Episode 1063: Alberta's favourite threesome

Annalise 0:01

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1063. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Carter 0:10

Good evening, guys. Well, you know, I was waiting for you to ask a question. You're waiting for us to jump in. It's a terrible, terrible

Annalise 0:16

Ask a question before I even make pleasantries? Come on, Carter. That's

Carter 0:22

My parents listened to the last podcast. They really liked my impression. They felt really good about the drama courses that they paid for. in university so did

Annalise 0:33

they do the listener survey did they make it no

Carter 0:36

no we're still struggling

Annalise 0:36

struggling andrews dot ca no

Carter 0:38

no no but that's good because they kept our average age of listener down because if my parents put in their actual ages the

Carter 0:44

whole fucking thing is gone it's

Carter 0:46

it's just like it skews

Corey 0:47

well that's okay we're over it's over now anyhow

Corey 0:50

this yeah we don't even care anymore it's over oh

Annalise 0:52

oh it's over no

Corey 0:54

for another year that was a quick

Corey 0:56

well we're here for a a good time not a long time but also

Corey 1:00

also a long time yeah because we've been on for a while

Carter 1:03

while you leave it up and people get crazy right like they're sharing it with friends they lose

Corey 1:07

lose yeah they lose their minds all of a sudden non-listeners are providing opinions all of a sudden hits the so

Corey 1:13

now it's the ndp war room they're sending out attacks on it attacks

Annalise 1:16

attacks on it now do we um talk about the five star thing or that's future no that'd

Corey 1:21

that'd be great that's

Corey 1:22

that's certainly not it that's not a patreon yeah

Carter 1:24

yeah we don't care about the

Annalise 1:25

the oh they've all they've already given us five stars I

Corey 1:27

I mean, if they haven't given us five stars, they're stealing from us, as the survey kind of implied. Okay. You know what the survey did, though? You've

Carter 1:35

You've got to give five stars. The survey said that 25% of the people who completed the survey said, I know it's stealing. I'm going to go do it right now, right? Did they do it?

Corey 1:43

They did not. One guy. No,

Carter 1:46

completed a review and gave us a five star. So fuck the listeners. You know what? Yeah.

Corey 1:53

Yeah. So that's actually a good point because we had 800 people who did the survey. so yeah

Corey 1:57

yeah 25 of you minus one are liars you know 199 of you are liars so

Annalise 2:03

so go give us five stars leave nice comments oh

Corey 2:06

oh yeah right that's right we want you to say nice things about us yeah i love you liars you're good liars but okay so good

Carter 2:13

least a lot more than they like us hey cory annalise

Carter 2:16

annalise is kind of a big deal who

Annalise 2:18

who won who won in the annalise zane question question oh

Corey 2:21

oh you you killed zane it was like 75 would rather have you save uh you know them from a burning bus that's drowning in a lake than um than zane yeah

Carter 2:31

question didn't even imply that zane wouldn't be able to save them it was just totally

Carter 2:36

totally fucking racist is what happened that's

Corey 2:38

that's you know what it's a great point

Carter 2:40

point you know it was racism personified and yeah

Corey 2:43

yeah it was i don't even think it was who would you like to try to save you it's who would save

Carter 2:47

save you who do you feel more choice would save

Carter 2:49

save you that wasn't the phrasing no it was who do you want saving you and they were like yeah yeah the white woman i'd

Annalise 2:56

i'd be saying the

Carter 2:57

the white woman saying

Annalise 2:58

saying that's what matters yeah

Corey 3:01

well that's a perfect segue into the the big news we have on the drum roll

Carter 3:05

roll or anything we used to have some uh soundboard

Annalise 3:07

saying who's saying the big news oh curious

Corey 3:11

i'm for me me for sure

Corey 3:13

i'm the most important person

Corey 3:14

person on this podcast of course i'm gonna share the big news carter

Annalise 3:17

you You do the intro and the drum roll.

Carter 3:19

Ladies and gentlemen, we have an announcement of epic proportion. We are excited to be able to announce this information. And I have been tasked with pre-announcing the announcement. So all I can say is massive

Carter 3:34

massive endorsement coming. Massive endorsement coming. Corey, over

Carter 3:40

to please fill in the blanks. Who endorsed the Strategist podcast this week? Well,

Corey 3:44

Well, I really wish you had actually even done this a day before and gotten everybody speculating

Corey 3:49

as to as to who this massive announcement is. But look, I'm not going to leave you in suspense any longer. This week, we were able to secure the endorsement of Annalise Klingbeil for

Carter 4:04

I mean, do we know if it's true, though? Like, is it really an endorsement? Or is she just here because we're paying her?

Corey 4:10

I mean, she wrote the script, so of course she would endorse it.

Annalise 4:15

Huge endorsement. Carter, you should have previewed that on Twitter. That's what you should have done. You really should have. We came up with the bit like

Carter 4:20

like six seconds ago. You

Annalise 4:24

the ball last time when you didn't use the words polar coaster, as many people have pointed out. And then you dropped it right now when you didn't do a preview.

Carter 4:32

preview. All these people, you know, they come up with these things afterwards. They're not the ones with their asses in the hot seat. Corey and I are the ones with our asses in the hot seat, no prep, no capacity to understand what's going on. I mean, you told us seconds before we recorded, don't say anything about polling until the second segment. And we were like, got

Carter 4:49

got to jump on it right now. We had no time to think about it. That's what happened.

Corey 4:54

Hey, can I ask you a question here? Do you think that that last bit, great though it was, do you think it maybe went over the heads of some of the people who are listening? Like, do you think the thing we're referencing- Did you see their survey results? Well, guess who it was? these guys are geniuses

Annalise 5:07

they are like cory yeah they're smart and they're well paid and we'll get to it they can keep listening you keep you keep discouraging people from continuing to listen here i am trying to increase our audience increase how many minutes they listen for i'm

Corey 5:22

inverted pyramid annalise but yeah you you go ahead you take us where we got to go okay

Annalise 5:27

before we talk about endorsements we're going to talk about debates because uh yeah we're going going to talk about our first segment debate deep dive two more sleeps guys and then it's big old debate day uh you promised our listeners last time we'd get into the nerdy details and there are many so let's do it let's talk about everything that goes into what people are going to watch on their televisions on the internet on thursday at 6 p.m um cory why don't we start with you let's talk to start off like that prep how do you go about prepping a leader for a debate what does that look like well

Corey 6:06

well um step one really is what you're trying to do in the debate right like who who you're trying to focus on the messages you're trying to get across but assuming you've done that foundational groundwork which is kind of core to any campaigning that

Corey 6:20

that when we start talking about debate prep there are there's kind of two streams of activity that occur one of them is the support activity of the people who are going to assist the leader in getting everything ready so they're finding answers to every conceivable question that might be thrown at their leader they're starting to look at which messages resonated and which did not that they can then throw out against the other leaders you know those sound bites they're always looking for and the other stream of activity that's occurring is is essentially practice it's the mock debates it's the the leader going up and And having a series of sparring contests, essentially, with people who are pretending to be the other leaders to allow them to prepare and practice the delivery of their lines and make sure it seems natural, make sure that they're able to respond in real time and just sharpen themselves up in order to get ready for that debate.

Annalise 7:10

Tell us a bit more, and Carter, jump in here because I know you've been in those rooms, but that actual mock practice. Like, how many hours are we talking? How often do we get people that look like the people you're debating? like really really walk us through this well so

Carter 7:25

so the casting of the opposition is really important i'll start with that because it doesn't really matter that they look like them what does matter is that they are able to speak with the tone and the content so the person who is speaking a you know for danielle smith needs to be able to you know speak like danielle smith if we're prepping Rachel Notley, and vice versa, right? Like, it doesn't need to be, you know, a female, right? It can, or, you know, great debate prep has been done with women playing the roles of men. It doesn't matter how you look, it doesn't matter how

Carter 8:00

how you sound, per se, what matters is how you speak, the language that you're using. And we will actually, if you've done really good debate prep, the language that you've used in preparation will actually come up in the debate. The person that you're um you're

Carter 8:16

you're playing the role of will say the land you know the the actual statement right the you know the ndp the job killing ndp right or whatever the the language is so getting that cadence getting that ability

Carter 8:29

ability and then the other thing that's super important is casting someone

Carter 8:33

who's not that deferential to your leader you

Carter 8:36

you need to cast someone who's going to fuck with them right

Carter 8:40

right they're going to go right after their achilles heel they're going to go after it over over and over and over again, and they are going to fucking hate you by the end of the prep.

Carter 8:48

Needless to say, I do a little bit of that.

