Episode 1086: Chahal Cabal

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1086. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter.

Zain 0:09

Do it, Corey. Do it. Oh, yeah.

Zain 0:13

Look at that. You look like

Zain 0:16

like one of the several second-rate people who attend FolkFest, Corey.

Zain 0:23

Good. Thank you, Zane. It's

Corey 0:25

It's good to be back on a podcast. No, you're not. No, it's okay, though. We're going to just power through that. Am I allowed to call everyone at FolkFest second-rate?

Zain 0:33

mean, they're first- No,

Carter 0:35

No, not everyone. But you know what? I get where you're coming from. Is that something I

Carter 0:39

do? I get where you're coming from.

Zain 0:40

Hey, didn't you guys both go? Oh, hey, it's totally unrelated. Yeah, listen.

Zain 0:44

It's a totally unrelated

Zain 0:46

Did both of you not?

Carter 0:47

not? I had tickets, but

Carter 0:49

but we did not go. So everything worked out for me.

Zain 0:55

That's amazing. So when you have tickets to something, and I assume they're expensive, and

Zain 0:59

and you just don't go, do you try to get rid of these tickets? Do you just not go? Tell me what you do, because does an internal sort of anxiety or panic creep in, Carter, that you've got these

Carter 1:11

seats? It's interesting that you fall into the sunk cost fallacy. Money's spent. Don't want to go now. Fuck off. Done.

Zain 1:20

Carter, you should try to sell those tickets. There have been so many second-rate people on Facebook Marketplace, which is a second-rate platform to buy and sell.

Zain 1:29

They would have wanted those tickets, Carter. So many

Corey 1:33

mean, there's some shots fired at the start of the episode to music festival goers for sure, Zane. I mean,

Zain 1:41

is just such a terrible idea. Yeah.

Zain 1:43

Just being outside. All day. And this comes from, of course, noted indoorsman Zane Velji, who's speaking to you right now, Corey. How was your FolkFest

Corey 1:50

FolkFest experience? Before we were recording, Zane was saying he didn't know how to hike. Yeah.

Corey 1:55

He didn't know how to hike. I do not know how to hike. And Stephen was explaining that

Corey 1:58

that hiking is just walking. And so...

Zain 2:01

Yeah, but there's the incline piece. And that adds a level of uncertainty that I'm not ready for. Okay?

Carter 2:08

Carter? I mean, inclines are tricky.

Zain 2:14

We hit a new high. The sunk cost fallacy on Stephen Carter on this pod. How does that work? Can you explain this to me? That's true. Like, we've invested in him at some point.

Corey 2:24

do now? We keep thinking, like, well, the audience knows his name. I guess he's here. I guess we stuck with him. But maybe that's wrong. I brought the entire audience here,

Carter 2:31

here, guys. Like, just wake up and smell the roses. I am the reason for the podcast. Okay.

Carter 2:37

the fact that you two don't recognize that has always hurt my feelings.

Zain 2:43

Corey, we need I Am The Reason for the podcast shirts right away in the store. We don't even need the specialists. I Am The Reason for the podcast shirts is available.

Zain 2:51

Also, car flags. Just car flags for no reason. Two SKUs. Shirts and car flags, Corey. Tell me about your podcast experience and then I'll move on. Okay?

Corey 3:01

Let's move on to our next segment. No, it's fine. It's fine. The kids were there. The wife was there. there the kids went me and the wife stayed now that sort of sums it up good story

Corey 3:13

riveting thanks man walking

Carter 3:16

last time she's still at the folk fest so i

Carter 3:19

think we've really proven our second class thing right right there no

Carter 3:24

yeah well that was just not gonna listen so yeah that

Zain 3:26

that was that was unnecessary let's move it on to our first first

Carter 3:29

first she was listening i'm worried i'm

Carter 3:31

i'm not that worried just

Zain 3:35

well this isn't a live radio show it's not how it works on a live

Zain 3:38

she's not currently listening she may listen at some point yes can i move it on i

Zain 3:43

our first segment steven carter fine fabulous or

Zain 3:47

you are cranky you seem very cranky

Zain 3:49

cranky well what's what's making you cranky

Carter 3:50

cranky let's explore this before i move on to sleep and now i'm cranky so you guys just got to okay anything

Zain 3:56

anything else going on No, that's it. I'm

Carter 3:57

I'm just old. And if you don't get a good night's sleep when you're old, I'll tell you. I think

Carter 4:02

think I have to go to the bathroom. I may have to stop recording at some point.

Carter 4:06

I'll let you know.

Carter 4:07

I'll give you a hand signal.

Zain 4:08

signal. Okay, well, that's good. Well, most people won't notice. Carter, fine, fabulous, or fucked. That is our first segment on the pod. Corey, it's an oldie, but it's a goodie. It allows us to sort through a potpourri of political news. A large smorgasbord of political news. Can I say that, Corey? I don't think you can say either. I don't know what a smorgasbord is. I think it's smorgasborg.

Carter 4:32

Yeah, not a D. I

Zain 4:33

think it's a board. I think it's a board. I think it's a board of

Carter 4:36

You know what? We're not going to haggle.

Zain 4:38

I spend most of my time – well,

Zain 4:40

well, we're not going to – We'll just say smorgs.

Zain 4:43

It is a smorg of activity. We're going to go through a list of political things, items that have happened in the news, political strategies that have been implemented, political stories that we are now seeing in the headlines. Carter, you guys are going to tell me whether it is fine, fabulous, or fucked for the party in question. And, Corey, let's start here. Let's start locally with a story that is making some headlines here. Calgary Skyview MP George Chahal has written a letter, a scathing letter, on the developments concerning the Calgary Stampede. This, of course, after the Stampede admitted knowing about a culture where sexual assault went unchecked for decades, members of the Young Canadians and the Calgary Stampede. Carter, will you explain? I'll let you explain the story. It's a very intricate story

Carter 5:33

about... They were made aware of sexual harassment and assault that went back to the 1980s with one of their young Canadians instructors. And it took them, as you say, decades to act on it. And finally, the lawsuit has been, right now they've agreed to the wrongdoing. They've not yet settled on the amount that they will be paying. And the Calgary Stampede, I think, here has been quite tarnished by it. But I'll let you get to the fine, fabulous, or fucked part. but that's the basis of the story is that they've known they they knew about it for decades and they took exactly zero action to protect children uh i think is the is the crux of it uh unless cory you know you want to add anything but i think that that's got uh the core elements of the story

