she just needs to go and meet the people and actually campaign
Carter
57:56
campaign as though she's still campaigning to be the leader of the party.
Zain
58:00
Corey, would that be your advice now that that you've got the job campaign i'm not saying carter you're saying shadow box but effectively go across do a campaign try to get some coverage like what would you suggest or would you say skip all that shit you know start start doing your job what what would your advice be knowing that you haven't had this competitive leadership race that's
Corey
58:22
that's exactly where i started zane you've got to go around and you've got to get your arms around the party you've got to make sure that
Corey
58:28
you look well-supported, that you are well-supported. It's not just about the optics of it.
Corey
58:34
Party leaders go down when they don't have the support of their caucus, of their party.
Corey
58:38
And if you are somebody who didn't even have a leadership contest, you don't have the thing to point to that everybody wants, which is a mandate from the membership. So if things get rocky, you're going to run into a little bit more trouble. So you've got to go find that. You've got to find it in a hurry. Now, look,
Corey
58:52
look, I hear what Stephen is saying about wanting to create a contest and create that excitement i
Corey
58:58
think the big difference between say the the rachel notley example and this one is that this you know this is the official opposition she's she's going to have some opportunity by the way the reason why you may have thought the
Corey
59:08
the ndp were the third party is they actually got a lower percent of the popular vote than the liberals
Carter
59:13
liberals that's what that's what threw me yeah
Carter
59:21
oh fuck honest to god
Carter
59:25
do we let him have the board we gotta learn how to use
Zain
59:28
use this timing is historically poor and i think that's what he thinks that makes it funny it's like
Corey
59:39
like a leg to the board so i actually have to kind of anticipate participate oh
Corey
59:43
oh that's good well you're doing a terrible job of it i'm
Zain
59:45
i'm gonna move it on to our final segment our over under and our lightning round stop it
Zain
59:52
cory cory hogan are you in or are you out uh let's let's keep this conversation going about merit styles and the on and the ontario ndp at 11 59 p.m when she was announced as the official candidate for the ontario ndp's leadership the pcs put out a press release saying saying no one's interested in this party. No one's interested about what they're talking about. No one's interested in what they care about. Are you in or are you out on that sort of strategy of just day one or second one or minute one? Let's go right after him saying the fact that no one ran means clearly nobody's interested in their leadership race or their policies or what they have to say. Are you in or out from a pure political strategy? Doesn't matter what jersey you wear on that on that tactic to go hard early
Corey
1:00:37
oh i'm i'm in i think you define them early and you define them fast there are things that you keep and you hold back on as we've talked about and there are things that are more about character that you move forward on my
Corey
1:00:48
my critique would be and i didn't see the news release saying if it was really about nobody's
Corey
1:00:52
nobody's interested nobody cares about the party i think that's a mess i think the focus really should have been on this is who this this person is who they have just put in without a contest and identified rather than look how lame the ndp is nobody's interested in it i would have said can you believe that this person with all of these views and listed all of the negative things that you think you have uh is now their leader without even like any scrutiny here like how alarming is this uh or the approach that i would say i i think they they
Corey
1:01:20
they focused on things people don't care about um and they should have have been focusing on on
Corey
1:01:25
on the character of the individual you know styles should have been defined in people's minds because the megaphone that is the ontario pcs did
Zain
1:01:33
carter that is not the approach they took cory's cory suggested approach instead they said something like if a leadership race happens and nobody shows up does it still make a sound are you
Zain
1:01:42
in or are you in or out without the bias of the jersey colors on the political strategy of going early uh on on your opponent uh versus you know that that giving them that natural sort of like congratulations welcome to the race or welcome to the uh the club sort of thing see
Carter
1:01:59
see if i was there i would i would do up a video and i'd say basically here's the premise of the video it
Carter
1:02:05
it is a a party um
Carter
1:02:07
um and and and the door opens and no one's there and
Carter
1:02:11
and instead of snacks it's got her policies like it's got the negatives and they're all kind of dropped on the table and in the punch bowl you put your you know know the ladle in and it's the next horrible thing that she's you know proposed this is this is the ndp the
Carter
1:02:26
the party no one would go to right
Carter
1:02:28
right this is why no one would go to this park it'd
Carter
1:02:32
it'd be fun okay i think you could have a ton of fun with it it's a lot of reading in that ad but
Corey
1:02:36
but you know i like
Corey
1:02:37
like the general concept
Carter
1:02:39
that's interesting i mean i'm just me
Zain
1:02:41
me that's it's not ready it's not ready workshop it's okay it's fine where's
Carter
1:02:45
the laugh track when you need steven carter
Zain
1:02:47
carter steven carter I'm sticking with you, overrated or underrated. Alberta's Deputy Chief Medical Officers of ALP have resigned. The two Deputy Chief Medical Officers of Health are leaving their roles. Health Minister Jason Copping confirmed during question period that both doctors have submitted their resignation letters. In your mind, given the crisis that we have, given the replacement for Mark Joffe, the new AHS leader that we talked about, overrated or underrated that that these two individuals are leaving their post? I
Carter
1:03:21
I said it right off the bat, it's underrated. This is a major thing that has happened. Keep in mind, these are deputy ministers of health that stuck around through Kenny, who most of us think didn't do a particularly great job during the pandemic. So they put up with him, but now they won't put up with her. And to me, that is an indictment of Danielle Smith's leadership style and what it is she wants to do with our health care system.