Corey 8:51

Yeah, can confirm, by the way, like I've been the sparring partner multiple times for different leaders. And I've actually gotten the comments like, geez, you really seem to believe that. And the side eye, like I was somehow like this sleeper agent who was just trying to take them down from the inside. But it's an important part of the prep is to go for it, to go for the jugular. One of the things that I always tell people who are doing debate prep is you've

Corey 9:14

you've got to avoid caricature. Like the last thing you want is somebody to come in and be this broad cartoonish version of your opponent that's never going to show up in the actual debate. You need to be the best version of them. And being the best version of them means going for the throat. And you've got to act like that leader. And it's really tied to that first stream of activity I was talking about, because one of the things the sparring partner should be doing is studying the game tape. For example, if you are Rachel Notley's sparring partner in this one you're probably looking at the 2012 debate where danielle smith was on the stage with allison redford raj sherman and uh brian mason you're probably looking at the debates from the ucp leadership debate you're you're looking at how she's had more contentious conversations with all sorts of people over the past time but you're also looking at her more recent stump speeches the phrases she's continuing to use the charges she's continually dropping on people and you're making sure that that is consistently um considered

Corey 10:05

considered in your debate performance as well in your uh your uh your mock debate performance i suppose i mean so

Annalise 10:11

so how many hours are we talking like is this a sort of build

Annalise 10:15

build it into the schedule for an hour a day weeks before and then it ramps up or like what like i i'm just curious given you know how much training you know people do for a five minute media appearance this is like a lengthy a lengthy debate what what are we talking so

Corey 10:32

so really depends on the leader some are just better at it than others some need more more prep than others. And that's just a simple reality. And Stephen said in our last show, and it's totally true, you can over-prepare somebody. So you don't want to be doing like one a day in the lead-up if you're already there and you're just going to get distracted or bored and you're going to stop using the lines that you're practicing on. You got to kind of hit that sweet spot. But there are leaders who need more experience, more exercise, don't have the reps and you need them to get into that particular comfort zone. But generally speaking, you're probably looking at a couple of really you know

Corey 11:06

intensive days of debate prep like like not maybe necessarily literal full days but four hours blocked off where you're going through the binder you're doing a version of the debate that is like a well let me stop let me try this answer and you talk with the room about what if i had said this right

Corey 11:21

and then you're doing a version that's almost a dress rehearsal no pauses no stopping and sort of testing these things you just go and And you go for the 90 minutes, the two hours. This debate is actually two hours, but there's commercials in it. So, you know, probably 90 minutes is what you would actually practice for. And you just see how you hold up over that withering scrutiny and that time. So you're practicing two things, right? You're practicing, well, three, your policy, your delivery, and your endurance. Like you want to make sure you're able to go to the distance in this particular thing.

Carter 11:50

Yeah, I'm going to stage it more like an actual theater production as well, right? So the first thing you do in a theater production is you do your book read. read right so everybody's going to do your book their book read they're going to go through the lines they're going to say this line doesn't work i don't like this line the pollster is going to be there they're going to say you know we tested these lines these are the ones that work the best this is how uh people are responding to it this is working really well with women this is working really well with men if we can try and balance this in and get this in the first half of the debate this

Carter 12:19

this needs to be in the second half of the debate and so you're going through a

Carter 12:22

a book read you're literally sitting there with your binder you're going through it in no particular order maybe just, you know, alphabetical order, the order in which the binder was prepared.

Carter 12:32

you're going through that and then you're saying, okay, well, then

Carter 12:35

then the next thing is let's get this thing on its feet, right?

Carter 12:37

right? So we are going to say, what

Carter 12:39

what are you the most comfortable with? What are you the least comfortable with? What do we need to work through? What do you want to work on?

Carter 12:46

And the leader may say, I've got the answers, but I'm not really comfortable with the talkovers, right? The talkovers are particularly problematic to me. So a talkover, of course, is is this podcast we all talk over each other and we're actually intelligible uh the debate tends not to be as intelligible um but this you know so okay we're going to work through that and then so you then you get to a full dress and the full dress is people

Carter 13:11

people coming in they are prepared and they are ready to go and i would do all three of those things not necessarily on the same day maybe the first two on one day the full dress on another day because you have to internalize all all this information. No one's picking up this book and memorizing it. She's got to have the book like a week and a half in advance, whether it's Danielle or Rachel, and they got to go through their lines and memorize their lines and go through it with their staff and rewrite the line and make it more their own.

Carter 13:38

And then they come back to, okay,

Carter 13:41

okay, we're ready. We're ready for the read through.

Corey 13:44

Yeah. You know, the thing I would say though, and the reason I like to do a full dress early, maybe even literal months before the main event is the staff do need to do an honest assessment of what's working, see the blind spots of the leader, the ways the leader is excelling or perhaps failing to allow them to build that plan. And that's part of why you do it early and then determine how many debate preps you need. And it's hard to really understand that without doing the full dress. And yeah, maybe it's not as polished on the policy at that point. Maybe it's not as polished on the delivery, but you get a little bit of an understanding as to what you're working with, if anything. And that's really important because there is huge variability in the leaders here the other thing that steven i think alluded to but i just want to say like explicit during that shakedown period perhaps even between what he described as the table read and the dress is is really having a conversation about like the questions you're worried about right like so what's the one that you think would kill you like let's really dwell a little bit on this what's the question you dread from get or dread getting and we often call those in the business murder questions right like what are the murder questions here the ones that you just don't think we have a very solid answer for yet. And you work your way through that, you work through the anxieties that the leader might be bringing on those ones. And you practice a few things, and you see how they sort of resonate with other people.

Corey 15:00

And then the final point I want to make before kind of throwing it back, because we've dropped a lot on the table here is, as you're going through, and you're practicing, you're

Corey 15:08

you're picking kind of the best lines, because the last thing you want to be is this overprogrammed person whose every answer has a scripted line. as we say in this space internalize don't memorize right you are not reading a script you are making sure you know your data firm and you're able to throw it out but that doesn't mean you don't have a couple of canned lines ready to go that are just absolute fucking daggers that's

Carter 15:30

that's the difference between the the professionals and the not professionals professionals can say the same thing using different words non-professionals have to say the exact words because they don't

Corey 15:39

don't know how to

Corey 15:41

the same thing using different words sorry

Carter 15:43

sorry to cut you off there and at least i know you're We're about to ask another scintillating question. But I've got heartburn now because I ate so fast so I could be ready for you guys. Because Corey posted this thing on. So you could be ready at

Annalise 15:54

at the time. We

Carter 15:55

We always need us.

Carter 15:56

It's all inside right now.

Corey 15:57

Five minutes after the time. We're going to get technical about it. What

Annalise 16:01

What did you have for dinner there, Carter? I don't

Corey 16:05

don't want to know. Don't encourage him. And

Carter 16:07

And I had extra hot sauce. And I think it was the extra hot sauce.

Annalise 16:12

I knew this was going to be rough when you told me. that you scarfed it down i know we're gonna have some issues um many things to pick apart

Annalise 16:19

okay okay many things to pick apart about what you've said um with the sound bites of one-liners how how many is a good how many is a good number so

Corey 16:28

so we both put our hand this is a audio medium so we suck but we both put our hand up with five that's about as much as you could possibly want to do and and be able to do without looking like you're that over programmed robot over the course of a two-hour debate with commercials here yeah

Carter 16:43

yeah and you're gonna get maybe three of them in you're not necessarily gonna get them all but you're gonna try that's

Corey 16:47

that's that's exactly the other thing i would say is you don't get them all in like you because you it's a big mistake to try to shoehorn those things in in a way that just like doesn't or

Carter 16:56

or you put them in too early and then and then it's failed right like oh i smashed that in but then there was a much better spot to put it in later and

Carter 17:03

and you don't get that back so you have to sit on it you have to wait for the right moment and

Corey 17:08

you're not going to get them all in that's the reality what

Annalise 17:10

what are like do you guys have a favorite debate one

Corey 17:16

don't have a favorite one-liner but i will say my favorite approach to one-liners is these

Corey 17:22

these are not surprises that you drop on people right in the moment in fact generally speaking the one-liners that you think of have been field tested at other times like they have been used in speeches they have been used in other kind of interactions along Along those lines, you know, we think about these big debate moments like, you know, famously it was Benson who said, I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine and you

Corey 17:47

to Dan Quayle. Not the first time he used that line. Like this is not him thinking on his feet. I think he'd used it in a rally a little bit earlier, probably to wild applause. And that made him say, oh, that really plays. So let's try to jam that into the debate. and so as much as it might look like they're bringing out new material you know like they're a comic for the first time at the comedy cellar they're generally not right like this is part of their stadium set this is stuff that they've used this is their greatest hits and they want it packaged for television as part of a moment okay

Annalise 18:18

okay does it does it change it in this case that there's only two of them on the stage like when we're talking about the prep and such and I was taking recent examples in Alberta you had obviously the goals going in for someone like David Kahn and alberta liberal leader last time around were probably different than what they were for kenny and notley but does it change it that there's only going to be two people on stage this time

Annalise 18:40

or how does it change it it changes it

Carter 18:42

it because you don't have someone throwing grenades in at you that you you know that you're not expecting it gives you a simplicity of script right so um you

Carter 18:53

think everybody who's ever been a part of a threesome knows that three is is very difficult to manage right jesus talking about debates you guys i don't talking about three people yeah of course you were and when

Carter 19:05

when you have that third person that third person isn't necessarily paying attention to your needs the same way right they may be giving i just hate

Carter 19:12

so much right now

Carter 19:14

what is wrong with you they may be spending more time and more interest on your on the other person the person that you're primarily interested in and all of a of a sudden you feel like a third wheel to your own party.