Corey 6:22

cory did you want to add anything well uh

Corey 6:24

i well i don't know it it's

Corey 6:27

it's obviously a bad scene there's no disputing that i think that we do need to acknowledge there's a difference between acknowledging kind of corporate culpability and the culpability of the people that are there right now and there is an argument to be made that the people there right now are trying to do right and trying to move forward and trying to do good and this organization of course is more than just one individual or one set of actors and so i think this is where we get into the challenge of this particular matter when you assess the actions of George Chahal, which I think you're teeing up here, you know. I

Zain 7:03

up. So thank you to both of you for kind of adding color to that story, adding some context to this story. Before I get to Chahal, can I talk about this Calgary Stampede? And my question starts with you, Stephen Carter. Fine, fabulous, or fucked? Let's talk about the actors of today, right? This is an incident that happened years ago, spanning over a decade. will easily get into the territory of speculation. I love that usually. I don't want to get onto it in this particular story. So let's talk about the actors of today, Carter. Fine, fabulous, or fucked in your mind that the Calgary Stampede releases this statement, this admission of culpability right after the Stampede, not doing it before, right after. Is that fine, fabulous, or fucked in your mind? Put your strategy hat on. I

Carter 7:45

I mean, as a strategist, I think you have to acknowledge acknowledge that it is far better to do it after the stampede than it is to do it before the stampede. You know, they have enough controversy that swirls around the stampede every year without adding this to it. So from a strategic point of view, I think that it's fine. And I might even go so far as to say fabulous when thinking of the point of view that Corey's bringing forward, which is that this is a group of people who may or may not be individually responsible because you know they they weren't sitting at the control panel when this happened over the over the past decades but um so as the individuals to to accept culpability uh to do the right thing is is probably fabulous um but there's going to be a pretty big bite that hangs in the air over this because of um the culture that had to exist uh for this to to occur for the period in which it did.

Zain 8:45

Corey, same question to you about the stampede, their communication strategy here, releasing this note, this apology, this admission right on the heels of a near record-breaking stampede. Fied, fabulous, or fucked in your mind?

Corey 9:01

Well, again, if you're talking from a strategy point of view, I tend to think it's fine, or maybe even a quote-unquote fabulous strategy here. And it's a funny word to use in the context of the allegations and everything going on i just i want to underline that but

Corey 9:16

you would be thinking in in the sense of you have optionality as to when this occurs you want to do it in a way that damages the the corporate institution that is the stampede the least that is the furthest away from the stampede so you have time to recover and people to contextualize it and think about things differently and and maybe even see some of your follow-on actions in terms of the things you are going to do as an organization to both atone for what was occurring, how you're going to make sure something like this never happens again, right? To have the most time possible to do that, you do that as far away from the stampede as possible, which is right after the stampede. So it makes a ton of sense from a strategy point of view. I have to confess, I don't know enough. I would feel maybe a little bit differently about it if by delaying it, there were some significant ramifications besides that delaying of justice by a week or two weeks or whatnot, or maybe they've been holding on to this for four months. I just don't know enough about that, Zane. I don't know enough about the chronology behind there. But let's just assume they had a choice between a week before and a week after, and the facts are what the facts are.

Corey 10:21

Yeah, I mean, that's not bad corporate strategy. That's not. And

Zain 10:25

And this is what I wanted to discuss, right? We don't know, to your point, Corey, the context. But in this case, let's just make the assumption that they had the choice here, because this This kind of gets into a strategy question that I think is interesting. When your strategy is so obvious to

Zain 10:39

to this point, being like, of course they released this after the stampede, right? Of course they released this after the 10-day festival where they raked in the money, the sponsorship, you know, the sponsors felt good. They give themselves 51 weeks to rebuild trust to next year's event. When the strategy is so crystal clear, does it come at a cost when it's like it's both artful but also just so nakedly obvious? You know what I'm trying to say? Like I'm trying to say that if people can see it as like, oh, that kind of makes you feel something, you know? Yeah.

Corey 11:10

Yeah. I mean, they will pay a price for the cynicism of the move. But I think that maybe

Corey 11:16

maybe not a massive price. And I think that you really have to be one of the people who follows this very closely in order to kind of feel that. And I'm certain that there are stakeholders and partners who will be more aware of this, who will feel a little bit less good, I think. But for the general public, I suspect that this will all be in this miasma of these events occurred around this time. And a year has passed since then, by the time the next stampede comes along.

Zain 11:41

Carter, Corey's nailed it in my mind. Cynicism was the word I was looking for. I just couldn't get there. But I kind of described that feeling. The cost that they pay for that cynicism, like, is it high from a pure strategy perspective? Or do you feel like the strategy of doing it right after, like, even if it's naked, obvious, cynical, whatever people would want, opportunistic, is the right play every day?

Carter 12:01

day? Yeah, I mean, I think there's been, if you think back over the course of years, you will find that there's a tremendous

Carter 12:05

tremendous number of corporations that operate in this kind of cynical space. ace because it's the right play strategically. We need more time. Let's not do it this week. Let's do it next week. This type of thing happens all the time in corporate worlds as well as political worlds. And the cynicism, yeah, I mean, people may say, you know, you should have done it before. But the truth is that the good strategies don't need to be unique strategies, right? The good strategies are sometimes just the naked plays because you're you're dealing with a giant bag of shit you know

Carter 12:43

know you're dealing with a giant bag of shit so the only way you're going to you know be able to manage this is just to to do the giant bag of shit strategy and that appears to me to be what what they're doing move it away from your core product as much as possible um you know apologize uh get it out of the way don't hold back don't um don't

Carter 13:04

don't don't you know push you know don't you don't use soft words use hard words and then hope that the uh the great healer of time um comes in and heals things because ultimately we've seen with just about every quote-unquote corporate sin i mean we don't see this with individual sins necessarily but with corporate sins most are forgotten and forgiven um over the course of time and time does heal so you

Carter 13:31

you know it's hard not to think that that's a good strategy when it's worked so frequently cory

Zain 13:37

cory finish this off on here before i go to the shahal piece yeah

Corey 13:41

yeah as a thought exercise imagine that the stampede had decided to release this admission of culpability two weeks before the start of the the stampede

Corey 13:50

think of the chaos that would create uh for the organization and i'm sure people said and i'm sure some

Corey 13:56

some even believed it uh think of the chaos that would create for partners of the calgary stampede as well who would all of a sudden have to make a lot of decisions at the drop of a hat after significant investments as to how they were going to proceed with the stampede at that particular moment the reality is if they had that optionality they were never going to go right before the stampede and there are reads of it that that was actually the right move for a lot lot of people involved. The Stampede, for those not in Calgary, is a bit of an all-encompassing event. And there are significant outlays by, you know, the agriculture industry, by corporate Calgary, by partners more generally, as they invest in this community building time. And if you've got this cloud over it, and those investments all of a sudden become these big liabilities, that's a problem for a lot of people. And I can hear people say, and I'm not sure I entirely entirely disagree. Yeah, but you know, you got to pay the piper. And there were there were significant wrongdoings that were done here. But realistically, if your goal is to minimize harm writ large, and

Corey 14:57

and it's we're talking two weeks difference, three weeks difference, well, then you're going to wait those three weeks every time. That's the reality. You know, and maybe that leads to some cynical, or, you know, views, and maybe that invites the backlash, such as the thing I'm sure we're going to get to, where, you know, a Calgary MP suggests that funding should be dropped for the Stampede, federal funding. But, you know, there are some practical considerations there.