Carter
1:03:48
So I think that it is a major, major issue.
Zain
1:03:53
How big is this, Corey? Overrated or underrated in your mind that Alberta's Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health have both resigned?
Corey
1:04:01
You know, I think it is telling
Corey
1:04:04
telling of a situation that's brewing behind the scenes in kind of our health infrastructure and the Ministry of Health in particular. But
Corey
1:04:13
But ultimately, from a political point of view, I think it's overrated. There's already been a replacement at the top. Danielle Smith has expressed a dissatisfaction with leadership in this area. I don't know that it hurts her. I don't know that it changes the basic calculus that anybody is doing on this. And so, well, I think we should all take note of it as Albertans. I ultimately don't think it changes the conversation in Alberta at all. Like, I don't think that if you thought like, well, it's okay. Like, I wasn't so sure about Danielle Smith, but those two deputy chief medical officers of health are still, like, no one's having that conversation, right? So I just don't think it materially changes the conversation.
Zain
1:04:54
Carter, respond to that. I'm curious to get your take on Corey's point there.
Carter
1:05:02
guess he's right insofar as the battle lines are being drawn. You've got Danielle Smith on one side saying that she's going to tackle and attack the existing health infrastructure, and there are a set of voters who will agree with her. But there is a larger subset of the population, in my mind, that are very concerned about health and the direction that it's that it's going. And the, you know, we talked about the Don Braid article talking about the Sovereignty Act as a giant miss. Well, the first third of Don Braid's article was how can we even be talking about this when children are dying at the children's hospital? We've added a trailer to accommodate children. That is the context in which we're talking about all of this. When I say that this is underrated, this is the land that she wants to have this election on. And it is fundamentally, do we want to change the health care system? And I think that people are going to look at her solutions and say, yeah, we want to change the health care system, but not like that.
Zain
1:06:03
Corey, I'm going to go with you on this next one. On a scale of 1 to 10, in a 2022 political world, how important in your mind, 1 being not very important, 10 being very important, are contested leadership races on a scale of 1 to 10, Corey?
Corey
1:06:20
I don't think they're very important because they are not occurring for different reasons now, and it goes back to the fear people have of the membership. Now, again,
Corey
1:06:29
again, we're going to have to unpack this. It's like there's this thinking about board management, right? Which is that if a board is too big, all of the decisions end up getting made by the executive committee of the
Corey
1:06:42
right? Are you familiar with this kind of general concept? Yes. And that's why we don't have boards of like 100 people. We try to keep boards in that 20 to 30 space at the absolute limit, but usually even lower than that, like 10
Corey
1:06:53
is kind of like a good number.
Corey
1:06:57
I've entirely lost my train of thought. What the hell are we talking about? We're
Corey
1:07:00
We're talking about this.
Carter
1:07:01
Play the laugh track.
Corey
1:07:03
Get you out of everything, Corey. Play the laugh track.
Corey
1:07:05
Nicely done. Nicely done, yeah.
Zain
1:07:09
Corey, you were talking about board composition and you were talking about contested leadership races being not so important in a modern era.