Carter 19:25

Anyways, what I'm trying to get across here is that three is more difficult than two, much more difficult. Stephen,

Corey 19:31

Stephen, there's no way you could read that back in a neutral sense and make you think it was a debate. I just want you to know that.

Carter 19:37

What are you talking about?

Corey 19:40

Look, third parties are annoying. That's the simple reality. Third parties are annoying because they're not playing for the same stakes. And because they're often playing for a smaller geography and they're often playing for the limelight there's a certain don't give a shit factor to them that makes them very frustrating if you're actually playing for the for the real game like you know the main event here and that is um and that's going to be a missing element i mentioned this a couple of times i think even on the pod one of the things about this debate coming up uh

Corey 20:10

uh you know dave cornway confirmed and if you know anything about alberta politics dave cornway is he is our library of congress he has all of the information we

Corey 20:21

we have never had a one-on-one leaders debate in this province televised in the history we've never had one

Carter 20:27

one no this is really unusual yeah

Corey 20:30

yeah and in fact even in the canadian federal context you just you don't see this and so we are looking at a dynamic that really steven and i can talk about in the context of of american politics more

Corey 20:41

so and just our observers of politics but we'd both be liars if we said we've participated in in events like this at this stage because they it hasn't happened it just simply has no

Carter 20:51

no i mean i'm way more comfortable in a multi-person environment than i am just at the two-person thing yeah

Corey 21:04

children listen to this podcast very often

Carter 21:07

not they're not patreon this is patreon level that's

Corey 21:10

that's fair okay how

Annalise 21:12

how does i like how gory started to disrespond to that like you had said something normal well it was

Carter 21:21

um watching it click was pretty great though hey i know but

Corey 21:25

but there is a reality that there are also tactics available to you in those debates that you can play with yeah right

Corey 21:31

right uh and and if you are kind master of that particular craft, you can really use it to your advantage. And Stephen, you yourself know this. You've done this in a lot of multi-party situations where there's things you can do to basically anoint yourself as the up-and-comer, and there's things you can do to brush off the other people.

Carter 21:49

Well, and Nenshi was great at this because he was coming in and he was doing debates with 30 people, 20 people, 15 people. It kind of got winnowed down as he got closer to the actual election. But he would be in a position where he would make people focus And he would annihilate the other candidates. Barb Higgins, I think, is still pissed with with Nancy because she she was ripped apart by him.

Carter 22:13

But the audience loved it because he brought in a sense of humor and he was able to he elevated himself on the debate stage and made sure that he picked only on Barb and only on Rick so that everybody knew exactly who the front runners were and exactly who the challenger was. us and so that's again we i spent so much time bringing back casting what are you casting people into the roles of what is the brand that you're trying to create with the ucp how do you do that and and one of the things we haven't yet spoken about and i don't know if you'll ask

Carter 22:45

ask a specific questions i'm going to answer it now is body language and body framing right

Carter 22:49

right how you actually stand on stage and how you are on stage with allison redford i before she she went on stage i would do a drill with her where she would run through her answers and i would put my hand on her forehead and

Carter 23:01

and make her push against me as hard as she could and push me around the room as she was answering the questions i was asking her so she could get the physicality of literally trying to push someone away of actually trying to be forceful in the speaking moment because we don't teach that that is something that's not taught to political performers performers so what they wind up doing is they pull back so many of them pull back on the on the podium when

Carter 23:30

when they answer their question like the

Corey 23:32

back they hold on to the lectern on both sides

Carter 23:34

sides and they lean back like they've been struck you

Carter 23:36

you must lean in you must push forward you must be strong and that's especially true for female candidates where they're already coming to try and overcome so many stereotypes or for you know or minority candidates where the stereotypes dig again you know you've got to you've got to personify

Carter 23:55

personify the leader that people want not necessarily the leader that you are carter

Annalise 24:00

carter you're really using your body language to to illustrate this but it's it's a it's a podcast format you know what though it

Carter 24:08

the patreons are really smart they they they'll hear

Carter 24:11

they'll hear the difference what

Annalise 24:12

what you're saying they'll feel

Annalise 24:13

feel it so what what what are your recommendations carter cedar expert here what are your recommendations for um not and for for smith for thursday when it comes to that body language in order to come out on top if

Carter 24:25

if i was working with rachel notley i'd work with her a lot on breathing i'd

Carter 24:29

i'd work with her on breathing and i'd make and i would make her stand tall she's not a in a large tall woman she is she's relatively petite um i would work with her on on her her breath structures so that she's really well supported if you watch her to rally she tends to lose breath in the second half of of her sentence, um, which is fine in a rally. I mean, I'd be working on that too, but in a debate, she can't lose breath in the second half of her sentence. She must have strength of voice all the way through. And then I'd be working with her. She's got kind of a staccato speaking style as it is. I'd emphasize staccato speaking style, but then I would interrupt with long sentences so that, so that there's, you

Carter 25:13

you know, when she's doing a critique, do

Carter 25:16

do long sentences. When you're you're doing a an attack staccato right so you you you have different tones and different tactics physically to use in order to get across to the audience who's who are taking in so much more than just the words right they're taking in the body language they're taking in the performance so how are you going to show and signal to them how the performance is actually being done and i would argue that most people who are doing this don't do these steps what

Annalise 25:45

what what about for smith Smith is different

Carter 25:47

different because Smith has this radio talk. Like Smith's problem in my mind is that she lowers her voice all the time, right? I'd be saying to her, keep your voice as neutral as possible and do not swallow and do not push it into the nasal. So I'd be working with her. There's an exercise that we do where you try to imagine that the word is formed just outside of your lips. and when you try and imagine that it pushes it's a technique that singers use where they create the note outside of their mouths and that allows them to project the clearer cleaner note and that's what i'd be working on with her so she doesn't swallow her words she doesn't appear to be pulling back it's the same type of thing we're working with allison on but very specifically danielle is used to having a microphone right where we have ours and she's that's not what she's doing in this she's projecting it out beyond and yes i see all of my hand gestures i understand yeah

Annalise 26:43

yeah there's tons is there any body language advice that you would give her you could speak it instead of demonstrate at this time i

Carter 26:48

i think that the big thing is for her to to actually have some body language i think she's a gripper she's

Carter 26:53

she's a gripper and i i just think that grippers and so a gripper is someone who holds onto the podium like if they let go of the podium which

Annalise 27:00

which you're demonstrating right now

Carter 27:02

now i just did i did i should i did the shake which was really we should video these these things we should put them up on video hey cory you

Carter 27:08

you remember when we did that for the paper you know

Corey 27:10

like them that'd be cool but

Carter 27:12

anyways yeah you don't want to be a gripper the gripper you just you look like you're weak you look like you're about to fall over and you don't want that that when you're trying to project strength and control cory

Annalise 27:25

cory anything to add there i know carter's the uh the cedar expert so that's why i gave him those ones first

Corey 27:31

first and foremost most Most importantly, it's a lectern on a podium. But now that we're past that, you

Corey 27:36

you know, my observations are more on speech and the nature of words and language. Stephen is the body language guy. I can't take that away from him. He's got a ton of theater background. He's very good at that presence. But my sense is that Rachel Notley, by default, probably

Corey 27:52

probably needs to slow down, especially in a two-person debate. I mean, she thinks a mile a minute. And

Corey 27:58

that's turned into speaking a mile a minute, it can be very anxiety-inducing. and sometimes it feels like she's just trying to steamroll over the other person i think in particular in contrast to danielle smith's more laconic you know hey let's talk about this you know well i just see it a little bit differently like she has a a much more easy tone and cadence i i think if anything i would maybe suggest danielle speed up but uh you know that contrast i'm not 100 sure is going to be to rachel notley's benefit if it's not kept somewhat in check like it's okay to show you think a mile a minute but you've got to you've got to do it in a way that That doesn't make people anxious watching you.