Zain 15:25

Okay, let's get into that. So the question really is on the heels of this, where the Stampede finally acknowledges, right on the heels of this year's Stampede, that this decades-long history of abuse by this individual who was imprisoned in 2018, we apologize and we take responsibility for the stampede admits that carter uh on the heels of this year's stampede last week so this past thursday then calgary skyview mp george shahal writes this one pager a letter that says not a single taxpayer dollar should support an organization that has shown shown such blatant disregard for the well-being of our youth federal funding should only be reconsidered when the victims themselves feel the genuine accountability and reconciliation conciliation have incurred. The Calgary Stampede must recognize that they have lost trust of many Calgarians. And then he goes on to say that I'll be encouraging my federal colleagues within the government to not fund the Calgary Stampede. And for context, it's about two million bucks a year that the feds kind of cough up to the Calgary Stampede. Carter, the question top line is very simple. It's the same one that I asked for the first question and for everything I'll ask going forward. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, this letter by George Chahal. I

Carter 16:37

I think it's fabulous. I think that I'm shocked that he's the only one who's done it. I am flummoxed

Carter 16:44

flummoxed that there seems to be some sort of a feeling that this was in fact controversial. It doesn't make sense to me that it is. I've never seen a situation where standing up and demanding better of an organization that has committed this type of a sin, whether it be corporate or whether it be the people who are there today or not. I think that Corey's made a good point about that, that the people who are there today may not be the people who were there in the past. But this

Carter 17:12

this is a significant problem. If we were talking about sport, which we've talked about so many times in the past, organizations don't get a free pass. they don't get a free pass. And, you

Carter 17:25

you know, I talked about Alpine Canada losing sponsorship when they had the drunk driving incident. They also lost sponsorship when they had their sexual harassment and sexual improper, impropriety issues.

Carter 17:41

it was the right, you know, the right thing to do is that the organization needs to show that they've learned from it. And And

Carter 17:48

standing up and saying that there is a way out for the stampede, the stampede's way out is to is to win over and

Carter 17:55

and to work with the people who have been aggrieved and who've been impacted by this terrible situation. And all they need to do is get those people to say, you know what, it's

Carter 18:08

it's the stampede has made the proper amends. The stampede has done the job that they need to do. I don't think that that's too high a hurdle. and i am shocked that that george sahal right now is seemingly on an island where's joe tigandek i mean we took on the stampede during her campaign um for for far lesser sins than this i must tell you but she you know what did she know about this i i mean i'm dying to know who knew what when uh because she was a board of she was a director of the organization i'd love to know what she knew what was going on and then not just her but every politician that sat on the board right now courtney Courtney, um, Penner is a board member. What did she know? And when did she know it? Um, you know, Dan, Dan, uh, Dan McLean's a board member. I'd love to know what was going on because we're going to sit behind these corporate shields and everybody's going to say, I can't talk about it. And you know what? That's not good enough for me.

Zain 19:04

Corey, this letter by George Chahal, I gave you a snippet of it, um, uh, a moment ago, just before Carter's answer. In your mind, fine, fabulous, or fucked?

Corey 19:13

um i honestly don't know how i feel about it for a little bit more context is two million dollars federal funding the stampede is about 150 million dollars a year yeah you know revenue and expenses right just thanks for adding that that's

Corey 19:29

big i mean that's the stampede proper and then there's all of the events that go around it um but

Corey 19:34

but we're talking at the end of the day probably between one and two percent well

Carter 19:38

well i disagree with that cory there's The capital funds, there are capital funds that flow too, and the capital funds are significant. If you took away the capital funding for the BMO Center, the BMO Center doesn't get built.

Corey 19:51

yeah fair ball and i think that this is actually one of the things where does the stampede end and where does it begin and are we talking about the event and are we talking about the the stampede grounds and what are we talking about is a major question uh made muddier still by the kind of quasi-public quasi-not nature of the calgary stampede right and so i which was not to kind of diminish the potential of the federal threat or whatnot i just wanted to provide a little bit of context, you know, especially for people who might not be aware of the size or scale of the stampede. So I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I think that that came out so quickly after the fact base. I wonder if George Chahal had all of his facts or if he'd really thought about it. It felt very shoot from the hip. And, you know, it was based on a righteous indignation that was legitimate, right? Absolutely legitimate what was occurring here. But I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this. I really am not because I don't

Corey 20:54

don't love the idea of providing vetoes to individual people for government policy. I think the reality of a lot of our justice system is I want the stampede to do right by them. I also am mindful that we don't often let victims determine when the punishment is enough for a lot of other reasons, right? Because of the other consequences that are there. So I don't love the precedent, even though it seems fairly innocuous in this particular moment, and at this particular fork in the road. uh

Corey 21:25

uh but also i'm kind of pissed at how the stampede has felt uh and acted and dealt with this thing over decades and uh well i don't have the entire set of facts and none of us really do uh right now i'm pretty pissed with the facts that i do have available and and the fact that this occurred for so long uh with warnings having been given to the stampede with complaints having gone forward forward and nothing have occurred so i sort of understand that reaction too so

Corey 21:54

so i don't know saying i don't know how i feel about it i i think it's fine because it's human i think it's it's a reaction that many of us had at this moment saying well this is unacceptable and i'm not sure it's enough but i also don't

Corey 22:09

i don't i just like because of the times between it and his letter i just can't believe that he had all of the facts that were necessary to make such statements and such declarations can we

Zain 22:19

we examine that part in a second and maybe examine the other part where you talked about the human moment that's what's really fascinating to me here um carter which is that

Zain 22:29

at what point like this this competition that we have between being strategic and then just bottling up a vibe and nailing it you

Zain 22:37

what i mean and in this way georgia hall probably said what a lot of people were thinking and i think a lot of the response that we got on our i messages and whatsapps were like yep feeling the same way or like finally someone said it political