Corey
1:07:18
of having the conversation with the membership, because they now find the membership too unruly and too big, those conversations are happening outside of the membership. They're happening in the caucus anyhow. People are getting together and saying, well,
Corey
1:07:29
well, you be the person. We'll work together with you. Let's not have a contest. Bill, I know you want to run right now, but the rest of us have sort of decided behind closed doors that we think it should be Sam. And so run if you want, but we're all going with Sam, so you might as well get on board with Sam. And we're not going to have a leadership contest because that could be damaging and that could be scary. And who knows what kind of groups will take us over if we do that. So this
Corey
1:07:49
this is what I'm talking about. This is kind of the risk that is occurring right now um the membership has become the big group that uh like it's just too unwieldy and so uh perhaps
Corey
1:08:01
perhaps uh leadership contests need to kind of tighten back up again uh or else we're just pushing the conversation to areas that are less transparent and
Corey
1:08:10
and that's a problem steven
Zain
1:08:11
steven carter one being not very important 10 being very important how important in this modern 2022 world world. Heading into 2023, our contested leadership race is Stephen Carter.
Carter
1:08:22
They're an A plus. I mean, this is how we build parties. This is how we construct.
Carter
1:08:31
I am coming to your house. I'm going to kick your ass. This is how we build parties. This is how parties get built and money gets raised and media attention is focused on the party. And when you start taking that away, you're removing the tools of party building. You're removing the ability for the party to actually define itself. So let's remember that most of these processes, they used to be the men in the back room. And let's not kid ourselves, it was mostly men almost all the time. uh the men in the back room were replaced by leadership processes because ultimately they weren't delivering and now the men in the back room have delivered two uh ndp leaders and returned a green party leader carter
Zain
1:09:17
carter i'm going to start with you for our next one script a line for me a a reporter's mic is in front of pierre pauliev and he has asked daniel
Zain
1:09:27
daniel smith she's kind of like your political ideological cousin talk to me about the sovereignty act what do you think Pierre Polyev. What would Pierre Polyev say if Stephen Carter was scripting some lines for him in advance of that, I shouldn't say gotcha moment, but advance of that question being asked to him after what we've seen over the course of the last 10 days or so? Carter, what
Carter
1:09:49
what would it be? I
Carter
1:09:50
I don't agree with the Sovereignty Act, but
Carter
1:09:52
but I'll tell you something. It's a real shame that Justin Trudeau has taken our country to this position where a premier feels that it's necessary to protect their province. And I've talked to premiers across the country who feel that Justin Trudeau's overreach has just sunk to a new level and they have no more tools left to work with a government that's not willing to work with them. So it's time for us to work together. It's time for us to elect a conservative government that will actually put the provinces first instead of Justin Trudeau and his cronies.
Zain
1:10:24
Sorry, Carter outright rejects it, then goes after Trudeau. If you were scripting the line for Pierre Polyev, the same question was asked, being like, hey, isn't Daniel Smith an ideological cousin of yours? What do you think about the Sovereignty Act, Pierre Polyev? What would you say?
Corey
1:10:39
Or what would you have him say?
Corey
1:10:40
Look, I think Albertans are going to weigh in on that. I think there will be academics. There will be lawyers. There will be all sorts of people having that conversation. My job as the leader of the official opposition is to point out what we already all know, No, which is the only reason that something like the Sovereignty Act would even be contemplated, even be introduced, is because the Trudeau government has gone completely off the rails. It is deeply into the provincial jurisdiction. And listen, I'll tell you what, I talked to other premiers. It's not just the Sovereignty Act. There is an act in Saskatchewan that is trying to assert the exact same things. There are conversations about this happening in Yukon. I've talked to other premiers who maybe are not there right now, but they're thinking about it. They're trying to get there. And this country is being slowly eroded by the intrusion of the federal government into the provincial sphere. And it's just another way this government is trying to make us less free. And
Corey
1:11:29
And I want to create the freest country on earth. I'm going to do that in partnership with the provinces. And we should be asking some tough questions of Justin Trudeau. We should be asking him, how have we gotten to a state where this is even possible?
Zain
1:11:43
explain to me your logic. Why are you outright saying you don't support it?
Carter
1:11:47
because there's no sense getting dragged into it.
Carter
1:11:49
Corey did the same, and Corey did a better job of it. I hate saying it. It's
Corey
1:11:54
It's so upsetting. The
Carter
1:11:54
The first part of Corey's was better. The second part was just basically plagiarism of what I said. Yeah, that's
Zain
1:11:59
noticed, too. I didn't notice that.
Zain
1:12:03
I don't need anything else from you. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1019 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belger. With me, as always,
Carter
1:12:11
Oh my god. Corey Hogan.
Zain
1:12:18
And we'll see you next time.
Carter
1:12:25
Okay, I do like this exit. This is much better.
Zain
1:12:31
It's a very frustrating experience.
Carter
1:12:36
long does this go on?