Carter 28:33

I would suggest also for Rachel, if she's asked a question, to stop, smile, answer.

Carter 28:41

Why? Because that'll actually put her in a slower cadence, right? And I also think that smiling and looking at Danielle will spook the shit out of Danielle.

Corey 28:51

Well, I agree if it's a real smile. It can't be like a fuck you smirk, which is what I'd worry would almost

Carter 28:57

be flexible. When you said smile,

Carter 28:59

smile, that's what I was

Carter 29:01

does have a solid repertoire of fuck you smirks though like it's are there

Annalise 29:05

are there things like and you you kind of mentioned this carter and i guess i'll put it out there the fact that it's two women like are are there things where there's body there's body language issues here where a man wouldn't have to worry but with a women it's seen as bitchy or it's seen as like what are those sort of factors when it's as you say the first one in alberta's history where there's two people and they're both women oh

Carter 29:26

oh women women just suffer more um women are judged They're judged more by their peers. They're judged more by men. They are almost always in a no-win situation. And it comes to the point where you just say, don't worry too much about it because you are going to be judged harshly. People are going to look at you differently because you are a woman competing for this job that is seen as something other than that. And you've got to just push through it. There will be critiques. There is always critiques, and they almost always come from other women, about voice sound, hair, makeup, and clothes.

Carter 30:11

Every female candidate I've ever worked with, and I've worked with a majority of female, like most of the time I'm working with female candidates. have

Carter 30:17

have to deal with those issues you know how many times men have to deal with them

Annalise 30:24

welcome to our lives carter i'm

Annalise 30:29

yeah uh so just walk me through we're gonna have two people on stage and then i think there's two moderators is that oh

Corey 30:35

oh there's like two moderators and then three questioners i believe like it's quite a it's one of those classic how many people can we possibly engage in this particular are they Are they doing

Carter 30:44

doing gen pop questions

Carter 30:46

questions too? I hate that.

Corey 30:48

I haven't seen that. When I read the summary of it, it sounds like there's a couple of moderators. It's a media consortium that does this, right? Yes,

Annalise 30:57

Yes, the moderators are Global and CTV, but then are Questioners Media as well? Yes,

Corey 31:02

CBC, Post Media, I think. City

Corey 31:05

That sounds right. And

Corey 31:09

they will be throwing questions. And I kind of loathe any format that has more moderators and participants on the questioning side than it does on the participant side but yeah we don't we don't quite know i'm not sure that those details have been discussed in the media very deeply but i think you can reasonably imagine that there will be moderators will take different sections questioners will probably lead off with questions i suspect they will at the very least in many cases if not most say albertans want to know and sort of act as though they are questioning on on behalf of the good people of alberta but

Corey 31:44

but you know it it's almost immaterial like one of the things about a debate of this nature is

Corey 31:51

is you've just got so much more air time for the two people who are speaking and you're going to have so much more back and forth and it's it's going to be a different debate but it's going to be a debate where no matter how many media personalities they put on the stage the eyes are going to be on rachel notley and danielle smith and i suspect that the big moments are not going to come out of you

Corey 32:12

know person asking question one of them answering it'll be those two mixing it up okay

Corey 32:17

that's what's going to happen um

Annalise 32:18

um okay we've talked about kind of like prep questions format body language what about the stakes like does all of this matter do debates matter yeah

Corey 32:28

yeah uh well debates debates

Corey 32:32

matter a lot when they matter I guess that's the simplest way to put it.

Corey 32:37

answer. But there are elections that have really hinged on debates. And then there are elections where we've thought, oh, this election is going to hinge on the debate. And the debate is just like this wet

Corey 32:47

wet fart. Like nothing happens with it. Oh,

Carter 32:49

Oh, wet fart. Something happens when I do a wet fart. And that's what I'm afraid of tonight, to be honest. Why

Annalise 32:55

Why would you use that story? I'm clenching.

Annalise 32:57

clenching. You just handed it to him.

Corey 33:02

No, I don't like that.

Annalise 33:05

the visual is tonight carter just stop yeah

Corey 33:08

yeah they're they're a little much my friend there's

Carter 33:10

there's gonna be positive comments in the discord i'll tell you that the

Corey 33:13

the theater of the mind you are creating is too much for

Corey 33:16

anybody any rational human being uh

Corey 33:18

uh but yeah 2015 obviously very consequential debate i've said it before i'll say it again the wild rose were leading every poll before that debate and or and rachel notley was leading in every poll after that debate that that That debate changed everything. The minute Prentice turned to Rachel Notley and marked her as the opponent, I'm sure they thought they were being really clever and trying to take down the Wild Rose. But they handed the race to Rachel Notley because she had a much higher ceiling. There were way more people willing to consider Rachel Notley. And rather than dealing with the Wild Rose who were already at their vote ceiling, no other votes were going there. They totally upended their own game on them. Bit of an own goal by Jim Prentice, but nonetheless, a super important debate. Other debates that I can think of that were really important, 2015 as well, saw the Quebec language debate, which absolutely threw the election to the Liberals. It was a three-way race. And then at that point, the NDP dropped, the Liberals gained, and the whole game changed. And of course, there's the famous ones. We talked about

Corey 34:19

the Dan Quayle Benson one. That one actually didn't change the course of history. We remember it but it didn't but around uh you know that era we had a couple of other really big ones we had 1992 george bush at the town hall with bill clinton george george uh hw bush couldn't stop looking at his watch he was sort of marked for losing that debate 1984 in this country the moment in canadian politics for debates where uh brian mulrooney went after john turner for patronage appointments that he made after

Corey 34:49

after he was made prime minister basically on behalf of pierre trudeau who was no longer prime minister he was given a list of patronage appointments to make and he made them and brian mulrooney said how in the world could you do that and john turner's answer was effectively i had no option i mean not effectively he said the words i had no option and

Corey 35:07

and uh brian mulrooney killed him you did have an option sir you could have said no and and john turner had nothing he had nothing he made a limp smile and he looked down at his notes when it was all done and it costs i mean that was not an election that was going his way anyhow but holy cow what a defining moment in politics and yeah you go back further and you can see more you can talk about jfk nixon you can talk about the

Corey 35:33

the radio debates that occurred during the 30s these things can really matter because um you know when there is when there is an opportunity to really define find people who have thus far sort of floated around in a vague definition, the

Corey 35:48

the debate might be the most important moment of it all.

Annalise 35:51

What about particularly in this race?

Carter 35:54

let me let me counter everything that Corey just said. And first of all, Corey's absolutely right. Everything he just said, totally agree.

Carter 36:01

The challenge with this particular, well,

Carter 36:03

the challenge with this particular debate, the

Carter 36:07

challenge with this particular debate is that um it's

Carter 36:12

it's occurring like seconds before everybody's going to go away on vacation or plant their garden which i did tonight which is why i was a little bit late and you guys didn't care but um that that we

Carter 36:24

we you know we talked about people being outside and people wanting to do different things at this particular moment of of the season uh now we're inside because of smoke but i don't know where we'll be on thursday i don't know that we're necessarily all going to to be gathered around the tv and talking about what happened at the debate uh

Carter 36:42

uh when the day after the debate we we get to you

Carter 36:47

you know go on our long our long weekend where we all you know test out our outdoor legs and and have a great time like it's just a different it's a different experience at this time there

Corey 37:00

there is something really important i i disagree but there there you know there's a a point we got to put on the table here before we can have this conversation most of the time when those debates have those big shattering moments they're

Corey 37:12

they're not necessarily aware to everybody in the moment they're defined after the fact by the media commentary and the conversations that occur around them and so i'll tell you like as a very real and and relevant to this podcast example we did a show the night of the 2015 debate we talked about the pros and cons we talked about the lines that worked the lines that didn't we

Corey 37:35

we did not even mention the math is difficult line to to my memory and and if we did it was certainly not like this was the moment

Carter 37:42

moment probably me i probably said it it

Corey 37:48

was it was just something that was there it was one of many attacks there were many things going on in the debate but um in

Corey 37:55

in the in the hours and days that followed it became the moment people packaged it people talked about it it took on a life of its own it became this thing of legend just as all of these other debate moments i talked about became things of legend

Corey 38:08

where people really dwelled on them and fixated on them and i think by and large if you were watching the entire debate maybe

Corey 38:14

maybe that's not even the tenor of it but there was something kind of you know truthy about it like it's it sort of encapsulated the entire debate the the arrogance of jim prentice the resilience and the shrewdness of rachel notley you know how smart she was how how tough she was. And it became the moment everybody talked about. And, um, it is really the, it's the spin after the fact and who wins the spin that as much as anything usually determines who won the debate.