Zain 22:50

political points for shooting from the hip even if you don't have your full fact base but just bottling up a vibe like he did do you feel like he'll win this on straight and vibe may not be the right word so let me just keep using it but do you think he could win this if and if win i don't mean from a pure political sense now right like do you feel like this is a political victory from him just because he bottled up a moment and a feeling that was out there that no one else was saying And it really doesn't matter if his fact base is there or if Corey's additional point that he mentioned about are the same people around, the governance structure is different, the board directors who are volunteers are different. None of that really matters if you can bottle up a moment. Is that true, Carter? Totally

Carter 23:30

Totally true, especially for politicians. I mean, we see it all the time when people are running. You know, this Paul Bernardo being transferred to a medium security prison is exactly that, right? Right. All of a sudden, everybody's really upset that Paul Bernardo is being transferred to medium security prison. Well, do you really want the justice minister stepping in and administering their own justice? Like, I think that the shoot from the hip is really dangerous. But when you captures emotion like that, when it captures the right wrong immediate instinct of the human race in general, then you're doing really well with your shoot from your. yes and i think that this you know this is why one of the reasons i'm a little bit confused to be honest is that i don't think that right you know everybody like i'm i'm

Carter 24:18

i'm on side with this i think this is great because i think that let me ask you

Zain 24:22

you this is a different way carter do you feel like do

Zain 24:25

do you feel like downside risk for a politician is limited if they jumped in i

Carter 24:29

i think that it is i think that you when was the last time we saw a politician being on the wrong side

Carter 24:34

by trying to say that people shouldn't abuse children and that organizations that facilitate or protect people who abuse children should in some fashion be held accountable. I don't know that we've ever had a situation where there's been an organization that's been seen to be accountable for this type of behavior and a politician calls them out and the population goes, I don't know, I think the stampede's on the right side of this. I mean, I just don't think that there's a huge core of people thinking that way. So but I could be wrong because no one else is doing it. It's just George.

Zain 25:14

Corey, talk to me about bottling up a moment, right? Like meeting the vibe check of the room where the room here maybe represents a broader community. Could Shahal just politically

Zain 25:24

politically win based on that alone? And the fact base is almost secondary.

Corey 25:31

he could win on that alone. He could win because it's not a terrible bet to suggest that a corporation is going to follow up and do the wrong thing, because corporations often do because of all of the interests they're trying to balance and because they're often not able to tell their story the way they want to tell it because of all of the different considerations, particularly in a case like this. you know for me um his risk is that facts come out that actually really undercut it where perhaps for example victims say you

Corey 26:03

you know what the stampede has been really good working with us throughout all of this and we worked on this plan and all of this since like since here they were terrible before them but the current board has been really really

Corey 26:13

really solid or whatnot or if it's a situation where for example uh you know additional uh you know facts come out that really just underline that this board is trying to do the right thing and and has been trying to do everything exactly as they need to be doing it i think this is where these first two questions of yours collide with each other though right you know you know if you had a board that was seized with doing the right thing an organization seized with doing the right thing come hell or high water and

Corey 26:42

and then they make a calculation to wait after stampede you know it suggests calculations not entirely removed removed you know the defense of the corporation is not entirely removed right that's what makes it i think i i think in some ways that invites the sort of response that george shaw had because it's like here we go right you waited until just after the stampede to do this thing that's not enough for me this admission of guilt i want real changes and and i guess that's the thing george is assuming there haven't been real changes and maybe he knows but because the speed of it i suggest or Or I suspect he doesn't 100% know the state

Carter 27:17

state of things right now. Zane, do you mind if I take the host role for a second? Carter, jump in here.

Carter 27:20

So I'll ask you two, okay? Yeah, that's fine. So the question is, what should he do? I mean, so should there be hearings into this? Should they dig in? Should they—how much extra activity could be done in order for this to actually make sense for George Shahal, Mr. Hogan?

Corey 27:41

Well, let me ask you this. Hold

Corey 27:42

on. let me ask you what you i know what the fuck

Carter 27:46

fuck this is the question

Carter 27:46

podcast all of a sudden i'm gonna retort i'm

Corey 27:49

i'm gonna rhetorically he's gonna do the

Zain 27:50

the court he's gonna be the

Zain 27:51

the cory hogan answer with the questions so that we don't feel dumb have you not heard of this before he does it

Corey 27:56

it all the time

Zain 27:58

fucking time it's annoying as shit uh but it's his only move

Corey 28:02

move so that's what i do it's my only play

Corey 28:06

the play for george shahal was exactly that steven to say this raises is serious questions and concerns and i'm calling for an inquiry right now and i'm calling for no money to be sent from the federal government until an inquiry has been called right

Carter 28:21

that doesn't even need to be an inquiry right it can just be a committee hearing it doesn't have to have all of the bells and whistles that's yeah

Corey 28:26

yeah it doesn't need to be a inquiries act inquiry that's not actually what i was suggesting yeah i i think until we get to the bottom of this until we look at this i'm saying no more federal money should go that

Corey 28:37

that might have been a little more Or I might feel a lot better about

Carter 28:40

that one. Well, it still can be on the table. Tell me about this then. The next step is still fairly unwritten in George's book.

Corey 28:46

Except he did actually define what the Stampede needs to do. And he defined

Zain 28:51

defined what the Stampede needs to do. But Carter, has he also defined what success for his play means as well? By saying, I'm going to use my advocacy. I'm paraphrasing for George, but it's in this vein. I'm going to use my advocacy power to lobby my colleagues to not put a single dollar into the Calgary Stampede until this bar has been hit. When we talk about political strategy, we have to do risk calculations all the time. That's what I've been spending a lot of time in this conversation on risk. What is the risk to George that he's unsuccessful in the feds and stopping his federal colleagues, right? He's not a cabinet minister, recent cabinet shuffle, right? He's a voice here in Calgary, a powerful one. But like when we talk about risk exposure, when he puts out that letter, He might win on vibe check, which we all largely agree. He may or may not win on fact base, TBD. But what risk has he now exposed on himself around his political both might and, frankly, fallibility if he can't persuade his federal colleagues? I don't

Carter 29:50

don't think that's actually the concern. I think the concern is what we lovingly refer to in Calgary as the Stampede Mafia. You

Carter 29:57

You know, the problem is that the group of people who run Calgary, that decide that Calgary is going to look a certain way and sound a certain way and be a certain way, they are very often associated with the Stampede. It was a big thing when Jyoti Gandek took on the Stampede, because there was an open question as to whether or not that would be a successful strategy, because the Stampede is so fucking powerful. powerful um so you know i i'm kind of i don't think i only i think the only risk that george has is in terms of all politics are local and maybe he has a harder time raising money because the stampede mafia close ranks and and try and protect um the organization but that's to me I think that that's a marginal issue, because I don't think that the Shahal cabal of power have ever relied upon the stampede as a center of power for them.

Zain 31:02

Shahal cabal stickers will soon be available in the store, Corey.

Zain 31:09

Do we also owe the debate, Shahal cabal? I think we

Zain 31:12

We will now. I'd be like, great, shawlkabal.ca. Let's get all versions and all spellings of that. Corey, talk to me about Georgia's risk here. This is an MP in Calgary who's well-liked, who's been a voice on many issues, former city councillor, right? So he has a decent understanding of the municipal side here when Carter mentions all politics being local, right? So he's got that local bent.

Zain 31:38

But his risk, he laid out what success looks like.

Zain 31:42

But does anyone care, Corey?

Corey 31:44

so yeah i i really desperately want to talk about carter's stampede mafia thing too but maybe i'll come back to that back to that

Corey 31:52

i haven't got a question that i have the question i have is it is what is he doing he will probably fail he will bloody his party this will not likely occur and there are so many so many challenges with it in terms of his potential risks and exposures across the board and it's hard not to note that this also occurred basically contemporaneously with him not being put into cabinet and i you know do

Corey 32:17

do you think there's a relationship there you

Corey 32:19

you think well i'm saying right now i i think he was feeling some feelings and i just hope he wasn't clouded in his judgment as he decided to take this action because for me it's not remotely clear what the end game is here that leaves him up right up with the liberals up with the public in calgary up and and even if he kind of rides a wave of public sentiment saying yeah what is the stampede he doing i'm really mad at them f those guys even if that is the zeitgeist even if he's captured it first and he's done that to what end like what is he going to do with it like where does he take it from here and so i you know i i i mean this not rhetorically i don't know what he's doing with this particular one all

Carter 32:59

i think it's the simplest thing in the world i think that it's it's a simple strategy of i will stand up for victims of uh of sexual abuse because in the history of politics that has never been a bad strategy um

Corey 33:16

listen i get i again i think you could write a version of that letter that did that without the things he put in there that in my opinion are kind of traps for him or the liberals or both like that's what i don't yeah

Carter 33:28

yeah i mean the traps were you know the trap is the outcome right the trap uh i

Carter 33:32

i think the trap that cory's referring to is that until such time as this happens we will not do that which is provide money to the stampede he doesn't control he doesn't control he doesn't control that

Corey 33:45

that you know right

Carter 33:45

right that's so he has built a trap in for himself on saying a consequence that he doesn't control i don't think that it matters in the overall scheme of things but if you were a more cautious politician uh if you didn't want to um like there is a way to write the scathing part of the letter without worrying about the the how do they get how does this get resolved yeah

Zain 34:10

yeah that's what i'm saying you know what's interesting about this though it kind of like from if we zoom out from a political strategy perspective the question i have is when do we announce success or failure on george's letter and i'd say the answer is as soon as it comes out because it's like an emotional reaction that people have being like i like it or i don't like it this is good or bad and like the The question is ultimately, will we have any follow through eight months from now, 11 months from now, leading up to June being like, hey, did the feds ever fund stampeding? Oh, they did. Well, in that case, fuck Georgia. No. Tell me

Corey 34:41

me about this. I think you're wrong. I think you're wrong. Here's the challenge. Debate

Zain 34:45

Debate me. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Corey 34:47

Imagine, imagine the distant future, 2024. George Chihal has his stampede breakfast.

Corey 34:57

Questions, anyone? Right? Like, I mean, this is the challenge. If you are going to be a Calgary MP and to declare war like this with the stampede without giving yourself a clear out that you control, like, there's a lot of problems there. There's a lot of challenges. You know what, though? As we say, there's a lot of hairs on there. It would be fascinating. Just quick,

Zain 35:12

quick, before Carter jumps in, I should mention, just Carter, before you jump in, this episode is, of course, brought to you by George Chahal's 2024 Stampede Breakfast, RSVP Today at chahalcabal.ca. Carter, you wanted to jump in on this. Yeah,

Carter 35:26

Yeah, I was just going to say, imagine a situation where he cancels his Stampede breakfast in 2024 because it hasn't been resolved.

Corey 35:34

But that also sucks for him because then he's just kicked into the headlines

Carter 35:39

He has a community breakfast where he serves pancakes to everybody and he says, you know what? In good conscience, in good conscience.

Corey 35:48

So he's fucking fighting with his own liberal party

Corey 35:50

at this point? Like he's bringing the fight back to

Carter 35:53

liberals? By then, I mean, I think he can do something. I don't think he needs to be the guy who's hosting the liberal stampede breakfast.

Corey 36:02

Ah, geez. Like, okay. But, you know, the point I would make is it's pretty tough to be a Calgary politician and ignore the Calgary stampede, even if you don't want to go to war.

Corey 36:14

war. No, you'd have to go to war. That's really

Zain 36:15

I think that that's the only solution. Okay, and this goes to the mafia question. Corey, give me your thoughts on the mafia sort of element that Carter's brought in, if you have anything

Zain 36:24

on that. And then I want to move on because we're 36 minutes in and two questions deep.

Corey 36:28

Yeah, the called by Carter Stampede Mafia, I think was more of a thing back in the day. You know, there is certainly a group of people who think that they run the city that is connected to the boosterism activities that gravitate around the Calgary Stampede. I'm certainly not disputing that. But

Corey 36:45

But I don't think they run the city anymore. I think if they ran the city, Jeff Davison would be mayor of Calgary instead of the fellow who came in third. Right? It's not really how Calgary runs anymore. Calgary runs on different engines. And George Chahal represents one of those engines. Kind of this progressive politics, modern and outtake, diverse communities. communities. That's a version of Calgary that also exists and has an engine now. Just as there's an engine of populist right-wing politics, and just as there are other engines all over the city with all sorts of interests, it's way less unidimensional. And, you know, this idea of the so-called Stampede Mafia, so-called by Stephen, I will mention. I

Corey 37:29

just don't think it's the same thing that it was.

Zain 37:33

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to move it. Can I answer

Carter 37:34

answer to that fine

Zain 37:36

yeah you can you can be very kind

Carter 37:37

kind to me um

Zain 37:40

yeah okay i have that's my pushback

Carter 37:42

pushback i'm moving i've taken the calls right these it's i totally agree with cory yeah you know these these the the organization does not have the strength that it once did um but the people who are involved in the organization think that it does and that's where i think uh a lot of the problems here are i mean i think that that's one of the reasons frankly that they thought that they could get away with this for as long as they did. And the fact that they did get away with this for multiple decades shows that there is a culture of secrecy around the Stampede that's not healthy for any organization. But I will tell you that when they called me and tried to tell me that we were going to lose the election for campaigning against them, I said, I'm not sure which Calgary Stampede you think you are, but you're not the one that I'm going to be fighting against.