Annalise 38:41

Okay. Any, uh, any last debate comments or predictions or any, uh, any closing words before we move on to our next exciting, uh, segment? Yeah.

Corey 38:51

Yeah. The other thing about about debates is they're about expectations. And so I think I've talked to a lot of people in the last couple of days, and they have said some version of, Danielle Smith's really got to watch out. Rachel

Corey 39:03

Notley is going to murder her. Or people saying, oh, this is the opportunity. Rachel Notley is going to murder Danielle Smith in this debate. And I think the expectations as a result are much lower for Danielle Smith than Rachel Notley going in. And so it might be score to draw draw if

Corey 39:20

Danielle Smith does not like collapse and sweat on the stage at this particular moment. So a lot of the expectation game stuff also needs to be considered here. It's not just what comes out of it, it's where you came into it. And frankly, Rachel Notley has a higher bar as a result of that. So unless she lands like a total knockout blow, even if she wins the debate on points, I think a lot of people are going to say Danielle Smith didn't lose the debate. And that could be quite impactful.

Annalise 39:50

Carter, any closing words? No,

Carter 39:51

No, I'm sensing that you're done with this topic. So I'm agreeing

Carter 39:54

agreeing with him. No,

Annalise 39:55

No, I'm giving you an opportunity. No, no. I mean, if

Carter 40:04

then we've got real issues. This is what I'm trying to get across to you. I

Corey 40:07

I mean, you brought up like a three-way and wet farts. No,

Carter 40:11

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You brought up the wet farts. I didn't bring up the wet parts.

Annalise 40:19

parts. Second time you've just handed that to him, Corey. I cannot believe it. I can't

Carter 40:23

can't believe it either.

Carter 40:24

I'm so disappointed. Our

Annalise 40:26

Our next segment is called Exciting Endorsements. Ooh. Guys. Like yours. Like mine. It was good. We missed a couple of things with mine, but we can learn for next time. So political nerds, they were abuzz yesterday when Rachel Notley's chief of staff teased on twitter that the team had an incredible endorsement coming the

Annalise 40:50

endorsement came today it was todd hirsch uh the

Corey 40:55

wrote their their economic plan the

Annalise 40:57

the same todd hirsch

Annalise 40:59

a few months ago advised

Annalise 41:01

advised the ndp on their economic policy you got it cory wow

Corey 41:06

mean it's not like he actually spoke at their convention anything though oh

Carter 41:09

oh yeah he did oh he

Carter 41:11

did do that who

Annalise 41:12

who would Who would have thought he would endorse the NDP? So guys, this has- Well, I'm surprised.

Annalise 41:17

Much like my endorsement, right? Several months in, and I've finally- I mean, to be fair,

Corey 41:22

fair, I think yours was actually more shocking than Todd Hirsch's. You think so? I do. I do. People don't-

Annalise 41:27

They think you're here under duress.

Annalise 41:30

No, someone asked how they should introduce me for something, and I said, you know, you could mention the strategists. I

Annalise 41:35

I plugged in Carter, just for you. They're not going to do it because it was CBC. see uh but i just i said they could um anyways guys this endorsement todd hirsch it's got people wondering do endorsements matter no

Carter 41:51

i i in fact i've asked you know people have asked me can we put an endorsement page up on the website no you can't because

Carter 41:58

because there did you

Annalise 41:59

you mean for the strategist podcast can we

Corey 42:02

we do that can we do we should do that yeah we should can we put an endorsement you know

Carter 42:08

here's the problem you know we're going to get endorsed by like keto maggie from main street he's going to be like this is the only podcast i ever listened to and then well that's good and then uh people are going to be like keto that prick and they won't listen to the podcast my point with endorsements just

Annalise 42:23

just fill it with the only person

Carter 42:26

that matters is the leader the only person that matters is the candidate they have the authority to run because they have the authority to run you're not going you don't need the endorsement of some second fiddle you don't need permission from someone else to become um the mayor or to become the you know the the premier uh every by definition everybody who is endorsing you is beneath the status that you're trying to seek yourself by definition don't do endorsements ever bad plan except

Annalise 42:58

except for a strategist web page well that was cory's idea he thought

Corey 43:03

think we're gonna do that now i

Annalise 43:04

i thought that's what you were saying do you agree with what uh what carter's saying you

Corey 43:09

you know i was trying i was really racking my brain as this was all going on in the endorsements and people were saying well what would the endorsement be and there were all sorts of speculative answers thrown out on our discord which by the way is continues to be the place to be i

Annalise 43:22

i can't keep up i went the other day and it was like 7 000 new messages i don't know how you guys do

Corey 43:28

do it you just go to the bottom no but

Annalise 43:31

but then you feel like you're left out you

Corey 43:34

you you're okay it's you feel that way about twitter like you see tweets and you're like well

Corey 43:39

can't start here i've missed so

Corey 43:40

tweets i don't know what to do no

Annalise 43:42

no it's more it feels different with discord i don't i don't love it guys no

Corey 43:48

say that we're trying to sell some i've

Annalise 43:50

i've been i've been pushing people discord for weeks it's

Annalise 43:54

don't worry guys discourse it's great it's just not for me

Annalise 43:59

uh what were you saying they're

Carter 44:00

they're kind of like listening to the podcast it's

Carter 44:02

it's a great podcast

Carter 44:04

it's great for other

Annalise 44:05

other people that's what my endorsement that's what my endorsement could be it's great just not for me uh

Annalise 44:11

uh cory what were what was it that you were saying there before we started talking about discourse it was well i was smart i

Corey 44:17

was trying to rack my brain for like an endorsement that really changed the game, right? And I couldn't think of one off the top of my head. I was trying to imagine where there was a moment where somebody did something unexpected and this endorsement occurred, and then you're like, oh my God, wow, that's really crazy. And I couldn't think of any. And I thought of some that were kind of close, like in

Corey 44:41

in leadership contests, people with organizations thrown to other people. David Orchard endorsed Stéphane Dion for the 2006 Liberal Leadership, brought his Saskatchewan organization. Okay, maybe arguably that was impactful, but it's so small and niche, and it tended to be more organizational. So I did a bit of Googling. I couldn't actually find any endorsements that weren't just a member of a party endorsing somebody at a different level, as though that was supposed to be amazing. And then I asked ChatGPT. I said, hey, tell me about endorsements in Canadian politics. And it gave me just a list of politicians endorsing other politicians of the same ilk and a bunch of answers that were outright lies like just not accurate i think it it was it was it said like uh uh patrick brown endorsed jagmeet singh to run in brampton east and i

Corey 45:28

that's news to me tell me more about that and so i'm sorry that was actually incorrect once i thought about it not

Corey 45:38

in all of my searching the only thing i could find that was remotely interesting interesting, was David Suzuki supposedly endorsing Elizabeth May in 2011. And there was a news story about this. And so I looked up more, and it was inaccurate. David Suzuki specifically was asked, did you endorse Elizabeth May? And he's like, no, I met her for the first time on that stage. I was just speaking at an event. I wasn't endorsing her. But the Greens had put out a piece of literature that said he had. So that's where that one had come from. All to say, not the most exhaustive thing i'm sure people will be able to jump into the comments they can go on discord and throw out the examples that they might have but

Corey 46:15

but they're certainly not even impactful enough to have been recorded by history like we're not talking about them later about how an endorsement has changed the course of things here and that's really interesting to me it really sort of speaks to the absolute lack of power that endorsements have at least on a big level maybe on a local level they're okay what

Annalise 46:35

what if to your point all the examples you're using are people of like the same party what if in this case where you have an election where you need people who voted conservative to vote ndp what if you had like some conservative heavy hitters who came out and said i'm voting for ndp would would that be a good endorsement

Carter 46:53

endorsement you mean like ken bosenkuhl's doing this election and it is having no impact you mean like thomas

Carter 46:58

thomas lukaszek is doing this election and it's having no impact. I mean, the truth of the matter is you're not going to find an election where you see more cross party endorsements

Carter 47:08

endorsements than you are this election. And it's not having any impact because at the end of the day, the person that people are looking for to endorse or to tell them who to vote for is their neighbor, their their friend, their family member. Those are the people that that are that may have impact. But those people aren't actually being solicited for their endorsement. Look at Jeff Davison. Jeff Davison had all the endorsements from all the old white guys. All the old white guys endorsed Jeff Davison. Doesn't matter. Then the old white guys moved from Jeff Davison and they endorsed Jeremy Farkas.