Zain 38:31

uh we're going to leave that particular one there carter we're moving on to our next question before we do uh this this particular uh question was brought to us by uh flare airlines uh no

Corey 38:41

no engines uh cory it wasn't but

Corey 38:43

but it was though yeah i'm literally reading

Zain 38:46

reading the script they sent me

Zain 38:47

they're not one of the engines carter they're

Zain 38:49

they're not one of the engines cory fine fabulous or fucked i'm starting with you with this one the ontario liberals cory Corey, have won a pair of by-elections, including snagging a previous progressive conservative seat. This is a party that struggled to get into third place, but they win a pair of by-elections. From your perspective, Corey, they've of course got an ongoing leadership race, I should mention for context, that's happening currently in the moment. Fine? Fabulous? Or or fucked, for the Ontario Provincial Liberals?

Corey 39:21

Probably fabulous. I don't myself personally over-interpret this as like the Liberals are back in a big way. They had somebody, they had a very powerful candidate, you know, a former MP who runs. It was, you know, in the other case, a seat that they'd held. So like no big in that sense. But, you know, certainly that's great. It's better to win by elections than lose them. And well, when I last checked, and I should have looked this up again, the NDP were doing pretty strong in southwestern Ontario, doing stronger than they have historically done. No one's talking about that. Everyone's talking about the fact that the Liberals got both seats. And it's better to win than to lose. And it will certainly help in their ongoing attempt to become like the opposition in waiting, the government in waiting. It's funny, because they're in third place. But they're trying to leapfrog.

Zain 40:11

leapfrog. And not even official party status yet. Still,

Corey 40:13

Still, with the gains,

Zain 40:13

gains, not official party status. Carter, in your mind, fine, fabulous, or fucked? They snagged these

Zain 40:17

these two seats. Listen,

Carter 40:17

Listen, how am I going to go against Corey when he's come up with a staggering insight that it is better to win than to lose? Corey,

Carter 40:26

I take, I dot, you know, my hat is off to you, my friend. That is, I

Carter 40:32

I can't, I have nothing to follow up on. So, Corey. I

Corey 40:35

I mean, we have created so much merchandise

Carter 40:36

merchandise this episode. It's so good.

Carter 40:40

win than to lose my friend you have nailed it today thank you thank you for all of this you're

Zain 40:46

you're welcome you know there's

Zain 40:49

there's a question that is either intriguing or totally useless but i'm going to ask it anyways what

Zain 40:54

what does it mean to you guys

Corey 40:55

guys it's probably useless yeah

Zain 40:56

yeah probably it is once again me hosting this episode not animals um cory what

Carter 41:03

yeah let's give her We

Zain 41:05

a pre-recorded radio show to ask you to do a live call. Hey, Corey, what does it mean to you that they actually net gained a seat without a leader?

Corey 41:18

It is a pretty good validation of the old – I was going to say adage. It's not an adage, right? But here's the thing. When you don't have a leader, you can kind of impart anything into this party. You can believe it's going to be whatever you want it to be. and that is sometimes useful when you've got a by-election coming up because it's it's more like an opposition thing it's a yeah we're gonna fight these guys yeah we're not very happy with ford we're just you know and they seem to be the viable candidate and i think that's the important point here zane the viability of the liberals in the writings not only did they maintain it they strengthened it but like to run a former mp uh to run uh in a writing that you had previously held you're going to be seen as the alternative to uh ford arguably in both cases so yeah this was as much as anything the continued ontario um you know there's doug ford and then there's the other guys and we'll vote for whichever the other guys make sense at any particular moment carter

Zain 42:15

carter do you feel like they may have gained or at least had a slight boost by getting this extra seat because they They didn't have a leader like to Corey's point, like any this this ambitious future reality. It could be anyone. It could be anything actually is a net positive versus having an actual person with baggage and negatives and policy and all those sort of things in place. Do you think not having a leader here helped or are we overstating

Carter 42:43

overstating it? The only parallel I can think of is the by

Carter 42:46

by-election in Calgary-Glenmore that Corey lost, where the wild

Carter 42:55

wild rose wound up picking it up before the leadership was determined.

Carter 43:00

And I think that there is

Carter 43:02

is something to be said for everybody thinks that their person's going to win, so you're really pushing for that person. So I think that it could have meant something. I don't think it's why they won. I don't think that it was the decisive factor. I think that it was Karen McCrin... Yeah, Karen. Let's call her Karen. She won... Karen?

Carter 43:23

Yeah. Karen and Gary. Yeah, thanks. Thanks again.

Carter 43:27

last year. Gary. What

Carter 43:28

his last name, Carter?

Carter 43:31

won because of her more than they won because of who the leader was or is or will be.

Carter 43:42

really hurtful that you guys come after me shahal

Zain 43:43

shahal cabal sounds like a great basketball team if we ever wanted to start one i feel like i feel like i feel like i could play off the bench off shahal cabal carter i'm going to start with the in the next one for uh with you fine fabulous or fucked for the federal liberals we're going to the liberals carter a

Zain 44:02

a bunch of backbench mps spoke spoke on the condition that they not be named the Toronto Star, saying that they're disappointed, that the choices for the new cabinet seem to not be based on hard work, talent, or commitment. We all know that there's a tight circle around the PM. If you're going to convince Canadians, blah, blah, blah. They pretty much said, listen, I didn't get the job. I didn't like the choices.

Zain 44:24

And a bunch of them. It seemed like it wasn't just one or two.

Zain 44:27

Fine, fabulous, or fucked. Let me go for the Trudeau government, that these leaks are coming out uh from from backbenchers active current backbenchers in there

Carter 44:37

there i mean i'm gonna go with fine because it's not it's not fabulous to be sure that this is happening but it is pretty standard um people who don't get a point i'll tell you the

Carter 44:48

the the people who don't get appointed to being a cabinet minister there they are 100 certain you know like if you appoint 40 people to cabinet and there's 40 people not appointed to cabinet those 40 people all believe they should should have been appointed the cabinet. There's no group of people who are sitting on the back going, Oh man, you know what? I'm really glad I didn't get appointed the cabinet. I'm not quite ready for it yet. Like maybe that happens the very first, um, the very first cabinet, but the second you're like minutes

Carter 45:17

minutes into, uh, into a government, they're like, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm totally ready. I'm totally ready. I want to be, I want to be the person I can totally be the person. And this is just not shocking by any level. What is shocking is that they're talking to the media. That's less than ideal. But that's, again, it's to be predicted, given the length of time that this government has survived.

Zain 45:44

cory for the low low price of six dollars per month we put out an episode last week that gave some of these members of parliament an entire guide of how to maybe eventually get into cabinet carter's uh carter's strategy uh not to spoil it for you carter was uh find

Zain 45:58

find a new leader because you're not getting roundly

Carter 46:00

roundly appreciated find a

Zain 46:04

it was uh by very few people cory you had a much more detailed strategy i don't know if it was any any better um i don't think between either of you you guys suggested speak on the condition of anonymity to the toronto star i don't think that was one of the no neither of us that wasn't

Zain 46:19

wasn't one of the steps no

Corey 46:20

no but we did hey shout out to the patreon six dollars uh strategist patreon.com make it happen folks but you know we uh we did talk about this was a likely consequence yes we did of a big shuffle right and that you could expect to see a little bit more of this And there's this grumbling would kind of move forward and perhaps define the next bit of Justin Trudeau's tenure as leader. Because as you know, there's a whole bloody episode, go listen to it if you want. But he's raised the stakes for himself, right? He is antagonized certain people who were left out of cabinet, dropped from cabinet in some cases, and they're down in the polls. and at a certain point you're going to see more of what you almost yada yada yada it over in that star article which is people saying maybe katie telford has to go maybe it's the people around the prime minister that needs to go and

Corey 47:11

and we've said this before they always come for the people around the prime minister around the premier before they come for the prime minister or the premier this is like this is textbook how these things

Corey 47:22

things play out and so um not

Corey 47:25

not great but not not that that troubling because it is pretty common as steven said the lack of discipline that led to it being in the toronto star is is eyebrow raising it certainly suggests that there's an acceleration of the grumbling a little beyond what i would have expected i don't know about you steven but uh it is the trajectory you would expect when such action

Carter 47:45

action i'd love to be in the whip's office when this is the only person pretty

Zain 47:49

the only person that was named was lametti in that cbc article where he texted them back being like it's a surprise i wasn't in cabinet but these These people like talking about like, give me a break. Why isn't this person in cabinet? And this person should be like ultimately playing armchair pundit while being a sitting member of the liberals. Seems like something we do see, Corey. But to your point, it seems like there's a lot of folks with that particular sort of gripe that they have. And I'm sure they're talking to each other. The question, I guess, I have, Carter, is a follow up. Fine, fabulous or fucked if you're one of these people. If the Toronto Star guarantees you anonymity, that

Zain 48:21

that you can go on the record, get your voice and you probably know that the pm and his office and other ministers and people in your circle are going to read this fine fabulous or fucked that you did well

Carter 48:32

well i mean let's go with the premise that this is the last cabinet that justin trudeau makes then you're totally fine doesn't matter he's not going to put you in a cabinet there's not going to be any real consequences no one's going to be outed by the star they will have their uh names protected protected but um you know you You hurt the party today, and it makes it less likely that you're

Carter 48:54

you're going to remain in government. Now, did

Carter 48:57

did you destroy the party? No, not really. I mean, it's just kind of annoying. So it's fine. It's fine for them, but even if you're working on that leadership campaign, which I said you should be doing, this isn't the best overall

Carter 49:15

strategy. This isn't the way that you want him to be pushed out. You want there to be a much more ordered transition without this kind of internal scrapping.

Zain 49:29

Corey, is there any good strategy here to make your comments anonymously to the Toronto Star? And I ask you in that same frame of fine, fabulous or fucked, if you're working just for one of these MPs and they're like, I did this or I'm going to do this. What would you tell them that their strategy was? And can you just think of any upside to doing this?

Corey 49:49

Yeah. OK. Okay, so there is one obvious upside, right?

Corey 49:53

Upside, I'm putting almost

Zain 49:55

in quotes here. If

Corey 49:57

you're already trying to get rid of the prime minister, this

Corey 50:00

this helps do that, right? This destabilizes the prime minister. I don't think dramatically, but I think this is an action that's consistent with undercutting Justin Trudeau's leadership. And if your goal is actually the Stephen Carter goal of a leadership change in order to get your ass into cabinet, I guess it moves that forward. forward uh this is kind of classic liberal backbiting though uh this notion that uh we will try to take each other out in the press anonymously and and maybe this is a return to form with you know factions fighting each other in order to get control of the party because the thing i really want to underline is boy have i seen this show before boy have we all you know if you're old enough um hey the martinites and the correctionites used to do this to each other perpetually. And before that, it was the Turnerites and the Gretchenites. And before

Corey 50:50

before that, forever. Here's

Zain 50:51

Here's the question, though, Carter, it almost goes back to the Ontario liberal question, them being leaderless. When Corey mentions the ites versus each other, the other side doesn't really have a person.

Zain 51:04

long in your mind until that happens? Let's just go down Corey's speculation avenue a bit, right? Let's just say the folks that spoke spoke to the tour star were maybe interconnected in their desire to see the PM weakened or go that there's a new, how long before a, I shouldn't say a singular within the caucus voice emerges, but you've seen this movie before both of you have. So maybe give us a preview of the next scene. When does the, when does the, uh, the secondary hero appear, uh, in this story?

Carter 51:34

If they're smart, they're not going to be seen at all. Um, I think that, you know, there's lots to be learned from leaderships in the past and, you know, the, the, The liberals, you know, they have a tendency to to elect the person who's been agitating and then kind of screw them over in a bit. But, you know, the PCs in Alberta have played this this game as well. And it's the person who puts the knife in the leader is never elected leader. So if you you don't want to be seen doing this, you want this to not be coordinated through your activities. This has to exist

Carter 52:08

exist on its own and away from you. And ideally, I mean, there's a school of thought that says that Anita Anand was moved out into the into the Treasury Board. What did Andrew Coring call it? The anonymous

Carter 52:22

anonymous and death or whatever the words were that he used for the for the president of the Treasury Board, because she was agitating to build her leadership team, build a leadership structure. structure uh you you know you just don't you don't need that extra shit on top of what you're trying to do you don't want to be seen as the person agitating anything

Zain 52:48

cory when does the when does the co-star of this production show up in your mind if we've seen this movie before well

Corey 52:56

well um steven's right you don't want to be looking like you were the one pushing things around so ideally you keep yourself in the back here and it's

Corey 53:04

steven was talking as As you were asking that question, I started thinking, hey, based on the comments, who do we think maybe could be the agitator here? And I'm just going to say it's, you know, it's Edmonton liberal vote for Mark Carney. That's my new theory here.