Carter 47:47

Same impact. None. None. No polling impact. No electoral impact. No money impact. Nothing. So these endorsements don't work. mark what you need is ground game what you need is a media persona you need brand you need uh ideas you do not need endorsements they don't work period end of sentence yeah

Corey 48:08

yeah did did they used to work in a party boss there it certainly never worked in my lifetime and again like i can think of examples small ones more limited that it's like oh that's a nice

Corey 48:18

cherry on the top but it didn't seem like it was a big impact so another

Corey 48:23

another one from this particular another one from this this particular cycle, Chris Labossiere, who ran for the PCs in 2015, he made some comment on Twitter about, you know, he's fed up. He's voting for Rachel Notley. And some reply guy jumps in and says, nice try, Chris. We know you've always been a new Democrat. No, he hasn't fucking always been a new Democrat. But part of the problem is people immediately attribute motive and assume background. And it's, I mean, the internet's a weird place to begin with, but I think we're just in a place where everybody assumes you're on the take or you've always been on that side or you're a sleeper agent whenever you do anything that breaks the so let

Annalise 49:01

let me but but that that chris example was like a tweet like what again just putting it out there what if you had a bunch of these people like you're chris you're luke hasik you're farkas maybe you're ron getter like a bunch of people in a room beside rachel rah rah rah still no still

Carter 49:18

no in 2000 and 2001

Carter 49:21

2001 joe clark we did liberals for joe and we had all the liberals including uh don lovett who had competed for the uh liberal leadership or for the liberal candidate position

Carter 49:35

position in calgary center and he'd lost and he was now coming over to endorse he actually didn't endorse because he's a

Carter 49:44

well there's that that's a longer story for a different day but um he did you know it didn't have any impact. Um, the, the, the takeaway that people had from it was, uh, you know, Diane Collier cart called me, you know, when Joe, when Jim, uh, when Davis or, um, Jim Denning was trying to get the, uh, nomination for the, uh, PC

Carter 50:08

PC party. And she wanted me to, to marshal up the gay community that had actually helped Joe. And it's like, no, this, this isn't the way way the world works. Those endorsements had no impact at all. The only place that I can think of and Corey kind of challenged us, is there a place where an endorsement works? And yes, there is one place, nomination races. Nomination races, when the incumbent endorses the next person, it actually has a very important impact.

Corey 50:37

Well, and I think actually where I have seen endorsements be a a little bit higher value is when it is a less partisan situation or a lower information situation and i think a nomination race is a perfect example of that you may or may not especially if it's like a big riding like thousands of members you may or may not know the people you may or may not know the quality you're dealing with the endorsement of the mp who you do know the outgoing candidate mla as the case may be and you're saying okay that might be the case i also think municipally for For the council races, they can be a little bit more useful because the most impactful, the most consequential endorsement I can remember seeing is Brian Pincott, his first election. He was a Calgary councillor in Ward 11.

Corey 51:23

He had on all of his signs, little additional signs added saying he was endorsed by the, I think it was the Firefighters

Corey 51:31

Yeah. Yeah. And in a race where nobody knew anything about any of the candidates, and it was so low information, and it seemed so nonpartisan, I really feel that changed it. And that's a little anecdotal, but Ward 11 is where my parents lived. They still live there, but the ward boundaries have changed. I think they're still in 11, actually. But I asked

Corey 51:54

asked my parents, who'd you vote for? And independently, my father hadn't come home from work, so I asked my mom first, and she said, said, oh, I voted for Brian

Corey 52:02

Brian Pincott. I saw he was endorsed by the firefighters. That seemed nice. And then my dad came in and he had just come back from voting. I said, hey, dad, who'd you vote for?

Corey 52:10

And my parents hadn't talked about this, apparently. And he said, oh, I voted for that Brian Pincott. The firefighters thing was up. That seems good. And, you know, I don't think of my, I've never heard my parents speak of the virtues of firefighters before. I mean, I think civically, a lot of people think firefighters are great people, but it's not like we're a family that sits around saying don't

Corey 52:29

don't know what to do ask a firefighter like that's not a conversation in the hogan household okay but and uh but it was enough in a low information you know non-partisan race my

Carter 52:38

my brother's a firefighter and i can assure you we never had the conversation about

Carter 52:42

about you know if you got questions ask a firefighter yeah

Carter 52:46

yeah it's not a thing that we talk about yeah

Annalise 52:48

but then but then the firefighters union endorsed um remember last time around when they sent out pamphlets for For certain NDP candidates, and that almost like countered it. But that's a partisan election. Yeah, exactly. But

Annalise 52:58

that's a partisan election. So your point about it being nonpartisan and low information. Well,

Corey 53:01

Well, people have spent their entire adult lives deciding whether they support the New Democrats, the liberals, or the conservatives. They have spent two weeks deciding whether they support one of 10 random candidates in a municipal election that they've never heard of before that particular election. okay

Annalise 53:17

okay just last thing on our exciting endorsement segment had

Annalise 53:20

had had not least chief of staff not tweeted about it do you think we would have even been talking about this endorsement like it isn't some of it that expectation thing of when it was like incredible endorsement people were like wow who could it be and

Annalise 53:33

and then um expectations were not met like is that a little bit of what we're dealing with here is just a excited he was pumped he tweeted it it got people talking like i think had we not seen that? Do

Annalise 53:46

Do you think we would even be talking about an endorsement? Like, would we even have known that Todd Hirsch endorsed him today? Because we would have seen him sitting beside Shannon Phillips and thought like, oh, there he is with the NDP again.

Corey 53:57

Well, I kind of wonder, maybe I should give Jer a little more credit. Maybe this was an absolute troll. Maybe this was putting it out there to get people talking about it. and then all of a sudden uh there's todd hirsch which is not news and yet we have just for 20 minutes treated it as though it was it was not

Carter 54:16

not news here we are having this news and it should be mocked and we should not be giving jeremy any more credit it's

Annalise 54:22

it's like a big it's a big ploy to get more people to be like oh he endorsed you i'm gonna endorse you he's just pulling them out no

Carter 54:30

no it's it was a bad tactic he's tired he made a mistake that's

Carter 54:35

that's my okay moving

Annalise 54:37

moving on to our next segment we can keep this one short it's called money money money speaking of that todd hirsch announcement uh we came today when when hirsch was on hand as shannon phillips presented to reporters the ndp's costed platform as

Annalise 54:53

as part of that the ndp unveiled plans to increase the corporate tax rate from eight percent to eleven percent um i don't know There's lots to get into. They had some estimates. Some economists say they're wrong, et cetera, et cetera. This is not a new conversation in Alberta politics. The NDP increased the corporate tax rate from 10% to 12%, and then Kenny cut it to 8%. Even

Annalise 55:19

Even at 11%, NDP are saying it will still be the lowest corporate tax rate in Canada. What are your thoughts, Corey?

Corey 55:28

Yeah, well, let's start with the facts here. at 11 it will be the lowest corporate tax rate in canada if it's implemented eight percent was by far the lowest tax rate in canada but the fact is every other province has higher tax rates and there are companies in other provinces like it's not the only consideration here as we go along the way that the ndp assessed what it would do to revenues though was pretty mechanical and assumed effectively there would be no impact in terms of corporate activity and you know i think that's That's pretty indefensible. I can understand why they simplified their math along those lines. But I am a bit surprised that they, well, because they don't want to say a tax hike could actually reduce economic activity. But there's a simple reality here, right? When you're sitting there in a corporation, particularly a large corporation, because we should also note the

Corey 56:17

the NDP yesterday said

Annalise 56:18

said that they would eliminate

Corey 56:20

eliminate the small business tax. So any income, any company that has an income of below $500,000 is paying

Corey 56:26

provincial corporate tax. There's still a federal corporate tax, right? But if you're

Corey 56:32

you're making more than $500,000 a year, your tax rate would go from 8% to 11% under the NDP plan. But

Corey 56:41

But there is a reality here, right, which is that a lot of these large corporations work on spreadsheets and models and are international in scope. And they're looking for their best return on investment. And they're sitting there and saying, I've got three potential investment opportunities. One is in Calgary, one is in Toronto, and one is in Abu Dhabi. And maybe Toronto has higher income tax rates, but for other reasons, it has a higher return on investment. investment maybe the one in Abu Dhabi is looking pretty good and maybe the one in Calgary would on the margins have been the one selected at eight percent corporate tax rate because that's going to get you x number of million additional dollars on a big project but at 11 it's not and it goes to Toronto or Abu Dhabi that's that's a possibility and that's a reality in a global world that you have to contend with and that's one of the challenges with corporate tax rates and why provinces sort of race each other to the bottom on these particular metrics right that's just the the reality of life, and we can't pretend otherwise.

Corey 57:35

Now, maximizing the number of corporate dollars that come in and corporate investments is not everything. And we're also considering all sorts of other considerations from a societal perspective. And maybe rather than that project that we could have had instead of Abu Dhabi, we'd rather pay for doctors and nurses. That's a legitimate policy decision, too. But I guess what I want to underline is

Corey 57:56

there was not really any kind of recognition that there were potential consequences to raising the You

Carter 58:00

You know, you know, this idea that there's going to be a consequence for being the lowest is kind of it's just pushing my incredulity a little bit. I mean,

Corey 58:08

mean, you you have a be calm, you are aware of the things that I have just Yes,

Carter 58:12

Yes, I am aware of them. And here's what I understand. Canada is different than other markets. But in in Alberta, the

Carter 58:19

the lowest is the lowest. I mean, not only do we have the lowest income tax for corporations, we also have the lowest tax rates for for, for, for residents, right?

Corey 58:30

Well, that says nothing about your return on investment. If you're a corporation sitting

Corey 58:35

multinational trying to... It does say something about your return

Carter 58:36

investment. No. Because your return on investment is going to be tied to how much you have to compensate your employees. Oh,

Corey 58:42

Oh, and compensation's lower in Alberta. Is

Carter 58:44

Is that your understanding of the compensation? No, it's actually higher.

Carter 58:51

might we have to offset

Carter 58:53

if we're looking at a corporation? Lowest in Canada? Good enough for me. Good enough for me. Good enough for Annalise. But no. Mr. Fucking I've got an MBA is all Mr. Pro business. All of a sudden, what happened to the orange? Corey, where's orange? Corey, the

Carter 59:10

orange apologist. God, I love that guy. That guy was so smart. This guy's a dick.

Carter 59:18

here's the thing with

Carter 59:19

with the lowest tax rate period, but you have to make money off of taxes. We are over relying on our business sector, on our, on our issues.

Corey 59:30

yeah so i said all that i said you can buy a policy decision actually decide it's more important to have the government revenue but this is said all the

Carter 59:40

the lowest and we need don't deny i i want us to be the lowest by a percent not the lowest by what kenny had which is the lowest by like 15

Corey 59:50

15 well so that's so bloody parochial as though we don't live in a world of eight billion people and markets all

Corey 59:56

over the world you're

Corey 59:57

you're a child and you're a child of apparently an era where there is no trade and there are

Carter 1:00:02

are no considerations like

Carter 1:00:05

oh my you know what the people on the discord are going to eat you alive let's do

Corey 1:00:08

do a hard turn here let's do a hard hey annalise what's

Annalise 1:00:12

no i'm i'm enjoying this and i wish there was video because cory's body language did you see how he moved right in front of the screen see how i leaned forward he leaned forward so much he took your forehead thing oh i know

Annalise 1:00:24

know that was good no actually

Annalise 1:00:26

and his hands were just waving that was really you

Carter 1:00:29

you know what it reminds me of this time i was with these other two people and they really took matters into their own hands

Corey 1:00:36

get to okay nobody

Corey 1:00:38

nobody likes you you're

Corey 1:00:40

you're you were gonna have the discord on your side you've thrown that all away now you've thrown it away let

Corey 1:00:46

let me do a hard turn here i

Corey 1:00:48

talked about the policy let's talk about the politics i

Corey 1:00:52

i i haven't polled personally on this and by personally i I mean, on behalf of, say, the government of Alberta or for a corporate client for some time, a couple of years now, but I have never seen increasing the corporate income tax rate be a loser in isolation when you poll on it. People generally think, if it doesn't hit me, it's a good tax. If it does hit me, it's a bad tax. That's as simple as people are about this. And I just, in isolation, there's no way that corporate income tax increases are a loser. They're just not. And so the UCP's job now is to tie it to something that's a winner, which is why you're seeing them immediately spring to kills jobs. And these are job creators that you're now putting consequences on. But I just don't think it's going to work because it's never worked before. for yeah

Carter 1:01:37

yeah i mean we've done a bunch of surveys we've done a bunch of data analysis that shows that you know it was we

Carter 1:01:43

we being me and cory uh when we were back in

Annalise 1:01:47

in our consulting days and you could you

Carter 1:01:51

mean as long as it's them and not me that's paying taxes yeah

Carter 1:01:55

people love increasing their tax load their tax burden um because they're the ones getting away with murder and i'm the one who has to pay my taxes and they've got all these loopholes and they've got all these opportunities and they've got all these tax lawyers to minimize their taxes and i have to go to h&r block and h&r block charges me a bunch of money and i still have to pay more that's

Corey 1:02:21

you know who other

Carter 1:02:21

other people you know who wants

Corey 1:02:24

you you know what everybody thinks uh should happen to the person you raise personal income taxes nope unless they make a dollar more more than me, then

Corey 1:02:33

That's basically what people think when you poll on these particular matters, which is why you can kind of triangulate if you're a government and say, well, you know, 80% of the population's making less than, you know, a household income of $125,000 or whatever it is. I'm so rusty on these numbers. So we'll just set the number there. And yeah, 20% will be mad and the other 80% will think this is great. Yeah.

Annalise 1:02:53

Yeah. So the UCP line, and you talked about this, Corey, but they're saying this proposed tax hike is an investment killer. It's a job killer, that sort of language do you think that has legs do just does that work i

Corey 1:03:06

mean it's better than just saying we don't think big corporations should have to pay more taxes right um and so i guess points to them on that particular moment but realistically they are now wrestling over the way that this is going to be framed and the natural inclination of people is to say yeah make corporations pay more money and so no i don't think it'll fundamentally work however that said even if it's a losing issue for them it might be less of a losing issue and we've talked about this in a few cases sometimes it's okay to be on a losing issue if it's less losing and if it gets people not talking about daniel smith's nazi comments if it gets people not talking about her comments about privatizing health care and it gets them onto the economic ground where people generally trust the ucp anyhow you can probably take that hit and be okay and you're probably better off talking about a tax that's popular than you are talking about nazi comments that are universally unpopular so in that sense i think it could still potentially be a winner for the ucp okay

Annalise 1:04:04

okay let's move on to our lightning round um don't sound so excited again we talk

Carter 1:04:12

went over an hour i know we're over an hour but just

Annalise 1:04:17

did you see how long did you see how long we went last episode carter i know that was for you it was

Corey 1:04:21

was it was a long time that

Annalise 1:04:23

that that was was for you i

Carter 1:04:24

listened to it um when i was planting my garden what

Annalise 1:04:27

what what did you think about is

Corey 1:04:28

is that like a euphemism about group sex it's

Carter 1:04:31

it's important to have multiple stocks but not too many stocks you know what i mean okay i

Annalise 1:04:37

don't okay first question quickly janet brown poll uh don braid had a column about janet brown's latest polling uh just super lightning round i got several texts being like what do you make of this what is your what is your answer to to what do you make of the leaked Janet Brown poll that was in Don Brady's column quickly, Stephen Carter? I

Carter 1:05:00

I think that, you know, she did two polls, right? And between the two polls, we saw an actual reversal of the outcome. And there was no input that makes sense to reverse the outcome. Like it wasn't like suddenly the UCP campaign started working. Suddenly, you know, the UCP was making promises that people like. I think that sometimes there's just bad polls and i think that janet had a bad pull bold

Annalise 1:05:26

bold bold bold words stephen carter cory hogan she doesn't walk

Carter 1:05:30

walk on water she's a great person but she doesn't walk on water and and uh one out of every 20 poles is shit yeah

Corey 1:05:37

yeah you're you're just like triggering me on so

Carter 1:05:40

so i know i said that actually for you i was

Carter 1:05:42

was just waiting to see if you'd break out in hives okay

Corey 1:05:45

okay let's put a pin in that let's come back to that one out of 20 comment. Cause that's, that's like, that makes, that's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Here's the reality. Uh, there was a poll by David Coletto last week that showed the, like on the weekend that showed the NDP up 10 and everyone said, Holy shit, this is a big thing. This is consequential. And that started a flurry of texts of people saying, do you think this is real? Do you buy it? Uh, as it was already reported in the braid column, this roughly matched the ndp's internal numbers um i have certainly heard rumors that the ucp internals from the weekend were not so different from that particular outcome too but then on monday this must have seemed like manna from heaven for the ucp campaign that came in with a counter narrative here and it was presented and if it was any other pollster people would have discounted it because there was other stuff like you know council put out some quote-unquote polling as well and it also showed the ndp up by about 10 but it's janet brown she is the doyenne of pollsters in this province she does it well she is the gold standard there's a reason why everybody loves janet brown she's just so bloody accurate on these things because she does it the way you're supposed to do it you