Corey 53:18

Because there was an awful lot talking about this didn't really change the economic story. That's the important thing. Geez, if only we could change the economic story. But, you know, I want to lead into a more serious comment, which is, you

Corey 53:32

you know, a lot of time comments like this hit the press. and if you're the leader's office you don't know but you know like you know who it is you know there was like there was one comment in particular where there was mentioned like oh and he was a former uh provincial finance minister yeah but charles who's

Zain 53:47

who's uh they're talking about yeah yeah

Corey 53:48

yeah exactly immaterial who i was just gonna say the um the

Corey 53:53

the freezing that exact comment may have been made the exact way this you know the toronto star has no way of knowing that but that could be be something that somebody said at a caucus meeting right and then people are going to read that and go oh it's fucking bill yeah

Carter 54:08

yeah but if that's fucking bill

Zain 54:10

speaks in third person we know it but

Carter 54:12

but if this is done properly though you plant it to make it look like it was someone else too right you use someone else's phrasing well

Carter 54:20

so i'm a little more machiavellian than you so well

Corey 54:22

well no i mean man like listen these games if they're beginning getting there's a lot of liberals who know them very well let's put it that way they

Zain 54:31

did national governing party of canada cory we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our final segment are over under our lightning round stephen carter we do everything on thank you the show is built tailor-made designed spoke everything

Corey 54:43

everything about it is for

Zain 54:44

for you on a one to ten scale one to ten scale carter give me a grade

Zain 54:50

grade on that one to ten yeah

Zain 54:52

yeah because they give out grades Yeah,

Carter 54:53

Yeah, they do. I'm in. On the George

Zain 54:57

George Chahal letter. What are you giving it out of 10? I

Carter 54:59

I mean, I think it's an absolute A+. He's

Carter 55:02

taking the right side of an issue, and he's pushing for it, and I think that there were maybe things we could clean up, but the

Carter 55:09

the sentiment wins for me. I'm giving him an A+.

Carter 55:13

Actually, no, a B+.

Zain 55:13

B+. Corey, what are you giving George?

Zain 55:15

George? B+, I changed my

Zain 55:16

He's giving Carter's downgrading after those nights. Oh, my God, he went down a letter grade in five

Carter 55:22

He can't give him an A+, but he's made that kind of error on the, he doesn't control the outputs. B+.

Corey 55:32

Yeah, I mean, I give him a revise and resubmit. Ultimately, he could have taken the same tone, he could have generally taken the same strategy, but his specifics were a little broken. And he's created a trap for some combination of himself and his party, which will not make him super popular. uh because now the liberals have a choice between either defunding the calgary stampede and giving the uh you know conservatives that or uh he has uh created a situation where they don't and it looks like the liberals don't care about the abuse of children so uh not great revise and resubmit it's

Carter 56:13

it's good stuff cory

Zain 56:13

cory i'm gonna stick with you for our next one Scale of 1 to 10, how fucked are the Trudeau liberals on this item? 1 being not so fucked, 10 being majorly fucked. The BC port workers have voted to reject a mediated agreement over the weekend, extending the job action that prevented billions in goods from moving for almost two weeks earlier this month. The still Labour minister, Seamus O'Regan, is on the file trying to see if there's any more movement. But how bad is this for the liberals, Corey, on a scale of 1 to 10?

Corey 56:46

You know, I don't know that it's that bad, because when it looks like all options are truly exhausted, that's when they can do some of the more extreme options that they've been trying to avoid, such as legislating. So I don't actually think it's that bad, to be honest, to be blunt.

Zain 57:03

Carter, do you agree with Corey on that scale of 1 to 10? Well,

Carter 57:05

Well, I think that this

Carter 57:08

is where they really are facing now, legislation.

Carter 57:10

legislation. And I don't think that that's necessarily bad for the liberals at all. To legislate something back to work, to show that kind of strength, might actually be a plus for them. So I'm giving them probably a B minus.

Corey 57:29

Corey? Yeah, having heard Stephen talk about it, I'm giving

Corey 57:32

it an S, I think. That's

Zain 57:35

I'll be giving it a 45. Thank

Zain 57:37

Carter, I'm going to start with you on this next one. Are you in or out on Daniel Smith saying that if the Calgary Medical Clinic that's, you know, suggested it's going to charge membership fees, this membership fee model to see a family doctor, that it will be shut down, fined, or have Medicare payments from the province withheld? Are you in or out on Smith's rhetoric here? And tell

Carter 58:03

tell me why. I mean, that's absolutely what should happen. so i'm i'm in um that

Carter 58:07

that that's what the province has to do in order to ensure that they don't lose their their own funding um you

Carter 58:13

you can be in the system or you can be out of surprise

Zain 58:16

surprise you does it surprise you that she comes out so hard i

Carter 58:18

i don't know i mean i've chatted with her about the the the health care system so many times i i think that she's on any given day she can have any given position what is she like she's some sort of um physical

Carter 58:30

physical physics particle that can be anywhere what's that called a cork we don't know where the yeah

Carter 58:35

so you know oh

Zain 58:38

that sounds like an amazing skill to play shooting guard on the shot ball

Zain 58:43

northeast calgary basketball team we

Zain 58:52

outdoors winter outdoors genesis center is where we practice okay okay very good that's

Zain 58:59

that's nice uh yeah as the board chair of the y well condoned um cory

Zain 59:05

are you in or out on daniel's rhetoric here uh

Corey 59:08

uh you know what i'm in and i actually think this

Corey 59:11

this was an interesting one because it seemed to take a few days to get there but i don't know if when you're so absolute like that that's necessarily a bad thing i almost feel and maybe Maybe I'm reading way too much into this. Maybe I'm giving them way too much credit. But I kind of feel like they almost, you know, threw out their lure and they reeled very slowly in some NDP rhetoric on this one about how outrageous this was. They've broken their promise. Do you remember the video before that? Really elevated that the premier said she was going to do this and then did this, right? Then went and said, no, this is exactly what I'm going to do. do and i think that when i look at that when i contemplate all of that and i think about what the ndp the alberta ndp could have done differently it's like you know don't make all the moves at once make a move see

Corey 59:58

how the other guy moves you

Corey 59:59

you know and uh and this was uh this was making all the moves at once you know one after the other increasing video production increasing everything and i understand the instinct but i think that that's how you really get yourself out on a limb And you don't know what she's going to do. And you probably fell for a bit of a caricature of Danielle Smith, who, of course, wanted this thing. You really should have understood whether she wanted this thing before you went so far.

Zain 1:00:24

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1086 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

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