Corey 1:06:56

you know with live callers going back to the same numbers multiple times to try

Carter 1:06:59

try to get as close

Corey 1:07:00

close to a probabilistic tired

Carter 1:07:00

tired of listening so tired of listening to how good these polls are all the time just so tired that

Carter 1:07:08

that she gets lucky sometimes no

Corey 1:07:09

no other pollster no other pollster would have gotten the benefit that she got that

Corey 1:07:14

that was like oh we better actually stop we better think about this we better contemplate whether our polls were wrong and and i can't help but note abacus again new numbers like over the past couple days that's not super normal that's abacus saying let's go back out there let's make sure we're not totally out to lunch on this particular one here and um and so that's interesting and it shows that the weaponization of poles is also you know it's alive and well and obviously it was a leaked pole on this particular

Carter 1:07:41

by the ucp but but

Corey 1:07:44

poles follow a normal distribution so when we talk about 19 times out of 20 and this is where it's nails this

Carter 1:07:50

this is the uh lightning round right i just wanted to check yeah

Corey 1:07:53

yeah no i know this is this is the most lightning version of

Corey 1:07:56

i would go for much longer people tend to think of of it as like oh

Corey 1:08:00

oh it's within three percent 19 times out of 20 and so that means it's equally likely to be three percent off this way or three percent off that way and that's not the case it follows a normal curve it's much more likely to be sort of at that center of the curve the answer that's there and then it tapers out to the sides and there is a chance sometimes that you're just way off like you've got a wild outlier it happens it especially happens in this day and age where it's very difficult to get a truly probabilistic sample and you've got to deal with things like who

Corey 1:08:29

who answers the phones and janet brown has been well served by live callers i don't think they failed her yet but she's got to work harder and harder i'm sure to get that probabilistic sample she's always after and i'm sure one of these elections it's just going to fail and it's going to be a selection bias because the only people who answer their phone are going to be of a certain age in a certain demographic right that's just the reality so how

Carter 1:08:50

how is that different than what i said well

Annalise 1:08:53

was smarter and smarter yeah

Carter 1:08:56

know what at least no one like next next

Annalise 1:08:59

round question guys an avid listener of the podcast i'll let you guess who uh they they sent me this uh there was a story in the toronto star i don't know if you've seen it uh the journalist went door knocking with a calgary ndp candidate um long feature very toronto star hey rest of canada here's what's happening in alberta anyways in the story they it's all ndp several pictures from the the ndp candidate the

Annalise 1:09:27

the ucp candidate wasn't

Annalise 1:09:29

wasn't there and that the reporter said the

Annalise 1:09:32

the ucp declined our request to shadow a candidate saying quote it's not fair to voters to put them on the spot lightning

Annalise 1:09:41

lightning round question and and i i've i've been like in the the the campaign right where you get those calls of like hey so-and-so wants to go door knocking what do we do and i've been a journalist who's like i want to go door knocking what uh lightning round should campaigns say yes to to going door knocking with reporters yes

Carter 1:10:02

good answer correct what's the problem

Corey 1:10:04

problem just like if

Corey 1:10:05

the person doesn't want to be interviewed or on camera like they're not gonna be like it's as simple as that yeah

Carter 1:10:10

yeah and you also get to choose where you go no inside

Carter 1:10:13

inside of a riding there's always a place where you're popular and if there's not a place where you're popular choose a different fucking candidate you

Carter 1:10:21

know like there's 87 ridings

Carter 1:10:24

the ucp is going to win one so

Annalise 1:10:27

so are you are you surprised they would say like no can't go door knocking it's not fair to voters to put them on the spot well

Carter 1:10:34

well that's just an can i tell you that's bullshit well

Corey 1:10:36

it's an excuse but steven to your point it's

Corey 1:10:39

it's so unnecessary because you could easily find a place where it would look like everybody's like yeah i hate rachel notley oh my god the last time i lost my business oh it was awful you know god that's so easy to orchestrate oh we're gonna go down this street just so happens that bob's

Carter 1:10:54

bob's on that street

Corey 1:10:54

street yeah sure he's the constituency

Corey 1:10:56

but nobody knows and

Carter 1:10:58

he did that with joe clark we had the national media we went door knocking in calgary center and in 2001 and

Carter 1:11:04

and the national media we did we pre-knocked all these these houses the media is coming the media is coming and we went up and down the street and we door knocked i think six houses and he you know we got the media thing and miraculously everybody was home what a shocker and uh and and they all liked your good oh my god and we were putting up signs and it was all done and then the

Corey 1:11:27

the media were like it was so easy because you could use the same holes for the

Carter 1:11:32

the media is like okay we're done thank you very much and we were like gone

Carter 1:11:35

gone didn't door knock another fucking door for that whole campaign yeah

Corey 1:11:40

yeah so here's the thing it

Corey 1:11:43

it actually says something pretty bad about the ucp campaign that they've got such a bunker mentality that they're not willing to do those particular things and they're worried about what would happen because the only thing i can see is they think it's such an uncontrolled environment it might be a bad story for them and it's you know that when you start getting that kind of not

Annalise 1:12:00

not not that i want to defend it because i think absolutely you should but does it make make a difference that it's a toronto star like is there an argument to be made of like the

Annalise 1:12:08

the resources that this is going to take and who that supports us actually reads the star yeah whatever we're not going to go

Corey 1:12:14

yeah and that's and that's a very good argument actually from a resourcing point of view but i also think the candidates got to go out anyways who gives a crap if you lose half an hour to going to some various doors that you've already been to i don't know i mean i would have done it i would have found a way to do it but but

Carter 1:12:29

reason they're not doing it is because it's the toronto star because it's the corporate media because it's It's not, I'll bet you dollars to donuts they go out with the rebel, right?

Carter 1:12:38

right? Yeah, or the Western standard. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, anybody who isn't really a thinker, they would be happy to go with.

Annalise 1:12:46

Last lightning round question. Guys, I don't know if you've seen the CEO of WestJet. Did you see the tweet that he sent? Okay,

Annalise 1:12:54

I have it up. I'm going to read you guys this tweet. Oh, good. This is from May 15th. So, we regret the union. and then he takes a union has served a strike notice our offer would have made our valued west jet pilots by far the best paid in canada as the union maintains unreasonable expectations we see no alternative than to lock them out as a friday then

Annalise 1:13:17

it ends with like a sad crying face emoji i

Annalise 1:13:23

don't it's like i don't i want to be clear about which one it is that one do you see it's like not the sobbing but like the tear single

Annalise 1:13:32

yeah the single tear so the question

Annalise 1:13:34

question lightning round question should

Annalise 1:13:36

should ceos be allowed to tweet and should they be allowed to use emojis like what do you make of this tweet well

Corey 1:13:45

uh well i think that you shouldn't bargain

Corey 1:13:48

bargain through emojis and like it's just i don't think there was a lot of value in doing that and you know it's always is funny when

Corey 1:13:55

when an organization has to go to a lockout right there's lots of reasons that an organization might consider that um

Corey 1:14:02

um because for example that's how they reset the contract depending on the terms of the contract maybe it's they don't want to deal with rotating strikes they want to inflict the pain on the union because they don't want to have this asymmetry where they're only striking when it's convenient for them lots of reasons why a work stoppage might might be initiated by an employer and uh i can understand the desire of a ceo to to try to say like well we got to get ahead of this we got to make it like we're not the bad guys we got to make it clear it's based on unreasonable demands we don't want to be the villains in this particular story understand that instinct fight

Corey 1:14:35

fight that instinct right um especially if you think that that has to end with you doing you know something like that that might result in in you being so readily a a subject of criticism like you know these are people's livelihoods you're the one doing the lockout the sad emoji is a little bit much it's a little bit much just

Annalise 1:14:53

just a little steven

Carter 1:14:55

this is why we're so happy to partner with flair airlines flair airlines not

Carter 1:15:00

taking where you want to go and

Corey 1:15:03

and then also with an emoji with a single that's

Carter 1:15:05

it was there was an emoji at the end yeah

Annalise 1:15:07

perfect okay we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode also 1063 of The Strategist. My name is Annalise Klingbeil. With you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Transcript